Darkness Bound (2 page)

Why was she aware of her
breasts
?

She asked, “What’s your name?”

His brows lifted. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“It’s a journalist thing. Who, what, where, when . . . you know.”

He just kept looking at her, brows cocked, but once Jack decided she wanted an answer to a question, she didn’t relent until she had it.

“So? What is it?”

He paused for a beat, and she realized he had a habit of that, as if he carefully deliberated each and every word.

Interesting. She knew several people with the same habit, all of whom had warehouses of skeletons they were trying to hide.

Finally, he relented and gave her his name in a clipped monosyllable.

“Hawk.”

It was Jack’s turn to raise her brows and pause. “
Hawk
? As in, a bird?”

For the first time, he smiled at her. It was carnal and lazy, a sensual upward curve of his lips that transformed his entire face and made her heart skip a beat from the sheer, unexpected beauty of it. The smile softened all the hard lines of his face and brought out that dimple in his cheek again, and she felt its effects in some very sensitive places in her body. She swallowed, surprised at herself, and none too pleased.

Hawk drawled, “As in, eyes like a.”

Oh Christ. It’s a nickname. Of course he’d have a nickname. He probably thought it up himself.

Because she was still a little off-balance from his smile, she said, “Funny, I would’ve guessed something more along the lines of . . .” She cocked her head and gave him the same assessing once-over he’d given her. “Rock. As in, head like a.”

“You mean,
body
like a,” he responded, and had the nerve to wink.

That’s when it occurred to her that one, the hulk was flirting with her, two, she liked it, and three, she wanted that drink more than she wanted to get back to the Mercado Municipal and finish the story.

Jack was an expert at compartmentalizing, so she filed that disturbing fact away under her mental What the Hell? drawer for later examination. She never,
never
was more interested in men than work. Except for right this second. With this man with a silly bird nickname, sizzling eyes, and body to match.

Sky out
, as her father would say, which in military parlance meant “time to go.”

“Okay, Hawk,” she said stiffly, “great meeting you. Have a nice life.”

Jack turned and began to walk toward the end of the alley, back out to the street.

From behind her he called, “You’re welcome for saving yours!”

Without looking back or answering, she lifted her hand in salute, then kept right on going.

She couldn’t get back to the Mercado because the police had cordoned off the area and blocked the surrounding streets. No press was being allowed in, so she made do with interviewing a few bystanders and getting some long-distance shots of the smoke billowing into the sky from the burning building.

By the time she made it back to her hotel, it was fully dark, she was exhausted, and she’d finally stopped thinking about her encounter with the hulk. Taxi service had been curtailed to daylight hours because of the recent unrest and she’d had to walk back because the hotel shuttle had dropped her off early in the morning before the outbreak at the Mercado Municipal.

She was lucky to be right there when the riot started. Her intuition had told her to go downtown this morning, and it had been right.

To say that Brazil was in a state of turmoil would be a gross understatement. The country had fallen into total chaos. In Manaus—a bustling, cosmopolitan city situated in the center of the country at the confluence of the Rio Negro and Solimões rivers—stores were being looted, fires were being set, government buildings had been vandalized . . . things were a mess. There were daily marches by a public outraged over the corrupt government and the hike in bus fares in advance of the World Cup that would help to pay for ten additional stadiums.

She’d been sent here on assignment from the
Times
without her usual photographer. Dwindling readership had sent the cash-strapped newspaper into conservation mode, so anything deemed an unnecessary luxury had been axed. Jack was competent with a camera and never minded working alone, so she hadn’t been as disgruntled as many of her colleagues had been over the cutbacks. She’d been raised to soldier on without whining, so that’s what she did.

The hotel room was more luxurious than she’d expected, with a king-sized bed and an enormous bathtub set against a wall of blue and saffron Moroccan tiles. While the bath was filling, Jack stripped out of her dirty jeans and T-shirt and stood in front of the mirror at the sink in her underwear, delicately picking bits of glass from her cheek with a pair of tweezers.

When she was done, she inspected her work. Not bad, she decided. No stitches needed. She’d been lucky this time.

She wasn’t always quite so lucky; the three puckered, round scars on her abdomen proved it.

