Dangerous Attraction Romantic Suspense Boxed Set (30 page)

Even if her lungs felt roasted on the inside, she wasn’t going over there. “Dammit, I said no—”

“Khalia!”

At the shout she whipped her head around to search the crowd for a friendly face and saw Gage shoving his way through toward her. The policeman backed up a step when Gage burst through and pulled her into a tight hug. She flinched at the pain in her back, flooded with relief.

“Jesus, you guys scared the shit out of us,” Gage said. “You okay?”

“Just scraped up, but they hit Hunter a few times. Have you seen him?”

Gage frowned and took a look around them. “There he is. Tom’s got him at an ambulance.”

Though she was still afraid that someone had planted a bomb somewhere, Khalia didn’t protest as Gage bent and swung her up in his arms, careful of the wound on her back. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. When she opened them again she saw Hunter searching the scene, and the moment his gaze landed on her he visibly relaxed. Gage carried her straight over and settled her in the back of the next ambulance, then the medics took over.

Tom appeared at the back doors a few moments later. “Thank God you’re okay. I thought I was gonna have to pin Hunt and choke him out to keep him from going to find you.”

Khalia pulled the oxygen mask away to speak, fired a glare at the paramedic when he quickly shoved it back into place. She looked back at Tom. “Is he okay?”

“Got some holes in him they’re trying to patch up, but their job’ll be way easier now that he knows you’re safe.”

“Sir, we need to start treatment on her now,” another paramedic said from beside her. “Please step back and let us get to work.”

“You taking her to the hospital?” Gage asked.

She shook her head, adamant. “I don’t need to go to the hospital.” What she wanted was to see Hunter and make sure he was really okay. And then she wanted to hide in his arms and wake up to find this was only a nightmare.

“They’re transporting Hunt now,” Tom said, then glanced at Gage. “Meet you there?”

“Yeah.” Gage climbed inside and parked it beside Khalia despite the exasperated sighs of the paramedics. With one lift of an eyebrow, Gage silently dared them to kick him out. They didn’t and a moment later the driver slammed the rear doors shut.

Needing human contact to reassure her that she was finally safe, Khalia reached over for his hand. Without a word Gage closed his fingers around hers and held on tight the entire ride to the hospital.

Chapter Twenty-one

Over an hour after being wheeled into the emergency room on a fucking gurney, Hunter was done with people poking and prodding at him. The wounds in his upper arm and calf hurt the worst, but the doc had already confirmed there were no bullets in him, just bits of concrete and splinters of metal. Two nurses were currently pulling some of them out of his back with tweezers while the doc sewed up the hole in his arm in preparation for a precautionary round of x-rays.

Biting back a snarl when one of the nurses dug deep into the middle of his back to extract a splinter of shrapnel, he gritted his teeth and fought for patience. Khalia was safe; she was being looked over somewhere in this same ER, he just couldn’t go to her. And he needed to. Wanted to see for himself that she was truly okay.

The doctor, a young Pakistani woman, tied off the last stitch and set down her needle driver on the metal tray beside his bed. “I stopped all the bleeding so that should do for now. Once we verify via x-ray that all the large fragments are out and the bone is intact, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with, and whether you’ll require surgery.”

Hell. “How long’s that gonna take?” He didn’t have time for a surgery and the recovery that would follow. Considering all he’d been through the past few days, wasn’t it time the universe cut him a fucking break?

The doctor raised her eyebrows at his curt tone, aimed a quelling look at him. “Could be a long wait, considering how many patients we’re treating from the hotel. It will depend.”

Meaning, she could make it take all day if he insisted on being an asshole to her and the rest of the staff. Hunter forced out a slow, calming breath and tried for a reasonable tone. “My arm’s not broken. As soon as I’m bandaged up I’ll be good to go, and I’m sure someone else needs the bed worse than me anyway.” Ambulances were still arriving with new victims from the hotel every few minutes.

“Well, let’s just wait and see what the x-rays tell us, so we know for sure. You said your tetanus vaccinations were up to date?” She bent to make some notes in his chart.

