“Do you have any idea who she is?” Paris whirled on the paramedic. “And my father is the best lawyer in LA. Should I call him?”
To his credit, the paramedic didn't even bat an eyelash. I supposed anyone who'd worked this job for very long would be used to getting threats.
“If she refuses to go to the hospital and get a CT scan, she needs to have someone stay with her and wake her up every couple hours for the next six hours or so.” The paramedic stood his ground. “That's not to cover my ass, that's for her own good.”
I looked up at Paris.
Her shoulders slumped. “I'm leaving for Hong Kong in two hours, remember? Forced field trip with Mother. You were going to stay with Ricky tonight.”
Ricky. Right. My asshole of a boyfriend who was probably banging some other woman right now. I scowled. We were so off-again.
“Does she have any family?”
I looked over at the stranger and realized, for the first time, that he was in army fatigue pants, not the tailored soft version but a real camouflage pair. His shirt was tan and metal gleamed against it. Dog tags. He was a soldier.
And he was dripping wet.
He'd pulled me out of the pool.
“She has a brother and a grandfather.” Paris answered the question. Despite the circumstances, I could see her eyes gleaming as she looked at the muscular physique made obvious by the wet cloth clinging to him.
He glanced at me, his gaze sharp enough to make me want to squirm. “I'm guessing the grandfather is why she doesn't want to go to the hospital?”
Paris nodded. “And her brother's only fifteen. I can't ask him to watch her.”
“I'm sitting right here,” I said, all to aware of the petulant tone in my voice. “I'm not a baby. I can take care of myself.”
They both ignored me.
“I have a flight to catch or I'd stay with her myself,” Paris said.
The man looked down at me again, then up at the paramedic. “I'll take it from here.”
There was a tone in his voice that immediately made me think that he was the kind of man people listened to. He didn't look more than a couple years older than me, but it didn't matter. The paramedics nodded and started gathering up their equipment.
“What about...” Paris started to say.
“Do you have a car here?” he interrupted.
She nodded. “My driver's waiting to take me to the airport.”
“He'll make a stop first.” It was said as a statement, not a request.
To my surprise, Paris didn't argue. Maybe she was just as stunned as I was that this total stranger was taking charge.
He frowned down at me for a moment, and then, in a sharp decisive move, bent and scooped me up off the pool deck. Dizzy with the sudden movement, my cheek fell against his rock-hard chest. He smelled good. He held me firmly, but carefully, as he followed Paris back through the too-bright interior of the mansion and out to the driveway. She opened the door of her chauffeured town car, giving a start of surprise when the stranger tucked me inside.
“Ride up front.”
Again, it wasn't a request. I could only imagine the expression on Paris' face, but I didn't think about it long. My head was still fuzzy. I heard the front door close as he climbed into the back seat with me.
“I'm not staying at the Hilton,” he said as he put his arm around me and pulled me close enough for me to rest my head on his shoulder. “But I'll sit with you until morning.”
“Who are you?” Paris asked from the front seat.
“Haze.” His tone was abrupt enough that neither of us asked if that was his first or last name, or an alias.
“And you really think I'm going to leave my friend with you in some sleazy motel room?” She turned in the seat, eyes snapping.
“I think you only have a couple of choices,” he countered. “Take her home. Take her to a hospital. Cancel your flight...or leave her with me. I've had some medical training. I know what I'm doing.”
Paris glared at him for a minute and then looked at me. “What do you think?”
I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the way my stomach was rolling as we went over a series of bumps. “You go with your mom. I'll be fine with him.”
The weird thing was, I was pretty sure it was true.
My mind was in a fog. I barely registered Paris saying good-bye and telling me that she'd text me as soon as she got to Hong Kong, but I must've given her some sort of indication that I was still fine, because she left me with Haze. He didn't say anything during the rest of the ride, only giving the address of his hotel to the driver before settling back into silence. Every so often, I felt him watching me, but I kept my eyes on the back of the seat in front of me.
When we reached the hotel, Haze opened his door, got out, and then came around to my side to open my door too. Before I could even attempt to walk, he was picking me up again. He was easily as tall as Ricky, but broader. Stronger. Ricky had the sort of build that came from being naturally athletic, but there really wasn't any power to him. Haze, however...every bit of him exuded power.
He set me down in the lone chair by the door before flipping on the main light. I looked around at what it revealed. A small table to the right of the chair I was sitting in. A bed made with military precision and a cheap-looking comforter. A TV on top of a faux wood dresser. A door I assumed led to a bathroom.
The entire room could've fit inside my bathroom at home.
“You were right, military man Haze,” I said with a dry smile. “This isn't the Hilton.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me, but didn't respond defensively. If anything, there was a glint of humor in those dark eyes of his. “All I promised was to keep an eye on you until morning. And it's clean. That's pretty much all I have to offer.”
He leaned forward, and I held my breath. My entire body felt like a live wire. I waited for his lips to touch mine, for his hands to caress my skin. Instead, he reached behind and undid the zipper of my soaked dress, the chevron stripes peeling away as it came undone.
“And I'm not offering anything?” I stood and stepped out of the dress as I tried to hide my disappointment.
