Midnight Promises (12 page)

“After she’s rested, she’s going to have to look at a lot of footage and nobody else can do it for her.” Metal’s deep voice chimed in. “Airport, hotel. If she finds the guy in the footage it’ll go to facial recognition databases. That’s all stuff she has to do and the computer systems have to do. Come over when you get back from Timberline.” He glanced at her, his gaze like a sudden wash of heat, then focused again on Lauren. “She’ll feel better by the time you guys get back. Promise.”

Lauren nodded. “Yeah, okay.” She rubbed her cheek against Felicity’s. “You’ll be fine here,” she whispered.

Felicity squeezed her hand. She would. She felt utterly safe with Metal. Though she felt something else too, something so new and scary she wasn’t sure she welcomed it.

Patting Lauren’s hand, she smiled up at her. “I’ll be fine. I told you. Right now I feel like sleeping for a week.”

Metal’s voice was hard. “Felicity is going to sleep and eat and do nothing else for the foreseeable future. Except check footage when we get it.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she sighed. Some switch somewhere had flipped and she was exhausted. The restorative effects of sleep and good food had worn off. She had to fight to keep from laying her head down on the table and falling asleep again.

“Okay.” Jacko clapped his hands and stood, taking Lauren’s elbow in what looked like an affectionate but unbreakable grip. He looked down at her and Felicity could so easily see what he was feeling. He probably imagined himself a tough guy who didn’t show emotions but she had grown up with Russians who had a thousand emotions a day. He wasn’t hard to read at all. He liked her but he loved Lauren. So to the extent that Lauren cared for her, he was okay with everything. But he was not okay with anything violent touching Lauren.

Man, Felicity was down with that. She didn’t want anything to touch Lauren either. Lauren had had enough violence for ten lifetimes.

Metal and Jacko had had violence in their lives, too, but every line of their bodies showed that they were perfectly equipped to deal with it.

“Take care,” Lauren said. Jacko held her coat up for her, and then they left.

It was late afternoon and the weather was scary bad. The sky was already dark, swollen with bruised-looking clouds. When Lauren opened the door to leave, Felicity saw huge icy snowflakes blowing diagonally and a gust of cold air blew in. There were several inches of snow on the ground.

That was fine. Snow was in her DNA. God knew how many Darin ancestors had lived through seven-month winters. Snowstorms didn’t scare her. When the weather reports indicated snow and cold coming to Vermont, she just planned to spend even more days in the house than normal.

Thinking about it now, though, she realized that she never acknowledged the sadness that had laced through her at the thought of spending days and days on her own without hearing a human voice that didn’t come through a screen.

Now? Now she had Metal who was going to look after her. She could be weak and it wouldn’t matter.

“To bed with you.” It was as if he was reading her mind. “Lauren brought you some stuff from her house. A winter coat and yoga pants and sweaters and socks and underwear and stuff. You’re a little taller than she is but you both have more or less the same build. So you’ll have some stuff to put on when you wake up.”

He looked her up and down thoroughly. Usually Felicity didn’t like scrutiny. For as long as she could remember, her family had avoided any kind of attention. But this didn’t feel like scrutiny, it felt like…appreciation. Male appreciation.

And it felt delicious.

She shivered and that gleam in his eye was instantly replaced by concern. “You’re cold. I’ll turn the heat up. In the meantime let’s get you back to bed with some hot tea.”

Without even questioning it, Metal bent and picked her up, as if she had lost the use of her legs. Maybe she had. Between feeling weak because she’d been stabbed and feeling weak every time Metal got close, she didn’t trust herself to walk back into the bedroom.

There was no thought involved, she simply reached up and wound her arms around his neck as he picked her up and carried her through the living room to the bedroom. Time slowed to a crawl.

She was aware of every single thing, with a shocking intensity. Mostly she lived inside her own head. She could finish a meal and not realize what she’d just eaten, at any given moment she wouldn’t remember how she was dressed. She could spend entire days without noticing the time going by.

Now everything was hyperintense, each object glowing, a heaviness to the air, every second imprinted in her brain.

Just as when he carried her into the kitchen, Felicity was aware of the play of Metal’s muscles against her arms and her side as he walked easily into the bedroom. Everything was saturated with color, deeper and richer. With her nose so close to his neck, she could smell him. Nothing overt like a cologne, more like soap and man and something delicious that was probably sex. She nearly sighed at the thought.