After she’d soaked in the tub, washed the smoke and glass fragments from her hair, and shaved her legs and everything else that needed shaving, Jack wrapped herself in a towel, wound another around her hair, turned on her laptop, and dashed off a seven-hundred-word article about the day’s events. She downloaded the shots from her Canon for her editor to choose from, then uploaded all the files to the paper’s encrypted server. It would go live on the web as soon as her editor reviewed it, and would also run in tomorrow’s morning edition.

Then she sat staring at the four walls.

This was always the worst moment, when the job was done and she was left alone in another anonymous hotel room with only her thoughts for company.

Thinking was dangerous.

Jack much preferred action to thinking. When you were engaged in some kind of action, you didn’t have time to wallow in the quicksand of memory.

She debated going straight to bed, but felt too restless, and knew she wouldn’t sleep. So she threw on a clean pair of jeans, a light sweater, a leather jacket as soft as butter, and low-heeled boots. The concierge in the lobby gave her directions to a nearby pub, a raucous place where only the locals went, but the food was good and inexpensive, and there was live music. That all sounded perfect, not only because her per diem wouldn’t cover anything fancier, but also because she loved live music and she loved to sit in a crowded spot and just watch people, alone but not
alone
.

The walk was short, along a quiet, well-lighted street, and by the time she arrived and pulled open the heavy wood door to the pub, Jack was famished. But as the hostess led her to a table near the back, her restless stomach turned sour.

Because there, sitting on a stool at the long oak bar that ran the entire length of one wall, was Hawk, just as hulking and handsome as the first time she’d seen him. Once again, he was glowering.

Once again, he was staring straight back at her.

Hawk watched Jacqueline Dolan stride through the door, watched her look around, watched as she caught sight of him and stiffened.

He didn’t miss the way her lips thinned. Or the way her heartbeat doubled in the space of five seconds.

That little tidbit should have given him a grim bit of satisfaction at least, but it didn’t. She was a job he had to do, a task he had to complete, and nothing more. Forget about the fact that she had incredible hair the color of persimmons, and bright-blue eyes as clear as the Caribbean Sea, and a slender dancer’s body meant for—

No. Forget about that, too.
Especially
that.

This bitch needs to be taught a lesson she’ll never forget.

Not his words, but he echoed the sentiment. Jacqueline Dolan had almost single-handedly rallied the American public behind her campaign of bigotry, intolerance, and hatred with the despicable—and admittedly brilliant—opinion piece she’d written for the
Times
. She’d played every nerve with the skill of a virtuoso: patriotism, xenophobia, sentimentality for better times past, fear of change, fear of the unknown—
fear
in general. She manipulated people’s fears like a puppeteer manipulates the puppet strings.

And she’d been nominated for a goddamn Pulitzer for it, no less.

Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,” and Jacqueline Dolan had been incredibly effective at making a lot of people believe her personal brand of absurdity. The sky is falling! she warned, and pretty much everyone listened.

Once the nation was behind the President’s anti-Shifter agenda, thanks to Dolan’s brilliant rhetoric, he had pushed it all the way to the UN and convinced all the member states that Shifters were the worst threat to mankind since . . . well, since
ever
. Now, in addition to an ancient order of religious assassins that wanted to wipe his kind off the face of the Earth, a greedy multinational corporation that wanted to trap them, conduct experiments, and ultimately use them for profit, they also had the Elimination Campaign, a group of leaders from all around the world who wanted nothing more than to see every single
Ikati
on Earth burned at the stake.

Thanks to you, Red
, Hawk thought, watching Jacqueline narrow her eyes at him from across the room. He forced a pleasant smile to his face and was rewarded as her eyes, just for a moment, softened.

And that, ultimately, was why he’d been chosen for the task.

“They drop at your feet like flies,” said Xander during the last Assembly meeting, to a chorus of murmured agreement. His wife, Morgan, sat beside him, and sent her husband a warm, heavy-lidded glance.

“Not all of them,” she said softly, reaching over to squeeze his thigh.

Hawk had rolled his eyes at that. Xander and Morgan were deeply in love, overtly physical with one another, and rarely apart. Xander had brought her back to his home colony in Brazil only three months back, but after only three days Hawk had seen enough of their constant mooning at each other. If he hadn’t known from personal experience that his half brother was the best killer the entire tribe had, Hawk would have thought him weak, hopelessly whipped, and not to be trusted.

