Darkest Before Dawn by Maya Banks
wouldn’t be mortified every time he looked at her or she looked at him. She’d simply act as though she had no memory of the event.
But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t hold that memory dear to her, savor it, lock it away to be pulled out at will so she could relive that moment over and over.
For now, putting away the pleasure of that one stolen moment, she forced herself to the task at hand. She had to open her damn eyes and figure out where she was. And if she was safe.
It took far more effort than she would have liked to pry her eyes open. Her entire face was set into a grimace as she worked to lift what felt like lead eyelids. A sliver of low light registered and she took heart in the fact that she was making progress. After several more steadying breaths, and ensuring that she wasn’t going to be sick, she forced them open all the way.
It was disorienting at first. Too much to take in all at once. Nothing about her surroundings was familiar. The first thing she registered was that she was in a very comfortable bed. Not a cot, a bedroll or a makeshift place to sleep. It was an honest-to-goodness real bed with a mattress and linens to die for. Five-star-hotel quality, not that she had much experience with five-star accommodations. But this was heaven.
As she shrugged the last vestiges of fuzz from her mind, she swiftly examined her surroundings, looking for any hint that she was in danger.
The walls were painted in soft lavender, several floral paintings strategically placed to give the room an open and airy feel. The furnishings were expensive, custom-looking and hand carved. The wood was a deep brown, the contrast between the darker pieces and the more feminine-looking walls pleasing to her eye.
She felt . . . safe. No fear pricked her nape or caused the hairs on her arms to rise. But where was she?
She shifted in the plush bed, her intention to sit up, to get out of the bed and . . . do what?
The question was settled for her when her body shrieked its protest to her movement. She could feel the blood drain from her cheeks and pain lanced through her side, leaving her breathless. Her lungs were frozen, unable to suck air in or expel it back out. Panicked, she didn’t know whether to lower herself back to the bed or continue her ascent. Either one was going to hurt like hell.
A noise at the door startled her. Her body jerked involuntarily, which caused another blast of pain scorching her side.
Hancock filled the doorway. He took one look at her and issued a vicious curse under his breath even as he strode quickly to the bed. He gathered her in his arms, his hold tight but not painful. He carefully eased her back down into the mattress, but even with the obvious care he took in moving her, pain washed through her, robbing her of breath just when she’d thought she’d gotten it back.
Tears swam in her vision, causing Hancock’s grim, worried face to swim above her.
“Damn it, Honor. You shouldn’t have tried to get up.”
She said nothing for a moment, her nostrils distending as she tried desperately to suck in oxygen and breathe through the remnants of the crippling pain.
“Where am I?” she asked weakly. “Are we safe?”
His expression became even more grim, a distant flicker in his eyes just before he looked away, neatly avoiding her gaze.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “We’re safe here.”
She closed her eyes. “Thank God. But where is here? Are we back home? Can I call my family?” A tear trickled hotly down her cheek. “They probably think I’m dead.”
Hancock cursed again, the words blistering even though he uttered them in barely above a whisper. He knelt beside the bed and put his hand on her forehead in what could only be construed as tenderness. Her eyes flew to his in confusion, because he’d never made any outward show of softness to her except the times when he didn’t think she would be aware.
“Right now, you have to focus on getting well,” he said in that grim voice. And yet she heard something else in his tone. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and it bothered her. He seemed . . . uneasy. And Hancock was confident and unreadable if nothing else.
“How long?” she asked, and then regretted exerting herself by speaking so much. Who knew the task of talking would be so exhausting?
Pain had taken steady hold of her. It was raw and pulsing, rising up once more after the initial relief of being sucked back into the heavenly cloud of the bed she rested in.
“As long as it takes,” he said vaguely.
His gaze searched hers, making her uncomfortable with his scrutiny. It was as if he could see every single thing inside her. As if he felt the pain radiating from her body. His eyes grew cold and his lips thinned. He seemed angry.
“You’re hurt, or do you not remember getting yourself shot when you protected one of my men?”
Yeah, he was pissed and he was letting her know it. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. In fact, if he had shouted at her, she wouldn’t be as nervous. The low whip of authority in his voice was like a tangible lash of reprimand that she felt.
She licked her lips before parting them to defend herself and promptly found herself hushed when he placed two fingers over her mouth and his gaze dared her to defy his silent dictate for her not to speak.
“We can’t move you until you’re out of the woods,” he said. “You lost a lot of blood and I’m giving you IV fluids and antibiotics. I was just coming in to see if you were awake and in pain, and you are both. So I’m giving you pain medicine so you can rest and heal.”
