Chapter 13
Audra stared at herself in the wide mirror over the sink in the hotel room they’d rented just off the Strip. She might have argued they should stay in the city, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be somewhere Liam’s men could stumble upon her. The airport hotels were too close, so they’d moved.
She tipped her head, examining her battered body. Dark purple bruises colored her hip and the top of her thigh. The area ached, but not as much as she thought it would. Mostly, it felt like a badly pulled muscle. The fogginess in her brain bothered her more than her hip. That would probably change as the days wore on. Once she didn’t feel like she was swimming through a swamp, the ache would register more. The pain would increase as it healed too. She knew that from experience.
She touched her hair. Her dark brown, almost black tresses were a stark contrast against her pale skin. She didn’t normally have a lot of color, but she was ghostly white. Her body was struggling right now.
Having had enough of staring at her bedraggled appearance, she turned and reached for her clothes. The room spun, and she lost her balance. Crashing into the counter, she slapped at it, trying to stay upright. Her hand hit the toiletries and sent them flying. They hit the floor with a clatter. Her lipstick rolled into the corner and her hairbrush skittered across the tile and banged into the toilet. Sam’s deodorant ricocheted off the bathtub.
With a groan, Audra lowered herself to her knees and pressed her forehead against the cool granite, desperate for the room to stop spinning. The urge to puke hit her hard.
“Audra? Are you all right?” Sam’s voice carried through the closed door.
Too busy holding last night’s dinner down, she didn’t answer.
“Aud? Answer me, or I’m coming in.”
She opened her mouth to call out and immediately closed it again as her stomach rebelled further. She knew her injuries would catch up with her eventually. For the last two days, she’d been running on adrenaline. That was gone now.
The door opened.
“Oh my God. Audra.” Sam sank down next to her, his warm hand landing on her bare back. “What happened?”
Audra swallowed and attempted to speak. “Dizzy.” She knew she should feel some embarrassment over the fact she was naked, but it wasn’t anything Sam hadn’t seen before.
“Come on. Let’s get you off the floor.”
The hand on her back slid around her side. She hissed as he touched the bruise over her hip.
“Sorry.” His hand rose, grazing the underside of her breast.
That sent different signals along her nerve-endings that weren’t unpleasant. The zing didn’t last, though. Her dizziness and the ache in her leg pushed it away.
Sam stood, bringing her with him. Audra sagged into his side as the world spun again. She clutched a handful of his black t-shirt and closed her eyes.
“I’m going to pick you up.”
He shifted at her side. She felt his hand slide along the backs of her thighs, then lift at her knees. In seconds, she was cradled against his broad chest.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she croaked, not daring to nod. She stared at his jaw, hoping it would help her head to stare at a fixed point up close.
He carried her through the doorway and into the main part of the hotel room. A moment later, he laid her on her bed and tugged the comforter up over her body. Audra sank into the soft mattress, closing her eyes again, and let her muscles relax. After a minute of stillness flat on her back, some of her nausea eased.
“I think you need to rest today.” The bed dipped as Sam sat down beside her.
She looked at him, her voice returning now that the spin cycle in her belly had slowed. “Your friends are coming. And we still have more data to go over.” They’d spent a good portion of yesterday combing through the files she copied from Liam’s computer. A lot of it was legitimate business accounting. So far, they didn’t have much to go on.
“Asher’s already on it. Dean and Max will rent a car and drive themselves here. You can greet them from bed.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s such a great first impression. Let’s make the female operative look even weaker than she’s already perceived to be.”
“You don’t have to prove your toughness to them.”
“You say that?—”
“And I mean it. They know you’re injured. They also know you’ve been undercover for two years. That alone would make anyone think you’re tough.”
He took her hand, holding her fingers and running his thumb over her knuckles. “How’s your head now that you’re lying down?”
“Better.” To her horror, tears formed in her eyes. She clenched her teeth and willed them away.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Sam touched her cheek, smoothing away the wetness she hadn’t realized seeped out.
“Nothing.” She batted his hand away and swiped at her face. “I’m fine.”
“That’s total crap, and you know it. You can talk to me, you know? I might not always find the right words anymore, but I’m still a good listener.”
“How about we talk about that? Why do you have issues speaking now?”
“Nope. This is about you.”
“Again, talking about other things distracts me.”
“You haven’t talked about what happened at all. It’s been two days, Aud. You need to let your feelings out.”
She grimaced, then glared at him. “I’d rather not.” Feelings were messy. She didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with messy right now.
He sighed and looked away. “Okay. How about you tell me more about this op? How close were you to the end?”
Audra lifted her free hand and massaged her forehead. A dull headache had replaced the dizziness. “Probably another month. Until I could leave, anyway. There’s still all the follow-up. I was hoping that the hard drive and the pictures I took of that ledger I found would be enough to get some arrest warrants. It all has to be analyzed first.”