Because how could you trust a man who looked at his woman like . . .
that
? There were little red hearts where his pupils were supposed to be, for God’s sake.

Though he’d enjoyed many women and the pleasures their bodies could bring, Hawk had never been in love. And he liked it that way. If he ever caught himself staring at a woman the way Xander stared at Morgan, he’d have to slit his wrists in shame.

On a raised platform in a corner of the bar, the band opened with an Argentine tango, languid and sensual. Jacqueline raised her chin and turned away from him, following the hostess to a booth on the opposite side of the pub. She slid onto the red leather seat, grabbed the menu the hostess handed her, and didn’t look up again.

Oh, Red
, Hawk thought, the smile on his face now genuine,
this is gonna be so much fun
.

Hawk knew three things for sure. One, humans couldn’t be trusted. Two, power had to be proven. And three, a woman’s love was an easy thing to earn.

He knew all the mysteries of women, all the ways they could and could not be moved, all the secrets of their bodies, all the tangled yearnings of their hearts. He could discern in a glance which ones needed praise and which needed punishment, which were power hungry and which money hungry, which were shy or brazen or mean or cold. He knew if you gave a woman your undivided attention, accompanied by a compliment specifically tailored to an area of deep insecurity—her competence or intelligence or the amount of fat on her ass—she would tell you anything. She would open like a flower to the sun and spill even her darkest cravings, her deepest hungers and longings and needs. And when that happened, if you listened and you didn’t judge, a woman would fall in love with you with no more effort than it takes to put a key in the ignition and start a car.

Women were simple creatures.

Jacqueline Dolan was a simple creature.

Though undoubtedly she thought herself quite complex and urbane, with her degree from Columbia University, her career, her accomplishments, her apartment in an expensive high-rise in the middle of Manhattan. He knew from a file they’d compiled on her that she was highly intelligent, competitive, and driven; knew she’d been brought up by her father after the sudden death of her mother when she was just a little girl. But from his short interaction with her, he knew the secret she guarded so closely, the one her pride would defend with her life.

She was lonely. Lonely with a capital L.

Those were the ones who always fell the hardest.

Smart and capable and strong, Jacqueline was at her core a motherless little girl, still struggling to believe she deserved the love she so desperately craved.

Most likely she didn’t have enough self-awareness to grasp that fact, Hawk thought, watching her as she ordered something from the waitress at her tableside, pointedly not looking in his direction. Usually only the ones who had extensive therapy were anything close to self-aware—and those enlightened
cadelas
bored him to tears.

He motioned for the waitress. She sprang into action without a moment’s hesitation, hightailing it across the crowded dance floor. She arrived a little breathless, blinking rapidly, shifting her weight in her high heels from foot to foot. Judging by the way her ankles were slightly swollen, the shoes were a size too small, and she’d been on her feet a long time.

He said to her gently in Portuguese, “You’re working hard tonight.”

She blushed. “One of the other girls called in sick. It’s my third double shift this week.”

She was pretty, if a little worn around the edges. Brunette and busty and not particularly young, she gave him a tentative smile.

Hot little subbie, you’d like me to tie you up and tell you what a good girl you are as I spank that nice plump ass, wouldn’t you?

Pretending the music was a little too loud to be heard over, Hawk lightly grasped her wrist and drew her closer. He savored the little gasp she gave as he bent his head to her ear.

“I’d like to send a drink to someone. The redhead in the booth over there.”

The waitress held her breath, listening to his voice with every cell in her body. Beneath his fingers, her arm trembled.

“Um . . . uh . . . okay,” she breathed, frozen stiff. “What-what kind?”

Hawk thought about it a moment, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb back and forth across her wrist. The waitress exhaled, leaning closer.

“Tequila,” he decided, listening to her heart hammer, feeling her blood rush through the ulnar artery on the inside of her wrist. “Whatever’s your best.” He gave her wrist a firm squeeze and smiled to himself as she let out the faintest of moans.

“Yes,” she said almost inaudibly, and he knew she wasn’t talking about the drink.

