Darkness at Dawn (19 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Jennings

Tags: #Romance, #General, #Suspense, #Contemporary, #Fiction

BOOK: Darkness at Dawn
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For most of his adult life he’d traveled with toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, a straight razor, shaving cream and brush—his beard was too heavy for an electric shaver, and anyway, he was often in places where there was no reliable source of electricity. That was all he carried. And often, as in the Granites training cycle, shaving went by the wayside.
This was an entirely different life.
He fingered some of the lotions curiously, his hands feeling big and awkward as he touched them. Every bottle was pretty and, even stoppered, smelled nice. Everything in the bathroom smelled nice. Smelled of woman.
All the blood in his body rushed right back down to his dick.
Oh, God. He quietly bounced his forehead off the tiles, hoping the tiny bite of pain might take his mind off the idea of Lucy in here, naked. Washing under the shower. Smoothing on lotions, bending, turning . . .
Naked. Oh, Jesus.
Every cell in his body was alive to her ghostly presence, as if her womanhood were still here, something she’d left behind to torment him. If she had, she’d done a really good job of it. He could hardly think of anything else but her.
To distract himself, he opened his own elegant blue leather toiletries kit, packed for him by some CIA flunkie, and simply stared inside.
Apparently, Michael Harrington was the male version of Lucy. He rooted around inside the neatly packed bottles and tubes, having had no clue that they existed. But they did. He didn’t know any man who’d have the
time
to use all this crap. Jesus. Moisturizing pre-shave gel, moisturizing post-shave gel, plain moisturizer, one for day and one for night.
Eye moisturizer
. What the fuck was that? It was a cream. Were you supposed to squeeze it in your eyes when they got dry? Hand lotion. Perfumed shower gel. Body lotion. Foot lotion. Teeth whitener. An amazingly full manicure set with scarily sharp implements. Three kinds of aftershaves, one for morning, one for daytime and one for the evening. He opened that one and his head reared back.
Jesus. He could fell livestock if he put too much of this crap on.
He brought out a bar of very expensive-looking elegantly wrapped soap. The tasteful beige wrapper assured him it was hand-milled and made of the finest natural ingredients. He also took out a shampoo that assured him that it, too, was made of the finest natural ingredients and would enhance the color of his hair, leaving it soft and shiny.
The bathroom, like the bedroom, was huge and ancient. The fixtures were simple and modern, but not über-modern like those bowl-shaped sinks stuck on top of slabs of marble you found in hotel rooms nowadays. There was an oldfashioned white porcelain sink, a toilet and a shower that had been attached to the ancient walls. White tiles had been applied to the walls up to about a foot below the ceiling, obscuring what were probably priceless frescoes, which would have been a real pity if the whole palace hadn’t had about a billion acres of priceless frescoes. So maybe a few feet could be spared to allow Captain Mike Shafer—aka Michael Harrington—to have a hot shower.
The shower stall was even more insidious. He could smell Lucy everywhere in here; the hot water felt like fingers caressing him. It was sensory overload and further proof if he needed it that he’d spent way too much time in the field these past few years.
Mike looked down at himself, the water making the thick hairs on his chest flatten out and aim down to the one part of his anatomy that wasn’t flattening out and definitely wasn’t aimed down.
What the hell could he do?
He could take care of it himself, of course. His fist usually did the trick just fine when there wasn’t a woman around. But this time it wasn’t a question of just getting an itch out of his system, thinking about some generic woman.
His dick wanted
her
, Lucy. Just thinking about her, here where the very walls seemed imbued with the smell of her, made him swell even bigger. There was no way he could go out into the bedroom like this. He’d taken into the bathroom with him the very elegant and very expensive navy blue silk pajamas the nameless CIA bureaucrat had so thoughtfully provided. Those pajama bottoms would stick out like a tent if he went out in this condition. About the only thing that could keep his dick down was his tightest pair of jeans, a useful fact he’d known since junior high. Pity his tightest jeans were back in his duffel bag in the semi-empty apartment right outside Fort Hood.