Though she was weak and wounded, though she’d only just met him, Felicity recognized—more from reading novels than actual personal experience—that she was wildly attracted to this man. It didn’t have any known rational reason behind it, it just was. He wasn’t in any way good-looking. His features were rough, his nose was crooked, his skin was weather-beaten, which made him look a little older than he probably was.

Her hormones didn’t care.

Because the entire outer package was pure sex. He hadn’t even really done anything, either, other than a few looks that could be interpreted as male interest.

She knew she wasn’t ugly and she’d had more than her share of male interest. It was rarely reciprocated. Mainly she dated nerds and had gone to bed with a few in entirely unmemorable encounters lasting, on average, about five minutes, start to end. As a matter of fact, overt male stares made her uncomfortable and was one of the reasons she mainly just stayed home.

But, wow. This time she
was
interested. Her entire body had turned into an erogenous zone so that yes, her womb and her breasts felt warm and heavy—right out of the romance novel playbook—but she also tingled in the most unlikely places. The insides of her arms, for example. Where they touched Metal’s shoulder muscles. Boy, were they turned on. The backs of her knees held in the crook of his elbows, they were sitting up and taking notice too.

Her nose twitched with the desire to rub against the skin of his neck and just inhale.

Being sliced open had messed with her. Her attacker had somehow sliced her heart open, too, because feelings and sensations she’d never had before were pouring in.

This was crazy, to feel so intensely for a man she knew nothing about except for the fact that he was the friend of her friend’s friend. And was brave. And amazingly sexy.

Crazy.

They reached the bedroom and Metal put her down on her feet, keeping one big arm around her. The only light inside the bedroom was a dim lamp on the Shaker dresser. Metal was visible more in outline than anything else, tall, broad-shouldered, his face in shadow.

Oh God, in letting her slide down she’d brushed against the slabs of his chest and abs and…a definite bulge. He was paying no attention to his own body as he pulled down the covers and eased her under them, pulling the covers back up over her.

He ran the back of a long finger down her face. “I’m going to make you some tea and after that I want you to rest.”

Felicity nodded, unsure how to respond.

She had no experience being looked after. Zero. Her mother had been an interesting and intellectually gifted woman with no motherly instincts at all. Felicity couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked after her, fussed over her. The last time someone had said “you should rest
.
” There were no responses in her tool kit other than staying very still. Feeling his finger against her skin, watching him watching her.

Ice suddenly beat against the windowpane and she gave a little start. She usually disappeared when working at the computer, and she wasn’t used to being so focused on someone else that she forgot the outside world

Metal’s face didn’t give her any clue as to what he was thinking. Was she this chore he’d been landed with?
Here
,
take care of Lauren’s friend because you know medicine and can change dressings and besides
,
where else can she go?

Did he mind having her invade his space, take up his time?

God. Did he have a girlfriend he was going to have to explain things to?
Hey
,
honey
,
listen.
Sorry
,
there’s this girl in my bed.
No
,
it’s not what you think.
She landed on Lauren’s doorstep wounded with someone after her.
Well
,
what could I do?
You tell me.

All those thoughts were buzzing around in her head like angry bees. Metal leaned down and kissed her cheek. All the buzzing stilled and a lazy warmth spread through her, completely void of thought.

It was pure instinct. If she’d thought it through she would never have done it, never. She didn’t overthink it the way she did everything. She didn’t think at all.

His cheek was warm, with a tiny bite of bristliness that was exciting. With his face in darkness, backlit by the lamp, she could see faint blond stubble on his cheeks as he came closer to her. She just closed her eyes and moved instinctively.

Her hand lifted, curled around his strong neck as she felt his warm lips against her cheek. She sighed and her fingers tightened.

Metal had planted a hand on either side of her so she was caged in by him, but she didn’t feel trapped. Oh no. When Metal pulled back, narrow-eyed, frowning, she tightened her fingers again.
Come to me
. She might as well have spoken the words out loud.

Because though his face tightened and he wasn’t smiling, something else was going on. The skin above his cheekbones was flushed, his nostrils widened as if he had to take in more air than usual. The skin around his eyes crinkled.

She’d led what most people would consider a reclusive life but even she could recognize male arousal. She was looking right at it. She’d read about it in books of course, but this was the real deal and didn’t need labeling. And this wasn’t nerdy arousal, either, where the guy’s voice rose an octave and his hands shook.

No, this was a man’s man and he wanted her.

“Felicity?” His voice was guttural, rough. Not tender. She responded to his voice and his look with a flood of heat running through her body.

