Wild Card (27 page)

their honor. But they were good men.

Ian turned back to Noah. He was wild with the lust, there was no doubt of it. But Ian had seen

him in a hell of a lot worse shape. He'd disappeared on them more than once in worse shape,

and Belle had never suffered.

The man had lived for nineteen months pumped up on a drug that the doctors still couldn't

figure out entirely. Pumped so high on it that he'd been like an animal, nearly deranged with the

need for sex. And he had never taken what Fuentes had offered him. He'd never broken his

vows. He'd never let go of his wife.

Ian had to trust in his belief that Noah wouldn't hurt her now.

Nodding, he moved to the door, glancing back at his friend and hating himself, hating Fuentes

with a strength that still had the power to fill him with bitter rage.

His father had done this. The man who sired him. And Ian still let him live. Because he was his

father or because Homeland Security needed him? And where, he wondered, was the line

drawn?

He should have killed the bastard while he had the chance.

Sabella was standing at the narrow counter that separated the kitchen from the living room

watching the hall when Ian stepped out of the bedroom. She and Kira hadn't spoken, the words

were there between them, but neither of them had yet broken the silence.

The obviously Middle Eastern agent, and she knew they were agents, had stomped from the

apartment with Nik and the others moments before, leaving an eerie silence between her and

Kira.

The other woman watched her closely, her gray eyes thoughtful. Now, as Ian moved into the

room, Sabella straightened and glanced back to the closed bedroom door.

"Is he okay?" She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and stared back at the man who

had been her husband's greatest friend. Strange, wasn't it, that he seemed to be Noah's friend as

well.

"He will be." He stood straight and tall, though his arm went around his wife as she came to

him.

Sabella held his gaze, she didn't hold her tongue.

"Who is he? What is he?"

Was that surprise that flickered in his eyes? Ian didn't speak.

She stomped to the kitchen drawer, jerking it open and practically slammed the Glock on the

counter. She bent.

opened the doors beneath the sink, and pulled free the weapon Velcro'd onto the cabinet frame.

She stalked over to the couch, bent, and pulled the smaller handgun from the little pocket

beneath the couch and added it to her pile.

"Who the hell is he and what is he doing in my garage and in my life?" Her hand slapped the

counter. "And why are you here with him? You were my husband's best friend, Ian. He said

you were the same as his brother, and now you bring an agent into his wife's life."

"His widow's," Ian said softly, gently.

Sabella flinched. "And that makes it okay?" she bit out. "Damn you, Ian. You'd betray him that way?"

"I haven't betrayed Nathan, Belle." His stare was fierce and hard. "I don't order Noah Blake anywhere. Whatever the hell he's doing, he's doing on his own. I know him. We're friends. I'm

your friend."

Yes, they were friends. For two years she had watched her husband and his friend together.

They had been as close as brothers, maybe closer. And Ian had a particular little habit. One her

father used to have. When he lied, he didn't so much as bat an eyelash. His expression didn't

change, his body didn't tense, and he reacted so normally that it had always appeared abnormal

to Sabella.

"Don't you lie to me." She pointed a trembling finger back at him, stabbed it in his direction.

"Don't you dare lie to me. Something's wrong with him and it's more than a few knife cuts. And

there's more going on here than that crap you just let slip from your mouth."

"And if he could tell you anything more, he would," Kira stated.

Sabella's gaze sliced to the other woman. What was the warning in her eyes? It was there. She

could see it, feel it, and so did Ian.

"Kira, could you wait outside?" he asked her.

"No, Ian, I really can't." She smiled back at him, the obvious love she felt for her husband in her eyes, her smile. But her determination defining her stance.

He almost rolled his eyes.

"You're my friend," Sabella said harshly. "Yet you're standing here and allowing him to lie to me. You're lying to me?"

Ian breathed out roughly. "'Sabella, listen to me."

"Who is he?'" she asked both of them, again. "He's an agent, isn't he?" She was shaking, torn apart by that realization. "Which agency? FBI?"