“Well, now you not only have MI6 on it, but also Asher. He’ll probably be faster.”
A corner of her mouth lifted. “You sure do put a lot of stock in him. In all your friends, really.”
“They never let me down.”
“That’s good. Having friends like that.” Her brow wrinkled. She didn’t have many people like that in her life. Sam was about the only one. And even then, the only reason she called him was because she ran into him in February. If it wasn’t for that encounter, she never would have thought to contact him. She’d never forgotten their time together, but that didn’t mean he was constantly in her thoughts. She pulled those nights out at times when she needed the endorphin boost. Thinking about him while she did—other things—always improved her mood.
Her face heated. She prayed he didn’t notice. Or that he chalked it up to embarrassment over her last statement.
“I’m glad I do,” he said. “And now you do too.”
Her frown deepened. “What do you mean?”
“You’re my friend, right?”
“I guess so.”
“And you need help?”
“Yes.”
“Then my friends are your friends. They’ll do anything you need to stay safe.”
Moisture pressed against the backs of her eyes again. She blinked and looked away. “Well, I’m not so sure it’ll last, but be sure to thank them for me for helping.”
Sam sighed. “I know you don’t believe me, but you’ll see.” He squeezed her fingers. “This group—they’re special.”
They’d have to be to have Sam’s loyalty. The man she’d known didn’t bestow his friendship easily. But she’d gathered he’d been that way much of his life. He was an only child, raised by elderly grandparents after his mother abandoned him. He didn’t know who his father was. They were alike in that respect. Her father was some guy her mother met on holiday. All Audra knew was he’d been an engineering student in Bristol and his first name was Steven. She didn’t know much more about her mother, honestly. The woman hadn’t been around much before she died.
“How did you meet them? You didn’t know them when we were together, did you?”
“I knew Ford. We served together, though not on the same SEAL team. Not until later.”
“And the others?”
“I met most of them when I moved down to Costa Rica. Dean’s the only other one I knew before that. We were on the same team for a couple of years.”
“What happened? What drove you to Costa Rica?”
He studied her for several moments. “You’re really not going to let this go, are you?”
“Nope. I do not wish to talk about myself.”
“What if I don’t want to, either?”
“Then we’re going to sit here and stare at each other. Though I’d rather not do that. Not while I’m naked under this duvet.”
Fire lit in Sam’s eyes. They flicked to the top of the blanket that was tucked under her arm, then back to her face.
Audra’s cheeks heated again, but she didn’t look away. It wasn’t in her nature to back down. Even if meeting him head on wasn’t wise. She couldn’t do anything about the need he stirred in her right now. Not when simply sitting up made the room spin and her hip ache. “So, what’s it going to be? Are you going to keep staring at me? Or will you finally answer my question?”
He stared at her for another moment, then shrugged. “It’s not a secret. I got blown up. The Humvee I was in hit an—it hit a bomb. The blast—it tossed and flipped the truck. I got lucky and was sitting on the side it didn’t land on. Shrapnel tore—” He broke off again and motioned to his legs. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes for a moment and then continued. “My biggest injury was to my head. I was in a coma for about a week. When I woke up, I couldn’t talk. My coordination was off too.”
“Geez, Sam.” Audra stared at him with wide eyes, horrified at what he’d been through.
“It took a few months for me to regain my coordination. The speech took longer. I still struggle sometimes. The words get stuck. It’s worse when I’m agitated. Or tired.”
“And the deep breathing, that helps?”
“Usually. It’s more about resetting my emotions. Keeping them under control. They can overwhelm my processing center and then the words get stuck.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that. That you still do.” She couldn’t imagine how drastically that changed things for him. He’d been quiet when they met, but also outgoing and gregarious at times. He wasn’t as much anymore.
He lifted a shoulder. “It’s life. Nothing I can do about it except accept it and move on.”
“How long ago was this?”
“A few years. I was medically discharged from the Navy. Home—well, no one’s there I care about anymore. Ford called me and asked if I wanted to come down and stay with him. How he heard about my injuries, I don’t know. I’ve never asked. But I’m glad he did. It’s the best decision I ever made.”
“And now you work for him?” She’d looked Sam up after they ran into each other in February, but she hadn’t done a deep dive, preferring not to get distracted from her mission. Seeing him had done enough of that. All she’d allowed herself to discover was that he was one of several Americans living in the Golfito area.
“No. I own a bar. Our team isn’t official. We just help each other out—and some of our other military friends—when the need arises.”
“Oh.”
“That’s why I say you can trust my friends. Why they’ll treat you as a friend. No one’s getting paid for this.” He squeezed her fingers again.
