Dark Sins and Desert Sands (5 page)

He snapped a quick shot of her giving her date the polite brush-off. Ray didn’t recognize the guy with her. He was older, with silver hair and gave off a well-mannered vibe. Totally not the type he would’ve envisioned for her, but whatever. Ray didn’t think the guy was a threat. Even so, as she walked away from her date, Layla looked upset. She started down the drive toward the strip, rubbing her bare arms against the cooler night air.

Keeping his head down, Ray followed her, but he wasn’t the only one. Maybe it was his training. Maybe it was a preternatural instinct. Maybe it was because he couldn’t figure out why a cabbie would be wearing sunglasses at night. Whatever it was, he turned his head at just the right moment to see the driver lift a radio to his mouth, his attention riveted on Layla’s retreating form.

Son of a bitch,
Ray thought. So she
was
in some kind of danger. And not just from him.

Ray didn’t like the crowds, didn’t like the noise and the neon lights of the strip, but he kept his eyes on her. As he followed her, he noticed that she had a catlike grace. Maybe it wasn’t just a fluke that she envisioned herself as a lioness. Still, she didn’t seem comfortable
in the night and she sure didn’t have the focus of a predator. She didn’t even look up to see the dark sedan that pulled around the corner, creeping behind her. Seemingly oblivious to her peril, she crossed the street, her sensible black pumps clicking against the pavement.

Ray followed her. So did the sedan.

Layla paused on the sidewalk outside the Golden Calf Casino. It was a crappy little hotel, nestled amongst the bigger, more glamorous ones. Hawkers and hobos gathered beneath the gilded statue of a steer, upon which was fastened a sign announcing the nightly pancake special. Layla stared, as if she were lost.

It was at that moment two big, beefy guys stepped out of the dark sedan.

Ray could have let it happen. He could have let them—what, arrest her? Attack her? Kill her? It’d be the least she deserved. But he
couldn’t
let it happen. She was still the only chance he had at proving his innocence, he reminded himself. The information he needed was buried inside her ruined memory, and as long as he kept her alive, he still had a chance of digging it up.

Ray strode toward her and she turned. He saw just the corner of her eyes, the green glint of surprise. It was enough. He slipped into the depths of those eyes and grabbed onto the edge of her thoughts. “Put your hand in mine and keep walking,” he said.

Forcing her to obey should’ve been easy, but with her, nothing ever was. He slammed into the same wall of resistance, and not wanting to wait for his powers to take full effect, he grabbed her hand and yanked her forward.

He follows you wherever you go, but when you turn to meet him his face doesn’t show.

I
t was the man of her dreams—
literally,
the man of her dreams—but he was no shadow monster now. No snout, no hooves, no glinting horns. Still, he clutched her hand like he could break it. He’d come out of nowhere and she’d been taken completely by surprise. “Wh-what are you doing?”

His close-cropped goatee scratched her cheek when he leaned in to whisper, “Someone’s following you, so shut up and keep walking.”

She took a few steps with him before she could stop herself. It was as if she wasn’t moving her own legs; he was. But that was impossible. As they threaded their way through the crowd into the casino, the sirens of a winning slot machine screamed at them. The scent
was beer mingled with sweat, and a thumping music played static behind the roar of voices.

“Who’s following you?” he asked, and she started to turn her head to look. “Don’t let them see you looking! Glance over there, at the glass doors. See the reflection?”

She saw them. Two clean-cut guys in suits pushing through the revelers. She tried to get her wits about her. For all she knew, the men could be chasing
him,
not
her
. She shouldn’t let him guide her to the stairway behind the bar, but her hand felt small and somehow secure in his calloused palm. His presence, dark and brutish as it was, made her more…alive. She was actually
feeling,
and though it might be the death of her, she didn’t want it to stop!

Still, she found the presence of mind to ask, “Who are you and where are you taking me?”

The question seemed to infuriate him. “You really don’t fucking remember me, do you? My name is Ray. You probably remember me better as Prisoner Twenty-Four.” The harshness of his words carried even over the hustle and bustle of the casino, and effectively silenced her until Ray skidded to a stop just outside of a bank of elevators. They nearly mowed down an elderly man who had just come down from a higher floor with his bags in hand, obviously ready to check out.

“What’s your room number, gramps?” Ray barked.

“Five-thirteen,” the elderly man answered, his jaw going lax and jowly as he stared into Ray’s eyes.

“Give me your hotel key,” Ray said, and Layla watched in astonishment as the old man did as he was bid. “Now go for the pancake special and forget to check out.”

With that, Ray yanked Layla into the elevator. Until that moment—until the elevator doors shut—she’d thought that the stranger was in command of himself and in command of her. He’d been unbelievably strong, aggressive and self-assured. But the moment the two slabs of metal slammed together, shutting out the brighter light and noise, she watched her captor’s face go ashen. The look that passed over his eyes was something desperate and feral.

