He wasn’t ready. He didn’t know what to say.
Brian stood in front of the door of the hotel room, overwhelmed with sensory experiences. The hustle and bustle of the streets, the sheer size of the hospital where Audrey and he had been treated, even the clothes he wore, felt alien. Everything was too much, too loud, too new, too complicated.
He had spent the night watching television in his hospital room—the doctors had kept him overnight, but let Audrey go—and what he’d seen left him bewildered. He would have a lot to learn, a lot to catch up with. He didn’t know anything, it seemed. No, not true. He knew one thing. He knew what he wanted.
Audrey.
He wanted her unequivocally, forever. He had enough time to think to know that he was in love with her.
And he loved her enough to want what was best for her. He was pretty sure it wasn’t him.
He had no job, no money, nowhere to live. She deserved better. She deserved a carefree man who laughed a lot, not one who had years worth of dark memories to weigh him down. She deserved to sleep next to someone who wouldn’t wake her up with his nightmares in the middle of the night.
And yet he was here. Not only to thank her for paying for his bill at the hospital and leaving him cash at the front desk. He wanted to see her one last time. He needed to see that she was okay. Then he would walk away.
He knocked even though he had a keycard. Audrey had left it in the envelope with the money.
She opened the door and stared at him for a moment. Blinked. “Brian…”
God, she looked beautiful. She had her long hair down, the light gleaming off the golden strands that framed her face. She wore a pink figure-hugging sheath dress that made his mouth go dry. She was a different person. The grungy teammate who had fought her way through the jungle with him and ate grubs from the palm of his hand was gone. In her place, he found a dazzling woman, every inch a lady. Someone who took his breath away, but a woman he didn’t recognize.
Her expression looked as stunned as he felt.
He glanced down at the pants and shirt he wore, and conscious of his yuppie haircut, ran his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t meant to spend more of her money than it took to get to the hotel, but he had trouble with the doorman letting him in, taking him for a panhandler.
“You’re so different…” The words rushed from her, before she caught herself.
And at last he looked past her clothes and found her eyes. Even they weren’t the same. She had makeup on.
Something moved behind her and he had her pushed aside, his body positioned to protect her, acting on instinct before he knew what he was doing.
The two men who came out of the kitchen area of the suite looked at him with suspicion.
“Audrey?” The taller of the two came forward.
“It’s okay, Josh. This is Brian Smith, the man I told you about.”
So this was the ex-husband. Brian extended his hand, not liking the way Josh seemed to measure him up. The man’s handshake was firm, perhaps firmer than necessary, maybe a message he wanted to send. Brian resisted the urge to squeeze back hard, and pulled away before crossing the border of polite.
“My brother-in-law, Trevor,” Audrey introduced the other guy, moving by him, making his head swirl with the flowery scent of her soap.
“I wanted to thank you for what you’ve done. I talked to Nicky this morning. They ended up taking the hostages to Miri yesterday to get checked out. It was the nearest hospital. But they’ll be all here by tonight. She asked me to convey her gratitude if I see you before she does.”
Good to know some of the hostages, at least, felt that way. He’d caught coverage of that, too, the guy who had wanted to fight him for the boat, giving an interview about the reckless and irresponsible nature of the rescue, and the disrespect and lack of cooperation of the man who had come for them—a “hot-headed maverick,” he’d said, “who took unnecessary chances with the lives of the hostages.”
“You do this kind of thing often?” Josh was still checking him out.
“As often as necessary. I work in personal security,” he said, sticking to the story he’d invented the day before.
“Audrey is lucky to have found you,” Trevor interjected.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She looked flustered. “Is everything all right?”
“Sure,” she said, but didn’t look at him.
“She’ll be fine now that we’re here,” Josh said, and stepped between them.
“I suppose you came for your fee.” The brother-in-law offered him a beer out of the minibar.
Saliva gathered in his mouth. There had been times in the past couple of years when he would have given his soul for a cold beer. Now he waved it off. He wouldn’t be here long enough to finish it.
