Promises in the Dark (32 page)

“Too dangerous for you” was all Dylan said, and she wondered if she could do this, board a plane away without Zane by her side.

No choice, sweetheart
.

At least the plane taking them back to the States was a private one. And still, she had to pause for a second before boarding, even as Dylan radiated impatience behind her.

She couldn’t be rushed though, although the time was shorter since it was daylight. And when she finally climbed on board and buckled in, she actually felt some of the dread of leaving Zane wash away.

He’ll be fine
.

“Zane will be fine,” Dylan told her, as if reading her mind. “Trust me. I wouldn’t have let him go back otherwise.”

“I don’t think Zane would say you let him do anything,” she said, and for the first time since she’d met him, Dylan laughed, albeit a short, barking one.

“Tell me what’s happening with DMH,” she said to him. “Does the CIA know about me—where I am now?”

“The CIA’s been trying to catch up with you for a while,” Dylan told her. A straight shooter like his brother, he didn’t hold anything back. He was lean and dangerous, for sure, but when he looked at Riley, he seemed like a different man. “They’d like to debrief you about DMH. And they want to offer you protection, of course.”

She shook her head upon hearing the last part. “I don’t want anything from them in return for sharing what I know. Zane said he would … you would keep me safe.”

Dylan simply nodded, giving no clear indication as to what he thought of her plan. He wasn’t in the bodyguarding business and neither was Zane—she knew that, wondered how long it would be before Zane had to return to work.

Where would that leave her?

“If I went into some kind of protection—I mean, I’ve seen it on TV. Is it really like that?” She directed her question to Riley, who’d handed Olivia a cold Coke Light.

Different name, same slice of heaven. She drank while Riley answered.

“You’d start over—new state, new name. You couldn’t practice medicine or do anything remotely related to that field. You couldn’t talk to your parents again. Or Zane. Or us—for your own safety as well as ours.” Riley paused and Olivia let the weight of that settle over her. “Witness protection is a good thing for a lot of people, but it’s not easy. And, after all of those precautions, you’re still not going to feel any safer inside. I know that’s what you’re ultimately looking for. If there were some way to do it, I would give it to you.”

She appreciated the frankness of Riley’s answer. Even though she didn’t feel ready at all to go back to practicing medicine, she also couldn’t see herself giving it up. “Will DMH ever be eradicated?”

Dylan and Riley glanced at each other. “Realistically, no. But we can do enough damage that the key players will be gone and you won’t be in the line of fire any longer, if we’re lucky,” Dylan said.

She was suddenly nervous as hell about meeting with the CIA. Would they believe her? Help her? Blame her for the bombing of the clinic and call her a criminal? “Will one of you be with me when I talk to the CIA? Or can I wait for Zane?”

“The agents would like to hear everything from you sooner rather than later—it’s in your best interest to do so expediently,” Riley explained. And then her demeanor softened. “It’ll be a good way to pass the time while you’re waiting for Zane—or else you’ll sit at home and drive yourself crazy.”

Riley sounded as if she’d had some experience in that area. She supposed anyone who’d fallen for a dangerous man did.

Now it was well past midnight, and she sat with the lantern on the small steps of the main tent, waiting.

Relief swept over her when the old Land Rover chugged into the camp. She noted that Doc J limped right over, knew he’d been waiting and watching too, even though he’d played it much cooler than she did.

Later that evening, she listened to Doc J and Tristan arguing about relocating the clinic as she dressed Doc J’s wounds again.

“We’re not moving,” he said stubbornly.

“They’ll come back now, all the time,” Tristan argued.

“So let them. And you, enough fussing,” he said to Rowan, then pushed up from the chair, and limped away. “And don’t come into my tent to check on me tonight.”

She watched out the open door until he’d gotten inside his tent and then said, “The old man’s tough.”

“Tough enough that he’d kick your ass for calling him old.” Tristan shook his head. “And he’s just fool enough to put himself in the middle of six men and win.”

“Lot of that going around,” Rowan said. “I don’t see it ending anytime soon.”

Tristan snorted. She could still see the remnants of the deadly weapon he was in his eyes, the glint of fire that sparked when he’d killed the soldier who’d threatened her. “We’re okay,” Tristan said.

“I’ll worry though—about Zane and Olivia.”

“Doc J will keep in touch with them.”

God, it had been a long day. Long week, long year … and watching Julia die with quiet dignity had been both uplifting and horribly depressing.

Now the camp was quiet; it remained to be seen if the regular workers would be back tomorrow. But Doc J and Tristan, they were constants.

Tristan might be a loner but, like her, he was trying to reach out, to look for more.

He was stretched out on one of the cots like a lazy lion in the sun, but she knew he missed nothing. The tension coiled in her belly, the way it had before a firefight in Iraq, and she couldn’t help but scan the borders of the clinic, looking for trouble.

“We’re okay for now,” Tristan told her. “I’d know.”

“ ‘For now’?”

“That’s all we’ve got, honey.”

