Hard Beat(17)

I wait for the snide comment to come, but she just turns and faces the doors of the elevator without pushing the button for the eighth floor. Tension is so thick in the car, you can all but see it.

“I don’t trust you,” I say evenly, but it cuts through the silence.

“Good,” she says matter-of-factly as the car alerts our arrival on the twelfth floor. “Be careful whom you trust – the devil was once an angel, you know.”

And with that she walks off the elevator without another word, her comment already replaying in my mind.





Chapter 5





T

he shrieks of mass chaos and the sound of desperate and injured people suffering ring in my ears, the scent of gunpowder and blood haunts my psyche as my own shout dies on my lips.

The nightmare slowly fades into the darkness of my hotel room as I wake, leaving me with nothing but the thundering of my pulse in my ears, along with memories I wish I could erase and a chest damp with sweat.

“Just a dream,” I mutter into the silence, hoping the sound of my voice chases away the ghosts still lurking.

But it’s no use. No matter how much time has passed, I can still hear that unsteady thread in her breath. The one I fixated on as fear and pain contorted her face because regardless of the false hope I clung to, that sound told me the truth I couldn’t run from.

That Stella was going to die.

“Fucking hell.” The words do nothing to abate the pressure in my chest, and frankly, I’m sick of feeling it. That’s why I had to get back here. Get back to the one thing I can focus on. Ironic really, considering this is where it happened, but at the same time, I need this, need to be back in the thick of it all so I’m not scared by it. Because when nightmares and reality are the same, it’s harder to fear them.

And you sure as hell can’t outrun them.

I lie back on the bed and scrub my hand over my face. When I open my eyes again, they’re drawn to the spiderweb of cracks in the ceiling above me. As I will myself back to sleep to no avail, I try to quiet my head by tracing the cracks along their broken path through the darkened room. I know that the jet lag is going to kick my ass in the coming days and I need the sleep, but no matter how much I try, I’m wide awake. Sleep doesn’t come.

The sounds of a drowsy city slowly stirring to life begin to float up to my room, and when I look over at the clock, I realize it is five a.m. and I’ve been staring at the damn ceiling for way too long. I give up hope that I’m going to fall asleep. Feeling restless despite the exhaustion deep in my bones, I shove up out of bed, knowing what to do to clear my head.

The clank of weights keeps me company. The cinder-block room is cramped and has two lightbulbs hanging by wires from the ceiling, but I don’t care about the ambience because the physical exertion is exactly what I need right now.

The burn of my muscles as I squat down with the bar on my shoulder and focus on the proper form forces me to clear my head. I swear my laser-honed concentration on what I’m doing makes me feel every single rivulet of sweat that runs down my bare chest. And that’s a good thing because if I’m concentrating on that, there’s no room for anything else. Music blares in my earbuds, but my own grunt of strength to rise back to standing interrupts the sound.

I puff out a breath as I rack the weight bar, having completed my reps and then some, before I drop to sit on a bench against the far wall of the room. My muscles are liquid fire, but God it feels good to work out the anger churning inside me. I rub my T-shirt over my face and hair to wipe the sweat away as I catch my breath for a moment, my body exhausted but in such a productive way.

The cold concrete wall feels hella good as I lean my shoulders against it and close my eyes. Beaux’s face flashes in my mind, and I wonder if she’s why I feel so restless. Maybe I just need to see her, set some guidelines for this f*cked-up situation I’ve been forced into, and then maybe I’ll get back into my groove a little quicker. What the f*ck kind of way is it to start a working relationship when you’ve seen the other person naked and heard that sound they make as they climax? Talk about stepping out on the wrong foot.

I don’t like her. Plain and simple. I had a moment of bad judgment, a lot of alcohol, and wanted some sex. Little did I know the woman I chose would be the new partner I don’t want.

Fuck.

The quicker I rectify the situation the better. I need structure in my life – I thrive on it – to function in this tumultuous country where every day is something different and yet the exact same. But having Beaux here adds an unpredictability element, and so the quicker I let her know how I operate, the better off we’ll be in the long run.

Maybe I’ll even suck it up for the sake of calming the churning waters and apologize for the one-night stand.

Nah. Fuck it. She came with me willingly, left on her own accord. No need to set the precedent that I’m in the wrong when I know I’ve done nothing of the sort. Now I just need to decide whether I believe that she purposefully slept with me or whether it was purely a coincidence.

The jury’s still out on that one.

I glance at my watch and figure it’s okay to go knocking on her door since it is seven thirty. Maybe that’s a little dick-ish, but at least I’ll learn if she’s a morning person or not; I can play it off like I want to make sure she can be up and ready if we get a call on a lead.