“I’ll be taking care of everything, of course.” Trevor put the beer down and reached for his checkbook.
“It’s all taken care of,” he said. The suite felt small all of a sudden, and for a crazy moment he wished they were still back in the jungle.
“If you prefer cash we can get it by this afternoon and bring it over to your hotel,” Josh said, putting his patrician nose where it didn’t belong. “Where is it that you’re staying?”
He didn’t know yet. His first thought upon release had been to see Audrey. “No further payment is necessary.”
He would get the money Colonel Wilson was sending to him at the embassy, crash in an airport hotel for the night, then leave on the first flight in the morning. He didn’t belong here with these people. They belonged with each other.
“Mind if I use your phone?” he asked Audrey, then when she nodded, he called down and asked for reception to get him a cab to the embassy and call up when it was here. All he needed were a few minutes to say goodbye.
But Josh interrupted his call with, “The embassy is closed today. They all are. Some kind of credible terrorist threat or something.”
Of course. August 10. He glanced at Audrey. How much had she told the men?
“We already tried to call earlier, to ask for their help. I missed my court date for the adoption hearing,” she said.
Great. He had wanted to give the money back that she’d left for him at the hospital, but it seemed he would need to spend more of it. He hated it, and hated even more the uncertainty of the future. More of the same waited for him back home. He’d probably been declared dead long ago, his apartment rerented, the money in his bank account God only knew where. What was the law for people who died without beneficiaries? The government probably had his savings by now.
“I will be—” He started to tell her that he would pay her back at the earliest opportunity, but Josh put his hand on the small of Audrey’s back, and jealousy as hot and sharp as lightning nearly tore him in two. He wanted to kill the man, rip him apart. He had to leave. Now.
Audrey was safe with two men who obviously felt protective of her, one of whom was probably in love with her. They’d had their misunderstandings, but her ex obviously realized now what he had lost. And Josh was the kind of man she should have in her life. Brian clenched his jaw. What the hell did he have to offer?
He glanced at the clock on the wall without registering the time. “I’m late,” he said. “I better get going.” And with a nod to all three of them he walked out the door, not allowing as much as a goodbye look at her, not a handshake, nothing. If they touched, his heart might have shattered.
He put on numbness like he would have a uniform and, closing the door behind him, he walked away.
She deserves a normal life. He repeated it over and over to himself on the way down to the lobby, avoiding to look at his alien reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator. He looked like a gentleman tourist instead of a soldier.
The unreasonable fury, the violent anger he felt toward Josh scared him. He wanted to kill the man for touching Audrey, for having a right to be in her hotel room.
He was no better than a wounded beast out for blood.
And that was exactly why he needed to protect Audrey from himself. Except—he thought—the emotions that nearly overwhelmed him weren’t altogether unreasonable. He was a man, watching another guy take the woman he loved.
“She deserves a normal life,” he murmured to himself. Josh was the right choice for her.
And then it hit him that he’d never given her that. Didn’t she deserve a choice?
If he truly was a soldier, why wasn’t he fighting for her instead of retreating?
HAMID WALKED TOWARD the elevator as the light came on. The door opened. There was one man in there, staring straight ahead. The negotiator.
Hamid turned to a guest room, presenting his back to the man, and knocked. He heard the elevator door close just as the door in front of him opened.
“Yes?” An older woman looked at him, her pencil-thin eyebrows drawn to midforehead as she took in his hotel uniform.
“You requested help with opening the extra bed, Madam?”
She looked baffled. “No. Certainly not.”
“I apologize. I must have the wrong room number.” He smiled cordially and walked away.
He didn’t go back to the elevators to push the call button; he went to the stairs. That man could be staying at the hotel—an extreme case of bad luck—or he could be here for him.
