by Alison Kent
Logan kept his voice a low whisper. "Jess. Logan Burke."
"Look, Burke, I told you ..."
"Shut up, Jess and listen." He shoved his fingers through his hair. "I'm at ViOPet. Warehouse B. It's coming down now." He filled Jess in on the specifics. "If you don't get someone here in the next ten minutes you're case load's gonna increase by four bodies. I'm not letting them out of here with Hannah."
"You packing a piece, Burke?"
Knowing Jess couldn't see it, Logan shook his head anyway, flexing his gun hand around the empty air. "I don't need a gun, Jess. I've got my bare hands. And they've got my woman."
"I'll be there in five. Personally."
The phone clicked dead in his ear.
"Toss her in the back with the barrels," Elliot ordered.
Logan cradled the receiver, his gaze once again searching the room. Think, Burke. Think.
"No!" Hannah demanded, advancing on her former supervisor. "Closing me in that truck with those chemicals is murder just as sure as pulling a trigger, Graham, and you know it." Elliot hesitated a fraction of a second and Hannah took full advantage. "I won't put up a fight about going along if you put me in the other truck. Just don't put me in with the barrels."
Logan finally found what he wanted. He flipped the switch on the microphone and the warehouse floodlights at the same time.
"Evening, folks. Nice night for a crime, don't you think?"
Chapter Thirteen
"That was a really stupid thing to do."
"I don't know," Logan responded, one shoulder hitched upward in a shrug. He managed it fairly well for a man with both hands tied behind his back. Literally. "I thought it was one of my more spectacular moves."
"Spectacularly stupid, you mean." Hannah struggled against her bonds, wincing as her head smacked the interior wall of the truck. The driver braked to a jolting stop then gunned the engine to life. Hannah felt like a ping-pong ball gone berserk.
His back against the opposite wall, Logan looked incredibly cool, disgustingly relaxed, invincible. "Don't fight the motion," he advised. "Move with it. Like riding a horse."
"Like riding a horse," she mimicked under her breath. The truck jerked again. She banged her head again and wanted nothing more than to rub the soreness from the bump. Unless it was to slap that smooth expression of control off Logan's face. "I guess considering the horse metaphor, not to mention your amazing sense of calm, the cavalry must be right behind."
"Don't have the faintest."
"What do you mean you don't have the faintest?" Her voice caught in her throat. She coughed and swallowed and tried again. "Logan, tell me."
His calm in place, he met her frustrated gaze, his eyes clear as honey in the grey light. "I made a call from the control room. Elliot reacted quicker than I expected. I don't know if our trail will be too cold to follow."
"Just great," she mumbled. "Now what?" She collapsed against the wall and shut her eyes. Some things were better dealt with in the dark.
Things like this new Logan, this steely-eyed warrior. The cocky glint she'd grown used to in his eyes was gone. In its place shone a protective measure of resolve, a stark conviction, hard and undeniable. The realization should have comforted, but she was weary to the bone, too tired to deal with the here and now, to terrified to think beyond it.
Exhaustion slumped over her, a new kind of defeat. The past week had crept by in a harrowing mixture of sleepless nights and days without end. Minutes blended into hours until time meant nothing.
Nothing gave her too many opportunities to think about Logan. She'd thought of little else. Even now she sensed his gaze sweep over her, compelling, seeking answers to unasked questions, searching for what? Forgiveness?
The pull continued, a force too strong to counter with stubbornness. Slowly, she opened her eyes and met his gaze. Nothing had changed. Denying past secrets and lies, intimacy sparked between them.
His eyes raked over her possessively, sweeping over her lips, her breasts, the juncture of her thighs. His mouth opened, begging for her kiss. She caught her lower lip with her teeth, caught a growing moan in the back of her throat.
The pulse beating at the base of his neck matched the one throbbing deep inside her belly, the one she knew he could touch from just the right angle, with just the right stroke. She brought her knees to her chest, backing her heels into her buttocks, wishing she could curl into a ball and rock away this craving. The long, hot, sizzling rush of awareness rose the truck's temperature to a scalding ferocity. Her heart thumped wildly, a solid lump in her throat.