She turned her head just as he turned his and oh.
Oh
. One of his hands lifted from the mattress and cupped the back of her head. His mouth settled on hers, warm, chin slightly bristly, electric. Just as she got used to the feeling of his mouth on hers, he opened his mouth and slanted his head and kissed her deeply. Her hands shot to his wrist to hold on as he explored her mouth. Every time his tongue met hers heat shot through her and her womb contracted. She felt moisture pooling in her sex, the very first time that had happened to her. Ever.

She gasped in his mouth and he lifted his head.

He wasn’t smiling. His face was tight with tension as he stared at her, light brown eyes glowing with heat and light.

Felicity’s heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could see it if he lowered his gaze. Instead his golden eyes held hers. “You okay?”

Was she okay? It was really hard to tell. Her stitches hurt a little. Her breasts felt supersensitive, a little bomb had gone off between her legs. Her lips felt swollen. All in all…

“Hmm. Yeah.”

And then he smiled and oh God, he shouldn’t do that. Not when her emotions were all over the place—it wasn’t fair. Because though the smile didn’t make him handsome it sure made him sexy in a “Me Tarzan, you Jane” sort of way.

His hand followed her head down to the pillow and then he touched the tip of a finger to the tip of her nose. “Tea,” he announced.

What? Oh yeah. She nodded. “Tea. Definitely.”

Chapter Seven

In the air, en route to Portland

The plane was very luxurious, so it beat the interrogations of his past. Borodin had interrogated men in caves and dank prisons that smelled of fear and sweat and blood. An Airbus had those beat, hands down. It was warm and comfortable and they had food and excellent wine on hand.

Not for Goodkind, of course. Goodkind slipped in and out of consciousness even after Borodin had given him an injection of adrenaline. He’d passed out for the fifth time. And he hadn’t talked yet.

Borodin slapped Goodkind across the face, hard, taking pleasure in Goodkind’s appearance. In service, Goodkind would have had the arrogance of being a public servant in one of the US government’s elite services. A successful member of the most powerful government in the history of the world. There was an built-in status to that, the kind of pride that was both earned and conferred.

This man was defeated, no longer looking like he belonged to his country’s
nomenklatura
. His face was sagging from pain, stress, fatigue.

Borodin needed to keep him alive until he found Darin’s daughter, so of all the many and varied tricks he’d learned in the KGB—tricks that would make the most hardened prisoners, men who’d survived the gulag, talk—he used only the mildest. Intimidation, sleep, and food and water deprivation. And not too much of that, either, because he didn’t want Goodkind to die on him before his usefulness was over.

Once Felicity Ward—Darinova—was in their hands and Borodin had what he needed, Goodkind could be dispatched quickly with a bullet to the back of the head.

Borodin did not have the pain sickness some of the agents in the KGB had had. True, they had all been adept at extracting information. Many an Afghan insurgent had talked after gut-wrenching torture sessions and though many said torture didn’t work, in Borodin’s experience it actually did. Everyone broke eventually under toture.

The torturers included.

Because whatever it was that was in them that could inflict pain for hours, for days and do it over and over again was like a loose cog in a machine that eventually broke the machine itself.

Borodin wasn’t like that. He wanted to extract the information from the FBI agent like you extract oil from the ground, then eliminate him neatly, cleanly.

Goodkind’s swollen eyes opened briefly and he gave a brief laugh. “She escaped your guy, huh? She’s really smart. Too smart for you.”

His face was messed up. At the start, Borodin had been certain that low-level rough tactics would work. After all, this was a retired man, basically a bureaucrat all his life. He was flabby, as many Americans were. The good life took its toll. Borodin had slapped him around a little, dispassionately, to shake some information loose and found to his surprise that the old man was made of steel under the flab.

“We’ll see how smart she is,” Borodin told Goodkind. “Portland is a small city. My man is good. He’ll find her. You can be sure of that.”

They’d had this discussion before. Goodkind shrugged.

Borodin crossed his legs and swung one foot. A very well-shod foot. He’d had them made in Florence in a small shop just off the Ponte Vecchio. Beautiful and stylish. The West did have its uses. He would never have found a cobbler like Renzi anywhere in Russia. He extracted sharp shears from the briefcase at his feet, showed them to Goodkind.

“Theoretically speaking, if I were to cut off a few fingers, would you tell me who Darinova was meeting in Portland?”