That zing zipped through her once more. She knew she shouldn’t—that she should pull away—but she turned her hand over and laced their fingers together. “Thank you for telling me.”
A smile slashed over his handsome face, making his midnight blue eyes sparkle. “It’s part of the friend code. Distraction. Do you feel better?”
To her surprise, she found he was right. She was less woozy. “Yes. My brain has stopped feeling like it’s on a tilt-a-whirl.”
“Good.”
“So, tell me about this bar?” She smiled. “You weren’t a big drinker, so why pick that?”
He shifted, coming up on the bed to sit beside her, stretching his long legs out as he took her hand again. “I decided I wanted to stay down there. But I needed a job to get a work visa. For a little while, I worked for Ford on his fishing charters, but the motion of the waves—my equilibrium can be unsteady, so it wasn’t a good fit. I had disability payments coming in, and I’d been living with Ford, so I didn’t have too many expenses. Tourism in our area was booming, so I looked into what would enhance the visitor experience. There wasn’t a nice bar people could hang out at. So, I opened one.”
“And you like it?”
“I do. Sometimes, the tourists get on my nerves, but I figured out that hiring bands for live music makes it harder for them to talk to me.” He chuckled.
Audra laughed too. “It sounds nice. Less stressful than my life.”
“Most anything is less stressful than being a spy. Especially an undercover one.”
That was true. And for the first time, she was starting to rethink her career choice. Maybe if things hadn’t gone sour with her op, she’d think differently, but she was ready to live at a slower pace.
“So, what have you been up to for the last ten years? Anything interesting, other than this case, since the one we met on?”
Audra smiled, remembering that op. A rebel faction in Africa had threatened U.S. and U.K. operations in the area. She’d been part of the intelligence arm gathering information. Sam had been the military attaché assigned to provide security for her and the other members of her joint team. She’d fallen fast and hard for him. When the op ended, they’d all been granted a couple weeks of leave. Oh so casually, she’d mentioned her intent to visit Rota, Spain after their debrief, hoping he would follow her there. He hadn’t disappointed. Her first evening in the city, he plopped down in the wrought-iron chair across from her at a small café. That sexy smile on his face said it all. She’d enjoyed their time together, had been sad when it ended. But they both knew their lives were going in different directions.
“There have been one or two fun jobs. Not anything I can really talk about. This one has been the most grueling, though. And the most exciting.”
He lifted their connected hands and put them in his lap. He traced circles on the back of her knuckles with his free hand and stared down. “I tried to keep track of you. First through official channels. When you disappeared off the radar, I worried you were dead. Even more so when even Asher couldn’t track you down.” He lifted his head to look at her. “I’m glad you’re not.”
That intense, dark blue gaze ensnared her. She’d always been captivated by his eyes. They were such a deep blue they verged on purple. For a long time, every time she looked at the twilight sky, she thought of him.
He shifted, turning onto his side, and leaned closer. His free hand came up, skimming her cheek with the tips of his fingers. She knew he wanted to kiss her. She didn’t intend to stop him.
The first touch of his mouth zapped her like a bolt of lightning. Memories flooded her head of how it felt to kiss him. To touch him. To have him hold her and make her lose her mind. The kiss they shared months ago had been so quick and so spontaneous, she hadn’t done more than just react to how it felt.
This one, though. It was slow and deliberate. It felt like the kisses they used to share. The ones that led to them tangled in the bedsheets for hours on end.
Audra raised her hand to cup the side of his face. He’d shaved this morning, and the smooth skin of his jaw glided beneath her fingers.
Cool air whispered over her chest, tightening her nipples, as the duvet slipped. Some sanity crept back in. She was naked under the blanket. And while the wanton woman in her head screamed, “Hell yes!” her battered body couldn’t handle much more than the kiss.
So, she did the prudent thing and pulled back.
He stared at her, his dark blue eyes almost black with desire. “I know you’re hurt, but when you’re all healed up—” he tugged the duvet down further and traced a circle around one nipple—“we’re going to do much, much more than share a few kisses.”
She swallowed hard. “What if I don’t want to? Getting involved again probably isn’t the best idea.”
“Oh, you want to. You can’t sit there and tell me your body isn’t wet, ready for me.” He leaned down again, his mouth just inches away.
Oh boy. She was in trouble.
“And I’ve learned life’s too short for missed opportunities, Audra. I let you go once. I’m not doing that again.”
A lot of trouble.
Sam pressed a firm kiss to her lips, then sat up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. “I’m going to get us some breakfast. And coffee. The caffeine will be good for your head.”
Audra closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, struggling to corral her body. It didn’t like being denied, even if it was too beaten up to participate in more than kissing. “Okay. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”