In the Crossfire (Bloodhaven) (9 page)

Liam stared, trying not to imagine pulling her tank down to expose more of those perfect round breasts. Tried not to imagine the color of her nipples, or tasting the salt of them when slick with the sweat of passion.

Get it together, Whelan.

It was all he needed, to get caught staring at her breasts with a visible hard-on tenting his jeans. He shifted his stance, skin itching ferociously.

He didn’t want her to see him like this. Yes, she’d seen the scars on his face and around his wrists. She’d never mentioned them. But this was different. He had no armor now, lacked the protection of even a simple cotton shirt.

He was used to covering himself up in the presence of others. It was a lesson he’d had no choice but to learn, after he kept receiving stares and shudders and speculation about the state of his body whenever he’d removed his clothes.

At first, it’d been because he’d been gaunt with his ribs sticking out. Being a prisoner of war did that to you, chiseled away at your muscle mass and anything else needed for the sake of survival. The recovery period had been treacherously slow.

But even after he’d regained weight, the morbid curiosity had remained. Questions persisted unabashedly about his captivity, hounding him incessantly. They invariably wanted to know what he’d gone through, what the whole experience was like. They wanted all the juicy details.

What do you think it was like? It was bloody fucking war.

He had no magnificent stories of heroism to tell. None that he wanted to share.

And then when he’d hit the road and his sheer ferocity was enough to keep random strangers at bay, he heard their unspoken questions anyway.

What did they do to you?

How did you get that?

Can’t you do something about it?

Can you get rid of this one?

Why do you keep them at all?

He’d have to go in for cosmetic surgery in order to remedy the thick and angry scar tissues, and Liam had sworn never to go under the knife—any knife—again.

He felt exposed as Isobel neared. He’d never let himself go shirtless in her presence before. Wouldn’t permit himself. Hadn’t wanted her to remember him that way.

It was so easy, Liam thought, to look at Isobel and forget to breathe.

The first time he’d come face-to-face with her, his pulse had kicked into high gear. When he’d stepped forward to introduce himself, it wasn’t enough that he’d had to bring his hoarse, long-unused vocal cords under control. He’d had to mentally brace himself for the full impact of
her.

Sometimes looking at Isobel was like looking at the sun: stare too long and he’d begin to hurt.

He could’ve kept on moving.

Could have.

But the dreams, though still vicious, didn’t invade as often while he was here. Here, he could finally tread water, instead of be consumed by the never-ending drowning sensation that had been sucking him under for the past several years.

Maybe when the drowning sensation returned, he’d pack his bag and go.

Maybe.

Isobel raised a hand in greeting as she walked up to the clearing. A freshly laundered scent followed her, and Liam saw that she carried the T-shirt and boxers he’d lent Naley yesterday.

“I came to return your clothes.” Her full lips twisted wryly.

Liam had no choice but to step out in the morning light to retrieve them. Of course, it wasn’t as if her sharp eyes could’ve failed to take in every inch of him from a distance anyway. He didn’t meet her gaze as he took the clothes from her. He waited for her to leave.

She didn’t move.

Liam forced himself to lift his head. He looked up to see Isobel staring at his bare chest.

Shame coursed through him. It was quickly followed by the red-hot flash of anger. She had no right to be here, not without giving plenty of notice. She had no right to invade his sanctuary. She had no right to see him exposed so cruelly.

Her expression, so often cool and giving nothing away, was especially, carefully neutral now. Liam knew what she saw, however. She couldn’t miss the dark, jagged lines criss-crossing his left ribcage. She couldn’t help but take full inventory of the broken surface of his torso, parting gifts from the surgical blades his captors had used on him. Nor could she miss the teeth marks that had torn out a good deal of flesh from his waist.

That didn’t even include the hypertrophic scars and irretrievable burn marks scattered across his back.

Liam clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. He counted down the endless minutes until this humiliation ended.

Then he heard a hitch in her breath, and Liam’s head jerked up. He forced himself to take a closer look. He was stunned to see a rosy flush spread across Isobel’s cheeks.

In that moment, he saw that her eyes weren’t cool and distant at all. In fact, they flared with sudden heat, the hazel darkening to a greenish bronze as they traced the corded biceps of his arms, down to the sharp lines of his torso and traveling the ripples of his abdomen.

When her gaze followed the thin line of hair below his navel, right to where it disappeared below his jeans, Liam instantly grew hard, felt himself rise in eager greeting.

He heard her suck her breath in quite audibly. Her breasts began a shallow, uneven rhythm of rise and fall beneath her fitted tank.

Liam was speechless.

Of course, he never knew what to say to this woman, but in this instance, he
definitely
didn’t know what to say to this woman.

There was no denying he’d entertained a myriad of lustful images starring Isobel Saba over the past several months. Isobel, dressed head-to-toe in that leather she loved so much. Isobel, bent over his kitchen table, dressed in nothing at all. Isobel, backing him into his bed before straddling him for a wild ride.

In his head, there’d be no need for words. Their lips and tongues and teeth would come together in a wild, riotous clash of emotions. He would have her under him, her body writhing madly as he buried his mouth between her legs. In his head, he knew exactly what to do to make her come.

Those scenarios had always remained strictly in the realm of fantasy, as there’d been no reason for Liam to think—to
allow
himself to think—that the calm and collected Isobel would ever want him as much as he craved her.

Women didn’t look at him that way.
Isobel
didn’t look at him that way.

He’d thought her uninterested, and so had let her be. Left himself to his own fantastical devices. But he’d been wrong. She was very, very aware of him as a man.