He withdrew and gazed down at her, his eyes half-lidded. She stared up at him in something like awe. “Good girl,” he murmured, and the poor waitress actually swayed on her feet.

“Off you go,” he said, holding her gaze. She nodded, swallowed, turned, and walked unsteadily away.

Hawk glanced at Jacqueline’s table, and found her staring at the retreating waitress with a furrow between her brows. Her gaze came back to him, and he was surprised when she didn’t look away. Instead the look deepened . . . as did the furrow between her brows.

Strangely, because he never cared about things like that, Hawk wondered what she was thinking.

Her food arrived, plopped down on the tabletop in front of her by a busboy with the grace of a gorilla. Startled, she broke eye contact and glanced down at her plate. They exchanged a few low words before the busboy stalked away. Above the strains of the violins and guitars and the sounds of feet sliding along the dance floor and a hundred different conversations, Hawk heard Jacqueline mutter to herself, “Fucking moody men.”

Interesting . . . and telling. He sensed a lifetime of disappointment behind those words. And something else. Anger or bitterness or maybe even fear, he couldn’t tell which.

He cocked his head, studying her as she looked down in obvious disgust at her plate. It contained a cheeseburger and a pile of greasy fries, absolutely normal pub food, but judging by the way she glared at it, the plate might as well have contained the severed head of her arch enemy. She pushed it away, slumped down in her seat, closed her eyes, and sighed.

The busty brunette waitress appeared at her side with a shot of tequila. “The, uh, handsome gentleman at the bar sent this over for you.”

Jacqueline sent Hawk a long, stony look. Then she said to the waitress, “Tell the handsome gentleman it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a shot of tequila.” Still holding his gaze, she grabbed the shot and downed it in one swallow.

The animal inside him growled in pleasure.

Red wanted to play . . . and she hated herself for it. Nothing like a little ambivalence to spice things up.

He crooked a finger at her.
Come here
. Jacqueline responded by chuffing a short, derisive laugh. She handed the shot glass back to the waitress, folded her arms across her chest, and pretended to study the hideous oil painting of a gaucho on horseback that was hanging on the wall above her booth.

The waitress turned and looked at him uncertainly. He nodded, letting her know it was okay, then gave a small jerk of his chin to summon her. She was there in an instant, breathlessly waiting for him to speak.

When he didn’t, she stammered, “The um . . . the girl . . . the lady said to tell you that she . . . uh . . . it was going to . . .”

“I got the gist of it,” he reassured her, “but thank you.”

The waitress glanced over at Jacqueline, then the band, which had segued into another number. “You heard that? Her table’s all the way over—”

“I’m just good at reading body language.” He leaned forward, stroking a finger up her arm. “Send two more shots over to her table, will you, beautiful? And keep them coming. She’s my boss, and I royally screwed up on the job today. I’m trying to get her drunk so she doesn’t have the energy to fire me.”

Hawk sent the waitress a conspiratorial smile, which she melted under.

“Oh—your boss!” Relief flashed in her eyes, followed quickly by shy self-consciousness. Then he couldn’t see her eyes at all because she lowered her lashes as a bloom of color spread across her cheeks.

Hawk felt a sudden rush of pity for this sweet, overworked waitress, past her prime and ignored by the men here because of it. She was lovely in her own way, maternal and a little old-fashioned, not flashy and brittle-hard like most of the women in the bar. If he didn’t have a job to do, he’d take her to bed and give her something to remember.

He reached into his wallet and pulled out a stack of bills. Her eyes widened as he pressed it into her hand.

“No, please, that’s too much—”

“It’s not even a drop in the ocean of what you’re worth, beautiful, but it’s all the cash I have on me.” He stood, leaned in, and brushed his lips across her cheek. Cupping the back of her neck in one hand, he said into her ear, “You’re sexy as hell, and don’t ever let any jerk tell you otherwise.” He pulled back and stared down into her wide eyes. Her mouth fell open. He said, “Do you understand me?”

Speechless, she nodded.

“Say it.”

She said faintly, “I understand.”

His brows lifted. Face flaming, she added, “Sir.”

He nodded, said, “Good girl,” and left her standing in shock at the bar, a wad of cash in one hand, the other braced for support on the stool he’d just deserted.