Unable to swallow, she met his gaze, probing for the origin of the fire. This man had betrayed her trust in the cruelest fashion and all she could remember was the way he tasted on her tongue.
He'd dashed her dreams to the ground, crushed her faith beneath his version of right and wrong and she only wanted to nestle her cheek against his belly and inhale the strong sweat of his male satisfaction. His deception still stung in a tender part of her heart. But it was nothing like the raw empty ache inside where instinctively she knew he belonged.
She loved him. Plain and simple and seemingly irreversible. That fact didn't make the betrayal smart any less or reduce the terrifying panic. It didn't guarantee she'd ever forget. It only made her want to understand why.
He'd changed. Oh, how he'd changed. This new Logan, watchful and wary, had made peace with himself. The demons were gone from his eyes. That haunted look now blazed with ravenous fury. He'd exorcised the devils. Now he would make them pay. At any price, one step at a time, his past would be purged.
She turned her head to the side, no longer able to meet his look that spoke of fierce obligation. Had he come back only out of duty? To free himself from his past? Once he'd wanted her. Once he'd needed her. Once he'd taken her with an elemental need, a man's coarse, unchained passion.
But that was a lifetime ago. Before the secrets and the lies. Before he'd become this mercenary soldier, this man she didn't know.
This was not the time or the place to dredge up the memory of their days together. And she was no longer sure if he was the same man who'd taken her to those unexpected heights. Yet she couldn't help but turn to him again. His eyes demanded it and, as she met his gaze, the fire softened to a caring glow.
It gave her courage. And hope.
"What happened?" His simple question brought her back to the here and now.
Pulling herself together, she answered with an unusual measure of calm, her outward composure strangely at odds with the unresolved feelings tightly coiled inside. "After you dropped me off that morning, I realized I didn't have my keys."
"My fault," Logan explained. "I stuffed them in my pocket after I packed your bag. Sorry."
"It doesn't matter. I have a spare."
"Under the ficus tree."
"How ..."
"Miss Tiny."
Hannah gave him a lopsided smile. "Figures," she said. Then another realization hit. She fixed a curious gaze on him. "You went to my apartment?"
His nod was quick and direct. When he remained silent, she prodded him with a whispered, "Why?"
He shook his head. "Later. I want to know what happened."
"Not much. I let myself in and unpacked." Frowning down at her lap, she mentally put the events in order.
"I saw the red dress on the floor." He spoke the words so quietly Hannah glanced up. A sharp slash of pain flashed through his eyes only to vanish behind that mask of control. But not before she'd seen the hurt, a wound that mirrored her own.
They'd shared the rarest of closeness. A physical joining more powerful than words. A soft telling of secrets in the dark, passion-breathed promises, sweetly whispered desires, needy pleas that would take a lifetime to fill.
He remembered. And he still hurt. Just as she did.
Resisting the urge to shut her eyes and hide in that small way, she stared at the streak of grease on her knee. "The dress has to be dry-cleaned." She fought to keep her voice from c
racking. "To get out the salt." From the sea air and from the tears.
Logan cleared his throat, the sound strangely sad over the whine of the wheels on the road. "What then?"
She thought a moment. "I started to make a salad."
"Yeah. The broccoli."
Scrunching up her nose, she said, "Yuck. It must be rancid by now."
"It was pretty bad," Logan answered, his mouth slanting into a wry smile. "But it told me what I needed to know. You hadn't left of your own free will."
"I think it was that goon up there." She motioned in the direction of the driver's seat. "He convinced me it would be in my best interest to accompany him. Since he had a gun I decided not to argue."
Logan's curse sliced through the air. Hannah shivered, thinking again how much he'd changed. Something in him had shifted, grown cruel. His voice revealed nothing when he asked, "Where did he take you?"
"To the warehouse."
His eyes widened with incredulous shock. "You've been there all week?"
