Midnight Promises (8 page)

Portland

Felicity woke up when the front doorbell rang. She heard Metal’s deep bass and then Lauren’s quiet voice.

Sun was streaming in and it gave her cognitive dissonance until she glanced at her Doctor Who watch. The only way what she read there made any sense was if she’d slept almost sixteen hours. She’d been sleeping for almost two days straight.

“In here,” she called out, wincing. But, surprise. Her side hurt much less than it had before. She found she could even sit up in bed without Metal’s help.

Metal, such an odd name.

Well, she should talk.

She’d named herself after a comic book character, Felicity Smoak. Was he called Metal because of all those muscles? They were as hard as steel. When he’d carried her, when he’d helped her sit up in bed, whenever he’d touched her, she’d felt those steely muscles. He’d been enormously delicate but the man was built. Amazing muscles. Hard, warm.

He’d held her hand all night. For two nights in a row.

She was certain that it was that hand that was helping her heal so quickly. Even asleep she’d somehow felt the strength and warmth, a constant infusion of power, like Peter Parker having been bit by a genetically modified spider, only without the bite.

This time forty-eight hours ago she’d been flying over the Rockies, happy to be meeting an old friend who was actually a new friend.

And there she was, that old and new friend, standing on the threshold of the bedroom.

“Felicity?” Lauren held the doorjamb with one hand and the handle of a carry-on case with the other. The night before last, Felicity had barely glimpsed her. She’d been so weak and in such pain she mainly remembered Metal’s broad face above hers, reassuring, his deep voice almost lulling her to sleep.

She knew what Lauren looked like. She’d arranged her fake ID, after all, and she’d needed photos to do that. She’d been the one to change Anne Lowell into Lauren Dare. Even in the photos Lauren had been pretty but she was stunning in person. Better than in her ID photos, where she’d looked drawn and pale, faint lines bracketing her mouth. Well, being hunted down by a drugged-up psychopath would do that to you. Being on the run was not exactly like going to the spa.

Right now, though, Lauren looked pink and happy. Smiling. Most of the reason she looked happy loomed behind her. Jacko Morton, her new love. At first glance he didn’t look like the kind of guy to make a lady happy. Not tall—Metal towered over him—but very broad in the chest and shoulders, and he looked like trouble.

Snow still pinged against the windowpanes of Metal’s bedroom windows. Despite the weather, Jacko wore only a T-shirt under his jacket, which he’d already taken off. Felicity could see barbed wire tats and some kind of tribal tat spilling out from under the sleeves. He looked like he could and would chew you up for breakfast and spit out the bones.

Until he looked at Lauren, that was, and his face changed.

It was amazing to watch. A big bruiser’s brutal face sort of melting when he looked at Lauren, then morphing right back into toughness when he looked away.

“Ma’am,” he said in a basso profundo voice, nodding at her.

She nodded back. “Jacko.” She felt as though she was in a Western, only she didn’t have a six-gallon hat with a brim to touch. She smiled at Lauren. “We can’t keep meeting like this.”

Lauren gave a choked laugh and launched herself across the room. Felicity opened her arms, saying at the last minute, “Careful of the war wound.”

But Lauren was already wrapping her up in a warm, careful hug. She buried her face in Felicity’s neck, tears wetting her skin. “We stopped by yesterday but you were sleeping. You looked okay and didn’t have a fever so we let you rest. I’m so glad you’re healing. I was so scared for you,” she whispered.

Felicity’s throat tightened as she gave herself up to Lauren’s gentle, perfumed embrace. She tried to think who in her life would cry for her but gave up the attempt immediately. Her oldest friend was Al Goodkind, a retired FBI agent, and though he undoubtedly cared for her he wouldn’t cry. Nothing could make the tough old coot cry except maybe if something happened to his beloved granddaughter. And even then…

So feeling the tears Lauren shed for her gave her a warm tingly feeling, like a promise made and kept. “I’m okay,” she whispered. She looked over Lauren’s shoulder to where Metal stood, huge and still, light brown eyes intent as he watched them. She spoke to Lauren but watched Metal. “He took real good care of me.”

Something flared in Metal’s eyes. Something hot.

And then crazily, something flared in her. Something hot.

It was such an unusual feeling that at first she wondered whether she had a fever, a temporary one. Like a two-second fever. But it wasn’t that. It was looking into Metal’s eyes and seeing…power. Pure male power and male interest…directed at her.

