Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(20)
His rough hands reached up to cradle either side of her face, his breath feathered along her lips and, had she not been so terrified, she’d probably have melted into a slurry of hormonal sludge on the spot. As it was, it was taking everything she possessed not to pass out flat. “I have to go conceal our tracks from the rocks to here,” he told her, gently running the pads of his thumbs along her cheeks. “I’ll be right back. I promise you.” And with that, he slipped from her grip, and any terror that’d abated while she’d been in his arms returned ten-fold.
“Rock, I—”
“What’s your favorite song?” he asked, and the sudden change in topic combined with the darkness and her nearly paralyzing fear to make her dizzy. Er, dizzier. Because she already felt like she was sitting in the middle of a merry-go-round while some sadistic mofo pushed the ride faster and faster and faster…
Her stomach dropped down to hang somewhere in the vicinity of her knees.
“I don’t—” She shook her head, wondering if there were fireflies inside the tree trunk or if those flashing lights were simply tricks her mind was playing on her. She was holding her breath, after all, and the ol’ gray matter had to be getting frighteningly low on oxygen.
“When you’re alone in the shower, what do you sing?” he pressed.
“Uh,” she wracked her under-oxygenated brain and could come up with only one thing. “I guess…” She raked in a deep breath and, yep, no fireflies. But the world was still spiraling out of control. “I guess I always sing ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine.’”
She was surprised by the sound of his deep chuckle. Really? He was laughing and talking inanely about what songs she sang in the shower? At a time like this? Was he insane?
“Guns N’ Roses, eh? Somebody’s been spending too much time around Ozzie.”
And, oh crap. Just the thought of the Black Knights’ resident techno-geek—and his penchant for ’80s hair bands—made her miss home so much that tears burned behind her eyes. What she wouldn’t give to hear Boss and Becky arguing right now, or see Steady Soto thumping out an unconscious rhythm with his pencil as he sat hunched over a medical journal at the conference table, or taste the foulness that passed for coffee back at the chop shop. Instead, she was here, inside this decaying tree. In the capital D-A-R-K.
Her heartbeat, which had begun to slow just a tad with thoughts of home, kicked itself into overdrive once again. Then the sound of Rock’s soft voice drifted from the blackness. “She’s got a smile that seems to me…”
She’d heard him sing before, knew he had the voice of an angel. In fact, anytime he’d taken out his guitar to strum and sing around the fire pit in the courtyard back at BKI headquarters, she’d found herself mesmerized. But here? In the confines of this hollowed-out log? Man, that sweet baritone sounded like a benediction. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the sound of his voice with every fiber of her being.
And, surprisingly, it helped. Her heartbeat slowed, her lungs filled with oxygen, and the world around ceased doing its best impression of a carousel.
“Come on, ma petite,” he coaxed. “Sing with me.”
She opened her mouth, not surprised by the wobbliness of her voice when she joined him in the second verse. And by the time they came to the chorus, she was feeling much better. Much…stronger.
“That’s good,” he said. “Now you just keep on singin’. And by the time you get to the last line, I’ll be back.”
He slipped away and her voice broke, but then she heard him murmur in the dark. “Just keep on singin’, chere.”
Pulling her knees to her chest, squeezing herself into a ball, she kept on singing.
Just singing and singing and singing. Concentrating on the lyrics. Keeping the beat inside her head. Listening to the rustle of foliage as he worked outside to cover their tracks. And just as the last sweet child o’ mine slipped past her lips, she felt him beside her. Still, she jumped when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders to give her a reassuring squeeze. “Shhh,” he whispered soothingly before quickly moving away again.
A clacking sound told her he was checking his weapons, probably emptying them and the clips of water. A soft clinking indicated he’d found some sort of rag and was hurriedly wiping the pistols down.
Which was rule number one for any operator: take care of your weapons first, the hysterical woman about to have a conniption fit second.
She tried; she really tried to keep it together. But the darkness was still there and it was suffocating her, and just as she was about to lose it, his pack dropped to the tarp with a soft thud. A second later he was coaxing her to lie back and stretch out beside him. Wrapping his arm around her, he pressed her cheek against his chest, and his shirt, even though it was wet, was warm. It smelled comfortingly of healthy man, laundry detergent, and clean jungle water.
“How did you know to do that?” she whispered, her voice amplified by the close walls of the hollow tree.
“Do what?”
“Get me to sing. How did you know that would help me?”
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, slowly, “It’s…it’s all part of my education and training. See, I studied psychology in college and after that I was…disciplined, I guess is a good way to say it, to watch people, to look for clues as to what makes them tick. So, I noticed how sound affects you, how you wince when Becky fires up her grinder, or how you jump and beat back a shiver whenever Boss bellows in that deep voice of his. Tone, pitch, resonance…You pick up on all those subtle variations. Of course, even without the training, I’d have known you had quite an ear on you. I mean, how could you be so phenomenal at learnin’ new languages if you didn’t? But it’s more than that. You actually feel sounds. Like other people feel pleasure or pain, you have a visceral, physical reaction to noises.”