“I’m so sorry, Jacko,” she said miserably. “So sorry that this happened. As soon as I get back on my feet, I promise to leave. I had absolutely no idea that—”
Her words were muffled by Lauren’s hand covering her mouth. She looked angry, exasperated. “Good lord! Don’t even talk like that. That’s not what he meant, isn’t that right, Jacko?”
“God, no,” he rumbled. That hard, expressionless face was scrunched into a scowl. “Sorry. I’m mad, but not at you. I’m mad at the fuck—” He shut up suddenly when Lauren shot him a look. “I’m mad at the shithe—” He bit his lips. “At the man after you. We’re going to figure this out and get him off your back. In the meantime, Metal and I talked about this. We both think it would be a good idea for you to stay here. You tight with that?”
Metal watched her, this huge wall of muscle between her and trouble.
“Oh yes,” she breathed and then blushed. Because it came out sounding all wrong. She sounded like Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” to the president. She’d seen it on YouTube a billion times. All breathy and sexy. Felicity didn’t do breathy and sexy. She was married to her computer. It must be the fact that she felt so weak that it came out that way.
“Okay. So that’s taken care of.” Lauren straightened and walked back to Jacko, who put a heavy arm round her shoulders. “Did I hear you mention food, Metal? Did you mean it or was that an empty promise?”
“Meant every word.” He lifted his shoulder from the doorjamb, came to the bedside and offered Felicity a huge hand. “Do you want to see if you can walk?”
She nodded. Metal pulled back the covers, put a big hand to her back. “Take it easy,” he said. “Just say the word and I’ll carry you to the kitchen.”
Oh man. Being carried in those huge arms. He spoke as she swung her legs to the side of the bed and stood up. The image it conjured made her knees go weak, just for a second. Before she had time to stiffen her knees, he swung her up as if she was a child and carried her out of the room.
She had a vague memory of being carried by him, but it had been like being in a car. A big, warm, sentient car, with no emotions attached. But now...oh man, now it felt like romance and power and sex all mixed together.
Felicity had never been carried that she could remember. As a child, as soon as she could walk, she wasn’t carried anymore. Her parents had been loving but distant. She could count the number of hugs on one hand. And of course, as an adult woman, no man had ever carried her. She frequented fellow geeks, whose thighs were smaller than Metal’s biceps.
Above all, they didn’t have his alpha macho vibe. He wasn’t in-your-face macho but it was there, as much a part of him as his nose or ears.
If you had a guy who could carry you, why weren’t women carried around all the time? Because, man, this was ace. Simply because of their position, her cheek was closely aligned with his. He carried her really smoothly, like carrying a bag of peanuts, but every once in a while her cheek brushed his. It was slightly bristly and utterly delicious, as was his smell. It wouldn’t be polite, but what she really wanted was to bury her nose where his strong neck met those amazing shoulders and take a big sniff, like a dog. Mint, soap, leather—an amazingly heady mix. If she’d taken biochem instead of computer science she’d try to duplicate it in the lab. Of course the smell had to be paired with muscles, so maybe that wouldn’t work commercially.
His hold was utterly steady, no sense of strain whatsoever. It felt as though he could carry her for miles without being winded. His arms tilted her slightly facing him so she had most of her front side plastered against all those amazing muscles.
It turned out that the most comfortable way to be carried was to put your arms around the man’s neck and, oh God, that was amazing too. His neck muscles and shoulder muscles simply hummed with power that was transmitted to her through the skin of her arms. Like touching a power plant, only warm.
He strode across the living room and she looked around curiously. So far she’d seen the bedroom and the en suite bathroom. It was remarkably pleasant, which was a surprise. He was so rough and tough, such a guy, she imagined he’d have one of those guy pads like her geek pals in college. Empty except for monitors everywhere and the hum of electronics with that ozone smell when too much electrical equipment is concentrated in too small a space.
