“My room, please. You remember where that is, right?” I angle my head, stare at her, and enjoy watching her cheeks flush with anger.
I wait for the snide comment to come, but she just turns and faces the doors of the elevator without pushing the button for the eighth floor. Tension is so thick in the car, you can all but see it.
“I don’t trust you,” I say evenly, but it cuts through the silence.
“Good,” she says matter-of-factly as the car alerts our arrival on the twelfth floor. “Be careful whom you trust – the devil was once an angel, you know.”
And with that she walks off the elevator without another word, her comment already replaying in my mind.
Chapter 5
T
he shrieks of mass chaos and the sound of desperate and injured people suffering ring in my ears, the scent of gunpowder and blood haunts my psyche as my own shout dies on my lips.
The nightmare slowly fades into the darkness of my hotel room as I wake, leaving me with nothing but the thundering of my pulse in my ears, along with memories I wish I could erase and a chest damp with sweat.
“Just a dream,” I mutter into the silence, hoping the sound of my voice chases away the ghosts still lurking.
But it’s no use. No matter how much time has passed, I can still hear that unsteady thread in her breath. The one I fixated on as fear and pain contorted her face because regardless of the false hope I clung to, that sound told me the truth I couldn’t run from.
That Stella was going to die.
“Fucking hell.” The words do nothing to abate the pressure in my chest, and frankly, I’m sick of feeling it. That’s why I had to get back here. Get back to the one thing I can focus on. Ironic really, considering this is where it happened, but at the same time, I need this, need to be back in the thick of it all so I’m not scared by it. Because when nightmares and reality are the same, it’s harder to fear them.
And you sure as hell can’t outrun them.
I lie back on the bed and scrub my hand over my face. When I open my eyes again, they’re drawn to the spiderweb of cracks in the ceiling above me. As I will myself back to sleep to no avail, I try to quiet my head by tracing the cracks along their broken path through the darkened room. I know that the jet lag is going to kick my ass in the coming days and I need the sleep, but no matter how much I try, I’m wide awake. Sleep doesn’t come.
The sounds of a drowsy city slowly stirring to life begin to float up to my room, and when I look over at the clock, I realize it is five a.m. and I’ve been staring at the damn ceiling for way too long. I give up hope that I’m going to fall asleep. Feeling restless despite the exhaustion deep in my bones, I shove up out of bed, knowing what to do to clear my head.
The clank of weights keeps me company. The cinder-block room is cramped and has two lightbulbs hanging by wires from the ceiling, but I don’t care about the ambience because the physical exertion is exactly what I need right now.
The burn of my muscles as I squat down with the bar on my shoulder and focus on the proper form forces me to clear my head. I swear my laser-honed concentration on what I’m doing makes me feel every single rivulet of sweat that runs down my bare chest. And that’s a good thing because if I’m concentrating on that, there’s no room for anything else. Music blares in my earbuds, but my own grunt of strength to rise back to standing interrupts the sound.
I puff out a breath as I rack the weight bar, having completed my reps and then some, before I drop to sit on a bench against the far wall of the room. My muscles are liquid fire, but God it feels good to work out the anger churning inside me. I rub my T-shirt over my face and hair to wipe the sweat away as I catch my breath for a moment, my body exhausted but in such a productive way.
The cold concrete wall feels hella good as I lean my shoulders against it and close my eyes. Beaux’s face flashes in my mind, and I wonder if she’s why I feel so restless. Maybe I just need to see her, set some guidelines for this fucked-up situation I’ve been forced into, and then maybe I’ll get back into my groove a little quicker. What the fuck kind of way is it to start a working relationship when you’ve seen the other person naked and heard that sound they make as they climax? Talk about stepping out on the wrong foot.
I don’t like her. Plain and simple. I had a moment of bad judgment, a lot of alcohol, and wanted some sex. Little did I know the woman I chose would be the new partner I don’t want.
Fuck.
The quicker I rectify the situation the better. I need structure in my life – I thrive on it – to function in this tumultuous country where every day is something different and yet the exact same. But having Beaux here adds an unpredictability element, and so the quicker I let her know how I operate, the better off we’ll be in the long run.
Maybe I’ll even suck it up for the sake of calming the churning waters and apologize for the one-night stand.
Nah. Fuck it. She came with me willingly, left on her own accord. No need to set the precedent that I’m in the wrong when I know I’ve done nothing of the sort. Now I just need to decide whether I believe that she purposefully slept with me or whether it was purely a coincidence.
The jury’s still out on that one.
I glance at my watch and figure it’s okay to go knocking on her door since it is seven thirty. Maybe that’s a little dick-ish, but at least I’ll learn if she’s a morning person or not; I can play it off like I want to make sure she can be up and ready if we get a call on a lead.
I’m winded by the time I leave the hotel’s basement where the makeshift gym is located and jog up the thirteen flights of steps to the twelfth floor. Once I walk into the hallway, I realize I have no clue which room is Beaux’s. Only one way to find out.
I grab my cell phone from my pocket and pull up her number, walking the short distance of the hallway as the ring fills my ear. It takes a few moments, but I hear the faint ring on my right-hand side and follow it until I’m standing outside room twelve thirteen.