Hamid ran over in his mind what he’d seen in the lobby. No extra security, no sign that his plans had been discovered, that somebody was setting a trap. Still, he had to be careful. He took the stairs two at a time to the twenty-third floor where his men were setting up the second bomb in a linen supply closet.
AUDREY STOOD in the middle of the room, feeling as if a typhoon had swept through her soul. Josh and Trevor were talking, but she couldn’t focus her mind on a single word. Brian was gone. Tears burned her eyes, threatening to spill. Think about something else. Anything.
“Are we still going downstairs to eat?” She said the first thing that came to her mind, although she couldn’t have cared less about food at the moment, wasn’t sure if she could swallow a bite.
Breathe in, breathe out.
“I was going to tell you just before that guy came in. Funny that he stopped by, isn’t it?” Josh watched her. “With him having been already paid and all. I hope he didn’t form some unnatural attachment to you.” He shook his head. “Anyway, the restaurant, even the ballroom, are closed to the public today. There’s some huge reception going on. The German ambassador finished off his term and he’s going back home, and the other diplomats and whatnot are giving a big send-off party. But there are plenty of great places in the city.” He smiled and took her hand.
She barely registered his words. “Would you guys mind if we ordered in? I don’t really feel up to going out.”
“Sure.”
“Of course.”
The tears were coming. She backed away. It wasn’t as if she was embarrassed to cry in front of them, it was that she didn’t want to have to explain why she was crying when everything was finally back to being good as far as they were concerned. Nicky would be here soon.
“You order, I’ll grab some ice.” She picked the ice bucket off the counter and turned as the first tear spilled.
“I can get it.” Josh was right behind her.
“I don’t mind,” she said. “I need to stretch my legs.” And then she was out the door, relieved when he didn’t follow.
She leaned against the wall and let out a big shivering breath. Brian was gone.
She had expected it, of course, but still it seemed too sudden. She hadn’t anticipated how hard it would hit her. She had thought maybe— What? That he would ask for her phone number? That when their lives settled back at home, they could— She couldn’t even finish the sentence. It seemed ridiculous now.
He left. Like that. What they had shared meant nothing to him. God, it meant the world to her. She had been what? Swift release after years of forced abstinence?
Tears washed down her face and she hiccupped. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She’d always been a messy crier. The elevator dinged. Someone was coming to their floor. She headed for the staircase, not wanting to be seen like this.
She set the ice bucket down and leaned against the railing, took a couple of calming breaths that didn’t help at all. The sound of footsteps came from above. Someone was coming down the stairs. Wasn’t there any place she could get some privacy?
She looked up and saw a waiter. What was he doing in the staircase? He greeted her politely and she nodded to him. Then her gaze fell to his right arm, left bare by the short-sleeved white uniform shirt. A giant crowned tiger lunged on his tattooed skin.
Hamid?
They were here. The ambassador’s gala. It all made sense in a flash.
She gripped the railing and must have emitted some noise, because the man looked back at her. She made for the door, but he was already there, pulling a handgun from the back of his waistband.
A month ago, she would have screamed, and if her legs weren’t shaking too hard for the job, she would have tried to run. But the jungle had changed her. She rushed the man instead, bent her waist and slammed into his midsection, pushing him against the door. He dropped the gun, probably more from surprise than the force of her attack, and they both dove for it, reaching it at the same time.
She did scream then, putting her full lung capacity to good use. “Help!”
But it was too late, he was gaining the upper hand fast, rolling her under him, bending her arm until the barrel was pointing at her head.
Blood stained the white shirt on his shoulder. There was murder in his eyes.
“Brian!” she screamed again, on instinct before she realized it was no use, he was already gone.
And then like an apparition, he was there, lifting Hamid off her and throwing him down the stairs. The man rolled but came up quick at the landing. He still had the gun and aimed it at Brian.
“If you shoot, it will echo enough in this staircase for everyone to hear. You’ll never make it down without being caught,” she said, desperate to distract him enough for Brian to make some kind of a move.
