Elemental Pleasure (19 page)

“Can we see her?” Lance asked.

“You can go back until they take her for
the
tests.”

He passed them off to a nurse, who led them though the hallways to a quiet corner. There were several beds, but only one had the curtain drawn around it.

“Here you go. We’re still cleaning up the little cuts and bruises.”

She pulled back the curtain.

Carly lay in the bed, looking small and pale. Her hai
r was a tangled mess on the
white pillow. Her cheek was nearly black the bruise
,
so dark and grotesquely swollen. A male nurse sat near her legs, cleaning the scrapes on one ankle. The rest of her was covered with a hospital gown and a white sheet. There was a bag of ice over the k
nee that was hidden by the covers
.

“Carly.”

She turned her head, looking
at each of them in turn. Tears filled her eyes. Preston stepped around the nurse, taking one of her hands in his. “Carly, baby, don’t cry.”

“Hey
, gorgeous.” Lance took
her other hand. “How
are
you feeling?”

She licked her lips. “Better. They gave me something. For the pain.”

“Good.” Preston raised her hand, kissing it, then the white gauze bandage around her wrist.

“How did you find me?”

“Lance figured it out
.”

“After Preston realized
who
it was that
kidnapped you.”

“The other man,” she said. “Did they get him?”

“Yes. He works for me. His father has been with the firm from the beginning.”

“The one who took you is his cousin,” Lance added.

“The
y weren’t supposed t
o kidnap me.” Carly’s words were slightly slurred
as sleep came to take her
.

“We’ll talk about i
t later,” Preston assured her. “Right now you need to get better.”

“I guess it’s a good thing you’re stuck with me,” she murmured,
her
eyes closed. “I’m going to have a scar, right on my face.”

Her breathing was deep
and even. It didn’t take long for the medicine to take effect. When he was sure she was asleep, Preston laid her hand down and scrubbed his hands through his hair.

“She’ll be okay,” the nurse said, ripping open a bandage package. “It looks like she put up quite a fight.” He taped the bandage in place. “I’ll leave you alone for a bit.”

Preston and Lance looked at each other over her sleeping body, then they each took one of her hands, watching over her while she slept.

*****

For three people who guarded their privacy, the next week was hard. The media latched onto the story of Carly’s kidnapping and played it for all it was worth. The one piece of luck was that the
real
reason for her kidnapping—the embezzlement at Preston’s company—was never part of the story. They wanted the scandal and drama of a famous girl gamer—who had posed for some sexy shots years ago, meaning the media had pictures to flash around—rescued by her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s ex-military friend. Thankfully, Preston was able to deal with the embezzlement quickly and quietly. A forensic accountant po
u
red through two years of financial records discovering that Brian had stolen over four million dollars. Some of the
money was
in Swiss accounts
they couldn’t get
to
, but due to the criminal case against him, they’d be able to recoup assets still in the U
.
S.

Though there was no mention of the embezzlement, Preston was still in the news. He an
d Lance were hailed as heroes,
though more than one reporter vilified them
for acting on their own. While
they had discussed how they
would present their trinity to
the world, the decision was ultimately taken out of their hands. Along the way, someone got the impression Preston was Carly’s boyfriend
, and they’d had no real option
but to go with it. Lance wa
s portrayed as Preston’s friend who was
in town to meet the
new
girlfriend
, who was then kidnapped
.

Lance returned to Virginia shortly after they’d brought Carly home from the hospital. As the media attention continued, he and Preston realized they needed to split
up. O
therwise someone might question how close the three of them
really
were. Preston had taken off his
Trinity Master’s signet ring while
Lance left his pendant and chain in his backpack. The last thing they needed was s
omeone investigating the symbol
or asking why they both had jewelry that matched a necklace Carly had been photographed wearing. At DARPA he was better protected from the reporters, but once they knew who he was and where he worked, the story gained
more steam.

DARPA officials
issued an official statement confirming his name, military rank, title and DARPA department, but that didn’t slow down the rumors. Somehow
the detective’s impression
he
had been involved in
the
black ops
commanding
a
Marine Special Operations Company
had
persisted and stories of “heroics” from his time
on
active duty were related on talk radio shows.

After his second day back at work, Lance flopped on his couch, exhausted. His apartment was clean and efficient. He had everything exactly where he liked it, but for some reason it didn’t feel like home anymore.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he video called Preston. He hated leaving Preston to deal with the continued media attention
and
an injured Carly, but they’d been worried that spending too much time together might raise questions they weren’t prepared to answer.

“Lance.” Preston’
s image appeared.

“
How is she?”

Preston ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. She won’t talk to me, won’t answer my calls. You know I wanted her to stay with me when she was released, but she’s insisting on staying at h
er own place. I’ve had to go in
to work to clean up the embezzlement shit the past couple of days. With all that
,
plus dodging the media, I’m strugglin
g to get over there to see her
often enough. When I do, she’s withdrawn, quiet
.
” Preston blew out a
n exhausted
breath.

