by Debra Webb
He pointed upward.
She blinked, confused as hell. He didn’t bother explaining, instead he hefted himself onto the row of wooden file cabinets to his left. He kept the injured side of his body away from the cabinets so as not to risk leaving any trace of the blood. Penny suddenly understood and climbed up onto the cabinets on the opposite side of the small room.
Steele moved to the middle of the row of cabinets, leaned forward and braced his hands on the wall in front of him. Then, using first one foot then the other, he walked himself up the wall until his lower body was parallel with his upper body. Penny mimicked his movements. Her arms trembled with the effort.
“He’s coming down the corridor. Ten seconds and he’ll be at your position,” Ian informed them via the communications link.
Penny didn’t let the warning distract her. One hand, one foot, the other hand, the other foot. A few inches at a time, she moved upward until her backside was pinned against the ceiling. The five feet or so worked perfectly for her. Since she was five-four, she only had to press her chin to her chest to give herself enough room. Steele, on the other hand, was at least six feet. He had a hell of a time bowing his body just right to fit into the space as close to the ceiling as possible.
The door to the VP’s office opened, banged into the wall.
He was here.
Penny closed her eyes and counted to ten. She slowed her respiration, forced her mind to relax and her muscles to stay locked in place.
If he heard her breathing…
The man rummaged around the room. She heard the chair behind the desk bank off something nearby. He was checking under the desk. Then he moved across the carpeted expanse to the tiny bathroom.
She prayed she hadn’t left her gloves there.
“Someone’s been here,” the guy in the bathroom reported via his own communications link to his friend in crime.
Damn. She had.
“I only found one pair of gloves. There may only be one.”
Silence reigned as he evidently listened to whatever his friend had to say about the discovery.
How could she have been so stupid?
“You stay there,” he advised. “I’ll continue looking around down here. If you find him, kill him. We can’t let this get back to the boss or we’ll be the ones eating a bullet.”
Movement in the office told Penny the man was taking another look around. Any second now he would poke his head through that opening and check out the files room where they were hiding.
She turned her head just enough to see how Steele was holding up. The grimace on his face told her he was in serious pain. Her gaze slid down to his right side, the one nearest her. Only the light fixture and maybe eighteen inches of drywall separated them.
The bad guy’s arm came through the opening first. In his hand was a large-caliber handgun. His upper body followed, then he stepped fully through.
Penny held her breath.
Don’t move. Don’t breathe.
The man looked around, swore once, twice, before kicking one of the file cabinets. He mumbled something self-deprecating, then started for the opening.
Relief sang through Penny’s veins. But she couldn’t relax. Couldn’t risk taking or releasing so much as a whisper of air.
A tiny splat of red dropped onto the top of the file cabinet directly below Steele. Her gaze flew to his side. More blood had oozed out around the tape.
The bad guy abruptly stopped…as if he’d heard the sound. It had been so minuscule Penny hadn’t even heard it. Had she? Granted, her own blood was roaring in her ears. But surely if the sound had been significant she would have heard it when she’d seen the blood hit.
The man with the gun glanced around the room once more.
If he spotted that drop of blood…
He shoved his way back through the opening and stomped out of the office. Since the door didn’t slam, Penny had to assume he’d left it open.
Her arms and legs trembled with the renewed rush of relief.
The sound of the man’s voice in the corridor echoed through the walls. She couldn’t understand the muffled words, but the tone was unmistakable. He was seriously ticked off.
It wasn’t until total silence had ruled for several minutes that Steele started the slow, cautious spider walk downward.
Each time she lifted a hand or foot from its braced position against the wall, it took every ounce of her strength to prevent herself from falling. Coming back down, with her muscles exhausted, was a hell of a lot harder than going up had been.
Their specially designed soft-soled shoes were soundless on the tops of the wooden file cabinets. When they were back on the floor, she dropped to her knees and rummaged through her backpack for the suit-repair tape. There was no time for anything but stopping the leak outside his suit.
Steele appeared to understand and didn’t ask any questions.
She pressed more gauze to the spot, then secured it with several layers of the suit tape. It wouldn’t do a damned thing for his injury but maybe it would prevent his leaving evidence behind.
They needed a place to rest for a few minutes and to properly attend to his injury. A plan would be nice as well.
One that didn’t involve dying…or failing to accomplish their mission.
Maybe Steele was right in coming back here. Now that the office had been searched, what were the chances it would be searched again anytime soon?
Ian confirmed that the man on their floor was in another corridor. For now it was clear to move.
Penny maneuvered through the opening into the office. She led the way to the small bath. When Steele was inside with her, she closed the door.
“Keep us apprised of the enemy’s position,” she said to Ian, “I need to work on Steele’s injury.”
An affirmative came across the com link.
Steele stripped his suit down to his hips. Again, Penny reminded herself not to gawk at the man’s well-honed physique.
Too much bleeding. She wasn’t a doctor or a nurse, but she had enough training to know that he’d nicked something that wasn’t going to readily give up letting him know. The butterfly strips weren’t going to help much.
