Ignited (Titanium Security Series) (8 page)

The instant it closed he was on top of her again, flattening her facedown against the leather seat. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Hold on,” Gage said as he reversed and shot the vehicle backward at an alarming speed, the engine revving high and loud. Above her, Hunter took her hands, setting one against the doorframe and the other against the back of the front seat.

“Brace yourself,” he commanded.

For what?
she wanted to yell but couldn’t get the words out and did as he said. A second later Gage cranked the wheel hard to the right. The truck spun in a sickening half circle, sending Khalia sliding along the slippery leather toward the door.

She cried out and pushed back with her straightened right arm, but Hunter was there. He caught her, bolstering her with his weight and strength as he struggled to hold them in place against the wild swing of the vehicle. The squeal of tires registered for a moment, then she heard Gage shift the transmission and they were driving forward once again, racing away from the scene.

A tense minute passed before Hunter finally let her up. She slowly peeled herself off the seat and pushed into a sitting position with shaky arms. Her scraped cheek and palms stung and she’d be covered in bruises by morning, but at least she was still alive and in one piece.

She still couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.

A hard arm reached around her waist to drag the seatbelt across her body and snap it into the buckle. Immediately she wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to stem the violent shivers wracking her and risked a glance over at Hunter. His gaze was intense, the look in his eyes frightening, but that didn’t scare her as much as what she heard him mutter under his breath when he looked away from her to stare out the window.

“Welcome to Pakistan.”

Chapter Five

Khalia somehow managed to put one sore bare foot in front of the other despite the rigidity in her muscles as Hunter steered her into her hotel room. The lock clicked into place behind them, sounding overly loud to her heightened senses. Her heart rate still hadn’t normalized. She took slow, deep breaths to calm herself. It wasn’t working.

“Let’s take a look at you,” he said, ushering her into the bathroom with a solid hand on the small of her back. The warmth of his touch registered more than his voice did. She winced when he flipped a switch and bright white lights flooded the room. With a nudge forward he settled her on the closed toiled lid and grabbed a facecloth from the rack above it. He ran the tap and moistened it before turning back to her. “Here. Clean up your cheek while I check your feet.”

Feeling stiff all over, Khalia turned her head to look at herself in the wide rectangular mirror above the vanity. Her eyes looked huge in her too pale face and the side of her right cheek was scraped up to the temple. It was raw and oozing from being mashed against the sidewalk. And it could easily have been so much worse.

Lowering her gaze, she pressed the cool cloth to her cheek, ignoring the sudden sting. Hunter was crouched at her feet, one bronzed hand reaching for her left ankle. She put out an arm to stop him, recoiling from the intimacy. She was a heartbeat away from bursting into tears. Having him touch her right now, even if only to check for injuries, would be too much. “They’re fine.”

He raised his eyes to hers, that steady gaze sending a jolt of heated interest through her overloaded system. “They’re bleeding. I want to make sure there aren’t any bits of shrapnel in them.”

She repressed a shudder and pulled her foot back. “I can do it.”

He brushed her hand away with an impatient motion and grasped her ankle in a warm grip. “Just sit still and let me look.”

Pushing out a sigh, Khalia allowed him to cradle her foot in his hands, unsettled at the way his touch sent streaks of sensation up her legs. How could he be so calm and steady when it felt like she was going to shake apart? It was easier to keep a leash on her emotions when there wasn’t any physical contact between them.

The way he touched her, so gently despite his rough exterior, made her ache to lean forward and wrap her arms around that sturdy neck. She longed to feel his strong arms around her in return, locking out the rest of the world. She wanted that so badly she almost gave into the urge to reach for him.

He killed the impulse by stretching an arm out above her for another facecloth, wetting it also before turning his attention back to her right foot. “It’s scraped up some.” After wiping the sensitive bottom of her foot he took the left one in his large hand, holding it up so he could see the sole in the light. “There’s a splinter of something,” he murmured, and a moment later pulled something sharp out of her foot.

Her toes pointed in reflex and she sucked in a breath. A tiny shard of metal glinted between his fingers as he held it up for her to see. Then he turned her left hand over and set it in her scraped palm before going back to search for others.

She stared at the fragment with detached revulsion, wondering where it had come from. The building? One of the exploding trucks? A first responder’s vehicle? Feeling sick again, she dumped it on the counter with a tiny rattling sound.

“One more, but it’s deeper. Hang on a sec.” He shifted onto one knee and dug in his back pocket, coming up with a jackknife loaded with all sorts of tools. With a pair of tweezers at the ready he took hold of her foot again and looked up at her. “This is gonna hurt, but I need to get it out before it buries itself in there and causes more problems.”

Khalia nodded and clenched her hands in the folds of her dress. The light blue cotton was torn in several places and stained with dirt from where she’d hit the ground. The right shoulder seam was barely holding together. She pressed her lips together and fought not to wriggle when the tips of the tweezers dug into her tender flesh.

“Sorry,” he said without glancing up at her, forehead furrowed in concentration. “It’s a ways in there.”

“It’s fine,” she murmured, wishing he’d just hurry up and get it over with already. Having him kneeling at her feet made her feel silly and only intensified the need for the feel of his arms around her. But he’d made it clear where the line between them stood, so she wanted him to leave so she could lock the door and be alone for a while to get herself together.