She stretched in her seat, a yawn escaping. She felt dustier than usual. “I need a shower.”

“Give me a few minutes,” he told her. When he returned, he guided her into her tent, where he’d set up an old oil lamp that threw a gentle glow over the room. There were fresh sheets on her cot. Flowers. And an old beach chair in the middle of the room, near a porcelain bowl and jugs of water.

“Here.” He handed her a towel.

“What are you doing?”

“You going shy on me all of a sudden? Come on—strip down.”

She pulled her clothes off and wrapped the towel around herself so the chair wouldn’t cut into her. When she sank into it, he poured some of the water into a big pitcher and she took it from him, planning to douse her hair with it, because that would have more water pressure than the shower, but Tristan took it from her.

“Lean back,” he said. “Let me.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, you’ve proven that. Now, can you shut up and lean back?”

She thought about protesting, but instead did what he’d asked, lowered the chair nearly flat so her hair was over the basin. He tucked a towel under her neck for her comfort and then soaked her hair, careful to keep the water off her face.

Then he used the small bottle of shampoo—travel-sized—and gently worked the suds through her hair, massaged her scalp.

At first, she kept her eyes screwed shut. When she opened them, the rapt concentration in his eyes floored her.

“You’re beautiful, Rowan.”

She didn’t know what to say, because it had been so long since she’d felt that way.

But as Tristan slowly washed her hair and dried it just as gently with a towel, so that a riot of long, damp waves tumbled over her shoulders, she felt beautiful.

And then the smile broke through—his, that rare and wonderful thing that she wanted to wake up to every morning.

It had taken a long time to get to this place, so the speed in which this thing between them happened shouldn’t have surprised her. She’d been slowly healing inside, and when the right man had shown himself, she’d been ready.

It was like being hit by lightning—painful, startling and very disconcerting, and when she came to, she’d definitely seen stars.

He rinsed her hair clean and then he slowly unwrapped the towel from around her, proceeded to run a washcloth along her body, in the sexiest sponge bath ever. She watched him soap up her breasts, her belly, move the cloth between her legs as his gaze heated her to boiling.

This was pleasure she’d forbade herself, convinced herself she didn’t want—and now realized she couldn’t live without.

Without warning, he picked up another jug of water and poured it over her body, soaking her skin, rinsing away the day—the past—with his hard flesh against her. And when they made love on the old, creaky cot, she knew she’d somehow found home.

Too late, she figured, since they were camped out in the living room pretending not to watch her pace and worry.

Dylan was as worried as she was—she knew that. The only thing keeping him from going back for Zane was her and the kids.

Riley had offered to go, but Dylan had refused. Said they needed to stick together.

All Olivia could do was tell the CIA what she knew—several times. And what she’d done to escape—several times. Dylan had stayed in the room with her, and she swore she heard him growl when they asked her a question he didn’t like.

How he had the authority to stay in the room with her and the agents, she had no idea, and when she’d mentioned it to Riley, she’d simply said, “They owe him this one.”

Olivia was grateful for that, but she couldn’t help wishing Dylan would leave her and go searching for his brother. Immediately.

In the end, the CIA told her to stay where she was, that they needed time to decide a few things on their end.

“It means they don’t know what the hell to do with you,” Dylan told her with a shake of his head when the agents left. “You’re valuable, to both DMH and to them—you’ve given them a lot of intel that will be helpful in making a big dent in the DMH machine. It’s a matter of how they handle it now—and how they’ll want to protect you.”

“Do you think they’ll prosecute me for the clinic bombing, since Americans were killed? And they said that extradition to Morocco is always a possibility.”

Dylan gave a noncommittal shrug. “I think they’re trying to scare you into not running. Honestly, I can’t see them doing anything but saying that it was self-defense and, in my opinion, a fucking public service, and not revisiting it again.”

His phone rang and she crossed her fingers and hoped like hell it was Zane on the other end. Dylan didn’t stay in one place while he talked, but paced, so she only caught a few words like
visas
before he hung up and was back in front of her.

“He’s on a flight home,” Dylan told her, and for the first time, he looked half-relaxed. “He’s fine. The father’s fine, kids are fine.”

She felt dizzy with relief. Literally, she guessed, since Riley and Dylan were by her side within seconds.

“Doctor needs to take care of herself better,” Dylan said.

“Olivia, you need to eat something and then get to bed.”

“But I want to be awake when he comes in,” she told Riley.

“He’ll kill me if he finds you an exhausted wreck,” Dylan countered. “He won’t be home for hours. He’s in the air. Eat, then sleep.”

She complied—ate a sandwich, and took a shot of whiskey to help with sleep.

Going to her bedroom, Olivia lay down on the soft mattress, the softest she could remember since the new one she’d bought for her apartment over six months ago.

Her eyelids were heavy and she knew fighting sleep any longer wouldn’t work. And so, still wearing Zane’s T-shirt, she hugged the pillow, drew her legs up and let herself drift into slumber.