And, well, the smell of geek too, which was often very pungent. Add in a house that was cleaned up once a year and you had a very noncommercially viable smell.
This place smelled clean and fresh. It looked clean and fresh. Very masculine, no frills, but comfortable, functional, everything in earth tones. No flowers, no plants but bare branches in a tall bucket and a huge glass container with a sand sculpture inside.
A TV that was smaller than ginormous, which was a surprise.
Then they were in the kitchen and that, too, was a surprise. There were plants here—all cooking herbs, not her forte. She recognized basil, rosemary and a plant of chili peppers. Mainly because she recognized the shape and smell of the plants. There were lots of others too, but she had no clue what they were. Usually she’d just look it up. She had a special app where she’d photograph something and compare it to Google images and presto! There the name was. For the first time in forever she didn’t have the internet at her fingertips but she wasn’t missing it. Not just yet.
A big pinewood table, pine cabinets and granite countertops. Appliances, but not many. A big wood block with a billion knives, all of them no doubt razor sharp.
That was it.
The kitchen looked out over a small, neat backyard with no flowers but a small wall of trimmed hedges.
Orderly and comfortable.
Lauren and Jacko had gone ahead and were setting the table. Metal hooked a chair with a big boot and set her down gently. When he stood, he rested a big hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently.
You okay?
It was as if he spoke the words aloud.
“I’m fine,” Felicity said, turning her head to look up at him. “Thanks.”
He nodded and started taking things out of a huge refrigerator. Felicity caught glimpses inside and was instantly ashamed of her own fridge, with curling slices of takeout pizza and a few pieces of rotting fruit. She was always so busy working. These past few months, she’d eaten takeout more days than not.
Metal’s fridge was full of fresh food, bowls covered in plastic wrap, milk and fruit juice and only a few bottles of beer, the vegetable bin full of produce. Her vegetable bin was full of servers and two boxes of flash drives that she wanted to keep cool.
To her knowledge, she hadn’t had a bowl of leftovers covered in cling film, like normal people did in, like, forever.
While Jacko finished setting the table, Lauren sat down and covered Felicity’s hand with hers. “So how are you feeling, really?” A small pucker of concern between her brows.
She wanted the truth so Felicity didn’t bother baring her teeth and gritting fine fine, which she would have with anyone else. Though they didn’t know each other, they knew each other, they’d been through hard times together. Lauren wasn’t asking out of politeness, she was asking out of concern.
“I feel a little weak and very tired,” she answered, squeezing Lauren’s hand. “But I feel much better than I did two nights ago, and I feel better now than I did an hour ago, so the trend is good. Like I said, Metal’s taking very good care of me.”
Lauren smiled faintly. She looked around at Jacko getting stuff from the cupboards and Metal at the stove, and lowered her voice. “I’ll be honest. I wasn’t too happy when Metal took over, so Jacko told me a few stories. And...well, Metal’s incredible. Do you know why they call him Metal?”
“His taste in music?”
“Uh-uh.” Lauren smiled. “That would be Jacko’s taste before my friend Allegra introduced him to music that doesn?
??t make your ears bleed. I have no idea what Metal’s taste in music is. No, they call him Metal because in whole sections of his body he’s more titanium than bone. During an ambush in Afghanistan he was blown up by a mine and he crawled with his medic kit to where two teammates were bleeding out. He had a shattered hip and a broken femur and he crawled thirty yards under intense fire and he saved their lives. Got a big medal for it too. The kind they don’t give out often. That was his last mission, but all during his service he kept people alive under battlefield conditions with people shooting at him. He’s brought back guys from the brink of death while under fire, and though you certainly weren’t on the brink—” Lauren closed her eyes and shuddered, “¾it looked really bad.”
“Because I’d lost a lot of blood. Yeah.”