It took a few minutes for Hunter to get the remaining fragment out of the side of her instep. This one hurt more than the other and she tensed. He set the shard on the vanity and she relaxed, ignoring the painful stinging. “Your tetanus vaccines up to date?”

“Yes.” This was such an insane conversation. Untold numbers of people had just been blown up, and she and Hunter almost with them. If they’d been any closer to the blasts… She swallowed and wrapped her arms around herself, fighting off another bout of shivers that kept rolling through her.

Hunter didn’t miss her reaction. “If your legs are steady enough after this I’d recommend a hot shower. It’ll help with the shaking,” he offered, again without looking at her. She was glad for the small amount of privacy it afforded her. The truth was she was freaking terrified and barely holding her emotions in check. Only the fear of humiliating herself in front of Hunter kept her true reaction at bay. He’d protected her with his own body and she hated the thought of seeming weak and emotional in front of him. He was calm, decisive, had been even during the bombings. His hands were completely steady as he tended to her feet. The pulse in his throat was slow and steady.

It was as though the explosions hadn’t affected him at all.

She didn’t even want to think about what sort of training, or what he must have seen in the field during his time in the military that would enable him to compartmentalize such a horrific event so easily.

After pulling a third and final fragment out of her skin, Hunter pressed the washcloth to her foot until the bleeding stopped, then stood and rinsed the tweezers in the sink. His elbows were raw and bloody, the heels of his hands scraped raw. Her impulse was to tend to him in return, but knew he’d rebuff her help with some gruff comment that would make her feel even worse so she stayed silent.

He searched her eyes before speaking again, as if gauging her emotional state. She bit down hard to stop her jaw from trembling. “Make sure you wash out all those cuts and scrapes as best you can when you shower. With soap if you can handle it.”

Yeah, she could handle the sting of soap in her cuts and scrapes. What she couldn’t handle was what had just happened—what could have happened if they’d been any closer—and his calm apathy right now. She lowered the facecloth from her cheek, tossed it onto the granite vanity with a fleshy plop, and asked the question burning a hole in her brain. “That wasn’t… You don’t think that had anything to do with Fair Start, do you?”

Hunter shook his hands in the bowl of the sink and reached for the hand towel hanging from a ring in the wall next to the light switch. In the mirror, he met her gaze. “Highly doubt it. There are a lot of foreign dignitaries in town, so maybe the government buildings were a temptation too great to pass up. Whoever did it had it planned well in advance though. Packing two separate trucks with that amount of explosive and finding their way to an open route in that mess?” He shook his head, the light casting bronze-tinted highlights in his dark hair. “Either they got lucky with the accident clogging up traffic, or they set it up that way in the first place. My money’s on the second guess.”

She shivered at the certainty in his voice, in his eyes. She looked away before he could see the fear in her own. “Thanks for getting those splinters out.” Her feet stung and throbbed along with the rest of her, but mostly she just felt cold and tired and…numb.

Rather than answer, he leaned a hip against the edge of the vanity and folded his arms across his chest, regarding her in silence. After a long pause she looked up at him.

“You okay?” he asked quietly. The genuine concern in his voice nearly undid her.

Not even close.
“Yeah.” What did he expect her to say? It had to be obvious how rattled she was. Maybe she was crazy, but for a second she thought she saw a gleam of admiration in his eyes.

“Trust me, a hot shower will help get rid of the shakes. Take your time and make sure you keep warm when you get out. I’ll send you some antibacterial ointment and band aids and something to eat.” She made a face at the thought of eating but he continued. “Ray will want to see you as soon as he gets back. You’ll need to eat, even if you don’t feel like it. It’ll help boost your blood sugar and counteract the shock.” He sounded like he spoke from experience and he likely did.

Nodding in reply, she held her breath while he crossed to the door where he paused and looked back at her. “You’re safe now and everything’s fine. Gage and I are just down the hall if you need anything, okay?”

That glimpse of understanding, of that tiny bit of softness from him made her throat tighten. “Okay.” It came out a mere whisper.

When the door closed behind him with a solid click, Khalia gave up the pretense of being brave and slumped forward. She buried her face in her trembling hands and let the shudders and tears run through her.

By the time she’d calmed enough to shower and finish dressing, almost half an hour had passed. A knock came at the door. Expecting it to be Ray, she was surprised to find Gage standing on the other side of the peephole. “Hey,” she said, standing back to let him in.

His bright blue gaze swept over her in a quick assessment, taking in her damp hair and yoga pants, the thick knit sweater she’d wrapped around herself to keep warm. “Brought you some stuff for your feet.” He handed her the ointment and bandages Hunter had promised. The pang of disappointment that he’s sent Gage instead of bringing them himself caught her off guard.
He’s not going to come back and coddle you, for crying out loud. Get over it.

“Thanks.” She sat on the edge of her queen-size bed and started bandaging the cuts on her feet.

Gage stuck his hands in his back pockets, obviously in no hurry to leave. Had Hunter asked him to stay with her? “So, how you holding up?”

She stopped what she was doing to meet his eyes. Did he want her to lie? “Honestly? I’m not sure.”

A wry grin curved his mouth. “Not the nicest introduction to Pakistan.”