Born to Darkness (7 page)

“Before you can become a cage fighter,” she said, with plenty of
yeah right
scorn in her voice. “Does that usually impress the girls?”

“I’ve actually never told anyone before,” Shane admitted. “You know, that I stooped that low? But it
is
amazing what you’ll do when you’re broke, isn’t it?” He finished his beer and held the empty up toward the bartender, asking for another. “Pete’s paying,” he told the man, then turned back to the woman, who’d gone back to staring at her whiskey. “I’m Shane Laughlin. From San Diego.”

She sighed and finished her drink, pushing the empty glass toward the far edge of the bar and pulling her second closer to her and taking a sip.

“So what are you doing in Boston, Shane?” he asked for her, as if she actually cared. “Wow, that’s a good question. I’m former Navy. I haven’t been out all that long, and I’ve been having some trouble finding a job. I got a lead on something short term—here in Boston. I actually start tomorrow. How about you? Are you local?”

When she turned and looked at him, her eyes were finally filled with life. It was a life that leaned a little heavy on the anger and disgust, but that was better than the flat nothing she’d given him earlier. “You seriously think I don’t know that you’re slumming?”

Shane laughed his surprise. “What?”

“You heard what I said and you know what I meant.”

“Wow. If anyone’s slumming here … Did you miss the part of the conversation where I admitted to being the loser who can’t find a job?”

“You and how many millions of Americans?” she asked. “Except
it’s a shocker for you, isn’t it, Navy? You’ve never
not
been in demand—you probably went into the military right out of high school and … Plus, you were an officer, right? I can smell it on you.” She narrowed her eyes as if his being an officer was a terrible thing.

“Yeah, I was officer.” He dropped his biggest bomb. “In the SEAL teams.”

She looked him dead in the eye as it bounced. “Big fucking deal, Dixie-Cup. You’re out now. Welcome to the real world, where things don’t always go your way.”

He laughed—because what she’d just said
was
pretty funny. “You obviously have no idea what a SEAL does.”

“I don’t,” she admitted. “No one does. Not since the military entered the government’s cone of silence.”

“I specialized in things not going my way,” Shane told her.

“So why’d you leave, then?” she asked, and when he didn’t answer right away, she toasted him with her drink and drained it. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“I’m proud of what I did—what I was,” he said quietly. “Even now.
Especially
now. But you’re right—partly right. About the shock. I had no idea how bad
bad
could be, before I was … kicked out and blacklisted.” Her head came up at that. “So, see,
you’re
the one who’s slumming. You could get into trouble just for talking to me.”

She was looking at him now—really looking. “What exactly did you do?”

Shane looked back at her, directly into those eyes as he thought about his team, about Rick and Owen, about Slinger and Johnny, and yes, Magic, too.… “I disobeyed a direct order—which is something I did all the time out in the world, as a SEAL team CO. But this time? It was apparently unforgivable. And that, combined with my need to speak truth, even to power, and my inability to grovel and appropriately kiss ass … It got ugly. In the end, someone had to go, so …” He shrugged, still convinced after all these hard months that he’d done the right thing. “I was stripped of my rank and command—and dishonorably discharged.”

She sat there, gazing at him. His answer had been rather vague and even cryptic, but it was still more than he’d told anyone since it had happened. So he just waited, looking back at her, until she finally asked, “So what do you want from me?”

There were so many possible answers to that question, but Shane went with honesty. “I saw you come in and I thought … Maybe you’re looking for the same thing I am. And since I find you unbelievably attractive …”

She smiled at that, and even though it was a rueful smile, it transformed her. “Yeah, actually, you don’t. I mean, you think you find me … But …” She shook her head.

Shane leaned forward. “I’m pretty sure you don’t know what I’m thinking.” He tried to let her see it in his eyes, though—the fact that he was thinking about how it would feel for both of them with his tongue in her mouth, with her hands in his hair, her legs locked around him as he pushed himself home.

He reached out to touch her—nothing too aggressive or invasive—just the back of one finger against the narrow gracefulness of her wrist.

