Versions (The Blacklist Series Book 1) (7 page)

R
in’s feet throbbed
, and she wore flats for-the-love. She struggled to ignore the harder than stone surface she paced and the confounding man kicked back on the bed as though the Redskins led a game by seventeen points. Too bad the walls were bare except for one corner, where a column of rustic wood with bolts protruding on either side covered a small portion of the bare masonry. She’d begun to think of it as art over the last five hours.

What the hell else could she think about without going straightjacket-crazy? She’d formulated and nixed about forty different plans of escape. She’d tried to calculate where he fit into the puzzle the day had brought. She’d tried reasoning with him. None of it had worked. Ignoring him and the entire problem seemed the only viable option.

She plodded her worn path along the far wall, leaving as much distance between them as possible. Being close to him intoxicated her body and warped her mind in such a way that when he said they couldn’t screw like primal beasts the words hurt. How messed up was that—on so many levels?

Luck possessed a seductive magnetism that pulled her without trying. If the creator suddenly decided to take four points off his sexy-looks ranking, but let him keep the swagger and confidence, he’d still be the most dangerously alluring man she’d ever seen. And yet, he acted as if he didn’t see her as a woman at all.

Most men guided her along with a hand on her back or chanced skin-to-skin contact at any opportunity. Luck kept his hands off. Way off. And that was a good thing. If only she’d believe it.

He popped off the rumpled sheets and sauntered to the kitchenette. She wondered how exactly they’d gotten so disheveled. Was he a fitful sleeper or did he have company and never quite make it to sleep?

Rin scrubbed a hand over her face, turned, and headed in the opposite direction from the small oven and big pain in the ass. Besides the unmade bed and interesting raw finish on the walls, things had their places.

Okay, there wasn’t much in the way of furniture. The huge bed took up half of the far wall. Not really, but it seemed to. A massive chest lay at its feet. Its padlock kept her from exploring further. The sink, oven, hand-full of cabinets, and medium-sized refrigerator rested on the wall to its right. Directly in front of it, almost in the middle of the floor, stood a large dining table capable of seating eight, if only there were more than the four chairs that rimmed it.

The immovable door forced Rin to turn back. She couldn’t help but watch Luck plate two slices of pizza and set it on her side of the table. Tactically, he retreated to the edge of the bed, where he propped a hip. He hiked a foot to the end of the sturdy chest, rested a lean forearm on his knee, and eyed her.

She looked away.

“Anyone who can ignore Pete’s for four hours running is a stronger person than me.”

Her stomach gurgled, pleading for just a bit of the cheese he kept gooey and melted by returning it to the warm oven every time she neglected the offering. But she’d starve before she ate anything he presented unless it was freedom.

“Chinese doesn’t tempt you. I know this stuff does, but you stubborn fool woman won’t even take a bite. You have to be thirsty.”

Without asking permission her gaze sought the glass brimming with water. She swallowed past the dehydration and kept walking.

“What do you like to eat?”

“It doesn’t matter. Prisoners don’t get to pick their meals.” She gnawed at her lower lip, irritated with herself for speaking.

“You’re not a prisoner.”

Rin stopped and wheeled on him. “Then. Let. Me. Go.”

His thumb rubbed back and forth over his mouth, scraping the edge of stubble so light she couldn’t see it from the distance.

“Right.” She turned away and continued putting one foot in front of the other.

Her legs went numb maybe twenty minutes after that and then cramped about forty or so minutes later. She judged the time by the number of laps she made. Misery loved company. That was the saying. And it must. Luck’s furrowed brow creased deeper with each turn. The expression gave her odd comfort. It meant he wasn’t as unfeeling as she thought.

He rose from the bed and headed for the table, but he crossed the centerline and aimed in her direction. Rin braced for a forcible halt to her shenanigans, but he fell in silent step beside her.

For more than thirty laps they maintained a steady gate, one beside the other. Damn him and her too, but the solidity of his presence supported her weary frame. His shoulders stood nearly a foot taller than hers. His natural stride almost doubled hers, but he measured his steps to match her smaller ones. The comfort she took in his protection peaked her ire once more.

“What are you doing?” she snapped.

“Being as ridiculous as you are.”

“To hell with you.”

“You’re making this ten times more difficult than it has to be.” His hand encompassed her upper arm and urged her to stop. He stepped in her path and then lowered his gaze to hers. “Just eat, sleep, play crossword puzzles. You’ll be out of here in a couple of weeks.”

