Stephanie Draven - Dark Sins and Desert Sands

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.