Ian shook his head. "Noah isn't an agent, Belle. Not of any government agency."

"That leaves private?" she guessed. He didn't answer her. "Are you a part of it?"

"Let's say you're cleared to know only the fact that there is an operation being conducted in

Alpine," he finally told her. "You and Rory were cleared for that knowledge, no one else.'"

And he wasn't lying. She licked her lips nervously.

"What's wrong with him?" She was still breathing roughly, the question she wanted to ask held

back, from the fear of disappointment.

Ian's jaw bunched. "Nothing you need to be frightened of." He hoped. She heard what he wasn't

speaking.

"Why is he here?"

"That's his story to tell, Belle," he said, sighing. "I'm here as your friend, and as his. That's all anyone else can know. I heard about the attack on Toby and received a call that Noah had been

hurt as well. I wanted to check out the situation for myself."

"You're lying," she cried out. "Damn you. Damn you both to hell, you're lying to me, just as you lied to me about how my husband died." She whirled away from him, her hands covering

her face before she turned back. "He wasn't just shot. Was he?" She was shaking now, so

desperate for some part of the truth somewhere, that she was nearly mad for him. "Tell me, Ian,

tell me what happened to my husband and then tell me what the hell that man is doing in my

life." She pointed toward the hallway, watching as Noah stepped into the hallway.

"Belle." Ian shook his head.

"They wouldn't let me say goodbye to my husband," she snarled. "I couldn't see his body—"

"You didn't want to see his body, Belle," Ian snapped back. "Trust me. Remember him the way he was and let him go. Because he's dead. And I promise you, you didn't want to see what we

recovered."

A sob tore from her throat. For a second, just for a second, she had almost thought… She shook

her head. No, she had known better.

She covered her mouth with her hand but had to turn away from them all. All of them.

"Belle." Kira spoke behind her.

Sabella lifted her hand. Silence. She just needed silence. She just needed a minute to let that

last flame of hope die within her.

"I want to go home," she whispered, turning back to them, her gaze going to Noah. He stared at

her, his eyes flaming, his expression agonized. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to wrap

her arms around him and she wanted the world to make sense just one more time.

"Do you really want to walk away from him, Sabella?" Kira asked, stepping to her, laying her

hand on her shoulder as another sob shuddered through her body. She leaned close. "He may

not be your husband. But do you really want to walk away from who he could be to you?"

"You're the same one who told me to fuck him and get the sexual crisis out of the way," she bit out, sniffing back the tears. "That didn't help, Kira. Not at all."

"Didn't it, Belle?" She smiled, a sad, gentle smile. "Your husband is gone. But you didn't die with him."

"Kira, tell me the truth," she whispered, so filled with pain and suspicion it was ravaging her.

"Enough."

Sabella lifted her head to see Noah walking into the living room, almost staggering. He wore

the jeans he had worn earlier, snapped and zipped and obviously straining beneath an erection.

Kira sighed as Ian came to his wife and wrapped his arm around her waist. "Come on,

troublemaker."

Noah eased to the counter and stared at the weapons she had managed to locate.

"How did you find them?" he asked her, his voice more grating than normal.

Sabella clenched her teeth then smiled mockingly. "You hid them exactly where my husband

would have hid them."

There, she'd said it, it was out in the open and she could have sworn he barely held back a

flinch.

He was silent for long moments before he finally nodded.

"I'm a contract agent for a private company," he finally said, reaching out to pick up the Glock before edging around the counter.

He replaced the first two weapons.

"An adrenaline junkie." She sneered. "Just what I needed in my life. Tell me,
Noah
, did you know my husband?"

She cocked her hip and crossed her arms over her breasts as she stared back at him, looking,

searching, desperate to either confirm or disprove the suspicions rising inside her.

He paused, staring down at the counter, his hands braced on it before his eyes, just his eyes,

lifted to her.

"I knew your husband. We weren't exactly friends."