But just like that, the vaguely fuzzy picture in his head slammed into sharp focus, and she was moving against him, naked in his arms, and, Christ, he was seconds from release as he gazed into her incredible eyes.…

Shane sat back so fast that he knocked over his bottle of beer. He fumbled after it, grabbing it and, because it had been nearly full, the foam volcanoed out of the top. He covered it with his mouth, taking a long swig, grateful for the cold liquid, aware as hell that he’d gone from semi-aroused to fully locked and loaded, in the beat of a heart.

What the hell?

Yeah, it had been a long time since he’d gotten some, but
damn
.

His nameless new friend had pushed her stool slightly back from the bar—away from him—and she was now frowning down at her injured foot, rotating her ankle. She then looked up at him, and the world seemed to tilt. Because there was heat in her eyes, too. Heat and surprise and speculation and …

Absolute possibility.

“I’m Mac,” she told him as she tossed back the remains of her final drink. “And I don’t usually do this, but … I’ve got a place, just around the corner.”

She was already pulling on her jacket, putting on her scarf and hat.

As if his going with her was a given. As if there were no way in hell that he’d turn her down.

Shane was already off the stool and grabbing his own jacket, as she—Mac—went out the door. Her limp was less pronounced—apparently the whiskey had done her some good. In fact, she was moving pretty quickly. He had to hustle to keep up.

“Hey,” he said, as they hit the street, and the bar door closed behind him. “Um, Mac? Maybe we should find, you know, a dealer? I’m not carrying any um … So unless you have, you know …” He cleared his throat.

She stopped walking and looked up at him. Standing there on the sidewalk, he was aware of how much bigger and taller he was. She was tiny—and significantly younger than he’d thought. More like twenty-two, instead of pushing thirty, the way he’d figured her to be, back in the bar.

Or maybe it was just the glow from the dim streetlight, making her look like youthful beauty and desire personified.

“Why do men have a problem saying
the pill
?” she asked.

Shane laughed. “It’s not the words,” he told her. “It’s the concept. See, what if I’d misunderstood and—”

“You didn’t. And FYI, this is Massachusetts. It’s still legal here. No need to back-alley it.”

“Well, good. But … we still need … some.”

She smiled, and Jesus, she was beautiful. “Don’t worry, I got it handled.” Her gaze became a once-over that was nearly palpable, lingering for a moment on the unmistakable bulge beneath the button-fly of his jeans. She looked back into his eyes. “Or I will, soon enough.”

No doubt about it, his luck had changed.

“Please promise that you’re not luring me back to your apartment
with the intention of locking me in chains and keeping me as your love slave,” he said. “Or—wait. Maybe what I really want is for you to promise that you
are
.”

She laughed at that. “You’re not my type for long-term imprisonment,” she told him. But then she stood on her toes, tugging at the front of his jacket so that he leaned down. She was going to kiss him and they both knew it, but she took her time and he let her, just waiting as she looked into his eyes, as she brought her mouth up and softly brushed her lips against his.

Shane closed his eyes—God, it was sweet—as he let himself be kissed again, and then again. And this time, she tasted him, her tongue against his lips. He opened his mouth, and then, Christ, it wasn’t sweet, it was pure hunger, white-hot and overwhelming, and he pulled her hard into his arms, even as she clung to him, trying to get even closer.

The world could’ve exploded around him and he wouldn’t have cared. He wouldn’t have looked up—wouldn’t have stopped kissing her.

And through all the layers of clothing, their jackets, their pants, his shorts, and whatever she had on beneath her cargo BDUs—God, he couldn’t wait to find out what she wore for underwear—Shane felt her stomach, warm and taut against his erection, and just that distant contact was enough to bring him teetering dangerously close to the edge.

And by the time he made sense of that information and formed a vaguely coherent thought—holy shit, just kissing this woman was enough to make him crazy—it was almost too late.

Almost. But only because she pulled away from him. She was laughing, her incredible eyes dancing as she looked up at him. As if she knew exactly what he was feeling.

She held out her gloved hand for him, so he took it, and then—bad ankle be damned—she pulled him forward.

And together, they started to run.

Anna’s cell phone rang at a little before midnight, and she dug through her backpack for it, even though it wasn’t Nika’s ring.