Lauren nodded, swallowed again. “I was so scared. But Metal and Jacko were amazing. All that blood didn’t faze them at all. Metal moved fast and of course he knew exactly what he was doing. And, Jacko assures me you are safe in every way here, with him. Otherwise I wouldn’t leave you here.”
“I know.”
“Jacko says—”
“Food. Jacko says food. Right now.” Jacko kissed Lauren’s cheek as he sat down. Metal put a large steaming pot on a trivet and slid a big platter of that whole wheat bread and some cheeses on the table. Whatever was in the pot, it smelled delicious.
Felicity watched him moving easily in his kitchen. She didn’t know much about medicine but he must have done incredibly intense physical therapy to recover from the wounds Lauren had described.
He was incredibly brave.
And he cooked.
Metal ladled some soup into her bowl and she leaned forward and sniffed. Mushroom soup. Heavenly. Her nose loved it but...her stomach simply closed up. She was hungry. She could feel that, feel hunger behind the rising nausea. Her stomach was knotted up in cramps. It was horrible, to want to eat but not be able to eat.
She was breathing deeply, trying to keep the nausea down, trying to hide the fact that she was nauseous. It didn’t work. Everyone suddenly stopped eating and looked at her.
She picked up her spoon with a trembling hand, started to take it to her mouth when a hard hand took the spoon from her, placed it back in the soup.
Metal curved his shoulders inward as he turned to her and she realized he was creating a little wall of privacy for them. He held her hand with one of his, the other was against her back, smack between her shoulder blades, right where the muscles were frozen and tense. He started rubbing lightly with that huge hand, so large it covered a good portion of her back along the spine.
He bent his mouth to her ear. “It’s okay. You’re still a little shocked and we gave you a massive infusion of antibiotics, which messes with your stomach. Kills the intestinal flora and can cause stomachache and cramping. The pain is like having an ulcer but you don’t have an ulcer. It’s just a reaction to the antibiotics. Once you get some warm food in your stomach you’ll be fine. Just take a few spoonfuls.”
Felicity turned her head and he was so close. So close she could see gold flecks in his light brown eyes, could see the white stripes of crow’s-feet in his tanned face. See the light gold stubble starting to show on his cheeks.
He was watching her carefully. “Take a little food for me. I promise you’ll feel better.”
He was mesmerizing. Felicity had no idea how he could fascinate her so much. It was a plain face—broad cheekbones, flat features, a broken nose, nothing special. Not handsome in any way. But there it was—she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.
He nodded at the soup and she dipped her spoon in and swallowed a spoonful. It was delicious and it went down. She ate because she knew she needed food but also because he had a natural authority to him, a doctor’s authority though he wasn’t a doctor.
“Better?” His eyes watched her so intently she wouldn’t be surprised if he said he could follow the soup down to her stomach and observe what happened to it there.
She nodded. Her stomach still hurt, but now that she knew why it didn’t scare her. She was rarely sick and never had stomachaches. For a panicky moment she’d wondered if the attack had affected her internal organs.
“Good girl.” That hard harsh face slipped into a smile and her stomach swooped. It wasn’t the antibiotics that made it swoop, though. No. It was him. “More.”
It was a voice made to command. She dipped her spoon again and swallowed. “Another.” By the third spoonful of soup the ache had lessened and her hunger roared into life. It was only when he was satisfied that she was eating that Metal turned and dug in himself.
“Great stuff,” Jacko said, eating fast but neatly. “I don’t want to know what it is because it looks like crap. Literally.”
“Moron,” Metal said affectionately. “Cream of mushroom soup and it does not look like crap.”
“Does too,” Jacko insisted. “Looks like what came out when I got bin Laden’s Revenge in the ‘Stan and—” He stopped when Lauren drove an elbow into his side. “Sorry.” He looked at Felicity sheepishly.
She didn’t care what it looked like. More to the point, her stomach didn’t care either. She was famished and it was absolutely delicious. She held out her bowl. “More please.”
“Attagirl,” Metal said. He ladled another bowlful. “Here you go, honey.”