My hesitation over having the wrong room is fleeting as my knock resonates through the empty corridor. Beaux’s voice mail picks up, her throaty voice filling my ear at the same time the ringing on the other side of the door I’m standing at ceases. At least I know I have the right room.
I rap on the door again and listen for any sign of movement behind the door but hear nothing. I call again, almost determined to wake her up now, prove a point that she thinks she can handle this job but that she can’t. Fuck yeah, I’m being a prick, but I don’t care.
Her voice mail picks up again. I pound one more time and press my ear to the door. I tell myself I just want to wake her up, but unease begins to creep up on me. Why isn’t she answering? Is she that dead-to-the-world tired?
Or is something wrong?
I fist my hand against the door to prevent myself from pounding it down as the same worries I always had over Stella’s safety in this godforsaken land come back with a vengeance.
She has to be asleep. No one leaves their cell behind anymore these days. Maybe she sleeps with earplugs in or music on or some other lame excuse for being unable to hear me. I accept the attempt at rationalization but can’t ignore that feeling in my gut that tells me otherwise.
“Let it go, Thomas,” I mutter as I turn away and head into the stairwell, despite all of the horrible images flashing through my mind of what could be wrong. And then I become angry. I’m not a worrier. I’m not some overdramatic guy who worries about people I don’t care about. If I were, I wouldn’t be able to do my job. I see death and destruction all the time in all sorts of unfathomable ways, so I’ve learned to not think about those possibilities.
So why the fuck am I thinking along those lines when it comes to Beaux? The last thing I want is to be thinking about her.
Shit. This whole thing with Stella has affected me. The thought pisses me off even further because that means the brass at work might just be right. And I won’t let them be right. Now I’m pissed both at Beaux and myse
lf, so it seems my little venture to set things right just put me back on the goddamn Tilt-A-Whirl.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that when I fling open the stairwell door to my floor, I collide solidly with another person going just as fast as I am. We both cry out as we stumble backward, and I know before I even look down whose biceps my hands are gripping. I push Beaux away like she’s a hot coal.
We stare at each other, chests heaving, eyes guarded. Her hair is a mess and her makeup is smudged under her eyes, lips nude, but Christ she’s still absolutely beautiful. I shove the unwelcome thought away and manage to drag my eyes from hers to notice she has on the same clothes as yesterday, camera bag dropped on the ground behind her from our collision.
“Where the hell have you been?” She looks at me like I’m crazy for asking. Maybe I am, but I still want an answer.
“None of your damn business.”
“Actually, it is.” Still, I ask myself, why the fuck do I care? I shouldn’t. I don’t want to. But damn it to hell, this woman calls to me on all kinds of levels.
“Screw you.” She pins me with a nasty look as she steps to one side, and I mirror her motions to prevent her from leaving. The truth is I’m looking for a fight, and she just walked headfirst into one.
“Well, you got the screwing part down pat.” I make a show of looking up and down her body, connecting the dots I don’t want to connect: same clothes, different floor of the hotel, a tired woman. She spent the night with someone else. “It seems you like to play with all the boys on the block, huh?” The words are out of my mouth before I can see through my disregard for her. Sure, I don’t want anything more from her, but at the same time, my ego is bruised to think she didn’t think more of me – or any other man for that matter – to at least wait a day before moving to the next warm bed.
I’m such an asshat. I was sitting up at her door worried that something was wrong with her because she wasn’t answering, when instead she was busy ringing up her own bedpost tally. Serves me goddamn right for caring. Lesson learned.
Beaux stares me down, blatant derision mixed with embarrassment playing out all over her flushed cheeks, while my disbelief at my earlier concern skyrockets.
“I don’t believe it’s any of your business what I do or don’t do, Tanner. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m exhausted and want some sleep.” Her gaze flickers down to my bare chest and the T-shirt bundled in my hand before reaching my eyes again. She raises her eyebrows as she waits for me to move, and the irony isn’t lost on me how the positions were reversed just yesterday.
“What if we had a lead? What if I was just up at your room pounding on your door because you didn’t answer your phone? How would you handle it then, huh?” Honestly I know I’m being a prick by baiting her with my questions, but I’m past the point of caring. “This isn’t sorority row. It’s best you start acting like the professional you claim to be instead of some two-bit —”
She’s in my face so fast, the rest of the words don’t have a chance to leave my mouth. “Who and what I am is none of your goddamn business so long as I do my job properly! It’s best you start remembering that as well.”
The heat of her body is pressed against my bare skin, and I hate the ache that stirs deep in my lower belly. Her breath mingles with mine from our proximity, and I want to step back from her, give us the distance I most definitely need to keep this on the professional level, but somehow I can’t make my feet move.
“Good to know. I’ll believe it when I see it.” My gaze travels down to her lips and then back up to her eyes, a half-cocked smirk on my lips. “But I think you’ve forgotten one important thing.”
“What’s that?” she huffs out, and I love that I’m irritating her. Serves her right.
