Ravaged River (Men of Mercy #6) (13 page)

H
ayden shifted uncomfortably
in her seat at the top row of the stadium seating in Rhoden's classroom. The seat seemed so much smaller than normal, but that could be due to the oversized Special Forces operator crowding up the spot right next to her.

Or the fact that Hoyt and his don't-fuck-with-me stare was intimidating enough that all the seats around them were empty. Even the extreme weirdos—the ones with badass gauges in their ears and enough piercings in their faces to set off a metal detector-gave them a wide berth.

She tried to slink down, but what was the point? She and Hoyt stood out like the boogey man in Disney Land. And the closest few, brave enough to sit within ten feet of Hoyt, kept shifting in their seats and looking over their shoulders.

Hayden's arm brushed Hoyt's, leaving another trail of tingles in its wake. God, she needed...something.

Sitting beside him shouldn't make her tummy quiver and her nipples tighten into almost painful points, but it did.

"I wonder who they got to stand in for Rhoden?" Maybe if Hayden thought about Rhoden long enough, she could ignore the steadily building heat between her thighs.

Hoyt shrugged and continued to scan the room. Jeremy, one of her study buddies, turned to give her a wave, but he shrunk in his seat when he caught Hoyt's glare.

Hayden elbowed Hoyt. "Stop glaring at everyone. I won't have any friends left if you scare them all away."

Hoyt gave her a one-sided smile, stretching his long muscular legs out as far as he could in the cramped space. He leaned back and crossed his arms over his massive chest. The King ruling over his subjects below.

Hayden studied Hoyt, trying to see what everyone else saw. On the outside he looked deadly. Scary even, with all those black tattoos swirling over his arms. With his buzzed hair and the thin scar running down his face, he reminded her of a Viking.

Deadly and devastating to her senses.

His blue eyes cut to her with the barest hint of anxiety, revealing the core of her Viking's vulnerability.

Instead of chewing him out more, she sighed and tried to get her mind off the heat radiating from his body and how every time she accidentally brushed his arm, sparks flew across her skin. God, she wanted to straddle him and take his mouth in a long kiss. Devour him whole.

"Quit looking at me like that."

Hayden blinked, Hoyt's voice pulling her out of the haze of arousal. "Like what?" she whispered back.

Hayden grabbed the desk, needing something solid to anchor her hands in place, instead of letting them trail over to Hoyt's muscular thigh.

Muscles that seemed to bunch and shift under her scrutiny. Hoyt leaned forward, his forearms completely covering the surface of the small desk. His biceps contracted, pushing the limits of his T-shirt. Jesus. The man was a walking sex magnet. She wanted him. Suddenly taking all those little baby steps to win him back seemed impossible.

Could she really hold out?

Hayden let her gaze wander up his stacked shoulders and the bulging veins on his neck, not stopping until she got to his face. And the look there stole her breath away.

Rage. A murderous, killing rage.

Hayden's heart stopped.

She followed his direction down to the object of his wrath.

Malik set a shiny briefcase on the podium at the bottom of the room and adjusted his necktie. "Class, for those of you that don't know me, my name is Malik. I'm about to wrap up my doctorate and the university has asked me to finish teaching Rhoden's class while she's out on temporary leave."

"Son of a bitch."

Her heart rate surged. She gasped and immediately slammed her mouth shut. A few of the brave souls closest to them turned to see what was the problem and immediately spun back around.

Malik began the lecture, pacing back-and-forth across the raised platform in a move uncharacteristic of his typical smooth glide. Hayden couldn't hear a word he said over the loud roaring in her ears. She’d never expected Malik to stroll into the room. Surely, if he was guilty he’d be in hiding right now. “What is he doing here?”

“He doesn’t realize we’re on to him.” Hoyt eased his phone from his pocket and typed a quick message, then waited. A few seconds later the screen lit up with a response, but Hoyt tucked the phone away before she could take a peek.

"Who did you just text?"

"Backup."

"This doesn't feel right. I've known Malik and Latham for almost four years. Neither of them are capable of what you think."

Hoyt finally turned to her, and she wished he hadn't. He'd looked at her a lot of different ways in the past year. With love and longing, then with fear and tension, but now there was pity in his eyes.
Pity
. "That is why they’re so effective. They are good at convincing people that they are normal, sweet. Right up until they put a bullet between your eyes."

