Handcuffed by Her Hero (17 page)

“Luna! What the hell?”

Before she could think of a
smart-ass answer to deter him, the persistent dork gathered her, blanket and
all, into his arms. She wanted to struggle but the pressure was building faster
now, and his body offered all the strength she no longer had. With pathetic
desperation, she wrapped a hand around his neck and squashed her face into his
shoulder.

“Get me out of here,” she
whispered. “Please.”

“Hang on, flower.” His voice
filled her ear with a matching murmur. His long, forceful strides assured that
the buzz of the common room fast faded, followed by the creak of a door, two
more of his steps, and the blessed click that sealed them into the privacy of
one of the vacated play rooms. A place where she could finally let the dam
break and the tears come.

Through every one of them, Tait
gave her exactly what she needed in return. Silence.

Silence. It wasn’t such a golden
thing, especially with Rayna and especially now. The air in the car was thick
with all the shit they needed to clear, but Zeke let the muck get worse as he
pretended the increasing twists in the road required his complete attention.

The excuse was weak as piss
considering the work of art in his control. The five hundred and fifty ponies
under the hood worked with powerful precision, making the Jag stick to the turns
like silk on damp skin. Thank God for Max and his generosity. The sooner he got
Rayna to the cabin, the better. Mua had come too damn close to taking her
tonight, a horror that hadn’t happened because of pure dumb luck. He wasn’t
going to let the fuckwad have that chance again. Ever.

 
Mua.
There was a name
he’d thought permanently deleted off his “Assholes I Need to Worry About” list.
Now every other thought was scourged again by the slimebag, his smirk a brazen
taunt, his voice a cock punch, his eyes a glaring reminder of the number one
item on
his
To-Do list. To recapture Rayna.

That formed the shit-perfect
segue into the crap filling the rest of his thoughts. Irony’s nice little dig.
The words Rayna had mumbled before she left the patio, that got him chasing her
so he eventually saved her, were still a relentless refrain in his mind. But
his efforts at successfully figuring them out were useless, love taps at a door
that needed a goddamn boot slam.

Because your
boots aren’t the ones for the job, asshat.

He grunted. It was fucking
frustrating to have an instinct that was always right.

He slowed the Jag to make the
sharp left that would continue them on the Cascades Highway. To their right,
the river was immersed in the night’s blackness. To the left, the rain didn’t
make the view much better. The few lights that were on at the Buffalo Run Inn
and the Marblemount Diner soon faded in the rearview mirror.

He took a heavy breath. Maybe it
was time to end the silence.

Rayna beat him to the job by ten
seconds. “Damn it.”

He glanced at her. Though she’d
only muttered the words, the glow from the smart pad in her lap highlighted
every facet of her pained grimace. Max kept the devices around like most people
kept sunglasses or breath mints, so it didn’t surprise him when Rayna had pulled
that one out from under the passenger seat. She’d turned it on a few minutes
ago and had been tapping at the screen ever since.

“You okay, bird? Are the meds
wearing off?”

Fortunately, it looked like Mua’s
goon had meant to induce fear more than lasting damage when he hit her. That
didn’t stop the sonofabitch from booking his ticket to the end of Z’s fist if
they were ever in the same room again. Tempting as the fantasy was, he looked
forward to calling Garrett in an hour and hearing that the FBI had not only
thanked his friend for the tip, but had a plan in place to bring down Mua and
his network for good. Not being in the thick of that action, even now, made him
feel like a fish out of water, but he’d gladly flop around for a few days for
the reward of looking into the forests of Rayna’s eyes again and telling her
the monster was gone for good.

For now, just one more glance gave
him the answer to his question. She wasn’t okay, but it didn’t seem related to
her bruises. She attacked the smart pad with another angry swipe. “If I ever
see that dickwad again, I’ll drill him with more lead than I did his brother.”

He felt his eyebrows jump. Yes,
she’d shot King. But since then, he’d seen the woman’s commitment to compassion
on shitloads of occasions. Once, he’d tried to whack a field mouse in her
garage, only to be pummeled and ordered to set it free in the backyard.

“Okay.” He cautiously strung out
the syllables. “Should I ask for elaboration?”

She stabbed the screen again.
“The bastard only started at KOMO. Every news outlet in the city has the story
now.”

Zeke shrugged. “We expected
that.”

“But they’re all wrong!”

“We expected that, too.”

“No!” she protested. “Not like
this.”

He shot a concerned stare at her.
There was a sob in her voice and now it scrunched across her face.

Without hesitation, he pulled the
Jag over.

Once he’d stopped, Rayna curled
her knees to her chest, her head on top of them. “I want to kill him, Zeke,”
she whispered. “I swear to God, he’s not going to do this to you. Not because
of me!”

A strange calm took over him. He
recognized the feeling well. His mind had gone there a handful of times already
in his life, on missions when his death was pretty much a given outcome. The soul-deep
acceptance had actually been the stabilization that saved his ass all those
times.

From the depth of that calm, he
said, “Let me see it, Rayna.”

She didn’t move. He reached and
pulled at the pad. At first she fought him but finally gave way, seeming to
comprehend she would never win a tug-o-war like this.

The screen lit up with the home
page for the
Tribune
. He winced with embarrassment at the first photo
they showed, his military ID photo from about four years ago. He looked like he
had a pole up his ass. He’d felt that way, too. Further down in the article,
there was another picture that didn’t make him feel much better. It was a
grainy screen shot from the video footage taken by that pop-up camera man,
undoubtedly one of Mua’s wolves in a media fleece. It showed him standing over
both of the bastard’s henchmen, the chain still in his hands, violence branded across
his face.