Her smile turned inward at a critical angle. "Can't you tell? The warehouse office has a cot and a john with a tiny shower stall. I did the best I could with brown paper towels, liquid hand soap, a thirteen-inch black and white, and unlimited access to the vending machine.
"Right now I'm in the mood for a hairbrush and a hamburger." She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, finding the brave facade hard to maintain. The fright pricking in pinpoints over her skin began to squeeze with a paralyzing grip. "Looks like I might just have to settle for a lifetime of tacos if I have a life left after today."
"Hannah," Logan began, his voice grainy as the sand on his beach, "Did they hurt you? Or touch you?"
No, Logan, only you did that. Her gaze settled on his face, noticing for the first time the circles under his eyes, the deep grooves carved on either side of his mouth. She kept silent and a strange insight prodded her.
Maybe his betrayal wasn't what hurt any more. Maybe it was facing the fact that he'd never said the words in return, that she'd walked away without knowing his feelings. Maybe it was time to find the truth behind the lies.
"No," she answered, studying him anew, seeing him through wizened eyes. "No," she repeated. "They left me alone."
He closed his eyes and released a sigh, weighty for all its silence. Her gaze took in the casual tilt of his chin, the easy slope of his shoulders, the slouching angle of his hips. The pose was deceptive. The realization struck her with a jolt.
The tendons in his neck throbbed in meter with the pulse in his throat. His sharply cocked knees fought the bounce of the truck instead of listing with the movement. The veins in his biceps stood in rigid relief as he worked against his bonds.
She'd known him to be an actor, able to slip into a role without compunction. Now she knew him well enough to sense the difference. This time it wasn't working. The reserve wasn't there. Even behind the mask of control she saw him shaking.
"You're different, Logan."
His eye opened, fiercely golden in the dim light. A disturbing smile twisted his face into a picture of bleak acceptance. "Takes some of us a little longer to see the light."
She thought about that a minute then asked, "Are you still having the nightmares?"
This time his smile touched the tiniest corner of her heart. "I'll let you know when I sleep again."
"You haven't been sleeping?"
He shook his head. "I've been on the road. Looking for a jerk who got himself lost."
"Tough case?"
"The worst."
"Did you find him?"
"I think so."
An eerie sense of déjà vu swirled through her belly and flowed into her veins like hot liquor. With a catch in her breath she felt to her soul, she asked, "Do you like him?"
Slowly, deliberately, he nodded. "A whole lot better than before. The question is—" He paused for a heart-stopping second. "Do you?"
What could she say when she didn't know what he was asking? He'd done what she hadn't been able to do, settled past doubts and moved on. She read the promise in his eyes, the truth that reaching for life's pleasures took more courage than holding onto the past. The moment dragged on in timeless anticipation until with one sharp jerk he wrenched his hands free from his bonds.
Rubbing the circulation back into his wrists, he answered her unspoken question. "It's how you hold your hands when they tie you up. Easy stuff when you're dealing with amateurs."
He crawled the six feet to her side, stirring up dust in his wake. Reaching back, he loosened the ropes binding her to the pipe soldered to the floor. She massaged her numb fingers, wincing as the blood rushed to the tips with burning speed, then stopped, sensing his gaze on her, close, persistent and needy.
She looked up. His gaze, locked with hers. She felt him beside her like he was her own skin, her shoulder tucked up against his armpit, his hard thigh wedged underneath hers. His rough palm cupped her cheek. His thumb stroked her lips. His knuckles grazed her neck.
She whimpered and caught his hand, desperate to pull away before she came unglued in his arms. Her strength was no match for his, his will equaled her own. He pressed his thumb against the pulse in her throat.
Her voice gone raw with feeling, she asked, "What do you want from me, Logan?"
"No more than you're willing to give," he answered simply, roughly, his ragged breath stirring the hair around her ear.
She heard the lie in all the words he didn't say and the way he spoke the ones he did. He wanted more, was afraid to ask. And she feared answering. What was she willing to give? How much more could she afford to risk?
Knowing no way to reply, she remained silent, feeling him seep into the cold, bleak region of emptiness she had inside. Hesitantly, she nuzzled his shoulder, her face snug against him.