She stirred, the protest strong on her lips. She didn’t care how hurt she was. She was so close to freedom and home that she could taste it, and she didn’t want to waste another single day. Every hour that she was away from her family was an hour they believed the absolute worst.
“There will be no argument, Honor,” Hancock said in that cold voice of his. The one that made her shiver and become a weak coward. It disgusted her, and it made no sense that she could stand up to an entire terrorist organization and remain defiant in their attempts to hunt her down like an animal, and yet a single man had the capacity to freeze her and automatically make her back down with nothing more than words.
She was no fool, though. This man didn’t need to back up his words. Anyone with sense could see into this man’s eyes. He was a ruthless, cold-blooded killer. It would take someone awfully stupid to defy him, and she was not a stupid woman.
He pulled out a capped syringe and swabbed the end of her IV port. Though he had said he had her on IV fluids and medication, she hadn’t even noticed the restraint of the IV line leading to her right wrist. Fat lot of good it would have done her to accomplish the feat of getting up when she would have had to lug an IV pole behind her.
“This will only take a second. Relax and let it take hold,” he said, a soothing quality replacing his earlier bite.
She frowned when the burn of the medication first hit her veins, and she flinched. Hancock automatically rubbed his palm over her lower arm where the burn was the worst, but she wasn’t even sure he was doing it consciously. This was a man who seemed incapable of tenderness, and yet she knew it for the lie it was. He’d held her when nightmares had plagued her fractured sleep. He’d kissed her and comforted her when she’d awakened, afraid and confused.
She couldn’t figure this man out, but on some deep, instinctual level, she knew he wasn’t a bad man. He wasn’t who he even thought he was. And he’d deny to his death that he had one ounce of gentleness in him.
She wasn’t sure the exact moment she’d decided to trust him. Maybe on some level it had been there from the start, even though she’d been wary of his intentions. His motive. But he’d kept his promise to get her far from A New Era’s reach, and, judging by the furnishings of this bedroom, they didn’t appear to be anywhere near the war-torn regions he’d extricated her from.
Already the medicine was making her fuzzy and she was only half conscious. Hancock started to rise, but with the last of her flagging strength, she lifted the arm with the
He looked down at her in surprise but made no effort to extricate his hand from hers. He said nothing. He merely waited for what she wanted to say.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He scowled, and she realized he had no liking for her thanking him. His reaction had been the same the first time she’d thanked him.
“For keeping your promise to me,” she managed to get out around the thickness of her tongue.
The last thing she registered as she finally succumbed to the medication was the dark, savage look of fury in his eyes. And something even more surprising.
Guilt.
CHAPTER 17
“YOUR wound is getting better,” Hancock said matter-of-factly.
His brisk and impersonal examination of Honor’s stitches told her that indeed he had no desire for her to remember those tender, unguarded moments that he thought she had no knowledge of.
“The swelling is almost gone from your knee. You should be able to walk on it in another day without pain.”
“Does that mean we can go home soon? Tomorrow?” she asked, grabbing on to those last words and holding them to her with unconcealed excitement.
His eyes flickered. She almost missed it before he turned away, pretending interest in one of her other more minor injuries. There was something there. Something he didn’t want her to see. It should have alarmed her, but she wasn’t afraid of him. She trusted him. He’d told her he’d get her safely from the reach of A New Era, and he’d done exactly that.
Then he shrugged. “It isn’t as easy as you seem to think it is. There are . . . things—plans—that must be put into place. It wouldn’t do to make any hasty moves. We aren’t out of danger yet.”
It was vague and yet it was a reminder to her that, regardless of the fact that she felt safe with him, they weren’t safe and they weren’t immune to an attack. She frowned, wishing she knew where the hell they were.
She hadn’t even seen one of Hancock’s men in the days she’d lain in this bed, in this isolated bedroom resting and healing. Hancock had brought her meals. Hancock had dressed and tended her wounds. He’d even helped her bathe, much to her mortification. But he’d helped her in the shower with brisk efficiency that made it appear as though it were the most mundane task in the world. He’d patiently washed her hair, shampooing it several times with each shower to rid the strands of the dye. And then there was the body scrubbing that had her face so scarlet that she likely resembled someone with a bad sunburn. But again, he’d merely been exacting and thorough as he cleaned the henna from her skin, returning it to its original sun-kissed state. If he was trying to make her solely dependent on him, he was doing a damn good job, because even the thought of someone else in her—this—room made her uneasy.