He’d been so kind, like a doctor would have been. Impersonal, efficient, dedicated. But this was something else and it popped something to life inside her.

“Whoa.” Lauren opened her arms and stood up, wiped her eyes, looking for traces of mascara on her fingertips. “You scared me. Us.” She looked over her shoulder. “And I’m really glad Metal took good care of you, because if he hadn’t I’d have beaten him up.”

It was ridiculous. Lauren was half Metal’s size, slender and delicate. Metal was huge. But he didn’t smirk, didn’t smile at the notion.

“And I’d have let you beat me up if something had happened to her. But as you can see, she’s fine. As a matter of fact—” He looked to Jacko, back to Lauren and then to her. But when he looked at her, his face changed. Subtle but definitely there. With the punch of heat. Echoed in her. “She needs to eat if she wants to regain her strength. I cooked some stuff so if you guys want to stay…”

“And we can talk about all of this,” Jacko growled, waving a hand at her. He sounded pissed. Was he—was he
angry
at her? Well, of course. She’d brought trouble to Lauren’s door. Whoever was after her could maybe track Lauren down, hurt her. Oh God, just the thought of it made her feel awful. She cringed.

“I’m so sorry, Jacko,” she said miserably. “So sorry that this happened. As soon as I get back on my feet, I promise to leave. I had absolutely no idea that—”

Her words were muffled by Lauren’s hand covering her mouth. She looked angry, exasperated. “Good lord! Don’t even talk like that. That’s not what he meant, isn’t that right, Jacko?”

“God, no,” he rumbled. That hard, expressionless face was scrunched into a scowl. “Sorry. I’m mad, but not at
you
. I’m mad at the fuck—” He shut up suddenly when Lauren shot him a look. “I’m mad at the shithe—” He bit his lips. “At the man after you. We’re going to figure this out and get him off your back. In the meantime, Metal and I talked about this. We both think it would be a good idea for you to stay here. You tight with that?”

Metal watched her, this huge wall of muscle between her and trouble.

“Oh yes,” she breathed and then blushed. Because it came out sounding all wrong. She sounded like Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” to the president. She’d seen it on YouTube a billion times. All breathy and sexy. Felicity didn’t do breathy and sexy. She was married to her computer. It must be the fact that she felt so weak that it came out that way.

“Okay. So that’s taken care of.” Lauren straightened and walked back to Jacko, who put a heavy arm round her shoulders. “Did I hear you mention food, Metal? Did you mean it or was that an empty promise?”

“Meant every word.” He lifted his shoulder from the doorjamb, came to the bedside and offered Felicity a huge hand. “Do you want to see if you can walk?”

She nodded. Metal pulled back the covers, put a big hand to her back. “Take it easy,” he said. “Just say the word and I’ll carry you to the kitchen.”

Oh man. Being carried in those huge arms. He spoke as she swung her legs to the side of the bed and stood up. The image it conjured made her knees go weak, just for a second. Before she had time to stiffen her knees, he swung her up as if she was a child and carried her out of the room.

She had a vague memory of being carried by him, but it had been like being in a car. A big, warm, sentient car, with no emotions attached. But now…oh man, now it felt like romance and power and sex all mixed together.

Felicity had never been carried that she could remember. As a child, as soon as she could walk, she wasn’t carried anymore. Her parents had been loving but distant. She could count the number of hugs on one hand. And of course, as an adult woman, no man had ever carried her. She frequented fellow geeks, whose thighs were smaller than Metal’s biceps.

Above all, they didn’t have his alpha macho vibe. He wasn’t in-your-face macho but it was there, as much a part of him as his nose or ears.

If you had a guy who could carry you, why weren’t women carried around
all the time?
Because, man, this was
ace
. Simply because of their position, her cheek was closely aligned with his. He carried her really smoothly, like carrying a bag of peanuts, but every once in a while her cheek brushed his. It was slightly bristly and utterly delicious, as was his smell. It wouldn’t be polite, but what she really wanted was to bury her nose where his strong neck met those amazing shoulders and take a big sniff, like a dog. Mint, soap, leather—an amazingly heady mix. If she’d taken biochem instead of computer science she’d try to duplicate it in the lab. Of course the smell had to be paired with muscles, so maybe that wouldn’t work commercially.

His hold was utterly steady, no sense of strain whatsoever. It felt as though he could carry her for miles without being winded. His arms tilted her slightly facing him so she had most of her front side plastered against all those amazing muscles.

