Hot & Bothered (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 8) (6 page)

“She is. I’m glad she’s found happiness.” Ian’s expression didn’t change, but Emily detected a subtle shift in him.
 

Emily found herself staring at him as something she’d sensed finally crystallized in her mind. “You’re in love with her.”

His eyes glittered. “I’m not sure I know what that means.”

But he did, deep down. She knew it by looking at him.

Emily put a hand on his arm. Squeezed. “It means I see the look in your eyes when you talk about her. There’s regret, and maybe some pain. I’m an expert at that, you know.”

He snorted, and she knew she’d hit the mark. It humanized him in a way nothing else had.

“Anything I
might
have once felt for your sister is pointless. She has Nick Brandon—and I don’t think he’s ever had trouble telling her what he feels.”

Emily thought of the way Nick looked at her sister. She’d watched them a lot over the few months they’d been together, and she’d been envious. They had something she’d never had. Something she desperately wanted. Maybe everyone wanted it—but few seemed to get it.

“No, I don’t think he does. They’re right for each other. But whoever’s right for you will come along someday, and then you’ll never believe you thought you wanted someone else when that person exists.”

He laughed. “You’re a romantic, Emily.”

She shrugged as heat flooded her cheeks. “I guess I am. It’s probably what got me in trouble with Zaran. I thought he was a knight in shining armor. I know better now. I know real knights are practically nonexistent.”

“Hey, boss,” a voice interrupted from the entry. “The GIs are here. Group of ’em wants to see you.”

“Let them in,” Ian said before turning to her. “You might want to disappear for this. Mendez sent HOT. Victoria won’t be with them, but I don’t know who else might be. There’s a chance you’ll know some of them.”

He said it so casually, like the neighbors were popping in for tea. But it was much worse than that to her. Emily’s feet stuck to the floor. She wanted to move, wanted to melt into the shadows and disappear, but a part of her wanted to see who’d come even more.

Not Ryan. Surely not Ryan. HOT was a big organization, and Mendez had at least a hundred men. He wouldn’t send Ryan’s squad when he had others.

Booted feet pounded toward them. Somehow Emily found the strength to wrench herself away and up the stairs. She stopped on the darkened landing, her heart hammering, and watched as the men came into view. They were wearing native dress—white tunics with baggy pants and kaffiyehs on their heads to keep the sun from burning them to a crisp—but they were unmistakably American Special Operators to her.

She didn’t recognize the first one she saw. He was tall and broad with a hard look in his eyes. Then she saw Matt Girard and her stomach twisted. Chase Daniels came into view.

The next man to step into sight made her slap her hand over her mouth to stop any sound from escaping. Ryan wore an ammunition belt slung around his waist, but the rifle was missing. She knew that whoever manned the entry would have made them all leave their weapons behind, and she was thankful for that at this very moment because violence simmered in the air around these men.

Ryan’s pale blue eyes were hard in his tanned face, and his jaw was set in a formidable line. She’d never seen him look so angry. He was the funny one, the one who told jokes and didn’t get rattled over anything. When other guys flew off the handle, Ryan said something that had everyone in stitches.

But that wasn’t the Ryan she saw now. This was a Ryan she’d never seen before. He was a man on the edge of something.

One minute he was standing there, and then he moved so fast that she didn’t see precisely what he did. No one else did either, because they failed to stop him. He’d been standing with his teammates, but now he had an arm wrapped around Ian’s neck and a knife against his throat.

Ian stood in his grip as calmly as possible for a man who was seconds from death.

“Goddammit, Flash, put the knife down,” Matt Girard said. “That’s a fucking order, soldier.”

Ryan didn’t obey. If anything, he looked angrier than before. “No, sir, I can’t do that. Not until this piece of shit tells us where Emily is.”

CHAPTER SIX

EMILY’S HEART THREATENED TO POUND right out of her chest. Ryan was here—and he was threatening Ian because of her.
 

Part of her wanted to run up the stairs and hide. And part of her wanted to fling herself into Ryan’s arms.

Logically, she knew there would be no flinging. She knew he was murderously angry, and she knew she had to stop him before he did something irrevocable. Something that would be her fault.

“Ryan!” she shouted, stumbling down the stairs as the abaya twisted around her legs. She caught herself before she fell, grasping the edge of the wall and scraping her hand in the process.

Heads whipped around to look at her, but it was only Ryan she saw. His blue eyes clashed with hers, and she nearly recoiled from what was contained in them.

Anger. Hate. Relief.
 

And loathing. God, the loathing.

“I’m okay, Ryan,” she said, her voice shaky, her stomach twisting and rolling as bile rose in her throat.

“Jesus, Flash, let the man go.” Chase spoke this time. He held out a hand as if he were trying to calm a rabid dog. “She’s here. She looks fine to me. This isn’t what we’re here for, and you know it.”

Ryan didn’t move for a long moment. And then he dropped his knife to his side and shoved Ian away. “I fucking know it,” he growled. “But we have a result, don’t we?”

Ian turned around and touched his throat. There was blood on his hand as he drew it away. His eyes sparked with fury, but he didn’t do anything about it.

Emily was glad for that, because she knew that every man here was overloaded with testosterone and a hair-trigger temper at the moment.

“If you’re going to attack a man with skills equal to yours, you need to kill him before he fucking kills you,” Ian growled.
 

Ryan ignored him and advanced on her. Had he always been this big? This formidable? He towered over her, and his expression hadn’t softened one bit. Her stomach bottomed out.

“You went willingly. After…” He shook his head, his jaw hardening as he gazed down at her. He practically vibrated with anger. “I can’t believe you left like that. Do you know how worried Victoria’s been? How worried we’ve all been?”