The word
private
appeared on the phone’s tiny screen instead of a typical ten-digit number, and she took a deep breath before answering, half-dreading and half-hoping that Nika’s abductors were on the other end with their ransom demands.

“This is Anna Taylor,” she said, hoping she sounded less exhausted and more in control than she was currently feeling, having repeatedly and fruitlessly walked the route from Cambridge Academy to the tiny studio apartment that she and Nika shared.

Her breath hung in the cold night air as she closed her eyes, waiting, hoping …

“Miss Taylor, this is Dr. Joseph Bach from the Obermeyer Institute. One of my colleagues informed me that you’ve filed a missing persons report for your sister, Nika?”

Whoever he was, his voice was pleasant. It was evenly modulated, and it hinted at formal training—his elocution was quite good.
Moses supposes his toeses are roses. Singin’ in the Rain
, that old movie about old movies, was one of Nika’s favorites.

Maybe Dr. Bach was an elderly man in good health, with still-excellent breath-control.

But he’d asked her a question.

“Yes, I did,” Anna answered quickly after that long and probably
strange pause. “My sister didn’t come home from school this afternoon. And yes, I know she hasn’t been missing for that long, and that she’s thirteen and capable of breaking rules, but she’s not …”
Normal
, she’d been about to say. But that made Nika seem like a freak, and she wasn’t. “Prone to going off the radar like this,” she said instead. “Not ever. She’s a good kid, and she knows I’ve made a lot of sacrifices for her to go to Cambridge Academy. She’s a scholarship student there. We’re not wealthy.”

She emphasized that last bit, just in case he was one of those
citizen detectives
—the kind who’d snatched Nika up in the first place.

“I’m aware of that,” he said. “I’m outside of your apartment, and I know you’re not here, that you’re probably still searching for your sister, but it’s important that you spare a moment to talk with me. If you tell me where you are I’ll—”

“Do you know where Nika is?” Anna was just around the corner from her building, and she began walking again, picking up her pace.

He hesitated. Just a little. “Not exactly.”

“What does
that
mean?”

Another pause. “It means I have an idea as to who took her—and why she was taken. But I don’t know precisely where she’s being held. Not yet. Miss Taylor, it’s urgent that—”

“Who took her?” Anna demanded as she crossed the street. Her building was in sight, and she could now see a tall, slender man in a long, dark overcoat, with his phone to his ear, standing on the sidewalk out in front. She slowed her pace. He was unaccompanied—or at least he appeared to be. Still …

She was suddenly very aware that she was alone on a dark, deserted street. And that at least one of the neighbors she’d met in her apartment building this evening had been some kind of drug addict. Meth, probably. The woman’s teeth had been terrible.

“It’s … complicated,” Dr. Bach told her, turning to look directly at her, even though she was moving quietly and he couldn’t possibly have heard her approach.

“I’m pretty smart,” she said, closing her phone as she stopped
a safe-feeling ten yards from him. If she had to, she could run, and she was fast. “Why don’t you try me?”

He wasn’t elderly. Not even close. His shoulder-length hair was dark and his eyes were brown, and the phrase
black Irish
came to mind, although, really, that meant his eyes should have been blue. Despite the brown eyes, his complexion was properly United-Kingdom-pale, his face lean, his features strong yet aristocratically perfect.

Cruel lips.

Anna had read that description once, in a romance novel. The hero had had
elegantly cruel lips
. She’d always thought that was a load of hyperbolic bull. Or at least she had before tonight.

Nika would’ve thought that Dr. Joseph Bach, with his elegantly cruel lips and pale complexion, looked like a vampire. The hot kind, with a soul—like Angel or Spike from
Buffy
.

And had Anna been just a few years younger, and had her fear and worry for her little sister not been consuming her, she might’ve agreed. This man
was
unnaturally handsome. But since there were no such things as vampires, either with or without souls, and since she was solidly grounded here in this current dreadful-enough-without-demons-and-monsters reality, he looked like
exactly
what he was—a slightly tired, very good-looking young man who no doubt knew all about the incredible stress that came with a missing child, and who purposely spoke and dressed the part of the gallant prince in a fairy tale, come to the rescue.