“Use the suit tape.”
Her gaze clashed with his. “That’ll be hell coming off.”
“Do it,” he ordered in a harsh whisper.
If it kept them alive by ensuring he left no more evidence of their presence, she supposed he could deal with the pain when the time came.
Grabbing a clean towel from the basket on the sink, she carefully removed the tape and gauze she’d applied before. Then the butterfly strips. With fresh gauze, the last they had, covered with ointment, she pressed against the jagged wound for as long as she dared. Then she pulled the sides together, using the gauze, and taped the hell out of it with the suit tape.
That wouldn’t likely come loose. Not even when he wanted it to.
She cleaned the area around it, maybe taking a little more time than was necessary. His skin was smoother than she’d expected. When he’d pulled his suit back into place, she cleaned the bloody area on it then tucked the hand towel into her pack. When she’d washed her hands and he’d done the same, they ensured that towel was out of sight as well.
Penny ducked her head down into the sink and drank deeply from the tap water. Felt good against her lips and even better sliding down her throat.
When she stepped aside, Steele did the same. They had water packets but why waste one of them since clean, running water was handy.
“We need to lay low until they’re back on the fourth floor,” Steele suggested.
Penny agreed with a nod of her head. “Back under the desk?”
It was cramped and uncomfortable…but it was likely the last place the enemy would look.
He headed that way without comment. Ian confirmed that the enemy on their floor was headed back to their corridor. He was making the rounds. Desperate to find the source of his new nightmare.
S
teele settled on the floor and scooted beneath the desk. Penny positioned her bottom onto his lap, curled her legs into her chest and pulled the backpacks into place between her knees and the desk.
She leaned her head against the cool wood and tried to relax. That was when she remembered what had proved the most unnerving part of hiding under the desk.
Having her bottom nestled snuggly against Steele’s loins.
She tried to ignore the feel of his firm body supporting hers. His inner thighs and pelvis cradled her hips. One strong arm rested on top of the backpacks while the other was propped against her shoulder and head. And the solid, warm chest that beckoned her to melt into it was more than she could resist.
There was no doubting that Ben Steele was a strong, fit man. He knew his body and how to use it to get the job done. She could only imagine how intensely he trained. Not just occasionally either. Most likely every day.
“The enemy has passed your position and is back at the point of entry into the return duct,” Jim Colby reported, his voice scarcely a whisper in her ear.
That didn’t put the guy very far away from their position, but there wasn’t a damned thing they could do except sit here and wait.
“When did you come to work for the Equalizers?” she dared to ask in that soft, soft voice she’d become accustomed to using.
There was plenty of light from the window that trickled down beneath the desk. She could see the guard go up in Steele’s dark eyes. He didn’t want to talk about himself.
“Eighteen months ago.”
She waited for more but nothing came. “Why did you give up your rescue work?” Ian had told her that Steele had been top-notch at search and rescue. He would wiggle into places most didn’t dare to go.
His eyes grew distant as if he were remembering some long ago event. “A hotel collapsed in Pittsburgh. My team was sent in twenty hours later to determine if there were any more survivors that the high-tech monitors hadn’t detected.”
She couldn’t fathom the courage and determination it must have taken to tunnel his way beneath the rubble. What he must have seen.
“I found two small children alive.”
“You were able to save them?”
He nodded. “They were both in bad shape but another two or three hours and they would have been dead. Their mother sent me a card a few months later. They both fully recovered.”
That made him a hero. A success. Why would he walk away?
“Was that rarely the case?” Surely for him to turn his back on that profession, he’d seen more failures than successes.
“If there was anyone alive,” he said, his expression still distant, “I could find them.”
Maybe he just couldn’t take the death anymore. No doubt the discovery of bodies far outnumbered the live recoveries.
“I had to go back in, that time,” he said, almost to himself.
“In Pittsburgh?”
He nodded. “I was pretty sure when I found the kids that I’d seen fingers trapped in a pile of rubble beyond the point where I’d discovered them. But I had to get the kids out first if they were going to survive. Their injuries wouldn’t wait.”
Penny understood. “So you went back in to check it out?”
“It was a body. Young. Female. Too late to save.” He shook his head. “She wasn’t supposed to be there. Her name wasn’t among the guests listed on the hotel’s register. But she was there. Visiting from Philly for the weekend.”
“She was staying with a friend at the hotel?” Penny guessed.
He nodded. “Her lover. Her husband didn’t have a clue his wife was cheating on him.”
Penny’s heart skipped a beat. She’d understood that Steele had never been married. Surely…
“The woman was my sister.” His gaze connected with Penny’s. “She never told her husband about the affair. She didn’t even tell me. But finding her like that and having to drag her out piece by piece…” He shook his head. “It changed something in me. I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“That’s…” Penny licked her lips, tried to think of the right words. There were none.
“Awful,” he supplied. “I know. Exactly why I decided not to fully trust anyone of the opposite sex again. She was my sister and even she lied to the people who loved her. If I couldn’t trust her, why would I ever trust anyone?”