The words between the two photos
were an even bigger bog of bullshit.

Soldier
Goes Insane, Instigates Brutal Downtown Beatings

Two men are in
intensive care tonight at Harborview Medical Center after an altercation with a
US Army officer just returned from a stressful overseas mission.

Sergeant Ezekiel
Gabriel Hayes, stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, engaged two men taking a
cigarette break outside a downtown nightclub earlier this evening. The men
gained consciousness long enough to state that Hayes appeared agitated and
angry. They speculated he might have been under the influence of cocaine or
methamphetamines. The men’s names are being withheld from the media until their
families can be notified.

He snorted. “Don’t hold your
breaths, guys. I hear it takes a while to find ‘family’ in hell.”

“Not funny,” Rayna snapped.

He continued reading.

A friendly
conversation apparently became heated when a woman, Sergeant Rayna Chestain, a member
of A medical corps unit at JBLM, emerged from the club as well.  When Hayes began
lascivious advances on Chestain, the two men tried to assist and were assaulted
by Hayes. He retrieved a heavy chain from his car, as well as brass knuckles
and a tire iron, to continue his attack.

After incapacitating
the men, Hayes forced the woman into another car, tagged by eyewitnesses as a
dark blue Sierra truck with upgraded hubcaps and license plate TR01ACY. Though
the police have set up checkpoints on all major highways, Hayes’ location is
unknown.

A manhunt has
begun, jointly operated by the Seattle Police Department and the Army. Hayes is
to be considered armed, well-trained, and extremely dangerous. If identified,
do not approach this dangerous suspect. Dial 9-1-1 or—

He flipped the smart pad’s cover
shut.

Okay, he’d had more comfortable
moments in his life. But his anxiety wasn’t due to this cartload of lies. His
job, often his very life, depended on using deception and custom-created
personas. He just wasn’t used to being public about it.
Really
public. And
dragging someone he cared about into this goddamn spotlight with him.

“Well, fuck,” he finally
muttered. With a sigh, he turned to stash the tablet behind her seat. He was
pulled up short on the way back, her stare burning into him.

“Well, fuck? That’s it?”

He frowned. “For now.”

Rayna dug her fingers into his
forearm. “How can you be so calm about this?” With her other hand, she tilted
his head in order to peer back at his bandage. “This has got to be bleeding
again and taking all the fluid from your brain, too.”

As wonderful as her touch felt,
he pried her hands away. “I’m fine. You can check it out in full soon, Flo
Nightingale. Just not now.” Though reason dictated that the night was their
friend more than foe, he couldn’t get over the feeling that they were exposed
as a water truck in the Sahara right now.

She twisted her fingers into his.
“Damn it! This is totally unfair.”

Zeke looked down at their joined
hands. Her tapered nails were painted pink. It was a few shades lighter than her
jacket and reminded him of little girl birthday party streamers. “You’re
right,” he replied.

“Damn straight I’m—”

“It’s totally unfair to you.”

“No. Wait. I meant—”

“I know what you meant.” He
lifted his head, bringing his gaze inches from hers. She smelled like pink,
too. Her cardamom spice had a spun sugar softness wound with it tonight, a
sweet contrast to the treated leather of the car. “And I know what
I
meant.”
He untwined one hand to tenderly frame one side of her face. “You should’ve
gone to a hospital and been checked out for all this. By now, you should be
home in bed, helped to sleep by painkillers, warm in your sheets and dreaming
of what Halloween parties you’re gonna go to next week.”

She huffed. “I don’t know whether
to belt you or kiss you, Hayes.” Despite her threatening words, her throat gave
up only a rough whisper. “Over half of Seattle is going to think you’ve downed
the jungle juice for good and you’re worried about
me
?”

He didn’t say anything. Rain began
to cascade over the car…and heat sluiced through his blood. It poured from the
spigot of her touch and her words. Damn it, when she talked to him like that, husky
and low, like sharing a secret just for the two of them…he yearned to make it
just that. A moment only for the two of them.

Not the right
way to think right now, man. Not the right thing for you; especially not the
right thing for her. You’re stronger than this. You have to be.

“I think there’s been enough of
that belting shit tonight, honey.”

So much for the dutiful self-talk.
And so much for the little parting of her lips, only by a half-inch at best, as
if wondering that she interpreted him right.

Her half-inch was his damn mile.

In two seconds, he had her mouth buried
under his.

Fuck…
yes
. She even tasted
like pink. Her mouth was a buffet of cherry cream and cotton candy, of spun
sugar and whipped meringue, of summer and sweetness in the dark, shitty winter
of this night. Of his whole goddamn life. She was more perfect, more delicious
than he remembered. More pliant, more responsive, more incredibly open with the
passion she gave him in return, spearing its way through his body and straight
into his cock.

His mind flooded with a fantasy.
He’d shove the sweats to her knees. Pop back her seat. Order her to turn around
and grip it while he slid into her from behind. With his fingers on her clit
and his hard slaps on her ass, she’d pulse all over his cock while filling the
car with her orgasmic screams…

That was all fine and good until
they broke apart for air. Her face, lighted by the dim glow from the dashboard,
was filled with longing, desire, need—

For all the things he still
couldn’t give her.

You are a selfish,
depraved bastard.

“I’m sorry,” he gritted. “Hell,
Rayna. That shouldn’t have—”

She grabbed his hand before he
could yank it away. “It’s okay. It’s more than okay. Zeke, listen. I have
something I need to—”

“It shouldn’t have happened.” He
gave the words as if they were a command, issuing it as much to himself as her.
While he restarted the engine and gunned the Jag back onto the highway, he set
his jaw and concluded, “And I promise you that it won’t again.”