She shook her head, her entire body trembling with the effort not to scream. But she couldn't take the risk of setting Hoyt off.

"I know you think I'm being emotional, but I'm telling you the truth. I have good instincts about people. I know they’re innocent." She tried to cobble together a logical explanation, one that would sway him, but her mind was fragmented, shattered.

She knew he was wrong, knew her brothers were wrong, but she had to figure out a way to prove it before it was too late.

"What other proof do you have?"

"You mean I need more proof than this?" Hoyt gestured to the gash on his forehead. Hayden winced. The menace emanating from him was dark and dangerous, and for a single second, Hayden could see the killer that struck fear in his enemies.

"He can't be your only suspect." She'd figure out a way to eliminate him as a suspect altogether.

She studied Malik, trying to analyze him the same way she was sure Hoyt was doing. His normally crisp button-up was rumpled, like he'd woken up late and forgotten to iron his clothes. Even his hair was off kilter. The choppy pattern to his voice, starting and stopping mid-sentence, radiated apprehension.

"I know he looks Middle Eastern, but he's from England. His parents are wealthy. Why would he choose terrorism?" She tried to keep her voice steady and reasonable, but she could tell from the way his shoulders stiffened she was just pissing him off.

"You can defend your boyfriend all you want, but until we clear him, he is a suspect and we will take him in."

"Why do you keep saying that? I've never been in a relationship with him."

"I saw you with him." Hoyt whispered through clenched teeth.

"When could you have seen me with him. I've never been–" Hayden froze. That feeling of being watched at the party. "Were you following me? You were there last night, weren't you?"

Hoyt closed down, a trick he must have learned in the military, because her brothers pulled the same thing all the time. She used to be able to read their expressions like an open book, but now they all shut down cold whenever they didn’t want her to know what they were thinking. But that didn't matter, because Hayden was pissed off enough for the whole entire team to have some of her rage.

"I was coming to get you, to protect you."

"If you were so hell-bent on protecting me, why didn't you get out of the car and come talk to me."

Her heart fluttered out of control, but it wasn’t from desire this time. Rage was fueling this adrenaline surge.

"It doesn't matter, I saw you with him and the blond guy. It's obvious you were having a good time."

Hayden wanted to rip her hair out. Hoyt was acting like a jealous boyfriend, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been trying to get over him, at long last, because she’d given up hope.

Her heart stalled a full ten seconds. Jealous boyfriends cared about their girlfriends. Hayden tucked that little tell into her arsenal. "So you do go around spying on me and my boyfriends?"

Hoyt stiffened even more, so much she was sure he’d snap in half if she reached out and thumped him.

Satisfaction curled her spine back into her seat and she twined her fingers together over her stomach. Playing on his jealousy was downright deviant. It was dirty. And maybe it was also the nudge he needed to realize he loved her and didn’t want to lose her.

"Sorry you had to see that. So, since you're stalking Malik, you must be stalking Chance too."

Hoyt craned his head in her direction, slow and methodical. "That's frat boy's name? Chance?"

"Yes, it is. Looks like you'll get to meet him today too. He's in my next class." And she'd make sure to sit next to him this time instead of across the room.

Hoyt gave her a strange look she couldn't even begin to fathom and then nodded.

What the hell was that? "If you suspect Malik, you might as well suspect Chance. There’s about as good of a likelihood that he’s secretly guilty.”

H
oyt sat there
for the rest of the class, trying to ignore the vice of rage that crushed his chest every time he thought about Hayden with Chance. The very idea of her being with Malik was off-topic. Period.

He narrowed his focus on Malik, learning the way he moved. Something about him wasn't right. Something had rattled him. The way he paced back-and-forth, yeah he'd probably rattled the fucker’s cage last night when he took out his two buddies.

Hayden stared forward in stony silence. Which was all good, except he was being blasted with a serious wave of aggravation from her.

Something inside him wanted to soothe it.

He looked at his watch. Class had to be over soon. It had only been thirty minutes. Shit, he'd never been to college, but he knew enough to know classes were longer than thirty minutes.

His phone buzzed with a message from Hunter.
ETA 15 minutes. Bringing the whole crew to grab this guy for questioning. You got my sister?

Hoyt typed out a quick response.
Good, I'll lead him out. And yes I have Hayden.

He shoved his phone back into his pocket but kept his Beretta close.