"Enemies?"

His lips quirked mockingly. "No, we weren't enemies. We just knew each other."

"So is Noah your real name?"

He nodded slowly, still watching her. "It's my real name."

"And what made you decide to come to Texas to fuck Nathan Malone's wife?"

He flinched. Sabella could feel the hurt radiating through her. Betrayal. It felt like betrayal.

Like deception.

"That's not what happened." He shook his head, and she knew he was lying. She could feel it.

Like instinct. Like a scent that teased at her senses. Just as she had always known when her

husband was lying to her.

"You knew who I was, you knew who Rory was, and you targeted us, didn't you?"

He licked his lower lip. The action wasn't nervous, it wasn't hesitant. It was sexual. The look in

his eyes was sexual. Everything about him screamed hard-core sex.

"I did." At least he didn't lie to her.

"Why?" she cried painfully. "Why did you do this to me? I didn't hurt enough? Do you think I wanted another adrenaline

junkie who doesn't care for anything more than he cares for his fix?"

He stared at her in surprise. "Is that what you think being a SEAL was to your husband? A fix

you couldn't give him?"

"What else could it have been? Look at you." She flung her hand toward him. "Admit it. You love the adrenaline. You love how it hypes you, makes you high. It's better than sex." She

sneered. "Isn't it, Noah?"

His eyes. Those eyes. They were rapacious, blazing, so hot they melted parts of her she didn't

want to admit existed. They weren't navy blue, but shades lighter. Not Irish eyes, but neither

were they entirely natural.

His gaze roamed her body and she swore heat licked over her flesh.

"There's nothing as good as sex with you." His voice was guttural now. "There's nothing, no high, no drug, no amount of danger as good as burying my cock inside you. And I'd give the

last ounce of blood in my body to come inside you, one more time. But I'm not Nathan

Malone."

She lost her breath. Sabella stumbled back a step, her chest tightening as the need for oxygen

battled with the shock that seared her insides.

"You want him back until it rips your guts inside, don't you, Sabella?" He pushed himself back

from the counter, moved around it. "You want him until you live and breathe the memory of a

man that's never going to come back to you."

She shook her head, agony searing her heart to hear him say that. To hear the words, when that

fragile flame of hope had been moving inside her. A hope she refused to even name, because

she ached so desperately for it.

"They wouldn't let you see his body, so you prayed he was alive." The cruelty of his words

bore down on her, the very gentleness of his tone struck inside her like the vicious lash of a

whip.

"Don't." She shook her head, feeling the tears that eased from her eyes, feeling the pain that

dug into her soul and tore at the last dream of ever holding her husband again. "Please don't."

His hands touched her. He pushed her hair back from her face, his thumbs eased over the tears

and more fell.

"Your husband is dead." Pain echoed in his voice as well. "He's gone. Sabella."

"No." She shook her head. "No."

"He's only alive in your dreams." His lips touched hers. "But I'm here. Right here. Let me, Sabella. Let me have what Nathan Malone didn't have. Let me have all of his wild witch."

"No!" She screamed out at the rocking agony. She wanted to strike him. She wanted to tear at

his hair, at his eyes, and all she could do was jerk away from him, jerk away and force her feet

to the kitchen, and no further.

"You didn't give him all of yourself." he accused her, his voice grating, soft, as he followed her.

His hands gripped her shoulders, fingers splaying, holding her firmly as she tensed in his grip.

"You give it to me. Admit that much. You give me the woman you didn't allow him to see."

"I love him."

"You loved him." The fire in his eyes burned with pain, bleak sorrow, and lust. "Loved,

Sabella. Because he's gone."

"Stop." She shook her head.

"I'm not Nathan Malone!" He yelled the words at her, striking her with them as she hunched

her shoulders against the blow and the firm shake he gave her.

She shook her head, sobbing, the cries tearing from her chest.

"Get that in your head, Sabella. I am not Nathan Malone. I am not the man you loved, but by