by Pam Godwin
He caught it and turned the plastic coin-shaped object this way and that, baffled. “What is this?”
“A high-tech GSM bug. I pulled it from her house and disabled it. There are dozens more there.”
“Shit.” He inspected it more closely. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Brand new technology. Insanely long battery life. High-speed transmissions. You can’t even buy that on the black market. It’s impossible to obtain unless you’re tied in with NSA or black ops.”
A chill trickled down his spine. “You think she could be involved with a government agency?”
“An agency or an agency rogue.” A dark look clouded Cole’s expression, and he ran a hand down his face. “She could be working for someone. Running from someone. Or she has a lusty-minded stalker with access to cutting-edge espionage tech.”
“Fuck.” Tomas dropped the bug on the coffee table and slumped back on the couch. “So in summary, she knows everything about us. We know very little about her, and at this point, anything is plausible.”
“Pretty much.”
Tomas scraped a hand over his head, impatient to be back in Colombia with his friends and eager to leave the desert memories behind. Ghosts lived in these walls, in the dust, in the arid sand.
He didn’t want to be here.
Cole pushed off the couch and ambled to the kitchen. A moment later, he returned with two Bud Lights.
“Thanks.” Tomas accepted the cold beer and reluctantly said, “Thanks for coming.”
“Yep.”
Cole would scour Rylee’s life from end to end until he flushed out the truth. In the meantime, Tomas needed to bury a body and babysit the meddling woman.
She wasn’t going to be cooperative. By the time she woke, she should have enough strength to bathe herself. And fight him tooth and nail. After the hell he put her through, escape would be her priority.
Her health, however, wouldn’t be one-hundred-percent. She hadn’t eaten in three days. He could starve her for up to three weeks. That had been his plan—keep her weak and hungry, wear her down, and offer her food in exchange for information.
He’d put the rule of threes in play to fuck with her head and prove his ruthlessness. No air for three minutes. No water for three days. She knew what came next.
He drained the beer. “I’m going to starve her.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” Resting his elbows on his knees, he met Cole’s eyes.
He didn’t need to explain himself to anyone, but there was no reason to be a dick. So he told Cole why he’d put her in the desert and what he planned to do with her next.
“Jesus.” Cole blew out a breath. “What if she knows nothing, and her only crime is reading your emails?”
“If you tell me you never tortured an innocent suspect during your unofficial government career, I’ll eat my shoe.”
“I can’t tell you that. But I will say this. It fucks with you, Tomas. Doesn’t matter what cause you’re fighting for. When you hurt someone who doesn’t deserve to be hurt, that shit leaves scars. Nightmare-inducing scars that keep you awake at night. The guilt festers and changes the makeup of your character.”
“Which government agency did that to you?”
“Can’t say.”
“Are you still working for them?”
“I work for myself.”
“What happened?” He directed his eyes at the tattooed silhouette on Cole’s arm.
From wrist to elbow, black ink filled in the figure of a woman on a dance pole. Last year, she was the only tattoo on that arm. Now a tapestry of drawings crowded in around her as if he were slowly working his way toward fading her out.
There was so much chaos in the illustrations it was hard to guess if each piece had been a spontaneous addition or somehow part of a premeditated vision. Spider webs, fire, chains, plants, various depictions of the sun, and random unknown symbols—all of it overlapped and blended together, sleeving both arms and one entire pec.
He returned his attention to the inked dancer. “Is she the one you hurt?”
“One of many.” Cole stared at his beer. “The only one who mattered.”
“How long ago?”
“Years. A lifetime ago.”
He’d never seen Cole with a woman. Couldn’t even imagine it. At the headquarters in Colombia where they lived, there was no shortage of willing pussy. The cartel loved their girls. But not Cole. Whenever one of the ladies approached him, she was met with a sneer of disgust.
“When was the last time you got laid?”
“None of your goddamn business.” Cole stood and strode back to the kitchen, grabbing two more beers.
“That’s a bullshit answer. For the past year, I’ve spent damn near every day with you, a lot of that time on the mats, letting you pound in my face and pick apart my weaknesses. I trusted you with my training. I trust you with this job. But beyond that? I don’t know, Cole. Because I don’t fucking know you.”
Cole handed him another Bud Light, sat in the chair across from him, and took a long draw from his bottle. Then he stared at him. Drank again. More staring.
At last, he leaned back and closed his eyes. “I fell in love many years ago.”
“With a stripper?”
“A belly dancer. She floated up to me on the street like a damn angel emerging from a mist. Her smile… Fuck, it was so blinding it stopped me on my motorcycle and leveled my entire world.” His leg bounced. Then stilled. “I asked her to marry me. Then I chose my job over her.”
“The secret agent job?”
“Don’t call it that.” He cracked his eyes open, glaring through the slits. “I was sent out in the field for a while. Mistakes were made, and I was forced to fake my death to protect her. By the time I cleaned up the mess, quit the job, and returned home to her, she’d fallen in love with my best friend.”
“Ouch.”
“She’s happy. That’s all I ever wanted.”