Hunter’s first text hadn’t been so nice.
Remember your promise, asshole.
He’d been referring to the promise Hoyt had made him to stay away from Hayden of course. And, well, he wasn’t wrong. The way he’d lost his shit with her earlier today at Hank's was proof positive he wasn't ready for a relationship.

"That's it for today, class. Sorry, I didn't have enough time to prepare. We'll meet at the regular time next week and start a regular schedule once I've had more time to review." Malik quickly gathered his briefcase and strode from the room.

What the fuck?
Hoyt shoved to his feet.

Hayden stared at him and his skin pricked with awareness. "Come on,” he growled.

Hayden crossed her arms and stared up at him with a mulish tilt to her chin. "No."

Malik was getting away.

"This isn't a joke. People's lives are at risk." Hoyt leaned down to issue the harsh whisper. Even so, he could practically feel the students’ scrutiny.

"I agree. But I can't let you hurt him."

Hoyt pulled on every single ounce of willpower he possessed and squatted next to her chair. The too skinny rows squeezed his shoulders, trapping him.

"I'm not a monster. I'm not going to hurt him, but I am going to detain him and question him. Just like I would detain and question any suspect."

She faced him. "You promise?"

Yeah, he could promise her that. He wasn't the interrogator. He just bagged 'em, tagged 'em and took them to headquarters. What they did with them after that was none of his concern. If the guy was as innocent as she thought, he wouldn’t have a problem. "All I do is take them in."

"Okay." She lifted her bag and Hoyt led the way to the staircase. They had to go down and out the front door to track Malik, which meant he'd have to wind his way through the congested bottle-neck of students standing in line to get out of the room.

He'd have to get up close and personal. Fuck.

"We can go out the back and circle around to the next hallway. I’ll take you to his office."

Hoyt nodded and stepped back, allowing Hayden to take the lead. She went up and out the door into an empty hall, hung a right and then another right. Took a left and climbed an L-shaped set of stairs.

They took a left at the lower landing and Hoyt followed her through the maze, fingers itching to have his gun at the ready in case worst came to worst, as it so often did in his experience, but there were too many college kids lining the halls. And if they didn't quit looking at him like he was some freak escaped from the circus, he was going to seriously lose his shit.

He didn’t want to embarrass Hayden by walking too close to her. Someone might think they were together. He didn't even want to associate with himself anymore. Hoyt strayed behind her, staring at her shoulder blades as they pulled closer and closer together, until they could squash a quarter between them. After they passed a second group of gawkers, she hung back and took up guard right next to him. The tilt of her beautiful stubborn chin had to be the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

And for the first time in months, Hoyt didn't feel the walls were closing in. His chest didn't get so tight he couldn't breathe. And when Hayden looked up at him, when she took his hand in hers, he felt he could do anything.

He had to be insane—this couldn't be good for either of them—but it felt so right when they were together, when she was close to him. Like he could actually handle getting close to her.

Hayden James was just as strong as her brothers. She cleared a path through the middle of the hall like a trained riot cop.

Hoyt savored her touch the entire way.

All too soon, she stopped in front of a nondescript door with no name tag. Hoyt knew he should let go of her hand, but he held it tight for a few minutes longer, savoring the way her palm fit against his.

She spoke first. "This is it."

Hoyt nodded and tried to unravel his fingers from hers. "Okay."

"Just be easy, okay?"

Hoyt nodded as he stroked his thumb over the back of her hand, luxuriating in the feel of her satiny skin beneath his thumb.

"Or we could get out of here. Just me and you."

What he wouldn't give for that. Hoyt gave himself a mental shake and untangled his fingers.

He couldn't break his promise to Hunter. Or himself. Hoyt tried to shrug her off, but it would have been like shrugging off his own flesh. He had to learn to accept the way he felt about her and deal with the fact that he could never have her.

Of course, he’d probably be dead before that happened.

Hoyt rapped on the door harder than intended and put his hand on his gun. Five seconds stretched into ten and he knocked again. He glanced at Hayden.

"Malik, it's Hayden."

Hoyt tried the knob. Locked. He lifted his foot to kick it in, but Hayden dangled a set of keys in his face. "How about we do it the easy way?"

Hoyt let her insert the key, but he covered her hand with his. "I'm the first one in. Stay behind me. How do you have the keys anyway?"

"I was Professor Latham's student assistant."

Hoyt paused before he turned the key, the first inkling of doubt about Latham’s guilt edging its way into his mind. Hayden didn’t trust blindly, not after her childhood.