Fist no. Jeans no.
The only thing left was to think his hard-on down.
Okay, that’s easy. Think of General Changa, that motherfucker who was turning his country into a military dictatorship. Think of those cold, black eyes. Think of rumors of the ancient dungeons in the Palace being reopened because they were so deep, and the walls were so thick, screams went unheard.
Okay. We’re going right down, now.
Now think of this motherfucker either alone or in tandem with another motherfucker operating a bioweapons lab that had basically discovered a Doomsday Bug that had killed one US operative in a horrific way and that was about to be unleashed to the world.
And now take all that and imagine all that evil aimed at Lucy, at that beautiful woman who had accepted walking into this situation. Imagine Changa with a trembling Lucy in his hands . . .
It worked. He went down like a deflated balloon.
Feeling grim, working out his schedule for the next couple of days, Mike dried off and put on the superexpensive pajamas. They felt weird, but he knew he wasn’t going commando in bed as he usually did.
Mike pushed open the bathroom door and the smells of food now invaded the room. Fine. If he couldn’t satisfy one appetite, he was going to satisfy another. He was starving.
Lucy smiled at him and started serving him.
Her own plate was still empty.
“You didn’t have to wait for me.” She must be just as hungry as he was.
“That’s okay. I liked the idea of company for a change.”
Hmm. So she didn’t usually eat with company? That just confirmed Mike’s considered opinion that American men had all turned into wusses and idiots. You don’t let a woman like this get away.
He looked down into his bowl, recognizing it instantly. Rice and lentils. Gah. He’d once dated a vegetarian, and he’d overdosed on rice and lentils. But—it was warm food and he was really hungry.
One bite and he smiled. This was miles away from Sarah’s “food preparation,” which was what she called cooking. What she did with food was a crime.
“Good?”
“Yeah.” Surprisingly good.
“
Do bhat.
It’s a staple dish here.”
“Do they use yak butter?” Mike asked, looking into his soup. In his weeklong Himalayan climb years ago there’d been yak butter in everything, including the tea. One of his climbing mates had puked when he found out, which Mike thought was really dumb.
“Probably.” She ate beautifully, manners delicate. She looked up suddenly, gauging him. “Does that bother you?”
He nearly snorted, stopped himself just in time. “Nah. When I’m hungry, I’ll eat just about anything that’s not poison. And don’t forget I’ve spent years in Uncle Sam’s service. I’ve survived months on MREs. If that didn’t disgust me, nothing will.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “MREs?”
“MREs. Meals Ready to Eat. They all taste like sh—” His lips clamped shut. “Er . . . terrible. The chicken tastes like beef and the beef tastes like mildly burned rubber.” And they all gummed you up but good. When you were out in the field dining on Uncle Sam’s finest cuisine, you could forget the regular dumps of home.
“Well, try this.” Lucy reached over and ladled something else into his bowl. She sat back and watched him, the way you’d settle back for a good film on TV.
Curious, Mike lifted a spoonful to his mouth, sniffed it. His eyes met hers. “Chili peppers, eh?”
She smiled, the first genuine smile of amusement he’d seen from her and it nearly bowled him over. Man, for a smile like that he’d eat a ton of chili peppers.
“You think I’m not going to be able to take it?”
Her head tilted, studying him. “Well, you’re very tough, anyone can see that. But Nhalan chili peppers are hot, and this particular dish,
sha phon
, is, um, known for its spiciness. Beef stewed in butter and garlic. And, of course, chilis.”
“Makes strong men tremble?”
The smile was a grin now. Man, he needed to make her smile more often.
“Indeed.”
“Okay. But I’ll have you know that one of my best friends is a Texican, and he says his chili is off the charts. Literally. Apparently there’s this scale to measure the hotness of chili peppers, and his chili gets to a couple hundred thousand. But I eat it regularly, no problem.”