It turned out that the most comfortable way to be carried was to put your arms around the man’s neck and, oh God, that was amazing too. His neck muscles and shoulder muscles simply hummed with power that was transmitted to her through the skin of her arms. Like touching a power plant, only warm.

He strode across the living room and she looked around curiously. So far she’d seen the bedroom and the en suite bathroom. It was remarkably pleasant, which was a surprise. He was so rough and tough, such a guy, she imagined he’d have one of those guy pads like her geek pals in college. Empty except for monitors everywhere and the hum of electronics with that ozone smell when too much electrical equipment is concentrated in too small a space.

And, well, the smell of geek too, which was often very pungent. Add in a house that was cleaned up once a year and you had a very noncommercially viable smell.

This place smelled clean and fresh. It looked clean and fresh. Very masculine, no frills, but comfortable, functional, everything in earth tones. No flowers, no plants but bare branches in a tall bucket and a huge glass container with a sand sculpture inside.

A TV that was smaller than ginormous, which was a surprise.

Then they were in the kitchen and that, too, was a surprise. There were plants here—all cooking herbs, not her forte. She recognized basil, rosemary and a plant of chili peppers. Mainly because she recognized the shape and smell of the plants. There were lots of others too, but she had no clue what they were. Usually she’d just look it up. She had a special app where she’d photograph something and compare it to Google images and presto! There the name was. For the first time in forever she didn’t have the internet at her fingertips but she wasn’t missing it. Not just yet.

A big pinewood table, pine cabinets and granite countertops. Appliances, but not many. A big wood block with a billion knives, all of them no doubt razor sharp.

That was it.

The kitchen looked out over a small, neat backyard with no flowers but a small wall of trimmed hedges.

Orderly and comfortable.

Lauren and Jacko had gone ahead and were setting the table. Metal hooked a chair with a big boot and set her down gently. When he stood, he rested a big hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently.

You okay?

It was as if he spoke the words aloud.

“I’m fine,” Felicity said, turning her head to look up at him. “Thanks.”

He nodded and started taking things out of a huge refrigerator. Felicity caught glimpses inside and was instantly ashamed of her own fridge, with curling slices of takeout pizza and a few pieces of rotting fruit. She was always so busy working. These past few months, she’d eaten takeout more days than not.

Metal’s fridge was full of fresh food, bowls covered in plastic wrap, milk and fruit juice and only a few bottles of beer, the vegetable bin full of produce. Her vegetable bin was full of servers and two boxes of flash drives that she wanted to keep cool.

To her knowledge, she hadn’t had a bowl of leftovers covered in cling film, like normal people did in, like, forever.

While Jacko finished setting the table, Lauren sat down and covered Felicity’s hand with hers. “So how are you feeling, really?” A small pucker of concern between her brows.

She wanted the truth so Felicity didn’t bother baring her teeth and gritting
fine fine
, which she would have with anyone else. Though they didn’t know each other, they
knew
each other, they’d been through hard times together. Lauren wasn’t asking out of politeness, she was asking out of concern.

“I feel a little weak and very tired,” she answered, squeezing Lauren’s hand. “But I feel much better than I did two nights ago, and I feel better now than I did an hour ago, so the trend is good. Like I said, Metal’s taking very good care of me.”

Lauren smiled faintly. She looked around at Jacko getting stuff from the cupboards and Metal at the stove, and lowered her voice. “I’ll be honest. I wasn’t too happy when Metal took over, so Jacko told me a few stories. And…well, Metal’s incredible. Do you know why they call him Metal?”

“His taste in music?”

“Uh-uh.” Lauren smiled. “That would be Jacko’s taste before my friend Allegra introduced him to music that doesn’t make your ears bleed. I have no idea what Metal’s taste in music is. No, they call him Metal because in whole sections of his body he’s more titanium than bone. During an ambush in Afghanistan he was blown up by a mine and he
crawled
with his medic kit to where two teammates were bleeding out. He had a shattered hip and a broken femur and he crawled thirty yards under intense fire and he saved their lives. Got a big medal for it too. The kind they don’t give out often. That was his last mission, but all during his service he kept people alive under battlefield conditions with people shooting at him. He’s brought back guys from the brink of death while under fire, and though you certainly weren’t on the brink—” Lauren closed her eyes and shuddered, “¾it looked really bad.”