Emily lifted a hand, but he recoiled from her as if he couldn’t bear for her to touch him. Hot tears pressed against her eyelids.
 

“I was trying to do the right thing—”

“The right thing?” He looked at her disbelievingly. “The right fucking thing wasn’t leaving people who care about you! It wasn’t leaving my bed in the middle of the night without a fucking word!”

She heard the clearing of throats and a muttered curse, and it hit her that he’d just revealed something that would have been better off kept secret. For
his
sake, not hers.

“Not here,” she said fiercely. “Not now.”

He took another step toward her until he was nearly pressing her into the wall. “When? Fucking when, Emily?”

“Don’t yell at me!”

He stepped back, his nostrils flaring. He flexed his hands at his sides as if trying to work off some tension.

Emily’s body quivered with adrenaline. Her head swam, and the heat inside her abaya intensified. Her stomach churned as bile rose in her throat. She put a hand on the wall as the buzzing in her brain grew stronger. Why couldn’t she shake this feeling?

Ryan’s expression changed. He didn’t look angry now. He looked… concerned.

“Emily? What’s wrong?”

“I… I… don’t… know…”
 

He was the only thing she could see. Everything else faded until his face filled her vision. She felt his hands on her shoulders—and then she felt nothing at all.

* * *

“Emily!” Ryan caught her as she crumpled to the ground. Then he swung her up into his arms and whirled on the men standing there.

“In here,” Ian Black said, pushing open a door and walking into a room.

Ryan followed on his heels. It was an office, but there was a mattress on one wall. Ryan sank down and gently placed Emily upon it.

“She needs water.”

Ian pressed a cold bottle into his hand, and Ryan twisted off the cap before pouring some on his fingers and patting her face. Then he snatched the black head covering off and freed her hair. The golden mass was matted with sweat.

He pressed his fingers to her jugular and took her pulse. It was strong, but too fast.

“Take the abaya off,” Black said.

Ryan wanted to growl at the man and tell him to go away, but he didn’t have time to worry about anyone else. Instead, he peeled the fabric up Emily’s body and then lifted her and brought it over her head. She was wearing a thin T-shirt, a pair of camouflage pants, and jump boots underneath. She had a waterskin strapped to her back, and she was armed with an HK45CT, which surprised him more than it should.

He’d never thought of Emily as a warrior, no matter that she’d lived with the Freedom Force for three years or that she’d been in battle the night she’d killed Zaran. Of course she would be weapons trained, but she was supposed to be separate from this violence, innocent and happy as she went about her life. That was how he thought of her.

Dammit, she wasn’t supposed to be
here.

Ryan removed the pistol and cleared the chamber before ejecting the clip. He set them on the table nearby before he proceeded to pat Emily down with more water. Someone shifted the fan that was in the room until it blew on her.

Emily moaned and Ryan stilled.

“Emily? What’s wrong, honey? What can I do?”

She didn’t answer, and he patted more water on her skin.

“What’s wrong with her? You fucking chewed her ass out, dickhead,” Ian Black said. “And I think you probably gave away more information about the two of you than you intended in the process.”

“Shut up, Black,” Ryan growled. “If she hadn’t been here with you, you’d be dead.”

Black snorted. “Really? Before you managed to torture her location out of me? This is why she couldn’t tell you, asshole. That whole alpha-gorilla thing you have going must have scared her shitless when she thought about it.”

“Stay out of this, motherfucker. If not for you, she wouldn’t be here.”

“Flash.”
 

Ryan glanced up at his team commander. Matt wasn’t looking too happy at the moment, but then again, nobody was.

“Emily made a decision to join him,” Matt said. “And she’s not the reason we’re here.”

Ryan could only blink. Not the reason? Maybe not, but now that he had her in his sights, he wasn’t letting her out of them again.

“We can’t leave her here. We can’t leave her with
him
.”

Black rolled his eyes. “If you want to find out where those hostages are, you’d damn well better leave her here. She’s the one making contact, the one who’s going to find out their location for us.”

Ryan couldn’t speak. Rage rolled through him. The kind of rage that made him want to smash something—or someone.

He was pissed at Ian Black. At Emily. At himself for being so stupid as to get involved with her in the first place. He’d convinced himself she was this helpless little thing who needed his strength and his friendship.

He’d let himself care, and that was the one thing he knew he shouldn’t have done. Because caring made you vulnerable to hurt.
 

He stood and glared at Black. “You don’t fucking care who you put in danger, do you? She had a life in DC, a life away from all this shit—and you brought her back into it. What did you promise her?”

Black didn’t look the least bit apologetic. “A chance to clear her name.”

Ryan took a step toward him, ready to pummel the man for lying to her. If it were possible, Mendez would have done it. Ian Black had lied for reasons of his own, but Ryan wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

“Ryan.”

Emily’s voice was soft and shaky, but her eyes were open. She gazed up at him with glassy brown eyes, and he sank down on the mattress beside her, pushing her hair back off her forehead with a tender gesture. Too late, he realized what he was doing and dropped his hand away.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
 

Her apology kicked him in the gut. “He lied to you, Emily. He can’t do what he said. You need to go home and go back to school.”

She moved her head from side to side on the pillow. Telling him no. Rejecting him.
 

He stiffened.

“You and Victoria want to cocoon me in Bubble Wrap and keep me from living my own life. This is something I need to do. I’m not leaving until it’s finished.”

“It’s not safe here for you. You know that.”

“It’s not safe for you either. For any of us.”

Ryan got to his feet. She was a stranger to him in so many ways. The woman he thought he’d known—the soft, sweet, sometimes confused woman—was nowhere in evidence. This woman was determined and stubborn.