I shouldn't have been disappointed, I knew. He was a stranger. Hot, yes, but still a stranger. I might have indulged in my fair share of partying in the last year, and Ricky was no prize, but I'd never been the one-night-hook-up kind of girl. But, dammit, if Haze didn't make me want to change that.
He laughed, but it wasn't a mean sound. “No offense, you sort of look like a drowned rat.”
“No offense?” I tried to sound indignant, but it was difficult with my teeth chattering.
His expression softened. “Go take a hot shower. Warm up. There's a clean shirt in there you can use while you wait for your clothes to dry.”
I gave him one final glare before I stomped off. In the bathroom, I checked the throbbing cut on my head while I waited for the water to heat up. I sighed as I stepped under it, shivering as the hot drops hit my chilled skin. I washed up with the soap the hotel provided and realized that Haze had been using it too. I recognized the scent from when he'd picked me up.I used one of the towels hanging next to the shower and hoped that it wasn't one he'd used. My body flushed with a different sort of heat at the thought of him rubbing the same rough cloth across his naked body.
I pushed the thought aside as I swallowed a couple of the pain pills Paris had slipped me before the party. I'd intended to use them to get high later on with Ricky. Now I used them for their intended purpose, even if I hadn't been the intended recipient.
They didn't, however, do anything to take the edge off of my anger. Not anger at Haze's dismissal, not at Paris or even at Ricky for being an idiot, but at myself. After a year, all I could feel was a corroding loneliness, and I was reaching the point where I had to find some sort of outlet, or I was going to end up screaming.
I grabbed the shirt that was hanging on the back of the door. I wondered if he'd washed it in the sink. It smelled of the hotel s
oap. I pulled it over my head, the material soft against my skin. It hit me mid-thigh which wasn't surprising. He was at least ten inches taller than me and twice as wide, so I was practically swimming in the shirt. That was good though, since my underwear was currently hanging over the towel rack to dry.
I came out of the bathroom and paused in the doorway for a minute, letting myself get a good look at him for the first time.
He sat on the bed, wearing black boxer shorts and a clean white t-shirt that stretched across that broad chest. His hair was short, not quite as closely buzzed as it probably had been when he'd first joined up. It was blond, matching the faint scruff I could see on his cheeks. He didn't have Ricky's pretty-boy looks, but rather the sort of rugged good looks that fit with the rest of his tough-guy persona.
“I figured we could watch a movie since it's easier to keep an eye on you if we're both awake.” He didn't look at me as he flipped through channels. “Any requests?”
“Just one,” I said, suddenly deciding on what I wanted.
He looked up, his eyes widening slightly as he saw me in his shirt. I didn't give him – or me – the chance to overthink things. I crossed the short space and crawled onto the bed, keeping my eyes locked with his. He sucked in a sharp breath when I climbed onto his lap, my knees settling on either side of his thighs.
“Make me forget,” I whispered as I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his.
The flash of heat that went through me at the contact surprised me, and I pushed myself closer. A moment later, he pulled away, and I waited for him to shove me aside, to tell me that I was just some foolish little girl, and I should go home and play with my dolls. Instead, his hand drifted to my cheek, the rough fingers gentle as they trailed down to cup my chin. His gaze was steady, searching, seeing too much, seeing everything I was too tired to hide.
Finally, I dropped my eyes to his left arm where a tattoo peeked out from under his sleeve. Two arrows crossed above a dagger. I wondered if it had to do with the sort of work he did in the military. He pulled his shirt over his head, exposing the delicious expanse of muscles and tanned skin. And another tattoo. It was one of those design styles that they called Celtic and it was a sun. Around his right nipple.
I had the sudden urge to lick it.
Who was this man? I had a name. Knew he was military. But that was it. One thing I did know for certain, he was everything I was not: purpose and training, focus and selfless ambition.
“Leighton.” His voice was rough, his eyes nearly black. “I don't think this is a...”
“Shh.” I ran my fingers down his stomach. “I want this. I need this.”
He looked at me for a moment more, and then his wide hand curved around the back of my neck, pulling me to him for a searing kiss that I felt in every cell. My fingernails bit into his iron muscles as I opened my lips, welcoming the hot strokes of his tongue. I ground down on him, building a charge between us that almost exploded when he pulled his shirt over my head, leaving me naked underneath. His hands swept up my spine, then slid around to my front. My breasts weren't small, but his hands were large, covering them completely. He didn't seem to mind though, his thumbs rubbing up and over my nipples until I had to break the kiss and arch back in ecstasy.
When his hot mouth followed his thumbs and closed over my right breast, I rocked against him. His throbbing erection strained against the thin material of his boxer shorts and we both shuddered as it pressed against my wet apex. I made a mewling sound as his teeth scraped against my sensitive skin. He dragged his head from my taut nipple and caught me in a harder, deeper kiss, his tongue plundering my mouth.
I needed him inside me. Now.
“Condom?” I tore my mouth from his to ask the important question.
For one heart-stopping moment, I thought he was going to say he didn't have any, and that wouldn't have been good because I didn't either.