This wasn’t her room. Even if it had become hers over the last few days. Her room was at home. In her parents’ house. She didn’t maintain a separate residence in the States. It made no sense to do so. She was gone more often than she was home, and so when she visited between assignments, or simply needed a break when the pain and despair she faced on a daily basis became too much for her to bear without losing sight of her mission, she sought refuge at her parents’ home. She slept in her childhood bedroom, a room they kept for her. One that was purposely unchanged from when she was a teenager still in high school.
It had all the things she’d grown up with. Her favorite stuffed animals. Her beloved books. Her language textbooks and all the research books on the Middle East, its culture, the differences and nuances of each individual dialect that changed from region to region.
Even her sports trophies, though she’d laughed at the idea that her parents would keep what amounted to nothing more than a participation trophy. She’d certainly won no championships, nor had she stood out as an athlete like all her siblings had. She was the odd duck of the family.
Honor swore to her parents they must have adopted her or found her in a cabbage patch because she was nothing like her siblings. She was so much softer. More empathetic. She lacked the ruthless drive to succeed, to be successful at everything she did like her siblings did. They called her a softy. Too kindhearted and tender to survive in the “real world,” as they called it. And yet the world she lived in was the epitome of survival. Nothing at all like her family’s safe jobs, safe homes, safe lives.
Her father was a former all-star athlete. He’d played multiple sports but had gone to college on a football scholarship and had even been drafted to the pros. But by then he’d met and fallen in love with her mother, and he’d told his children often that he wanted nothing more than to be at home with her and for her to have his children. A house full.
Most doubted his sincerity, and Honor’s mother said that even she’d been skeptical at first. She hadn’t thought her husband would be happy just walking away from such a lucrative career in the spotlight. But he’d never displayed one ounce of regret, and only a year after they married, they had their first child.
Playing pro ball would have kept him from home for the majority of the year. There was spring training camp. There was the entire football season and the playoffs if the team made it to postseason play. There was no doubt her father could have been one of the greats, but instead, he’d taken a high school coaching job in Kentucky, where he and her mother had chosen to live and raise their family.
It was a small town in Kentucky, not so northern that it came too close to the line between north and south. It had the hallmark of every southern town. Open, friendly and welcoming. Small enough that everyone knew everyone else and as a result, everyone’s business was also known.
Honor and her siblings had grown up and thrived under the love and affection their parents had bestowed on them. Her brothers, every single one of them, excelled in one sport or another. As had her older sister. Her oldest brother had also played football in college and showed promise of being recruited by a pro team. He, like their father, hadn’t entered the draft and no one had questioned that decision. But then their father knew well that some decisions were simply too personal to be discussed. They just were.
But where his father had gone into coaching, an adequate substitute for not playing the sport he loved, her older brother had chosen law enforcement and was the sheriff of their county.
Her second oldest brother had chosen a professional career in sports. Unlike his father and older brother, he wasn’t a football fanatic. His entire childhood had been devoted to baseball and he was a natural. Even now he was playing with a pro team and had just signed another long-term lucrative contract before Honor had departed that last time.
The two younger brothers were both businessmen and partnered in several ventures. But that didn’t mean they didn’t carry the same abiding love—and gift—for sports.
Even her sister, the second to youngest and only other daughter in a sea of sons, was athletic and as graceful and fast as a gazelle. She too had gone into coaching after a brief stint playing professional softball in Italy after attending Kentucky State on a softball scholarship. Honor was very proud of her sister, who was the youngest head coach of the softball team in the history of the small university where she worked.
In the two years since her sister, Miranda, or Mandie as she’d been affectionately nicknamed, had taken over the program, the team had made postseason for the first time in the program’s history. Her job was definitely secure. The university had seen to that. And she was very happy there because she was already being heavily recruited by other larger, more prestigious universities with much larger programs and that had long-heralded legacies in college sports.
But Mandie was a homebody at heart, while Honor was the complete opposite. Mandie liked her job. Liked getting her hands dirty and rebuilding a program from the ground up. She had no desire to walk into a program that was already well established and be a veritable figurehead. She wanted to make a difference in every aspect of the game.
They only questioned her. And she knew it wasn’t that they didn’t believe in her—they did. They loved her. She never doubted that for a moment. They just didn’t understand her. Didn’t understand why her calling took her so far from the people who loved her when all her other siblings’ paths had kept them close to home.
How could she explain the restless drive to make a difference in places that seldom received anything at all except death and violence? Brad should understand her better than anyone. He was a protector. The sheriff. He was responsible for a lot of lives. He was perhaps the only sibling she believed she had a kinship with. A shared burden. Surely their need to protect and save others had to come from somewhere.