She heard the deepening of his breathing as he backed up against the wall. She could’ve asked him a thousand questions in that moment. She could’ve asked why he’d grabbed her off the street. She could’ve asked where he was taking her, and why. But watching the blazing intensity of his dark eyes lose focus and turn glassy, her instincts as a mental health professional kicked in. “Are you going to faint?”

“I don’t faint,” Ray said, punching the button for the fifth floor and every one after it. His voice was filled with pain and contempt and sweat broke out over his face as he stumbled.

It’d been the closed doors that had triggered him. She’d seen it with her own eyes. And now his heart was beating so hard she could actually hear it. “Take a deep breath and focus on my voice,” she said quietly. “If you can calm down, the feeling will pass.”

“What the hell would you know about it?” he growled.

Layla wasn’t surprised that he lashed out at her. “I know a panic attack when I see one.”

In answer, Ray turned and pounded his fist into the door, as if he could batter his way out. Given the force of the blows, maybe he could. “Why is this elevator so goddamned slow?”

He looked like a trapped animal—one who might be willing to gnaw off his own arm to escape. He stumbled again, and this time she steadied him. “Close your eyes and imagine the desert, wide and open to the horizon.”

He sagged against her, the bulk of his weight pinning her to the wall. She couldn’t tell if he was even conscious anymore. He was a big man. He wasn’t just tall; his shoulders were also very wide. His coat had fallen open so that the outlines of his muscles were clear beneath his black T-shirt. Something pressed hard into her side, and she looked down to see that he was wearing a holstered gun. It should have terrified her, but the proximity of his masculinity, so raw and powerful, also awakened the same yearning she’d felt in her dream.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said, softly stroking his arm.

Back in Syria, every time they’d thrown Ray in the coffin, he’d wondered if he’d seen light for the last time. The elevator brought back that sensation, and the terror had crawled up inside him until he was ready to claw the doors open with his bare hands.

Beautiful
. As an army translator, he’d lived through firefights and hostage situations. As a prisoner, he’d been beaten and left for dead. But what frightened him now? A goddamned elevator. And to make matters worse,
she
was on hand to witness his weakness. Like she needed another weapon in the arsenal of tricks she’d used to chip away at his psyche and find the cracks.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, he flung
himself out into the hallway, crashing into the opposite wall.

“Count your breaths and breathe slow,” she said, offering her voice as an anchor against the rising tide of panic. But they were being followed; he didn’t have time for slow. Through sheer force of will, Ray straightened up and herded her down the hallway to the old man’s room and pushed her inside. He shut the door and peered out the peephole.

He didn’t see anybody coming, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. Ray ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, then checked his gun. It made him feel more secure somehow, to touch it. “Unless those guys are determined to search every room and alert casino security, we’ve probably given your entourage the slip for now.” The panic was subsiding, but he was still unsteady. If she wanted to scream, or push past him and run away, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d have the power to stop her.

She didn’t try. Instead she said, “I’ll get you a glass of water. It might help.”

It was surreal to watch her return from the bathroom, carrying a drink for him, like she was Florence Fucking Nightingale.
I heal people now,
she’d told him in the shifting sands of her mindscape.
Right
.

He took the water and drank it down, then sat down on the bed, hard.

Layla was relieved to see that the stranger seemed to be coming back to himself now, getting it under control. But his eyes were still on her, pinning her in place like a red butterfly against a mat. “So now what? Are you going to shoot me?”

He snorted. “Is that why you think I brought you up here? To shoot you? Seriously?”

“The only thing I know is that you’ve taken me hostage.”

“Lady, I just
rescued
you,” Ray said.

“Is that why you have a gun?”

“I have a gun because people are after me. Let’s both hope I won’t have to use it.”

“Why would you need to use it?” she asked, her voice rising an octave. “People seem to do whatever you say….”

“It’s my animal charm,” he said, but his acid tone was anything but charming. He slammed the empty glass down on the bedside table. “So let’s see if I have this straight. You don’t know who I am. You also don’t know who is following you. What the hell
do
you know, Doc?”

Layla had held the secret inside her for so long, it seemed impossible that she was going to admit it to a complete stranger. But when the words left her lips, they came out in an exhilarating rush. “I don’t know anything! I don’t remember anything but the past two years of my life. I woke up in the desert, in my car, holding an old sixpence coin in my hand—this sixpence,” she said, pulling the necklace out of her neckline so he could see it. “I thought maybe I was from England, but my wallet was filled with dollars and I had an American driver’s license.”

“And that didn’t jog your memory?” he asked, examining the coin.

“No. I didn’t recognize myself and I don’t recognize you either. When was the last time we saw one another?”

“Twenty-four months, thirteen days and six hours ago… I got in the habit of counting when I was locked in a box.”

Twenty-four months,
Layla thought. Two years ago. Before she lost her memory. “And how did we know each other? Were we…” In spite of herself, her eyes drifted to the bed.