“Weeks! I have a job and a home. I can’t just disappear for weeks without losing everything I’ve worked for.”

“Or you could keep down this path and I’ll tranq you and insert a feeding tube.” He shrugged.

That nonchalant gesture pitched her over the edge. Rin lunged for his throat. Fueled by confusion and rage she pitched them toward the floor. They landed with a
thud
that hardly registered in the haze of red fury.

He banded her hands in each of his. Her fingernails sank into his skin as she fought for freedom. The room pivoted. Cold concrete met her bare skin where her shirt hiked in the back. She kneed what she hoped was his groin, but his heavy legs constricted her own.

She strained against the hold, but his weight settled firmly over her. His impressive erection nestled perfectly at the junction of her hips. She wanted to writhe with him entrenched fully inside her. To forget everything and lose herself in him. And she hated herself for it.

He held his face far enough away that she couldn’t slam her head into the bridge of his nose. But that gaze bore into hers.

“What,” she spat, “are you going to rape me?”

Centimeter by slow centimeter, Luck lowered his head, his eyes searching hers all the while. She bided her time and then wrenched her head forward. Their foreheads connected with a dull
thump.
He’d seen it coming and backed away enough that stars didn’t cloud her vision. He shoved forward, driving her head to the floor. Struggle though she did, her head sank under his force.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Rin Bird.”

The world stilled for just a moment and everyone joined in a collective gasp. Or, at least, they should have. The air in her body thinned. If she’d been standing she’d have surely hit the deck in a woozy heap.

“How do you know that name?” She hardly recognized her thick, wet voice.

Luck’s strong jaw flexed and his chest expanded against her.

“How?” The tears spilled from her eyes. She hated every one of them. “The only person who ever called me that… I watched her take a dive off the side of a building a lifetime ago.”

L
uck had never failed a mission
. He knew his limits. Knew collateral damage was part of the game. Knew when to abandon the rules to see it through to the end. This fierce woman’s tears slammed him into a wall he never saw coming. It slashed his insides like nothing else he’d ever seen, because all those missions had only been prep for this one.

In all his sanctioned stalking, in over a year of following Rin around, he’d never once seen her cry. Never once seen anything but a hellcat through the lens of his scope. If he’d allowed her to continue sprinting down the path she’d set for herself, she’d have killed herself or him in the battle, and that was unacceptable.

“She sent me to keep you safe,” he whispered.

“No.” A wail shook her. Tears puddled in her bloodshot eyes and streamed down the side of her face. “She’s dead.” Rin clenched her lids shut. Her head shook so violently that he’d swear she was possessed by the ghost of her mother—or perhaps the demons of her mother’s past. “She’s dead. I don’t care what Nate said. I don’t care…” She heaved a breath and choked. “I heard her body hit the ground.”

The bowstring tension snapped and she fell lax, hiccupping. Careful to keep his crushing weight off her, Luck released her hands and caged her body with his own. Her tiny hands wedged between them. She draped her arms around her middle, hugging herself.

How many times had he done that as a child? An ache spilt him. The sudden and blatant need to protect her that took hold had nothing to do with his job. It sealed the wound and gave him purpose.

He laid his cheek against her, trying in some small way to give her comfort, but only the truth would begin to mend her pain. “Rin, the truth is not always an easy thing to endure. Once you know it, there’s no going back. Are you prepared for that?”

“I’m not prepared for anything anymore, but already I can’t go back.”

The warmth of her skin. The scent of her. Her fierceness and surprising vulnerability. Everything she was pulled at him. He nuzzled into the silk of her hair and breathed her in one last time. Because after he told her everything, he’d never get close enough to touch her. She’d never allow it.

“Your mother faked her own death.”

“Wha…wh…why? Why would she do that? How…could she?”

He sat back on his heels, straddling her. “Your mother—” His phone vibrated in his back pocket. And he knew just who it was. He sighed and answered.

“Goddamnit, Luck!” The husky female voice shouted so loudly Rin’s eyes bulged at the sound of the voice. “This isn’t the way.”

“It’s the only way. I’m protecting her. And that means from anything that hurts her, including you. You may have heard, but you don’t see what you’re doing to her.”

“It’s not your right. You don’t get to choose this life for her,” she hollered into his ear.

“No, but your daughter should get the choice.”

Luck took the phone from his ear and held it out to Rin.