“I don’t believe that. I’ve seen the wedding ring you wear on the chain under your shirt. A woman’s ring. She’s inked on your arm, and unless you’re hiding a health problem, your dick still works. You’re still a man. But I’m guessing you haven’t had sex with anyone since her.”
“There isn’t a woman out there who comes close to the one I had.”
“Trust me, Cole. You have to let go and move on. If you’re afraid of falling in love again—”
“I will always love her. End of.” Cole steadily met his eyes. No defensive anger. No emotion at all. “My refusal to bed random women has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with self-control.”
“I get it. I fucking lived it.” He softened his voice, recalling his own pain and the celibacy that accompanied it. “Caroline was only fourteen when she died. As innocent as it sounds, I saved myself for her. Then Van happened. A fucking traumatizing way to lose your virginity. He and Liv forced me to perform sexual acts, but I didn’t willingly touch a woman for the first time until much later. Those were some dark years.”
“What changed?”
“I was so goddamn lonely that I went out one night and got laid. Just like that. I don’t even remember her face. Doesn’t matter. It was the intimacy that I needed. It pushed me out of the dark.” He met Cole’s eyes. “You’re making a regrettable mistake if you condemn yourself to loneliness for the rest of your life.”
Cole’s gaze slid toward the back bedroom and locked on something out of view.
Tomas couldn’t see around the corner, but he knew she was there. His neck stiffened. “Eavesdropping again, Rylee?”
“Leave Cole alone.” She shuffled into the room, looking ragged and filthy and breathtakingly gorgeous. “He’s not like you.”
Cole winged up an eyebrow.
Tomas tensed as she looked at the front door, scoped out the kitchen, and returned to the door. She reeked of desperation. To find food. To run for her life. Neither was an option until she spilled her secrets.
“Go take a shower.” He guzzled down the second beer.
“I want to hear what the psychologist has to say about our conversation.” Cole nodded at her. “Go ahead, Rylee.”
“I didn’t hear all of it.” She rubbed her arm where she’d removed the IV and stole another glance at the kitchen. “I’m hungry.”
Cole wasn’t on board with Tomas’ plan, but he didn’t twitch a muscle to interfere. At least, not yet. He simply observed her, waiting.
When no one spoke, she stepped farther into the room, positioning herself closer to the front door.
Would she run? Tomas counted on it. What he hadn’t expected was her blatant disregard of his presence. Surely, she felt him glaring at her, daring her to look at him.
After a moment of deliberation, she lowered her head.
“Everyone handles a broken heart differently.” Her shoulders twitched, her eyes shifty and tired. “Some people only love once, and if they lose that love, they never look for it again. They find other things in life that stir their passions. Like their work. Their hobbies. Or throwing themselves behind an important cause.” She peered at Cole through her lashes. “You don’t waste your time with hookups because you don’t do casual relationships. You had the real thing, and there’s no replacement. You’re a one and done kind of guy. But a word of warning, Cole. Fate might not be done with you.”
“I fucked fate to hell, darlin’.” Cole traced a finger along his bottom lip, his voice taking on a menacing edge. “Believe me. That train crashed and burned.”
“Okay, but if you’re wrong, if love comes for you again, it’s going to blindside you and knock you on your ass. You’ll deny it. You’ll fight it with every breath in your body. But having already experienced it once, you know it’s a fight you can’t win. So maybe, if and when it happens, give yourself a break. Don’t fight so hard.”
“Is that your professional opinion? Or personal experience?”
“Professional.” Her brows furrowed. “Or personal. Both, I guess.” She lifted her gaze, struggling in the effort to drag it across the room, pushing it toward Tomas, and finally, finally, she met his eyes. “You told him my husband cheated on me?”
He stared right back, giving her nothing, even as his blood flew through his veins. It wasn’t her words that affected him. It was everything she didn’t say.
Censure blazed in her glare, fury so hot he felt it flare against his chest. She abhorred him, scorned him, and found him severely lacking. Perhaps that was what struck him the most. Her burning disappointment.
As if she’d come here expecting to find something dramatically different. She must’ve read something into his emails that wasn’t there. Maybe she thought if a man was stupid enough to write the details of his criminal life to a dead girl, he was stupid enough to fall in line with her agenda.
Well, she could shove her disappointment up her ass, because he wasn’t that guy.
“Some people have more aggressive ways of dealing with a broken heart.” She addressed Cole, but her eyes were all for Tomas. “Like standing on the edge of a bridge and welcoming death. Or writing emails and pouring out their regrets. Or hate-fucking every willing body they come in contact with.”
Hate-fucking? That was what she thought he did? Or was she projecting her own issues? That would explain a lot.
“Are you having hate-sex with your neighbor?” He leaned forward, his posture rigid.
“God no.”
“How many have come before Evan Phillips?”
“Not nearly as many as you parade in and out of your bed.”
“Give me a number.”
“Rot in hell.”
“You know mine. In fact, you know every detail of my sexual history. I want yours.”
“I’m not giving you shit.” She backed toward the door, clumsy and nervous. She wouldn’t get far.
“You want to eat? Give me the names of your lovers. Timelines. Descriptions. You’re going to tell me who you’re fucking, everyone you’re connected with, and what they know about my friends and me.”