In her slumbering state, she dreamed that Zane was next to her on the mattress, his body cupping hers. She snuggled closer into the pillow, the whiskey Riley had given her doing its job. Because in her mind it was Zane’s hands rubbing her hip, lingering over the tattoo on her belly, sliding down in between her legs.

She heard herself moan softly as her thighs parted and talented fingers dipped into her core. She opened her legs more, shifted to her back and the fingers were joined by a warm tongue rasping against her already wet sex. Her fingers tangled in thick hair as she writhed against his mouth, cried his name, although she couldn’t be sure if she’d actually called it out loud, because the dream had turned so real.

She was coming, hard, pressing against the mouth and the fingers that held her captive, and then she was coming again, one orgasm toppling over the other until she was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and utterly drained.

She stretched like a contented cat, the orgasm warming her from the inside out. What a way to wake up … she could most definitely get used to that … except she’d been awake for most of it, and it was nowhere near morning.

“Are you still upset that I didn’t leave with you?”

She smiled into the pillow at the sound of his voice, a rough whisper against her ear. This was no dream. He was here, a heavy, warm body pressed to hers—impossibly here, and he’d done what he’d set out to do.

Her part of this journey wasn’t over, but they were close. So close. “I was worried,” she admitted.

“I’ll make it up to you.” He still smelled like the sea, and she turned in his arms to taste the salt on his lips.

“I thought you just did.”

“Not even close,” he murmured against her mouth as her hands roamed his body. From anyone else, that would be a signal that she wanted him. With her, Zane knew she was in doc mode, checking him for injuries.

He didn’t bother telling her he was fine, just lay back and let her see for herself. “We ran into a little trouble with soldiers at the camp.”

“I see.” There were scrapes that had been tended to—bruising, a flesh wound on his thigh. He’d need more antibiotics. Maybe Dylan could get her an IV so they could make sure an infection wouldn’t even think of starting …

“I heard you spoke to the CIA.” His words broke into her mental doctor’s inventory.

She nodded, glanced at him. “It wasn’t so bad.”

He snorted. “Yeah, right. It’s always a walk in the park talking to the feds.”

“Your brother helped. I’m just glad you’re here.”

His arms wrapped more tightly around her. “I’m here, Liv, just like I told you I’d be.”

“Julia?”

“She died not long after I returned to the camp. She knew the kids had gotten off safely.”

Zane had kept every word of his promises. Every single one, and not just to her. “Randy?”

“He’s okay. Devastated about Julia, but physically he’ll be fine. And he’s already with the kids and Julia’s sister. I made sure they were on the damned plane with me.”

“That’s what took so long.”

“The embassy has a different way of doing things—I got a little impatient and my brother’s teammate helped me pull a few strings to get everyone out of the country. The kids didn’t have visas to travel—and these days that can pose a problem when trying to get into the States.”

“You did such a good thing, Zane.” She rubbed some of the bruises along his chest lightly, then moved down to lift the bandage on his naked hip and inspect.

“I stitched that myself,” he told her proudly, and she rolled her eyes. “What? There were hours to fill.”

“Not a bad job.”

“Are you done?” he asked finally, his patience waning. “Because I’m tired, sore and dirty.”

“And alive,” she added. “And no, I’m not even close to being done.”

She tugged him on top of her and he eagerly shifted into that position, was hard against her belly, which thrilled her. “You don’t seem tired.”

“Not when I’m around you.” He didn’t sound sorry at all and she could see the soft glow in his eyes, the absolute, unvarnished desire. “Any regrets?”

“Not a single one,” she whispered against his mouth, eager for his body to find comfort inside of hers. She took comfort in his weight, the feel of the warm flesh pressing hers down. He was grounding her, with every word, every touch, and she wondered if he realized it.

His tongue played with hers, a sensual, demanding kiss that kept her mind to only him. And she could think of nothing better.

Her need had quickly become frantic again and she sought release by rubbing against him, as if they were teenagers making out in the back of a car in the heat of a summer’s night, stealth the most important thing next to pure, unrelenting pleasure.

“Zane,” she whispered as she thrust up, and in one long stroke, he was inside her to provide the sweet relief she sought … the relief they both needed.

For a moment, he didn’t move, simply filled her, his eyelids heavy with lust, a small smile on his face. “I’ve been thinking about this since you left on the boat. Wanting this.”

And then he began to move, pressing her into the mattress so she could gain no quarter from his thrusts.

She didn’t care, hooked her legs around his lower back and let him take her hard and fast, her sex still hot and wet from her earlier orgasm. Her hands trailed over his shoulders, now slick with sweat as they moved in a rhythm that rocked the bed against the wall.

Neither cared. Zane didn’t take his eyes from hers, his face a fierce mask of need—and somehow, of peace. And she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. Didn’t want to when she was with him, because she knew it was far from the last time he would have her tonight.

And he knew. “That’s it, Liv … let go.” His hips moved deftly and he bent his head to suck the delicate skin by her collarbone, and her climax came with an explosive burst that nearly tore her apart.