H
er mother
. It wasn’t possible, but there it was—a sleek black phone being held out to her with a voice on the line so remarkably like her mother's it stung. She reached a quivering hand. Luck grabbed it, secured her elbow, and lifted her from the floor.

“Stand for just a minute.” He stepped to the table and hoisted a chair. But she watched the phone, terrified to lose sight of it, as though this were a dream and any loss of connection with the ground would jar her from sleep. He set the chair behind her and eased her into it like the nurses did for her grandfather. His warm fingers opened her hand, and then he placed the device on her palm.

Rin bit her lips together to keep from crying out. She lifted the phone to her ear and listened. Not even a crackle broke through the other end. “Hello?” she whispered.

“My Rin Bird. Hey, baby.” She’d thought she’d forgotten her mother’s voice in junior high. She’d smashed in her classroom’s windows that day. But now, it was as if she’d heard it only moments ago.

Anger, sadness, elation, and confusion obscured her vision. She’d longed to hear her mother’s voice just once more, and now that she did, an unholy rage choked out everything else. Her fist knotted so tightly it shook. Luck’s tanned hands bracketed her pale one.

“I know you have so many questions, and that none of this makes sense. I don’t blame you for hating me, but I did it all to keep you safe.”

“I need answers,” she managed.

“And Luck will give them to you. It’s not safe for me to speak on the phone.”

“I want to see you.” Rin said the words even though she knew the response.

“I’d love nothing more, but I can’t. Not right now.”

“Why not?”

“I haven't been in the States since the day I kissed you goodbye.”

“I’ll come to you.” Desperation pitched her voice to the moon.

“You can’t know where I am. Just knowing would get you tortured.”

“By who?”

“I have to go, Rin Bird. It made my lifetime just to hear your voice again.”

“I love you,” Rin croaked.

“I love you, my darling girl.”

L
uck took
the phone from Rin’s limp hand. “I’ve got her.”

“Just don’t go off and do something stupid like go after Harlow or fall in love with my daughter,” Cara said.

He mapped the slight up-turn of Rin’s pixie nose. The rose in her thin lips. The strength in the set of her jaw, even after the blows she’d taken today. Out of deference to her mother, he steered clear of the dip of her hips and length of her shapely legs.

“No promises.” He hung up and peered at the time—three-oh-four a.m.—then stowed the phone in his pocket.

Rin’s eyes glazed as though her brain were shorted out on information overload. Without a word he scooped her into his arms and walked to the bed. As he laid her on the light green sheets he expected a token argument, but got none. She rolled over and buried her face in his pillow. Her light hair splayed in a curtain around her shoulder blades and spilled onto the bed.

He glossed over the buxom swell of her butt, driving his gaze to her sandal-clad feet. One by one he removed her shoes. Her ankles puffed from all her walking. His fingers worked over the swollen skin, rubbing down to her heels and then the arch of her feet.

A tiny red cut flashed like a neon sign at the tender middle of her right foot. “What happened here?” he asked, soothing a wide circle around the tiny wound.

“You.” Her voice drifted on a lethargic murmur.

The more he massaged, the further she sank into the mattress. When her breathing evened he tucked her feet beneath the twisted top sheet, straightened it, and raised it to her nape.

Luck raked his hands through his tousled hair. If she thought today was bad, just wait until tomorrow. The hits would just keep on coming. Now he hated it for her, instead of scorning her for her wayward youth. She’d had people in her life who cared about her, and chosen the street—unlike him. He was grateful she’d taken the rocky path. It prepared her for the truth to come.

Hands in pockets, he shuffled over to the table, tossed the three times rewarmed pizza, flipped the switch on Cara’s audio surveillance, and then another for the lights, before shuffling back to the bed by the light of the small corner bathroom. He toed off his riding boots and lost the socks. As much as he disliked sleeping in clothes, he kept the layer between him and Rin because he disliked screaming women more.

Another person sleeping in his space stomped all over the border of strange. It took a handful of minutes before he relaxed enough that his lids hung low. The bed lurched. His eyes shot open. He snapped up and reached for the Sig lying on the old milk crates stacked beside the frame. In the murk he saw no threat. Well, Rin was a threat of a different sort.

He calmed his heart rate, guessing from the restlessness in her jogging legs that she’d been the source of the disturbance. Abandoning the pistol, Luck lay on his side facing the willowy woman and rested his head on his arm. A soft cry broke the silence.

Luck hooked an arm around her middle and tugged her into the spoon of his body so that her back rested against his front. “Rin,” he whispered, “it’s just a dream.”