“Yeah.” He barely kept from growling it. The wounds scattered across his body stung and throbbed, adding to his agitation. He wanted to find this Youssef asshole, hunt him down along with the rest of his militant buddies and expedite their journey to the afterlife. Fucking brainwashed bastards.

The second nurse, a male, finished up with cleaning and bandaging the last of the lacerations in his back and stepped away to look at him. “Do you want anything for the pain?”

Of course he’d ask that
after
all the poking and stitching. “No, I’m good.” He started to sit up, using his good arm for leverage. The nurse grabbed him and helped him upright, ignoring the dark look Hunter shot him. He wanted to see Khalia and get the hell out of here. “How long until those x-rays?” he demanded. The local police, ISI and US State Department must have launched their own intensive investigations by now. But Hunter wanted his team to be the ones who brought Youssef and the rest of the cell down.

The nurse looked over just as another orderly appeared at the end of the room. “I was going to say at least another half hour, but I think you just got lucky.” The orderly headed straight for them, nodded once.

Luck? Hunter snorted. More like Gage or Tom had taken charge and moved Hunter to the front of the line. He stood despite the doctor’s and nurse’s protests, and insisted on walking to the x-ray room without assistance. While the tech fussed with his positioning on the table Hunter was a good boy and did what he was told—anything to hurry this process the hell up. By the time he finished and wandered back into the ER to await the results so they could discharge him, Gage was there waiting for him.

“How’s Khalia?” Hunter asked as he neared the bed Gage stood beside.

“She’s good. Good sized piece of shrapnel buried in her back, but they got it out and stitched up, so it’s all good now.”

Fuck, he hated thinking about anything penetrating her silky soft skin. He looked around the ER, a hive of activity with more and more patients being brought in. “Where is she?”

“With Tom. He didn’t want to wait and take any more chances with getting her and Ray to a different city, so Tom’s working on getting them both on the next flight out of Islamabad.”

Good. Much as he hated to lose her, he wanted to see her safe more. He just hoped he’d get some time alone with her, at least a few minutes in private, so he could tell her everything he needed to before she left. “Any word on the investigation?”

“Ongoing, but nothing concrete or specific yet. You know how it is, everything’s chaos right now.”

“That sucks ass.” He flexed his hand and moved his wounded arm, testing the muscles. The surge of pain and tightness there assured him everything was still attached and in working order. He pretty much hurt everywhere. All he needed now was the doc’s official okay.

“Hey.”

He swiveled around at the sound of Khalia’s voice, found her walking toward him across the ER. Immediately he scanned her for injury, noted the bandages on her forearms and the streaks of grime on the sides of her face. He moved without even being aware of it, rushing over as fast as his limp would allow. Careful of the bandage beneath the back of her T-shirt where they’d stitched her up, he slid both arms around her. Returning the embrace, she leaned into him with a hard sigh and buried her face into his chest.

The sheer relief at having her pressed up close against his body made him a little dizzy, but maybe it was partially due to blood loss as well. “How you doin’, sweetheart?” he murmured against her hair, grateful she was safe and in his arms.

“Doing the best I can,” she answered in a rough voice.

“I hear you.” But damn, she completely melted him. Even after everything they’d been through together these past few days, she’d flat out amazed him in that smoky stairwell. Keeping it together while under fire with nowhere to go, crawling over to help him when he was hit and then emptying a clip into the shooters when firing a pistol was as foreign to her as Pashto? Fucking bravest thing he’d ever seen. He felt so much for her, he didn’t know what to do with it all, let alone how to put it into words. “Gage said you got hit in the back. Do you need anything?”

“No, they gave me a shot of something already. Stitches just kind of burn and pull, you know?”

“I do,” he answered sardonically. “And whatever they didn’t get out will eventually work its way out of your skin on its own.”

“Ew. Seriously?” She shuddered.

“Yeah, it’s fun times.” God knew he’d be pulling splinters of metal and concrete out of his hide for months to come.

“What about you?” She pulled her head back slightly to study his bandaged arm, then looked up into his face. “Gage is hassling the doctors right now to get them to fast track your x-ray results. He told me he saw the films and there’s no break or bullet in there, but I’m not sure how good his x-ray reading is.”