“This again?” She took another backward step. “You already know about Mason and Evan. You know my occupation and where I live. Whoever that Paul guy was, I don’t know him. He’s connected to you.”
“Then why was the tracker on your truck? Why was he watching you for six months?”
“I guess you should’ve asked him instead of dumping him in the desert with me. I told you everything I know about that, and I hope you figure it out. But I can’t help you.”
She reached for the door, but he was already moving.
“Don’t do this!” She fumbled with the handle, breathing heavily and whimpering in her struggle to escape.
He pressed a hand on the door above her head, forcing it shut. “Get in the shower. You stink.”
“No! I’m leaving!”
“Have it your way.” With little effort, he flung her small body over his shoulder and carried her toward the bathroom.
Her little fists bounced off his back, the rest of her bucking ineffectively as he crossed the short distance. As his gaze intersected Cole’s, they shared a look, but he didn’t know what it meant.
Disapproval? Indifference? Definitely not encouragement. It didn’t matter so long as the man didn’t interfere.
In the bathroom, he turned on the shower and dropped her beneath the cold spray, clothes and all.
She yelped and clawed at the shower curtain.
He caught it before she tore it down and shoved her back into the tub. “Do that again, and you’ll be showering with no privacy.”
“Fuck you.” She spluttered in the downpour of water, slipped on her socked feet, and scrambled up again, pressing her back against the shower wall.
Wet cotton and denim clung to her stunning figure. Strings of dark hair stuck to her face, and her silver eyes glinted with ferocity, sharp as honed steel and enthralling beyond reason.
Rylee Sutton was devastatingly sexy when she was mad.
“The soap is behind you.” He leaned against the vanity, his jeans too painfully tight to contain his reaction to her. “Use it.”
With a feral smile, she snatched the bar of soap and hurled it at him.
The soap bounced off Tommy’s chest and fell to the floor with a dull, anti-climatic plonk.
Rylee stared at it, her heart pounding in her throat. “That would’ve hit harder if I weren’t starving to death.”
“Then I should feed you.” His tone scraped, stinging her nerves. “Just to ensure that the next thing you throw leaves a mark.”
“Why are you such a jerk?” She shivered even as the spraying water started to heat and form a cloud of steam between them.
He blocked the exit with his sheer size, wearing a hateful scowl, dark jeans, and a black muscle-hugging shirt. Mist collected on the fabric in a blurry shine, making him look otherworldly, like an angry, avenging warlord.
If he expected her to take a shower while he watched, he could fuck right off.
“Move.” She stepped over the bathtub ledge only to be shoved back in.
Indignation warred with fatigue, and the latter won out as she staggered and fell on her butt.
“Goddammit!” She staggered back to her feet and swayed. “Let me out!”
The hollows and slashes of his sculpted cheeks, the twisted sneer of his mouth, all of it carved a cruel expression in his unbearably handsome face. But his looks were overshadowed by the dispassion in his steady, golden eyes. Didn’t matter what she said. He had a plan for her, and it wouldn’t be merciful.
His gaze took a tour along her soaked clothes as he drifted closer, so close she detected fumes of beer on his breath. The piney, masculine aroma agitated her hunger and stirred other things she refused to acknowledge.
She met his eyes. “I’m not stripping in front of you, motherfucker.”
His lip curled, and he leaned back. “You’re old enough to be my mother, and that’s a hard pass.” He tossed the
soap into the tub and yanked the shower curtain closed between them. “You have five minutes to undress and clean off the blood.”
His nastiness penetrated, leaving a toxic, coiling pain in the deepest chambers of her heart.
“If I don’t?” she asked.
“I’ll do it myself, and neither of us will enjoy it.”
So he’d rather insult her than see her naked. Fine. That was preferable. She could handle spiteful words, even if they hurt.
It was time she stopped thinking of him as the boy she’d connected with ten years ago. That kid was gone, and this man was beyond saving.
She only needed to save herself.
Lightheaded and famished, she shook from head to toe, her fingers uncooperative and trembling as she pulled off the soggy clothes and washed her hair.
If he remained on the other side of the curtain, she couldn’t hear him. No amount of curiosity would compel her to steal a peek. Besides, he wouldn’t go far.
Even if he thought she was old enough to be his mother.
Over the past few years, she found that maturity in women warded off shallow, insecure assholes—the same way aposematism warned off predators. If he was repelled by her age, it was working.
But his jab still burned her up. She was only forty-one. Fourteen years older than him. Maybe it was biologically possible to birth a child at that age, but she didn’t know any fourteen-year-old mothers.
Why was she still thinking about this? Fuck him.
She needed the keys to her truck and an escape plan.
She needed food.
Finishing the shower in a rush, she shut off the water and grabbed the curtain. Then she slowly peered around the edge.
The bathroom was empty, the door cracked. No sound drifted in, but she knew he was out there, waiting with animosity in his eyes.
When she drove here three days ago, she saw this playing out so differently. If that rapist piece of shit, Paul, hadn’t shown up, maybe Tommy would’ve despised her less and listened more.
Or maybe he’d just sounded nicer in email, and she didn’t really know him at all.