He reached over to the side table, one arm sliding around my waist to hold me in place as he used his free hand to work open his wallet and pull out a foil square. I rose up on my knees as he tore the packet open and reached between us, freeing himself from his boxers and putting on the condom.
I put my hand on his shoulder, balancing as I lowered myself onto him. I was wet, but tight. He was bigger than Ricky, both in length and width, stretching me with even the slightest movement. His hands slipped to my thighs and tugged me open, the pressure of him sending a wash of desire through me as I dropped further down.
“Fuck,” he groaned.
His hands tightened on my hips and, suddenly, he pushed all the way inside me, burying himself deep. I cried out as I rode that line of pleasure and pain. He was hard all over, thrumming with restrained power that melted me, turned me liquid, hot, and wet around him. I rocked, my nipples rubbing the granite expanse of his chest as I slipped up and down. The pressure built, his fingers digging into my thighs, his hips thrusting up.
“Leighton,” he moaned my name.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, my body rocking against his, every cell burning with the need to come. I was so close, and I could feel that he was too. And, suddenly, it wasn't only about my pleasure. I wanted to feel him let go too.
I pressed my mouth against his ear. “Come, Haze.” I flicked out my tongue against his earlobe. “Come with me.”
I heard him swear, and then I was coming. I quaked around him, the release more shattering than I'd ever felt before. He folded me tight in the iron circle of his arms, holding me against him as he came. He kept himself deep inside me, the pulsing aftershocks ravaging us both, until, slowly, the room came back into focus.
Still, I didn't want to let him go. His hand stroked up and down my spine as I settled against his chest. My leg muscles were aching, and his boxers rubbed against my skin. I wasn't exactly comfortable, but I still didn't want to move.
“Can I ask you something?” I finally broke the silence.
The movement of his hand paused, then resumed the soothing motion. “I won't promise that I'll answer.”
“Fair enough.” I traced the tip of my finger around the sun tattoo. His nipple was tight. “You're in the army, right?”
“Yes.”
I felt him tense slightly, but he still kept his fingers moving up and down my spine.
“And you're on leave?”
“Yes.”
“Am I...I mean...have you...” I suddenly felt childish. Immature.
I sat up and started to move off him.
“Leighton.” His voice was gentle, and I looked at him. Our eyes met for a moment, and then his slid over to the window.
A faint pink light shone under the edge of the curtain.
“It's morning.” He shifted, easing me off of him onto the bed. “Why don't you go get cleaned up? It's time to get you home.”
When I came back, there was a piece of paper with the number of a taxi company on the bed, a fifty-dollar bill...
And Haze was gone.
2
Haze
THREE AND A HALF YEARS LATER
I watched the newly enlisted men march by, and it was like watching a line of babies take their first steps. They didn't know the language or the terrain, and it hadn't quite sunk in that the odds weren't in their favor. Newbies never believed the odds.
“Since when are we babysitters?” Donald Owens, Special Forces Engineer Sergeant, asked me under his breath.
“Since they're here and still alive,” I said.
“So far,” he shrugged.
The sun was setting over the jagged foothills, promising our nightly relief from the scorching heat. Normally I welcomed the long shadows and darkness, but tonight I was unsettled.
We'd been embedded for sixteen months, my longest tour since I'd enlisted at eighteen, and so far, it had been the toughest. Nightfall was the best cover for our direct raid assignments. Get in, destroy the munitions, and get out. The twelve-person team I was a part of had completed four successful missions. Always conscious of
the odds against us, we were starting to count each hour, each still-breathing soldier, a success.
The enlisted men, a fresh-faced battalion straight from Fort Draper in Utah, had been charged with delivering supplies to the town near our camp. They were a month late and unwelcome even by the desperate locals. There might've been some parts of this country where American soldiers were wanted, but this wasn't one of them.
I turned away from the battalion and made my way back through the narrow canyons, no wider than fissures between the sharp rock walls. The light was almost gone, but the route was ingrained in my steps. In camp, our team leader kicked a soccer ball around as the other men bet he couldn't make a goal in the dark. A crack of light came from the mess tent along with the smell of dinner.
“Remind me to liberate a goat while we're out,” Owens said to me. “Before our ration of meat product kills me.”
We settled onto the nearest bench and caught the trays slipped our way. Talk around the table was the same as always: food we missed, places we'd rather be, and women. Women we'd seen, had, wanted, wished for, and missed.
“Course Haze's got nothing to say.” Keith Handley, our team leader, grinned at me. “What's the name of that corn-fed Kansas girl you left behind?”
Owens slapped me on the back. “No, she had brown hair. He's partial to red.”
“I don't recall telling you what I'm partial to,” I said, trying to keep from snapping at him. I seriously regretted ever having gotten drunk enough to spill to Owens that the reason I didn't fuck around wasn't because of the high school sweetheart from back home like I always claimed, but rather someone else.
“Natural red curls. And what were they? Bright blue eyes?” Owens asked.
The image was a punch in the gut, and I busied myself chewing my rations until my breath came back.
I couldn't stop the images though.
Leighton rocking against me, her flame red curls tangled around my hand, her small creamy breasts so soft against my chest. I could remember every inch of her with less effort than it took to remember what home looked like. Clearest of all, were those eyes.