“I’d say he’s right on this one. I’m all stitched up and ready to roll.”

Khalia was frowning in concern, clearly not approving of his answer. She unwound her arms from his ribs and placed her palms flat against his chest, gazing up at him with pale green eyes shadowed by fear and worry. “Come back with me. Get on the plane with Ray and me and leave here, this morning.”

He was such a selfish prick for thinking it, but man he loved that she was so worried about him. “Wish I could, sweetheart, but I’ve got a job to finish first.”

She closed her eyes for a second, exhaustion and strain written in every line of her face. Then she peered back up at him, tried once more. “Please.”

Something ached inside him at the plea in her voice. Other than his mother, he couldn’t remember having anyone worry about him. And Khalia had already seen firsthand the sort of danger his job could entail. Though there wasn’t much he would deny this woman, this was one thing he couldn’t give her. “I can’t, I’m team leader. And I wouldn’t be good enough for you if I left the rest of the guys to take care of this without me.” Didn’t matter that he wasn’t in the Teams anymore; he’d always be a SEAL at heart.

“Yes you would.” She reached up and took his face between her hands, her expression earnest. “Because you know what? I love you. And you coming back home with me now isn’t going to change my opinion of you one bit—I just want you safe.”

He barely heard the last sentence, still stuck back on the three word bomb she’d just dropped on him. Except instead of freaking him out, her declaration made him feel like the luckiest bastard on the planet. He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. “You love me? You sure it’s not just because of everything that’s gone down since you got here?” As soon as the words were out he wanted to take them back, in case her answer might be yes.

“Yes I’m sure,” she retorted, eyes flashing with indignation, that stubborn chin lifting. “You think that’s something I’d say without meaning it?”

He smothered a chuckle and opened his mouth to reassure her by telling her exactly how hard he’d fallen for her when a clipped female voice called out.

“Mr. Phillips.”

He looked over his shoulder, annoyed at the interruption.
Really, universe? Really?
The female doctor was striding toward him, her irritation clear on her face. “Yes?”

She stopped a few feet from him, casting an aggravated glance at Khalia as she tugged on the hem of her scrubs top and pinned him with an outraged glare. “It seems you and your American friends have no interest in following protocol and allowing us to do our jobs properly, so considering the bleeding is taken care of and that I see no visible fractures in your humerus or other large fragments in your arm, you are free to go.”

The words were spat at him like bullets, her opinion of him and his “friends” made plain. Her speech had just ended when Gage appeared around the corner and spotted them all. The doctor glanced over at him, humphed, and stormed off.

Hunter grinned at him. “I love you, man.”

Gage smiled back and nodded toward the exit. “Shall we?”

Hunter reached down to take Khalia’s hand, aware of the color in her cheeks and that he’d just said the L word to Gage instead of her. Hell. There was plenty he wanted to say to her, just not in front of anyone. He held her hand as they walked out of the hospital and into the hot afternoon sunshine. The moment they exited the building, Hunter spotted Ellis and Dunphy leaning against their parked SUV at the entrance. They headed straight over, their posture and expressions telling him something else was going on.

“What’s up?” he asked them, bracing for more bad news. He felt Khalia’s hand tense in his, squeezed gently in reassurance.

Ellis shot a look at Dunphy before turning his attention back to Hunter. “Think we’ve got something.”

Oh,
hell
yes
. Not wanting her to overhear in case it made her more upset, he released Khalia’s hand and limped over to them, Gage right beside him. “What?”

“Had someone in Youssef’s office keep tabs on him for us before we headed to the hotel. Word is he’s nervous as shit and just left the office,” Ellis said.

“Ah, hell—”

“No, it’s good.” A huge grin spread across Dunphy’s face as he held up his phone. “Because we’re tracing his every move via the tracking device we had his co-worker plant on him.”

Hunter smiled back, the adrenaline already pumping as he watched the tiny red dot move on the screen. “Awesome. So where is he now?”

“Just leaving downtown. Dot’s moving fast, so he must be in a vehicle of some sort. Co-worker told me Youssef rides the bus a lot. My guess is he’s headed back to Pesh, to hook up with someone from the cell to take him into hiding.”