“No. It’s a memory,” she sniffled.

“Leave it in the past and sleep.”

“I don’t know if I can.” Her fingers slid between his and held tight.

“Favorite song of all time?”

“What?” she breathed.

“You heard me.”

“That’s…the hardest question of all time. There are too many great songs. Do you want classic and pop culture? Genre? Subgroup? Because I could give you one for each, but an overall favorite of all time…”

“Quit stalling.”

“Fine, but you’re not even gonna know the song.”

“Give.”

“Rap Promoter. A Tribe Called Quest. The Low End Theory.”

“You’re not dickin’ with me are you?”

“I don’t have a penis. So, no.”

“You’re a comedian in the pre-dawn hours, huh?”

“Best. Song. Ever. No-lie.” She beat his hand to her chest with each word.

“In that case you have to marry me,” he said, only partially kidding.

“Depends on your favorite song,” she giggled.

“A Tribe Called Quest. Low End Theory.” Her chest stilled except for the beating of her heart. Still he held the suspense.

“Say it,” she screeched.

“Excursions.”

“I knew it. Damn. That’s the best album,” she said. “I can’t believe you know hip hop.”

“I lived it. Best guy my mom ever dated was a music exec. He gave me an old school boom box for my seventh birthday. Nearly busted an eardrum jammin’ to Grand Master Flash.”

“I’ll admit to being jealous. My Walkman wasn’t near as cool, but I managed some hearing loss anyway.” She sighed and nested his hand between her breasts. “Thank you.”

“Try and get some sleep.”

She nodded. Luck rested his chin on her silky hair. He drifted in the rhythm of great music and her scent.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Yes?”

“I’ll marry you.”

“It’s a plan then.” He smiled and fell asleep with the ridiculous expression on his face. He woke with it there too. And Rin in his arms.

Her dark blue eyes, flecked with shards of green and brown, flitted about his face. Lips pressed into a line that quirked at one side. He’d expected her to flee his embrace the moment her wits returned. From the glint in her expression he could see that they had, but she snuggled into him, wedging a leg between his and clutching the front of his shirt.

Steaming hot lust roused him from morning lethargy. It would just take one move. A simple shift in her direction and she’d let him kiss her. He knew it as well as he knew he shouldn’t take advantage of her emotional state. People like them didn’t get emotional often, but when they did it heightened every other emotion.

She inhaled to speak.

Luck placed his fingers over her lips. “You need to eat before the questions start. Because once they do, they’ll last all day.”

She moved the pads of his fingers to her cheek. “I’ll eat. Promise. I’m starving. But I want to know a few things first.” He scowled, but she continued anyway. “How do you know my mother?”

“She picked me up off the streets of Rio, a bad kid with an even worse attitude.”

He waited a second for the pity. But Rin quirked a brow. “You don’t have an accent.”

He loved her. For understanding and so much more…he loved her. The notion hit him square in the chest. He exhaled against the exquisite pain and held her just a little bit tighter.

“No. My mom followed a boyfriend there, got dumped, and then took up meth to soothe her broken heart. We never made it back to the States.”

“Where are you from?”

“Los Angeles. She was going to be a star and now she’s dead.”

“I’m sorry she wasn’t stronger for you.”

Damn. Was it him or was the room suddenly blurry? He blinked furiously and ground his teeth. What a perfect thing to say.

“So, you spent time with my mom?”

“Yeah,” he said, thankful for the change of topic. “But not the mom you know. She’s former CIA. She took me under her wing, drove me into the ground, broke me, and then built me back. Taught me to do…anything from living the straight and narrow to building a bomb out of stuff you have in your kitchen. She gave me a future that didn’t include jacking cars or a body bag.”

Rin’s eyes pinched shut. “CIA?”

“One of the best.”

Her long lashes rested on her cheeks so long he began to think she’d passed out from the shock. Finally they fluttered opened. “Seems pretty dangerous, what you do.”

“When you have the training it’s not near as dangerous as the stuff we did on the streets.”

“Truth.” She grimaced.

“As payment, I watched over you.”

“For how long?”

“A little more than a year.”

She puffed out her lips. “And I never knew. I was never meant to know.”

“You weren’t,” he admitted.

She broke eye contact and buried her face under his chin for several minutes. He enjoyed the feel of her against him, the unexpected comfort.

“Let’s eat,” she whispered. “I can’t stomach any more right now.”