Liam’s mouth went dry. Absurdly, irrationally, he considered walking around shirtless more often. He felt himself grow hot, and this time not from shame.

He hadn’t scented her desire. Still didn’t scent it. It made no sense.

He was confused, aroused, interested—all those hard instincts and disbelieving emotions tumbled around in a huge jumbled mess before being brought sharply to attention.

Then Isobel shook her head and quickly stepped back. The cool, casual, noncommittal look returned, affixing itself on her face. Her shoulders went back. Neither of them commented on the awkward, weighted silence that followed.

Finally Isobel canted her head to one side. “Jackal?”

Liam frowned before realizing she was looking at a particular set of scars by his ribs. Lithe fingers started to lift toward him before she swiftly dropped them to her side.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, voice rough. “Black-backed.”

Isobel looked suitably impressed. In the pause that followed, Liam waited for her to ask about the other, more vicious scars, the cruel kisses left behind by his captors.

Instead, she lifted her right arm, gesturing at a row of scars that ran down her deltoid and across her triceps. “Side-striped jackal.”

Liam stepped forward. This time it was he who instinctively raised his hand. He froze and glanced at Isobel, but she made no objection. Her regard turned hooded, mysterious, giving nothing away. He gently tipped her arm up for a better view. His fingers felt rough on her clean, soft skin.

A section of those scars didn’t correspond with teeth imprints. Instead, the raised marks trailed to a jagged curve on her inner arm, closer to her armpit.

“Incisor caught on my implant,” she explained. “Ripped it right out. Hurt like hell.”

Implant?

For an instant Liam was filled with both horror and confusion, wondering when Isobel had served in the war, when she’d been captured, what had been done to her.

Then he realized she was talking about contraceptive implants. Many shifter females had them inserted into their upper inner arm as a form of birth control, one that regulated their heat cycles much more effectively. Human women opted for contra-shots every few months.

Liam withdrew his hand and stepped back, struggling to control his breathing. Something must’ve crossed his expression, though, because Isobel’s wry look faded as she slowly lowered her arm. Her eyes ran over his body once more before returning to meet his wary gaze.

“It must’ve been hard,” she said quietly.

He said nothing. He’d never discussed any of it with her. He didn’t know what details she was already aware of, what information she’d dug up on him that he wasn’t ready to discuss.

“Scars are a warrior’s badge of honor.”

Liam flinched. So she preferred the direct hit, then.

Trust Isobel to think in terms of a warrior. He wasn’t a warrior. He was a carpenter with a gift for tracking who got caught up in a whirlwind of bloodshed and death, emerging from that storm with shaky legs and ghosts in his eyes.

“There was no honor in what we did,” he said harshly.

Her gaze never wavered. “Sometimes we have no choice. We do what we have to do and then pay the price.”

“Yeah?” He was angry now. He didn’t even know whether he was angry at Isobel or himself. “What’s yours? What’s the price you paid?”

She didn’t reply. She just looked at him in that way, all too knowing, as if she was already tearing right into his soul and spilling all his secrets out into the open.

Liam took a step back. “Do scars do it for you?” he shot at her, words firing like an automatic beyond his control. “Is that how you get your kicks?”

He’d met women like those. Women with a morbid fascination for the broken, who lusted eagerly for the defective. Just so they could revel in their pain. Whether it was a scarred face or an amputated limb, as long as the spirit was crushed or they were incoherent with pain. That was all it took to get their jollies.

As soon as the words escaped him, however, he instantly wished them back. He wished everything goddamn fucking back.

Isobel’s gaze shuttered. The coolness returned, even chillier than before.

Liam could already feel her withdrawal, even though she didn’t move so much as a step.

“Thank you for staying with Naley last night,” she told him, her tone flat. “I spoke with her this morning. You don’t have to worry about her bothering you again.”

“It’s no bother,” Liam mumbled through a mouth that felt nailed shut. Bleeding shut.

He wondered if Isobel would deactivate his access code now. Wondered if she’d ask him to get the hell out of here. Wondered, bleakly, where he’d go this time.

Isobel didn’t say goodbye, or farewell, or see-you-later. She just turned around and walked away.

* * *

“Still no word from Jamal?” Malcolm asked.

Isobel shook her head as she maneuvered over to the next lane. Around them, vehicles parted warily at the sight of the Council SUV.

She had an uneasy feeling about this. They’d had nothing but radio silence from Jamal and his team ever since they’d taken off in search of Rupert and Pierry Ogden two days ago. It wasn’t unusual for agents to go incommunicado, depending on how far under they went on a mission. Still, Isobel hadn’t expected them to take this long, especially since the collars the Ogdens wore were GPS-trackable.

Isobel didn’t like leaving things hanging. It ate at her, having to hand one of her missions off to another agent, even if she did trust Jamal completely. He was a stellar agent, and they’d worked side-by-side several times. There was no one else Isobel would rather have at her back.

Of course, trust didn’t necessarily mean a thing. Take Liam, for instance. They’d lived within shouting distance for over a year, and she’d let him have the run of the place, taking care of her property—hell, taking care of Naley, for that matter, that one day—and apparently all along he thought she had a fetish for damaged warriors.

Hell. It was a good thing she hadn’t let on the degree of her attraction all this while, if
that
was how he was going to take it.

She could’ve kicked herself for failing to hide her interest when she’d approached him yesterday morning. Of course, she’d known all along that Liam was good quality eye-candy. It was hard not to already be aware of that fact. But then he’d had to have his shirt off, skin hot and glistening from his morning’s exertions, with a hard, muscular body just begging for a woman to run her hands all over it. How the hell was she supposed to have resisted that?