Page 45 of Strangers in Love

She made a sound that could’ve been a laugh or a curse, but she did grab onto my shirt with both hands now and pulled herself as close to me as possible. I could feel her breasts pressing against my back and had an intense desire to feel her skin on mine.

Dammit.

This was not the time or the place.

Or the person.

I crouched as low as I could, wincing as my arm scraped against the wire as I tried to keep Aline from being scratched. With a bullet graze on one arm and what was going to be a hell of a bruise from the bullet I’d taken to the vest, what the fence had done was barely noticeable after that first second. My thighs and calves burned as I duck walked us through, but I ignored the pain. After what’d happened to me in Iraq, all of this was nothing.

One foot in front of the other. That’s what I needed to focus on. I had Aline. She was safe and didn’t seem to have been hurt. I refused to think of what might’ve been done to her that I couldn’t see. I might give in to going back if I thought about that too much because I’d want to kill every one of the bastards who’d touched her.

It felt like forever before we reached the alley where the team had agreed to meet, but I knew it’d only been ten minutes or so. We’d picked this as the first meeting point because it wasn’t that far from the building where Aline had been, and it was near a fairly busy night club, which meant we could hide in plain sight with only a little effort.

As I set Aline down as carefully as I could, I barely held back the sigh of relief. I’d started working out again, but I wasn’t quite back to, well, to fighting shape. I wanted to take a moment, lean against the wall, and have a bit of a breather. I didn’t. I was afraid to close my eyes. If I did, I knew she’d take off.

Then I let myself take a good look at her, the first real one I’d had without worrying about getting shot. The way the alley was built, we were hidden from anyone who might get curious, so I let myself have that moment instead of a rest, and even as I did it, I wondered if it was a mistake.

She was filthy, dirtier even than she’d been in the ransom video. She’d lost the headscarf somewhere, probably when I’d picked her up. I couldn’t even tell what color her shirt had started out. Her pants had holes in the knees, and the hems were frayed. The collar of her shirt was torn, and my stomach clenched as my previous fear came rocketing back to me.

How, exactly, had her shirt gotten torn?

My eyes went back to her face, searching for injuries under the dirt. No cuts I could see. Her eyes weren’t swollen shut. She looked like her bottom lip had been bleeding, but it was hard to tell if it was from an injury or dehydration. She might’ve had some bruises, but I couldn’t tell that either.

What I could see was that her eyes were dry, her jaw set. She wasn’t huddling in on herself. Wasn’t hyperventilating or freaking out. I couldn’t say for sure that she wasn’t just in shock, but I didn’t think that was the case. When I saw her shift her weight from one foot to the other, her head turning to look from one end of the alley to the other, I knew what she was thinking.

“Don’t.” I reached behind the dumpster without taking my eyes off her. We’d stashed a couple duffle bags here with some clothes to help us blend in.

“Don’t what?”

The innocent tone didn’t fool me. I pulled off my mask, the cool air feeling good on my face. I didn’t like the idea of her seeing my scar, but I didn’t have much of a choice. “Don’t run.”

She crossed her arms and glared at me, but all I could think about was how she hadn’t flinched at my scar. She looked directly at my face, so she had to see it, but no reaction. As much as I hated to admit it, it threw me.

“You said Freedom sent you?”

“She did.” I took off my bulletproof vest and used the bottom of my t-shirt to wipe off my face.

“So, you’re not the army or SEALS or something like that? Coming to get all the U.S. citizens being held hostage?”

The accusation in her voice rubbed me the wrong way, but I reminded myself that this woman had been through hell. “We’re a private agency. Five of us, all ex-military. We were just sent for you.”

She frowned. “We should’ve saved everyone.”

I didn’t comment. Nothing I said was going to make her happy, even if I told her I planned to go back once she was safe with the others at the hotel. There was a good chance that, if any of the kidnappers hadn’t been killed, they’d either kill the other hostages or move them. If she hadn’t figured it out already, she would soon.

I’d still go back on the off chance that either we’d taken out every one or that any survivors had just run alone and left the prisoners, assuming they’d just die from thirst. As much as I’d hated having to leave them, knowing what would probably happen to them, I’d had a job to do.

“You’re bleeding,” she said, her tone changing.

“What?” I followed her gaze to my left bicep, where the bullet had grazed me. “Yeah, it’s nothing.”

She looked like she didn’t believe me, but that wasn’t my problem. We’d waited here long enough.

“We need to move.”

“Aren’t we waiting for the others?”

I pulled a large shirt and another headscarf out of the bag and tossed them to her. “No. We were supposed to wait for five minutes and then go on to the second rendezvous point at the hotel. Put those on. We don’t want to attract any more attention than necessary.”

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