“Screwing?”

Her cheeks suddenly burned, both because of his crass word choice and because of the way her insides flip-flopped at the mere suggestion.
Were
they lovers? It was the only way she could explain her physical reaction to him. Or why he was stalking her and leaving threatening notes in her office.

“We never went to bed together, no,” Ray finally said, but not before letting his gaze travel up and down her body. It made her go hot all over. “I was arrested because some anonymous informant accused me of colluding with the enemy in Afghanistan. You were my interrogator. I was innocent. I
am
innocent. But you let them torture me anyway.”

The heat in Layla’s body went to sudden chill. She had to sit down on the hotel room wing chair to keep her knees from buckling. “You must be mistaken.”

Ray took off his coat and threw it at her. Now that his arms were exposed, she saw the crisscrossing lines of scars near his wrists. “Does this look like a mistake?”

“You could’ve made those marks yourself,” she said, slowly.

He yanked off his holster—gun and all—throwing it onto the bed. Then off came his T-shirt. She watched the pure artistry of his torso in motion, his
bare stomach coming into sharp focus. He was beautiful. Like some bronzed statue of an ancient athlete. But she wasn’t the type of woman to wilt at the sight of a man’s rippling muscles. She wasn’t like Isabel, all open and sensual, so the feelings that rose in her weren’t because of his raw physicality. It was the way he was staring at her, predatory and intense, compelling her to look at him.
Really
look at him.

As she stared, he turned so that his broad back was exposed to her, and now her breath caught in her throat. Scars knotted across his spine. The pale marks twisted together, snaking across his flesh like serpents coiling for a strike.

Layla’s hand went over her mouth to stifle a gasp.

“You still think I did this to myself?” he asked.

For a moment—just a moment—she could envision his wounds, bleeding and raw. She thought she heard his throaty cry of pain and shook her head to dislodge the terrible sound. Was it possible that he was telling the truth? Could she be responsible in some way for the agony written large upon his flesh? Layla shook her head. No, it wasn’t possible. She may not have all her memories, but it wasn’t in her to hurt anyone. She was a healer. A
healer
.

“Convinced that I’m telling the truth yet, or do you need to see more?” His hands went to the front of his jeans, and he snapped the button open. “’Cause I’ve got plenty to show you.”

“Don’t,” Layla said, reaching out to stop him. Their fingers tangled, right there at the front of his pants. Embarrassment flared even hotter at her cheeks and she tried to yank back. He pressed her fingers against the fabric, so that the rough teeth of the zipper scratched
her skin. He was close to her now, and the scent of him filled her nostrils. The potent evidence of his masculinity at eye level was overwhelming and the reality of her situation hit her all at once. She’d been abducted by a stranger off the street and was now holed up with him inside a hotel room. Worse, he was looking down at her like some
djinn
about to devour her.

“Unzip me,” he said.

Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t say what made her do it. Maybe he was in her head, compelling her obedience. Maybe she was too afraid of him to refuse. Or maybe it was the heated sensation that curled in her belly. She pressed the flat of one palm against his thigh, French manicured nails splayed over the denim. Then she tugged gingerly on his zipper with the other hand. It was obscene to watch herself do this. Curiosity mingled with humiliation.

For one brief and wildly insane moment, she wondered what it would be like to touch him. Both shame and titillation shook her to her core as he slipped the waistband over his hips and exposed his boxer briefs and, just below the hem…the marred flesh of his thighs. A row of puckered burn marks trailed down his leg. Someone had taken a hot poker, or a cigarette, and pressed the burning end into his skin, over and over again. The sight seared into her, as if she’d been the one burned. “I did this to you?”

“No,” he said, his voice low. “But you worked with the people who did.”

It couldn’t be true. If it
was
true, it made her sick. It made her even more of a stranger to herself than she already was. So how could it be that she was also feeling something warm, something petal-soft and exquisite?
Something like she imagined arousal was supposed to feel. No sooner did it begin to blossom inside her than it was crushed under the weight of recollection. “You’re Rayhan Stavrakis.”

“That’s right.”

She couldn’t make sense of her memories, but she was astounded to be remembering anything. “Greek… Arab…Syrian?”

“American,” Ray growled. “Not that it matters.”

“I’m sorry,” Layla whispered, staring at his scars. The words were so completely inadequate that she nearly choked on them. “I don’t remember much, but I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah? Well, now you’re gonna make it up to me.”

Well, wasn’t Layla Bahset just full of surprises? Ray watched the blush intensify on her upturned cheeks, and though she’d completely misread his intentions, her reaction made him hard. Very hard. He remembered what she’d said to him when he’d entered her sleeping mind.
“Make me want something,”
she had pleaded.
“Make my pulse quicken with excitement. Make me sigh with longing. Make my body weak with pleasure. Make me, make me, make me…”