Hamid kept the gun on him. “The people of this country would rise up to support me if I were caught. They want what I want, to be rid of the foreign dogs and their support for the false king.” He spat. “When I win, there’ll be celebrations on the streets.”
She backed away, giving Brian room to maneuver. “If you do this, there’ll be chaos and fear. Foreign investors will pull out, jobs will be lost, your people will suffer,” she argued to keep his attention.
Hamid sneered at her. “Pain is necessary for growth.”
“There are Malaysians in this hotel, guests and employees, as many as foreigners.”
“They die as heroes.” He braced the gun with both hands.
This was it. She snapped her head around, looked up as if she’d heard someone coming down the stairs above them. By the time she looked back, Brian was flying through the air, lunging at the man. Her ploy had worked. She’d distracted him long enough.
She rushed after Brian, but by the time she reached them they were tangled together, growling with effort to gain control of the weapon. Help. She needed to get help. She turned to rush back to the suite. Hamid heaved against Brian and smacked his bad knee to the railing. His hand slipped on the gun.
No time to go anywhere. He needed help now. When he turned, she threw herself on Hamid’s head, thinking to cut off his air, or at the least, obstruct his vision. He bit her stomach. The sharp pain distracted her for a moment.
“Get away from here.” Brian was pushing against her with his shoulder.
But she twisted finally and gained some leverage, smashed her elbow into Hamid’s face with all her strength. She heard his nose break and thought she might be sick. She drew a deep breath, struck again. “That’s for my sister.”
And then she heard Brian laugh, and she turned to him just as he got up, holding the gun. Hamid wasn’t moving.
“I love it when you talk tough,” he said, and pulled her to him. “I can’t believe you beat him unconscious.”
She did? She glanced at Hamid, then back at Brian, horrified at first, then relieved. “I did. I’m not a violent person, but he just pushed me over the edge.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me, honey.” He brushed his lips against hers. “Are you okay?” he asked even as he was stepping away from her to tie up Hamid with his belt and throw him over his shoulder.
“You came back.”
“I love you. I’m going to want to talk to you about that when this is over.” He started up the stairs, but when she followed, too stunned to respond, he shook his head. “I’m going to dump him out in the hallway so he doesn’t block the stairs.”
“All the ambassadors are downstairs,” she blurted, as the thought cut through the rest of the confused jumble in her head.
“Where was he coming from?” Brian opened the door, took Hamid out, then came back in a split second.
“Upstairs.”
“I want you to start walking down. Go as fast as you can. When you reach the lobby, pull the fire alarm.” He handed her the pistol. “If you see anyone you recognize from our little vacation in the woods, shoot first, ask questions later.”
Her brain was still on “I love you.” Then he started up the stairs and it snapped her back to the here and now.
“Shouldn’t we sound the alarm right away?”
He shook his head. “As soon as we do, people will flood the stairs. I need a couple of minutes to see if I can find the rest of the men, or at least one of them, and get a location on that bomb. If it’s already set, there might not be enough time to get the hotel evacuated. Our best bet is to find the damn thing so I can disarm it.”
“You can do that?”
“Trust me,” he said.
And she did. “I should tell Trevor and Josh.”
“There’s no time for explanations, Audrey. Would you rather try to save two or everyone?”
She nodded and opened her mouth to tell him she loved him, too, but he was already gone. She flew down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. They had a hotel full of people to save. And they were just the team to do it.
WHERE WAS HE? Audrey scanned the crowd behind the police line. She’d spotted Trevor and Josh on the other side of the square filled with hundreds of hotel guests, but she couldn’t see Brian anywhere.
Josh was making his way over to her. Great.
“Thank God.” He put his arms around her when he reached her.
She pulled away.
“Look,” he said. “I didn’t just come here as Trev’s friend. I came because of you, too.”
“Josh, I—”
“I missed you,” he interrupted her. “I thought about this. You don’t have to adopt. We can find an egg donor who’d be willing to be a surrogate mother. The baby would still be mine.”