It was nerve-
wracking to see Preston—the one who knew how to deal w
ith emotional things—
at his wit’s end.

“I’ll come back.” Lance didn’t know what help he could be, but he shouldn’t be in Virginia, thousands of miles away from them at a time
of crisis. “I’ll tell DARPA
the S.F.P.D. has more questions.”

Preston opened his mouth
as if he were going to
turn down the offer
, then he just nodded. “Thanks, Lance.”

“Don’t th
ank me. I should never have come back here
to begin with.”

*****

Fourteen hours later, Lance landed at SFO. He took the train
,
no
t to Preston’s house, which
still had some press hangin
g around, but to Silicon Valley
and Carly’s apartment. While she called it an apartment
, it was in an upscale building
with enough security that she hadn’t been bothered by anyone. Lance checked the email Preston had sent him with the key
code and let himself up.

He hadn’t talked to Carly since she’d gotten out of the hospital. He’d tried calling her at least a dozen times, but she hadn’t answered. Not once. It was her silence that was tearing him apart, keeping him up at night. He needed to see her face, hear her voice. He needed to know she was safe.

Lance knocked on number eleven, Carly’s door.

There was no reply. He waited a minute and then knocked again.

Finally
,
Carly answered. She leaned again
st the door. S
he didn’t smile when she saw him standing there. “Hey.” That was her only greeting before she turned and walked away.

Lance frowned, following her as he closed the door. She was wearing purple sweatpants that rode low on her hips, a sports bra and a loose tank top with a hole in it. Fancy headphones dangled around her nec
k. She returned to the couch. She
dropped down
, tucking one foot under her
and propped the other on the coffee table. He could see the outline of the brace she wore on that knee. There was a bandage on her cheek and the side of her face was still
slightly
swollen.

“Carly?”

She pulled a wireless keyboard onto her
lap, flipped her headphones up
and ignored him. Onscreen, a character walked through a virtual forest.

“Carly.” He set his bag down and took a seat next to her on the couch. He touched her arm.

She jerked away from him, never taking her eyes from the screen. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Lance pulled out his phone and sent Preston a text.

I’m here. Don’t know what to do.

Lance wanted to grab her, shake her, kiss her until she said something. A crisis counselor at the hospital had talked to Preston and explained some of the things Carly mi
ght go through. Preston told Lance
she had an appointment with a counselor.

Though Preston had
passed all that information on
to him, Lance wasn’t sure of what to say that wouldn’t make things worse.

He was no doctor, but after what she’d been through, he wouldn’t be surprised if sh
e had PTSD or something like i
t. He knew plenty of men who hadn’t been able to function after coming through a firefight or seeing a roadside bomb explode. They couldn’t get away from the fear, from the stress. Maybe that was what Carly was going through. All he knew for sure was he hated seeing her afraid and it killed him not to be able to touch her,
to
hold her.

So, instead, he simply sat with her,
let her disappear into her game
while he tried to figure out what to do next.

Twenty minutes later, Preston walked in with
a
bag of food under one arm. He set it in the kitchen,
and then
took a seat on the other side of Carly. After a few minutes, she pulled off her headphones.

The silence was both awkward and tense. It felt as if they were back to being strangers, as if they hadn’t spent a beautiful night together, gone through a hellish crisis together.

“Wh
at do you want?” Carly’s
voice was low, gruff.

Though Preston had asked him to come back to help, Lance looked to him to lead this conversation.

Pre
ston leaned forward. “Right now,
we want you to talk to us.”

“About what?” Her voice was suddenly hot with anger.

“Why are you being like this?” Lance asked, frustrated. “I th
ought we were okay
.”

“You’re one to talk,” she shot back.

Preston raised his hand. “Carly, Lance, this isn’t help—”

“Oh, that’s right, Lance. We have to listen to the expert. Please, Preston,
tell us how the rest of our life
is going to go, tell us how we’re all going to be
so much happier because there are
three of us. Tell me again, and
make me believe it, because—” H
er voice caught. Tears streamed down her face. “I’ve been alone and scared and you weren’t here.”

Lance’s heart clenched. “Carly, I—”

“N
o.” She took a breath, held up her
hand. “I don’t want to hear it, from either of you. I get it. The fallout has been bad. I know that. I’ve spent plenty of time on the phone with my people, the police and the media.”

She rose slowly. “I’ll be fine. I’ve spent most of my adult life alone. I just need some space.” She walked away, limping on her bad leg. “I’m going back to bed.”

When she was gone, Lance looked at Preston.

“Fuck,” the other man whispered.

“I shouldn’t have gone back to DARPA.”

“I shoul
d have been here more.
I mean I was physically here, but I was trying to give her time to heal. I should have done more.”

They gave her a few minutes before they rose and followed her to the bedroom
. They
found her lying on her bed, curled on her side,
her
shoulders shaking as she cried. Lance’s heart shattered at the image of his powerful lady, so broken and frightened. H
e lay
down in her front of her
while Preston cuddled her from behind.