Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(34)
After everyone had gone to bed, the two of them hashed out, or should he say rehashed out, every sickening, macabre detail Nate could remember from his oh-so-happy time in Syria in order to see if maybe there was some connection between that and what was happening now.
Oh boy, and hadn’t that been a real barrel of monkeys?
Because even after months had passed and he’d told the story enough times to recite it verbatim, he couldn’t stop the flash of memory that suddenly stabbed in front of his grainy eyes anytime he let his mind travel down that path. That’s all it took, just the mere thought of it, and instantly he was back there, back in that dingy little house out in the middle of bumf*ck Syria.
The guards, a group of three guys too cruel to be called men and too inventive in their cruelty to be called animals, had gone somewhere to get drunk—as per their usual schedule—and he’d finally managed to chew through the cheap ropes binding his hands. Getting through the door had taken some ingenuity and more than a little brute force, but he’d eventually managed, and it’d only cost him three broken ribs.
He’d been dizzy with pain and hunger while dragging himself across the hallway, finally succeeding in accessing the room next door.
He saw it all so well, in stark, Blu-ray definition.
Grigg, lying on that rough table. Blood everywhere. Too much blood. And viscera. And that smell…Sweet Christ, he’d instantly recognized that smell. It was the scent of a dead man who didn’t yet know he was dead.
“Nate?”
The sight of Ali standing in his open doorway instantly snapped him back to the present.
Thank God.
Too much more of that and he’d have to go see that shrink Boss kept harping about. Although, if he was really honest with himself, he probably should go. Back when he’d been with the Marines, he’d known a lot of guys who’d been forced by their commanding officers to go through some form of therapy. And even though most of them had gone in kicking and screaming, they’d come out the other side more balanced, more accepting of the horrors of war. So yeah, it could be a good thing, but the thought of telling a perfect stranger what he’d done made him break out in a cold sweat.
Wiping a clammy hand across his forehead, he vaulted from his chair to pad barefoot across the small room. Once he got to the door, he realized he’d just left behind his worst nightmare to stand directly in front of his wildest fantasy.
Well, almost.
Minus that flimsy, cream, thigh-length robe, it would be his wildest fantasy. Because he could just make out the faint hue of…was that blue?…bra and panties so lovingly covering everything he’d ever dreamed of putting his lips on. Her Disney princess face looked even more innocent scrubbed clean of makeup, and her hair was damp in front, wet little tendrils sticking to her cheeks and jaw.
Geez, just kill him now and get it over with.
“Ali? What’s wrong?” he managed to ask through a mouth that wanted to drool like a dog. For some reason, the temperature in the room jumped ten degrees.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” she peered up at him, all sweetness and light.
“Sure,” he made to step out into the hall, but she halted him with a hand on his forearm.
He would not think about how she’d dug her nails into that same arm as she’d reached her climax that day on the beach. Oh hell no. He would most definitely not think of that.
Shit. Now that’s all he could think about.
“In private?” She glanced furtively down the hall to Becky’s closed door.
No, no, no, no. Supremely bad idea. “Uh, sure.”
He backed up and held the door wide, surreptitiously glancing around his bedroom to make sure nothing untoward was left lying about, like the candid photo of her he usually kept hidden in his nightstand. The one Grigg snapped the summer before he died. The one where Ali’s golden hair was caught in the soft breeze coming in off the ocean and her head was thrown back in laughter. The one Nate looked at so often the edges were starting to bend.
Luckily, it was still buried in the top drawer of his bedside table under some cough drops, tissues, and a dog-eared John Grisham novel.
Shooting one last glance down the hall, he quietly closed the door.
And closed Ali into his bedroom.
Just the thought had his crotch tightening. Not good. Not good at all.
It was super strange how his pulse could stay metronome steady while he was inches away from a drug lord, jihadist, or enemy combatant but raced out of control the minute he was alone with one little wisp of a woman.
“What’s wrong, Ali?” Hopefully this time he’d get an answer. Preferably something he could quickly solve so he could shoo her out, double-time, because right at that moment his gaze snagged on her clasped hands.
And somehow, despite the fact that he’d never really considered fingers sexy before, he wanted to get his lips on them. They were just so darned cute. So petite and slender—just like her—and perfectly polished a seashell pink. They virtually screamed female! And Lord knew that was something he’d gone without for a long while now. Too damned long…
“What did Delilah say to you tonight?” she asked, her brow puckering adorably.
Well, wasn’t that just a kick in the nuts? It was also the dead last thing he expected to hear.
“Uh…”
“We’ve known each other for a dozen years, and I think that was the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh like that.” She took a step closer.