“Honor, are you in pain?”
Hancock’s low voice, laced with concern, drifted through her melancholy and brought her gaze to his; she saw him intently studying her face as though he were privy to her every thought.
She sucked in her breath and impulsively slid her fingers through his where they rested on the edge of the bed at her side and linked them together with a gentle tug. He flinched as though he’d received an electric shock, but he didn’t remove his hand or pry hers away, a fact she was grateful for.
For this one brief moment, she needed the touch of another. Comfort. The promise of soon being held and surrounded by the love and support of her family. Every minute she was away was the worst sort of hell for them all. They likely thought she was dead, and if they were not certain of her death, then worse, they feared what her fate was. What she was enduring even now.
She prayed they thought she was dead until she could prove to them she wasn’t. It was kinder than them torturing themselves with the endless possibilities of what could be happening to her. Besides, that wasn’t going to happen. Hancock had her. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt her.
It was foolish to think of anyone being invincible, impervious to the reach of A New Era, but she absolutely believed that Hancock could and would destroy anything in his path and would never let harm come to her. She knew it as surely as the sun rose in the east and slid into sleep in the west.
“What’s wrong, Honor?” Hancock demanded bluntly, his eyes narrowing further as he searched her face for any sign of what was causing her distress.
She wasn’t distressed.
She needed.
Heat crept up her neck and into her cheeks and she could only pray that the remnants of the dye as well as being in the sun for so long prevented him from seeing the evidence of the guilty blush.
She licked her dry, cracked lips and hesitantly, shyly, looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes.
“Kiss me, Hancock,” she said in a quivery voice that could be construed as fearful. But she knew better. And judging by the look on Hancock’s face, he also knew she wasn’t afraid of him. Or of what she was asking.
His eyes flashed with uncertainty, a rarity for him. She knew that without questioning how. She just knew. But there was also a spark of something else altogether.
Answering need. Want. Desire.
It was gone almost before she registered it happening, but the eyes never lied. They were the door to a person’s soul, or so the poets always said.
And just as she knew that Hancock was rarely if ever uncertain about anything, she also knew that it was even more rare for him to allow anyone to see what she’d just witnessed in his eyes.
She’d gotten to him and she knew it. Was stunned by it.
Good God, was she happy about it? What the hell was wrong with her? She didn’t know this man and it was presumptuous on her part, not to mention arrogant, to think that she could discern anything about him when others certainly couldn’t.
But she was already headed down a hazardous path that gave her a euphoric rush. Alive. She felt alive. Gloriously alive when death had been a suffocating fog surrounding her at every turn.
She’d made it free. Hancock had delivered what he’d promised. Her freedom from the horrible men hunting her like ruthless predators.
“Kiss me,” she said again, her voice dropping to a husky whisper laced with need. “Just one time when we’re both perfectly aware of it happening and neither of us can claim it never happened.”
His eyes widened in quick alarm and then surprise. Both reactions were chased from his eyes as they hardened with the realization that she knew. She remembered. Perhaps she’d never forgotten at all but needed time for all the pieces to drift back together. Now that she had them all in place, she would lock that memory into her soul for all time. Savor it. One pure, sweet moment amid so much fear and chaos and torment.
He swore softly, but even as he did so he slid one knee onto the mattress and leaned his big, tightly muscled body toward hers until he hovered mere inches above her. Heat licked from his skin, warming her to the bone. She suddenly took in the huge disparity in their sizes. He was a mountain of solid steel, not a spare ounce of flesh anywhere on his body that she could discern. And she had a very vivid imagination.
But he made her feel small and fragile. Vulnerable. But not afraid. She licked her lips, suddenly realizing that perhaps she should be afraid, provoking the beast when she was completely aware and had all her senses about her. Or maybe not enough sense to resist poking the wild animal.
With a harsh groan when her tongue darted over her bottom lip, he leaned down and swept her mouth into his, hot and hungry. There was none of the almost delicate tenderness he’d maintained when he’d kissed her so reverently when he thought she was unaware of her actions or that he was kissing her.
He devoured her mouth, consumed her, tasted every part of her hungry tongue, showing her the staggering difference between a male trying to offer a woman comfort and a starving man demonstrating his ruthless dominance over her.
If it wouldn’t hurt so bad, she’d rip every bit of his clothing off and strip herself naked and throw herself at him, or rather on him. All she managed was a low moan that ended in a hum and then a breathy sigh of pleasure and sheer contentment that was quickly swallowed up and inhaled by him.