“Okay.” She nodded at his spoon. “Dig in then, macho man.”
Mike really liked spicy food. He was looking forward to this. He happily put a spoonful in his mouth, and the top of his head came off.
He didn’t even chew, he just swallowed in self-defense, and felt a nuclear explosion go off down his gullet and into his stomach.
Lucy was calmly eating the dish, showing every sign of enjoyment. Mike was sure his face was red and his eyes were bulging.
“The first bite is always the hardest,” she said, though she didn’t show any signs of distress at all. “Just take a little rice to soak up the capsicum oil,” she moved a small bowl of white rice to his side of the table, “and let the taste settle in your mouth. Each bite gets easier, and you’ll love it by the last bite. If you’re still conscious.”
Let the taste fucking
settle
? When his mouth was burning up? Trying to be cool and smooth, trying not to gobble the rice, Mike found that the taste did sort of . . . settle. And it wasn’t half-bad. There were some other tastes in there, too, he didn’t recognize. Something minty or peppery. And maybe some cloves?
He only knew he had to take at least another bite or he’d lose face with Lucy. Daintily and prettily, she’d almost finished her bowl.
He put another bite in his mouth and found that he could actually chew a couple of times without detonating.
Lucy picked up some rice with her chopsticks and dipped a sticky ball in the chili sauce. “You were talking about the Scoville scale.” He looked at her blankly. “The scale that measures the hotness of chili peppers? These peppers come from Bangladesh and they measure one million on that scale. I grew up eating this stuff. Congratulations, Mike. You just passed the Tough Guy test.”
He had. By the time his chopsticks hit the bottom of the bowl and, contrary to expectations, his mouth hadn’t blown up, he was enjoying it.
They shared a small bottle of excellent wheat beer, pale yellow and delicious. Mike was feeling replete, tired in a good way, ready for bed. Or the floor.
There was a pot of strong green tea. He poured some in a glass with a metal handle and slid it over to Lucy. “I can bunk down on the floor, no problem.”
“Nonsense,” she said and sipped.
Despite himself, his heart pumped a little faster. “No really. There are rugs. I’ve slept on worse, believe me.”
All amusement had fled her face. She leaned forward and spoke softly. “Firstly, you’re not going to sleep as well on the floor as on that bed, and I need for you to be rested and alert. We’re in a difficult position, and at some point you’re going to have to make a trek up in the mountains to retrieve the flash drive and come back alive, and it has to be done right under the noses of General Changa’s men. That’s not going to be easy. Secondly, there are going to be cleaning ladies reporting back, and they’re going to be able to tell whether two people slept in the bed or not. No sense arousing suspicion unnecessarily. And thirdly, that bed is big enough to grow corn in. We’ll be sleeping with about five feet separating us.”
Not if I have anything to say about it
, Mike thought, then was instantly ashamed of himself. Lucy Merritt, girly girl, manuscript restorer, was being more professional on a mission than he was, and he was a professional soldier.
“Well, I’m about ready to turn in.” He eyed her clothes. “What about you?”
“Not yet. I still need to meet with the princess this evening.”
“What?”
His voice had been too loud. He lowered it. “What? What do you mean? She barely spoke to you out there on that terrace.”
Lucy examined his face carefully. “Did you see the way General Changa was watching her? Like a mongoose watches a rabbit? She was protecting me in the only way she could, by pretending coldness and distance. He wouldn’t have any reason to believe that we were friends. When—” she hesitated a moment, then continued. “When the Palace burned, he was a lieutenant stationed in the north. That’s part of his myth—that he comes from the north. There’s an old Nhalan legend called the Snow Dragon. Nhalans believe that thousands of years ago they ruled over all the Himalayas and were slowly reduced to living in what is essentially a small valley. So the legend is that one day a great dragon, the Snow Dragon, will rise from the north and restore Nhala to its past greatness.”

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