Her palm skimmed his chest, her fingers grazed the torn neck of his sweatshirt, the faint dusting of hair a sensual tickle. He smelled like Logan, salt and sea. Her lover.
He groaned, shifting her half onto his lap so her knee pressed into his belly, his thigh against her bottom. "That's not true, Hannah," he said in a ragged tone. "I want more than I have the right to expect from you." He gave a small, humorless chuckle. "Hell, it was a lot to expect from myself."
"What?" she whispered, feeling her breath condense against his throat, inhaling his taste with her next breath.
"Forgiveness," he ground out. "Forgiving myself was a long time in coming. It had to come from here." He found her hand, covered it with his and held them both against his chest. "As hard as I tried, I couldn't buy a clean conscience."
What a strange sensation to know her suffering had bought his freedom from the past. Her forgiveness was small enough price to add. She smiled deep inside, a private sort of satisfaction knowing she'd forgiven him long before he asked.
"Logan ..."
"I returned the check to Harrington."
"What?"
"After I dropped you off and before I hit the road." He moved again, lifting her securely into the cradle of his arms. "It was blood money, Hannah," he murmured against her forehead, worrying a strand of her hair between his fingers. "Thirteen pieces of silver stained with broken trust. I screwed up a really good thing. And realized it too late."
"No." Her breath locked tight in her chest, the burning sensation singed her throat. She laid her hand on the stubble of his cheek, looking directly into his eyes. Nothing mattered more at this moment than making him understand how much she loved him. "Not too late. Never too late. We'll get out of this mess. We'll ..."
"It'll still be too late," he groaned, seconds before his mouth covered hers. His possession was swift and sure, his tongue delving deep, but one brief moment of hesitation told the tale. He was going to say goodbye.
She wanted to scream at him, to tell him he couldn't go. Suddenly, she didn't care that her life depended on the sanity of a man gone mad, that she and Logan might not come out of this alive. Logan planned to walk away. He'd made his peace with himse
lf but refused to allow make it with her.
She squirmed in his lap and straddled his legs, both arms around his neck. With a drowning desperation she clung, pressed to him like a missing piece of herself, opening her mouth over his and searching for his tongue. For so many years she'd been strong, independent, never letting herself need. Now she did. Fiercely.
It struck her like lightning, furious and hot. The seemliness of her response barely crossed her mind. This reckless craving demanded completion. She pulled his tongue deep in her mouth, rocked her body against him. He answered with a groan. His hands cupped her bottom, separating, lifting, settling her against his desire, thick and hard and undeniable.
She moved her hands to his head, holding his face while she rained kisses across his cheek, down his jaw and back to his ear. Against the wall of her chest, her heart pounded incessantly; his thumped back just as hard. She wanted to crawl inside him, hold his heart in her hands. Her need for him, her love for him was that great.
With a strangled cry, she brought her mouth back to his, tasting her tears as they rolled between their lips. I love you, Logan. I love you, love you. Her mind screamed the words; her body paralleled the thought in the basic thrust and retreat of sex. Deep inside she was coming apart, crawling with the need to make their bodies one. Then he could never leave.
He jerked his head back with a ragged groan. "Hannah, stop."
She shook her head and blindly reached for him again.
"Wait." He grasped her upper arms and jostled her sharply. Her head snapped back. "We're slowing down," he said, his gaze darting around the interior of their prison.
Before his words had time to sink in, the truck bounced onto a rutted surface. The jarring bumps and jolts tumbled them both to the floor in a tangle of limbs. With a squeal of brakes, tires, and flying rocks they slid to a stop. Logan scrambled to his feet, crouched low to the floor and shoved Hannah behind him.
"Don't move," he commanded in that steel-encased voice. "Don't say a word."
Two doors slammed in quick repetition. Footsteps crunched outside the truck. A key flicked in the lock and the back door swung open. In a confusion of blinding light, a curtain of choking dust, and rapidly spoken Spanish, several figures took shape, silhouetted in the open door.