At the term, Felicity turned bright bright red. She had very fair skin and it telegraphed every single emotion she felt.
There was a reason she avoided people.
But crazily, no one commented on her sudden and totally embarassing stoplight-red face. Jacko and Metal were discussing something that had to do with vectors and lines of sight and Lauren was handing her a chunk of a yellowish cheese and another slice of bread. “Try this, it’s a local cheese. Tillamook, delicious.”
It was. The men were drinking a local beer but Metal had made tea for her and Lauren. The combination of hot soup, bread and cheese, and tea made her feel warm and sated.
“So, Felicity.” Jacko planted his elbows on the table, shoving away the bowl and plate, and clasped his big hands, looking down at them for a moment then lifting his head to stare at her. “How did you come to show up on Lauren’s doorstep sliced and bleeding?”
Lauren gasped and Metal growled. There was no other term for it. Instinctively, Felicity laid her hand on his forearm. “That’s okay. He has a right to ask.”
Metal glanced at her without moving his head. His jaw muscles tightened so much she wondered if he’d crack a tooth.
Jacko made a fist and banged it lightly on the table. “Damn right I do. I like you, Felicity, and I know Lauren cares for you and that goes a long way with me. But there’s no denying that you brought trouble to Lauren’s door. Metal and I are on it and we can keep you safe, but we need to know what we’re up against. And I need you to know that my first priority is Lauren’s safety.”
Lauren was practically quivering with outrage, but Felicity shook her head.
“I’m really glad Lauren has you on her side,” Felicity answered and she meant every word. It was a dangerous world out there and Lauren had had some dangerous men after her. Jacko had saved her life and clearly was in that life to stay. Lucky Lauren. “And I would love to answer you, but truly, I have no idea who that man was and why he was after me. I’d feel better if I did, believe me.”
“I do believe you. And I also know that Lauren is alive thanks to you, thanks to your help.” He unclasped his hands and pointed a thick finger at her. “I know you provided her with the fake ID that helped her disappear. So could it be someone you provided a new identity for who wants to eliminate you?”
Jacko had every right to interrogate her, to dig in to why someone was after her. Felicity didn’t begrudge him in any way. He was doing it because he wanted to keep Lauren safe. But the warmth that had been created by the fo
od and eating in company was starting to dissipate. She felt a chill run through her and jumped when Metal took her hand, holding it openly. His hand was so strong and so very warm, it chased away the sudden chill.
“We need to do this, but take your time,” Metal rumbled. “No one is rushing you.”
She shrugged. “It feels so unreal. If I didn’t have a bandage and pain I’d think I dreamed it. No one knew I was coming to Portland, not even Lauren. It was sort of a last-minute decision. I’m self-employed and can work on the road. I don’t report in to anyone. And I lead a fairly secluded life anyway.”
“Why didn’t you let me know you were arriving?” Lauren asked. “I would have come to the airport to pick you up.”
Jacko’s dark eyes widened and Felicity could see the whites of his eyes. He was imagining Lauren with her when the man attacked her.
Felicity was really grateful she hadn’t called Lauren ahead of time. Lauren could have been there at the airport. If something had happened to her she’d never have forgiven herself. “I—I wasn’t sure of my welcome. I was thinking I’d stay in a hotel, call you up, say I was in Portland for business, could we meet. I thought—”
“Did you book?” Metal asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“Did you book a room?”
Felicity gasped. Oh my God, she had! It had totally slipped her mind. “I did.”
“Which hotel?” Metal asked.
“The Regency.” She’d picked it and booked it on the internet.
Metal had been checking something on his cell. He got up from the table, punching in a number and walked into the living room. All Felicity heard was the deep rumble of his voice without making out the words.
She missed his body heat, missed having him sitting beside her. Which was weird because she always ate alone. Sitting beside someone at the table was an exception, not the rule, so why was she missing him?