“It’s not going to work.”
“Why not? I’m willing to overlook—”
“I’m in love with another man.”
The look on his face was priceless. Clearly, this was not something he had ever considered.
She left him and pushed through the sea of people to the front, from where she could see the hotel’s main door. They’d been out here for an hour. The bomb-sniffing dogs were inside, going from floor to floor, the bomb squad robot waiting on the sidewalk for his turn once the bomb was found.
She had told everything she knew to the police at least four times, and they’d finally let her go. And now she had nothing else to do but obsess over the man she loved.
Then she saw him coming through the front doors, and yelled his name. He stopped, scanned the crowd, spotted her when she waved.
“Got a job?” She pointed to the security tag on his shirt when he came over.
He drew up an eyebrow. “I found it. This way I don’t have to stop every five seconds, explaining to someone what I’m doing here.”
All right, so he wasn’t a strictly go-by-the-rules type of person. She kind of liked that about him.
He pulled her through the police line and nobody questioned them. She threw herself into his arms, not caring about the horde of reporters and TV cameras trained on the building and at them.
“Come here.” He pulled her toward a side entrance, one that led to the restaurant. He flashed his badge to the officer at the door and they were let in without questions. He locked the door behind them.
“What happened?”
“We got the bombs. There were two of them—both disarmed now. They already took out Hamid and his men through the back. They’re taking the bombs next and then as soon as the staircase is cleaned they’re going to let people back in.”
“Cleaned?”
He moved closer, his blue eyes reflecting her face. She had gotten lost in those eyes and she wanted to stay lost forever.
“They have to get the bloodstains off the walls,” he said, and for a moment she had to think what he was talking about.
“Was it bad?” She looked him over for injury, but couldn’t find anything obvious.
“A couple of guys. I had to stop them.” His voice was deep and breathless, as if he found it hard to talk.
Her gaze slid from his masculine lips to his wide shoulders. Okay now, get a grip. The man was coming from a fight. This was not the time to jump him.
She stepped back and bumped into a palm tree, glanced around. The restaurant had been transformed into a jungle theme for the ambassador’s gala, complete with hundreds of potted palms, orchids blooming on every table and even an artificial stream.
For a moment she had a flashback to the days they’d spent together, what they’d gone through. She had a deeper connection to this man than any other she had known before. And he loved her. The joy of his declaration slammed into her all over again. They’d made it, the danger was over, and he loved her.
“Audrey—” he started to say something, but seemed to change his mind, and instead he kissed her hard on the mouth.
The meeting of their lips was like a switch being thrown—from sanity to insanity in half a second flat. She felt carried away on a mad river that rushed forth wildly, uncontrollable. Reason slipped beyond their reach, and they rode the rolling waters, hanging on to each other.
There were no degrees to the kiss. No tentative brushing of the lips first, no playful nibbles, no slow opening. He took everything at once with a fevered meeting of the tongues.
His hands cupped her face as he drank her, then moved lower, running over her body as thoroughly as if he were taking inventory. And then he reached the bottom of her dress and pulled it above her waist, grounded his hardness into her, bringing moisture to the V of her legs.
Her breath caught at the sudden onslaught of sensations, and she let her head fall against the palm tree, her hands pressed against the solid muscles of his chest. But then she didn’t want even that little distance between them and moved her hands to his back, then to his tapered waist, to his firm buttocks. And she pulled him closer still.
He groaned into her mouth, and she felt a tug on her underwear, then it was gone, replaced by his warm hands that caressed her hips and went lower. Her eyes flew open, and as she stared at the crowd outside the restaurant window, she let out a squeal. “Brian!”
He turned his head to see what startled her, looked back, his eyes hooded with passion. “It’s mirrored glass. They can’t see in.”
But reason was gaining a toehold. “What if security comes?”
This was madness. How had they gotten here so fast? How had he cut through all her defenses? She was a mature, reasonable, conservative woman. What happened to making love behind closed doors in a bed?