“Sorry.” Goodkind bared his teeth again. “I’d like to think that I could resist the pain, and maybe I could, who knows? But the truth is that I have no idea who she could be meeting. I had no idea she was going to Portland. I had no idea she was even traveling. Felicity rarely travels. She mostly stays in her house. I honestly know very little about her life. So if you cut my fingers off—” he gave an apologetic smile, “¾it would be wasted effort.”

“Pity.” Borodin was annoyed. “Her house was singularly void of any information at all. It was also void of most objects people might consider necessary to a home. She has the basics—bed, couch, kitchen, desk. Very few clothes for such a beautiful young girl. Mainly electronics and a collection of computers and tablets. One computer appeared to be missing. If she made reservations online it was on the computer she traveled with.” Goodkind made a grimace. “What?”

Goodkind was actually smiling. “Even if you had her computer right here, trust me when I say it wouldn’t tell you anything she didn’t want you to know.”

Borodin drummed his hand on the table. Stalemate.

His cell buzzed with an incoming message. He read it and tried to keep his face impassive. But this was a potential breakthrough.

He looked up from his cell into Goodkind’s bloodied but unbroken face. “So, Mr. Goodkind. I understand you have a granddaughter you are very fond of. Kay. Dr. Kay Hudson. And I know where she lives.”

He smiled as the blood drained from Goodkind’s face. Everyone has a weak spot and Borodin had just found Goodkind’s.

*

Metal walked stiffly into the kitchen. Man that was close. Looking down into that incredibly pretty face, sky-blue eyes fixed on his, lips swollen and wet—fuck, walking away had been
hard
.

About as hard as his dick.

He’d never been so happy to have a woman staring at his face. Usually that was a deal-breaker for sex. His face wasn’t what got chicks into his bed. They usually looked at his body and often their gaze just went straight to his junk. Some women knew he’d been a SEAL and wanted a piece of that. That was sex he didn’t want to have, because they either wanted to fuck a killer or wanted to see if he got violent.

A couple of chicks who
wanted
to be hurt left him feeling sick and sad. He made sure of what he was getting into nowadays and if there was even a whiff of that, of a woman wanting to be hurt, he was out faster’n shit through a goose, as a teammate from Alabama used to say.

One kiss. Almost chaste except for a little tongue and boom! Hard as a rock. So he’d been really glad she seemed to be fascinated by his face because if her gaze went lower he’d have been busted.

Jesus.

She was fucking
wounded
. Had fucking
stitches
. What was
wrong
with him? He was a freaking medic. Medics took healing people really seriously. He sure as hell did. The world was broken and anything he could do to put a little of it back together again, well—he was there.

This was the very first time he’d wanted to fuck someone he’d patched up. It was a weird feeling, except, well look at her. He peeked over his shoulder for a second from the living room and their eyes met and he felt a punch to his chest.

God, she was so fucking beautiful. And so freaking smart too. Genius-level, Lauren had said. Father a Nobel winner. Way,
way
out of his league.

His dick had no business getting involved, it should just shut up and stay down. The bad thing was he’d have to be a dead man not to react to beauty and brains. She was incredibly desireable, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen

And yet, beautiful and smart as she was, she was also intensely vulnerable. There’d been something so lost and lonely about her as she told her story, her family’s story. She’d been like a displaced person all her life, growing up clandestinely learning Russian.

His Irish forebears had done that, generations ago, in the
scoil ghairid
, the hedge schools. They’d taught their kids Gaelic, though it was against the law. At least they’d all been together. It had just been Felicity and her mom, a woman homesick for her country and a confused young girl, being taught to keep herself secret and separate.

It didn’t take a degree in psychology to realize how isolated Felicity must have been growing up, with one name after another, not daring to tell anyone who she really was.

She’d grown up in the shadows and he’d grown up in the light.

That twisted his heart. Cracked it open, actually.

Metal thought he’d left his heart behind in Afghanistan but apparently he hadn’t because he could feel it beating hard and fast in his chest. And he was a man whose heart rate didn’t go up when intubating a fallen teammate with bullets flying.

Sometimes, in combat, he’d see things with a medical eye. He’d see a guy zigging instead of zagging and think—a bullet’s going to catch him. He’d see a teammate react too slowly or react with anger instead of keeping a cool head and he knew that teammate was a goner. If not today, then tomorrow.

So that’s how he recognized that he was heading straight for heartbreak, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He made her tea, walked into the bedroom and stopped.

She was lying in his bed, sound asleep, hair a golden halo around her face, one slender graceful hand lying on the bedspread. Well, she needed sleep more than she needed a cup of tea. He went back into the kitchen and poured the hot tea into a one-cup Thermos and set it on the bedside table, then frowned.