At least now Penny understood why he hadn’t wanted a female partner. If he’d been able to accomplish this alone, she would not be here.
Somehow she had to make sure he understood that he could trust her.
Chapter Ten
Inside, 1:00 p.m.
Ben’s legs were cramping. His side continued to throb. Unfortunately that did not stop the rest of his anatomy from reacting to the sweet backside ensconced in his lap.
Just like before.
Despite the precarious situation they were in.
It would be too much to hope that she hadn’t noticed. She was literally perched on his increasing arousal. He supposed that was why she hadn’t made eye contact with him for the past fifteen minutes. For that he was immensely grateful.
He’d spilled his guts about that last rescue in hopes of maintaining the proper frame of mind. Of putting things—women—in perspective.
Hadn’t helped.
The silence, hearing only her steady breathing, did nothing but make things worse. He’d counted from a thousand backward. He visualized every card in a poker deck. Name it and he’d tried it to attempt to distract himself from thinking about her body.
And the ways his appeared determined to react.
Regardless of the facts that they’d crawled through a seemingly endless metal tunnel and the suits they wore made them sweat, she smelled sweet, womanly. The fragrance of fruit-scented shampoo lingered in her hair. Made him want to lean closer…to distinguish that pleasant sweet scent from the one that was solely her.
Bottom line, he liked her body. His acute attraction to her lean curves would not be ignored. He’d spent the past year and a half ensuring his sex life floated on the surface. No relationships. Nothing more than casual sex. It made life a hell of a lot easier on more than one level. And he didn’t have to wonder if the woman he fell in love with, trusted with his entire heart and soul, would cheat on him.
Love was off-limits.
He’d loved his sister. But watching the devastation that she’d left behind play out had been a major wake-up call for Ben. If he hadn’t been able to trust his own sister, a woman who’d been the most compassionate, caring person he’d ever known, how could he ever trust anyone else?
So he’d drifted, not latching on or allowing anyone to latch on to him. What the hell did he need with a wife anyway? His work was far too dangerous most of the time to put someone else’s happiness on the line. No one should have to face that kind of devastation, with or without the whole cheating aspect.
Life was too complicated anyway. That was something else he’d learned working with the Equalizers. The strength of his boss and his family—particularly his mother—never ceased to amaze him. They walked through the fire and not only survived, but thrived.
Maybe Ben just wasn’t made of that fireproof material.
“I have to move.”
Before Alexander’s words could penetrate past the distraction of his own troubling thoughts, she’d scrambled out of his lap. The backpacks tumbled to the carpeted floor. The abrupt separation of her body from his caused an audible hitch in his respiration.
He shook it off, told himself to pull it together.
It had to be the adrenaline and stress.
He hadn’t had this much trouble keeping his mind on work in a long, long time.
And a woman hadn’t been this kind of distraction in too long to remember. Even before the tragedy with his sister, separating his focus from anything else—including women—had been effortless.
The last report they’d gotten from Jim or Michaels was that the two men aware of an outsider’s presence were
still on the third floor scrounging around for proof of where the outsider had gone next.
Ben gritted his teeth against the pain in his side as he scooted from beneath the desk. He stood. Alexander was pacing back and forth at one end of the desk. Her steps were noiseless so he couldn’t exactly complain. He watched her movements. A little stiff, shaky even.
The way she’d rushed out of that tunnel the first time flashed in his brain. The woman definitely had a problem with closed in spaces.
Maybe her hasty bolt from under the desk had more to do with that than with his increasingly obvious sexual arousal.
But he couldn’t chastise her for it, since he’d clearly been struggling with a glaring and abrupt weakness of his own.
“You never really explained why you were in such a hurry to get out of the return duct.” She’d insisted that it was about tending to his injury, but he knew better. At the time she’d had no idea that he’d needed any real attention. Could have been nothing more than a scrape. She’d pretended concern that simply wasn’t appropriate under the circumstances.
She waved him off but didn’t stop pacing. “I already told you. I needed—” she gestured to his patched suit “—to take care of your injury.”
Yeah, yeah, she’d said that.
He shook his head. “And like I said, you were afraid. Terrified. That wasn’t about me.” He knew what he’d sensed. He’d given her the truth, for his own reasons. If they were partners, she needed to do the same. Seemed as good a way as any to redirect his interest.
She stopped, faced him, hands on those lean but shapely hips. “So I got a little claustrophobic. Big deal. We needed to take care of your injury anyway. That was the only problem. I…I could’ve kept going.”
The flicker of fear in those green eyes refuted her words. “Really?” he pressed.
“Are you trying to make me angry?” She clamped her mouth shut when the words echoed around her. Keeping their conversation to a whisper was imperative though it was fairly clear at this point that no one was going to hear them as long as they were quiet.
“Looks like I succeeded whether I was trying or not.” She was really angry. Just more evidence that she was hiding something. Undeniable proof that he would be a fool to trust her. No matter how good the woman was at heart, she covered herself with distractions and deceptions even when full disclosure was called for. Alexander was no different from any of the rest, just because she could maneuver the same sort of tight spots he could.