He nibbled her earlobe as he slipped a finger inside her. “Everybody is on the twenty-third floor. They’ll be there for at least another hour.”
Pleasure pinged through her and grew, rolling, gathering into an irresistible mass that made her quiver. She reached for his belt and despite her shaking fingers, made pretty quick work of it, pushed his pants and boxers down at the same time, gasped when he sprang free against her belly.
“Look who is happy to see me.” She caressed his silky hardness, enjoying the way his eyes darkened, thrilled at the way her touch affected him.
He leaned into her, but the potted palm tree behind her wobbled, too unsteady to hold their combined weight. He lifted her up, her legs wrapped around him, her damp center pressed against his hardness.
Holding her with one hand, he cleared a table with the other and lay her down, holding her legs in place. Then he was inside her with one steady thrust, and took her over and over until she drowned in the pleasure of it and screamed his name.
But he wasn’t done with her yet. He was a powerful man and put every bit of that power into use, pleasuring her body, marking every dazed cell of hers as his. It was too much. She couldn’t.
Her body felt like a live wire. What he did to her seemed unreal, impossible. But she felt tension build deep inside her once again, and when he finally poured his hot seed into her, his body shuddering, a deep groan torn from his chest, she sank into yet another wave of pleasure.
He didn’t pull out, but instead lifted her and moved back, sat on the floor with her still on his lap, leaning his back against a giant potted palm, resting his forehead against hers.
Then after a while, when their breathing evened, he looked up and smiled.
“What?”
“You have orchid blossoms in your hair.”
“I’ve gone native.” She smiled back at him.
He nodded. “You certainly have.”
Then his expression grew more serious. “Audrey, this is not why I came back….” He fell silent as if looking for the right words.
“I’m glad just the same that we got around to it.” She grinned.
“You know, when I got you away from Omar’s camp, I thought I was rescuing you, but I think at the end, you ended up rescuing me.”
Her heart flipped over from the way he was looking at her. “We rescued each other.”
He brushed his lips against hers, then pulled back. “You take away my reason. I tried to fight it. I’m not a hundred percent convinced this is the right thing for you. But I love you like mad, there’s no help for it. It’s like malaria. Once it gets into the blood, there’s no getting it out.” He glanced away, then back at her again. “I need to ask you a question.”
She nodded.
“Who is Josh to you?” His face was as serious as she’d ever seen it.
“My ex-husband,” she responded, unsure what that had to do with anything.
He put his hand over her heart. “Who is he here?”
It took less than a second to come up with a response. “Nobody.”
He hugged her so fiercely, she could scarcely breathe.
“You’ve been worrying about that?” He had to be kidding.
“I’m a man with no family, no job, no home—very little to recommend me, really. But I’m a hard worker and I’m scared of little. I would work like hell to make a good life for us if you agreed to share yours with me. I know there are a hundred men out there who’d be better for you, could offer you more, but nobody on this earth could love you more than I. Can you give me a chance?”
She blinked the tears back from her eyes. “Yes,” she said, and threw her arms around him. “If you can give us a chance. I have a daughter. We come as a package deal.”
His reply came slowly. “It’s almost too good to believe. I would love nothing more. I never pictured—but I might never again be the man I once was.” He pulled back and searched her eyes. “My father, after the war he was different. He could never find his way back. I don’t know if I can.”
She smoothed the furrow from his forehead. “I fell in love with the man you are now.”
His beautiful blue eyes sparkled with emotion. “Can you say that again?”
“I love you, Brian Welkins.”
He held her tight, and she felt him harden inside her.
She grinned. Was he for real? “Making up for time lost, are we?”
“I’m all uncivilized. See what you’ll have to put up with?”
“I like uncivilized,” she said and rotated her hips. “I think I developed a taste for the wild and untamed.”
He grinned, sudden relief flooding his face, followed by a look of mischief, and pushed in deeper. “Prepare for jungle heat.”