She was making small noises. No, he thought as he bent further, she was trying to suppress the noise, as if stifling cries in her sleep. It was painful to hear, both terror and repression at the same time. Reliving her attack in a nightmare. Her eyes were scrolling back and forth under her eyelids, as if she was frantically looking around, trying to find her attacker.

The sick
fuck
. Metal didn’t do anger. He’d gone through four fucking years of war without feeling anything but cold righteous duty. But right now? Right now a surge of rage burst to life inside him. He wished he had the fucker in front of him right now because he’d gouge his eyes out, tear his dick off, crush his balls with his hands and then slit his throat. The feelings were savage, unfamiliar.

He watched her, terrified in her sleep. Beads of sweat formed along her temples. Her feet suddenly scissored under the covers; she was running away. Her throat clicked, mouth tightly shut against screams, coming out as whimpers.

God, those whimpers were breaking his heart. He didn’t want to wake her up but he couldn’t stand to hear them any longer. He touched her shoulder and she quietened instantly. Her face smoothed out, her legs stopped moving restlessly. She reached out in her sleep and her hand curled around his and he could see her move back down into a restorative sleep.

Because he held her hand.

Ah
,
honey
, he thought. He hooked a chair with his foot and sat down, without breaking her hold on him. Man, if holding his hand brought her peace and a feeling of safety, he’d sit here for the next ten years.

He’d sat in the chair by her bed the past two nights, just in case she had a bad reaction to the antibiotics or woke up in pain. And he was perfectly prepared to sit in this chair by her side all this night too. He’d dozed in the chair off and on but he could go without much sleep. All SEALs could, they’d been trained hard to do it.

And right now, he’d do anything, give anything to keep that peaceful expression on her beautiful face. Sitting in a chair was nothing.

So he held her hand and watched over her.

*

Felicity woke up slowly, like floating, easy and soft and gentle. She was holding something warm and hard and the warmth from her hand spread through her whole body.

Just before waking up she’d been dreaming about something but she couldn’t remember what. A good dream, though. She rarely had those, most of her dreams were dark. In most dreams she was lost and afraid and alone. More times than she could count she would wake up with a start at three o’clock in the morning, sweating and cold and afraid. There was always plenty of milk in the fridge because a bad dream called for a cup of hot milk and honey. But not this dream. It was about emotions more than events, and the emotions were connected to a warm safe place, some kind of haven.

She never had dreams like this so she kept her eyes closed, savoring everything. Her bed felt slightly different but comfortable nonetheless. The comforter felt heavier than usual. She was a little sore along her side, but there was no pain. It was all good. The dream slowly morphed into reality, but she wanted to cling to the dream as long as she could. Finally she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, blinking, unsettled. Her ceiling was pale yellow. This ceiling was gray.

But the floaty feeling persisted.

Her hand was held in a firm, warm clasp. She lowered her eyes, looked at her hand, followed up a very large muscled arm to enormously broad shoulders and bright light brown eyes.

Sean. Metal.

The man she’d kissed last night. Not just kissed but
kissed
. The kind of kiss that was a prelude to sex. Sex had definitely been in the air. He’d been aroused and, well, so had she. Her body held memories of that arousal. It had felt as if Metal had thrown some kind of switch and her body had been replaced by someone else’s. The feelings had been so strange and new. However strange and new, though, they had been totally unmistakeable. A billion years of evolution had suddenly pushed past her IT-obssessed brain and taken over her body.

What she had felt had been pure sex.

Again, she blushed a bright red, all the blood in her body rising to her face. It was a curse and had been all her life. Her emotions could be read on her skin by just about anybody who wasn’t into computers. One of the many reasons she avoided normal people.

“Morning.” His deep voice was a soft rumble. As if not wanting to startle her. He was watching her face carefully and if he noticed she was flushed a bright red he didn’t say anything. His own face had been flushed last night but it definitely hadn’t been from embarrassment.

“Morning.” She looked back down at her hand in his. Her hand had been in his for a long time. Her skin told her that. “Did you sleep at all or did you sit here holding my hand all night?”

He didn’t answer which was an answer in itself. She sighed. “You didn’t have to—”

“Are you hungry?” he interrupted her.

She was about to answer no when all of a sudden a huge appetite roared into being in her. Extraordinary. She wasn’t a big eater, she stayed home all day and she snacked on fruit or yogurt, so hunger was never an issue. Right now it felt as though a hungry lion woke up in her and she was ravenous.