“If I can’t get hold of you, then you can’t do your job properly. It’s best you start remembering that as well,” I say, throwing her words back in her face.
“How long are you going to play the asshole card, Tanner?”
My only response is to raise my eyebrows and purse my lips. “Long as it takes.”
“Lucky me.” Her green eyes blaze into mine, but I just look back at her like I don’t give two fucks. “This conversation has been absolutely scintillating, but I’m sure watching the back of my eyelids is much more exciting. If you’ll excuse me…”
And there she goes again walking away from me, taunting me with what I most definitely don’t want, but what man wouldn’t enjoy watching her ass as it goes?
I’m dialing Rafe before she’s up the first flight of stairs.
“Hey.” He answers just as I unlock the door to my room, and I wait until I close it behind me before I respond.
“What gives? Where are all of the embed missions you said you were setting up for me?” I’m antsy as fuck to get out in the field, get that buzz again.
“It’s only been forty-eight hours since wheels down, Thomas. Cool your jets.” Rafe tries to placate me with exasperation.
“It may be only two days, but you had a few months to set shit up for me while you were making me jump through your circus hoops to get back here.” He was so adamant that he be the ringmaster.
“Our military liaison is working on it, and —”
“Don’t give me any bullshit lines, Rafe. You’ve got me fucking handcuffed. I know I’m being watched here like a goddamn dog to make sure I play by the rules… and I am, I assure you… but if you don’t throw me a bone soon, I’m going to find one on my own, protocol be damned,” I say, lying to him with ease.
“How’s it going with you and Beaux?” The subtle change of subject tells me he heard me loud and clear and that he knows if he can’t make something happen for me, I’ll make it happen myself. We’ve worked together long enough that I know he can’t consent to my going against company policy by entering the danger zone on my own accord.
It’s my ass on the line. And I’m good with that. Too bad now my ass means Beaux’s too.
I grunt a nonresponse. “Don’t think I don’t see the setup here. The babysitting job you guys dropped on me because you think I’m unstable. I’ll do my job, Rafe, and I’ll do it damn well.”
“I never said that you wouldn’t.”
“You didn’t have to say it. I’ll be waiting for your call… and for your sake, she’d better be able to do her job.” I hang up before giving him a chance to respond, the range of emotions from this morning making me more bitter than normal.
Tossing my phone onto my unmade bed, I strip down, the hot water of my shower calling to my sore muscles. When I enter the bathroom, I look in the mirror and flex out of habit to see whether this morning made any difference in the definition of my abs and biceps. But when I draw my eyes up from the lines in my torso, I take in my dark hair, worn a little long, and the stubble I sport when on assignment so that I can fit in as much as possible with the locals. I’m already missing my clean-shaven face and hair trimmed off my ears like I prefer when I’m at home. When in Rome…
I look like shit. My violet eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep with dark smudges that look like bruises beneath them. I scrub a hand over my face and blow out a breath to shake away the ghosts I see hiding in the mirror and head for the shower. Productivity is my number one priority.
Chapter 6
“I
t’s driving you crazy, isn’t it?”
I look at Pauly through the steam of my coffee before answering him because his words are more true than I’d like to admit. “Of course it is… but isn’t that how it is here, always feast or famine? Weeks on end of waiting for something to happen and then riding that high when it does only for the boredom to hit tenfold until the next time. It’s just taking a bit of time for all of my sources to know I’m back.”
Pauly rolls his eyes and laughs. “Only you could think that you’ll return to this shithole and things will start happening.” When I raise my eyebrows with an unabashed shrug to remind him of all the times this has happened, he holds up his hands in surrender
. “Forgive me, wonder boy. We all know you walk into a room and shit happens that only you know about.”
“It’s good to be me.” I flash a smirk his way before taking another sip of coffee. We’re sitting by the front windows of the hotel where we can watch life outside to pass time, but on the far left of us are some makeshift desks where a few reporters work on their laptops. To the right is the reception counter, and at the opposite end of the room, across from where we sit, is the bar. We’ve kind of commandeered that too – all sixty of us reporters and photographers from various agencies – and made it our second home since our rooms are so small and nothing beats boredom better than company.
There’s a crappy pool table a few of the guys found abandoned somewhere in the early days of the conflict. It was broken and battered, but in between air raid sirens and being confined in here for safety’s sake, they made it a mission to repair it with whatever they could find. It’s a patchwork quilt at best, but it works, and we’ve all spent endless hours playing on it, trying to pass time during lulls.
Pool’s not really my thing, though. Not enough action, enough adrenaline, not enough of anything really, but when I glance over to the table at the right of the bar, my pulse jumps. Because bending over the table, lining up a shot with her spectacular ass directed my way, is Beaux.
And even if I didn’t have firsthand knowledge of how those curves look without those ass-hugging jeans on, I’d still guess it was her from a mile away because bodies like hers are few and far between.
The crack of the rack of balls breaking up rings out across the lobby, and it’s only when she stands up to full height that her long mane of hair falls down her back. Damn it. I’m a sucker for women with long hair so when all of it falls to rest above the swell of her ass, I curse under my breath.