Hell for Leather (Black Knights Inc. #6)(81)

“Everything,” she admitted to her reflection, wiping at the tears slipping down her cheeks and dropping from her chin. “It’s everything. But you can’t let him know.”

Because she’d promised there would be no strings, no hurt feelings. And if she couldn’t keep her word, the least she could do was never show him how much she suffered.

So toughen up, buttercup, she scolded herself, sniffling and pressing a hand to the ache in the center of her chest. Shaking out her hair, she forced herself to take a deep, cleansing breath, and turned on the faucet. In the middle of splashing cold water on her face, she jumped when the CIA agent tasked with guarding the rear of the motel tapped on the large frosted window positioned behind the toilet.

“May I have a glass of water?” he called, his voice hoarse and slightly muffled.

Poor guy. He’d been out there in the sun all afternoon. He was probably about to shrivel up and die.

Out there all afternoon…

Her cheeks flamed when it occurred to her that he might have heard everything that been happening inside the motel room, that whoever was positioned at the front had probably heard it, too. She wasn’t known for being a quiet lover, after all. And Mac had been nearly as vocal. Growling, groaning, yelling in triumph during orgasm like he’d just won an Olympic race or something.

“Well that’s just great,” she muttered to herself, embarrassed, wondering how she’d ever look any of these people in the eye again. I mean, really. What must they think of her? Her uncle was missing. Nuclear warheads were about to fall into the hands of terrorists. And what was she doing? Yep. You guessed it. She was getting her groove on. Getting her groove on and getting her heart broken all at the same time.

Pathetic. Deplorable. Unfor—

Tap. Tap. She could just make out the shadow of a hand knocking against the glass. “Just a second!” she called, bending to grab one of the plastic drinking cups from the shelf beneath the sink. Unwrapping it from its hygienic covering, she filled it with cold water before reaching to unlatch the window. It was a bit tough. The windowpane having been painted a few times. But it finally gave way and she threw up the sash.

“Here you g—”

That’s all she managed before a hand grabbed her wrist, yanking her forward. Her forehead slammed into the window sash, causing stars to dance in her field of vision. She was half hanging out the window, her knees atop the toilet tank, the cup having fallen from her hand to bounce on the ground below. In confusion, she watched it land atop Agent Wallace…

He was lying in the dirt beneath the window, his lifeless gaze staring vacantly into the sky above—a look that chilled her to the bone as it instantly reminded her of Buzzard—blood pooling beneath his head from the giant gash flaying his throat open in a gruesome, macabre smile. His foot was twitching. She didn’t know why she should notice such a thing in the split second it took her to open her mouth to scream, but she did. She saw it. That awful, twitching foot. She heard it. That terrible scuffling sound it made against the ground.

Then…pain. White-hot agony. It exploded at the base of her skull. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a familiar set of brown Timberlands, felt the brutal bite of terror as it sank its sharp fangs into her galloping heart. The second blow to her head cut off the cry lodged at the back of her throat. And then…lights out…





Chapter Twenty-one


Mac was a coward.

That’s all there was to it. Because he’d wanted to stay with her while she slept. Hold her in his arms. Pet her. Kiss her. Watch her dream…

But he couldn’t. He had fallen…just a little. And he didn’t dare risk it. He was too afraid to risk it.

On the other hand, it’d been nearly three hours since he slunk from her room like the lily-livered cur that he was, and that probably meant she’d be waking up soon. He couldn’t stand the thought of that, of her rolling over to discover his dastardly desertion.

Yes, he was determined to stick to his guns, to let their dalliance end here, today. But that didn’t mean she deserved to be treated like some nameless, faceless hook-up. Like some woman he’d taken home from the bar only to ghost out on her in the middle of the night. Because she wasn’t that. She was so much more. She deserved so much more, so much better from him.

Christ almighty, what the hell was I thinking?

“Ozzie!” he barked. The guy was down at the end of the building, filling a bucket with ice from the machine. “Come take my place, will you? I need to talk to Delilah.”

“Talk?” Ozzie snorted, sauntering toward him. “Yeah. By my count, this will be the, uh, fifth time you guys have…talked.”

“I’m serious,” Mac growled. “And remember what I told you I’d do to you if you tell her you heard us?”

“Oh, I remember,” Ozzie said, eyeing him askance. “The imagery of your description is sure to give me nightmares for years.”

“Excellent.” Mac winked, lifting his hand to the knob of the Noel Motel’s room number four. He was stopped from turning it when Agent Duvall burst from her room, running to rap hard knuckles against Steady’s door. She turned and pounded on the door of the room Fitzsimmons and Wallace shared before marching over to Mac. Instantly, his operator senses were on high alert.

“What have you got?” he asked.