Regardless, he had a mission to complete and the facts would come out sooner or later. He turned the key, metal grinding through metal, and twisted the knob. The office, which couldn't be any bigger than nine by ten feet, had enough room for a small metal desk and shelves upon shelves of books and papers all perfectly aligned. The room was neat and professional looking and empty. Fuck. Hoyt had his cell phone out and pressed to his ear in an instant. "Where are you? The suspect is gone."

"What do you mean he's gone? You had him."

"No shit. But he split and he's not in his office."

"I'll pull his plates, see if his vehicle is still in the parking lot. But it'll be another seven minutes at the earliest before we get there. Find him now. And Hoyt, you better fucking watch my sister." Hunter hung up and shoved his phone into his back pocket.

"Was that my brother?"

Hoyt nodded and headed down the hall, took a left, dodging some students hugging the walls. "Yes."

"What did he say?"

"Basically if I let anything happen to you, he’ll cut off my balls."

Hayden marched beside him and waved a hand in the air. "I swear; you guys are so over dramatic. Hunter is all bark and no bite. If you want to know the truth, Ranger has a worse temper."

Hoyt resisted the urge to check her for a high fever. "You must be talking about a different Hunter James."

He'd seen Hunter seriously hurt plenty of men without flinching. Before Merc joined the team, everyone had thought Hunter was the biggest badass they'd ever seen. Now he’d been edged out by six-foot-six pack of straight muscle. But just barely.

"He might be a tad protective of me," Hayden shrugged.

Hoyt felt his eyes get wide. Real wide. "A tad protective?"

"Okay, really protective. But I know he trusts you with his life. Otherwise you wouldn't be on his team."

Hoyt stopped scanning the halls and stared at her, "Just because he trusts me with his life doesn't mean he trusts me with his baby sister. Stay close and stay behind me. I've got to find Malik before he leaves campus."

"I can take you right to him."

Hayden took the lead again. Hoyt stayed right behind her, careful to keep enough distance that even if his hands overrode his brain and reached for her, he couldn’t. He'd been so distracted by her, he'd let their main lead slip through his fingers.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Tracking and sniping were the two things he was still good at. Check that—apparently he wasn’t so hot at tracking anymore. He'd lost a college graduate in under a minute. Not a good number to add to his track record.

"Can we move a little faster?" Hoyt tried to keep the command out of his voice, but he could tell he’d failed from the way she stiffened.

Hayden picked up the pace from a casual stroll to a power walk, and Hoyt's combat boots pounded on the tile floor as he followed fast behind her.

Right turn, left turn, left turn, right turn. Christ. "Is this one of those maze experiments or something?"

Hayden tossed a throwaway smile over her shoulder. "I thought so at first. Actually it turns out this building had a huge addition, which made it this big maze of hallways. There are actually stories of students getting lost. Pretty funny when you consider the fact it's a psychology building."

"They're probably videoing us now and recording our movements for their experiment." Hoyt muttered under his breath.

They rounded another corner into a long straight stretch, the end narrowing into the distance. No windows. No exits. Just concrete cinder blocks and puke green tiles. The florescent light buzzed and snapped overhead, and Hoyt ducked on reflex.

He shrugged his shoulders as a familiar cold tightness snaked around his chest. He didn't have time to be claustrophobic and he sure as shit didn't have time for a sissy ass panic attack.

Hayden kept moving down the long hall stopping at the second to last door on the right. "This is our lab. We tend to eat and sleep here. We’d never leave if they put in a shower."

Hayden lifted the keys to the lock and Hoyt snatched them from her hand. "Me first."

Another key, another door, but this time Hoyt had his pistol ready.

Hayden grabbed the back of the shirt. "You said you wouldn't hurt him."

"I won't as long as he doesn't try to hurt me first."

Hoyt shoved the heavy door open, cringing as it grated across the floor, and stalked into a large rectangular room. The back was filled with stacks upon stacks of steel cages, and there were horizontal wood boxes down the left wall. The tables were littered with paper. "He's not here."

"Let me see." Hayden ducked around him into the room, flooding him with her scent, and Hoyt couldn’t help but zero in on her back. How her waist dipped in before rounding out into hips made for his hands.

Hoyt found himself trailing her into the lab as she walked between the tables, caressing a stray piece of paper here and there. There was no apparent organization to the place. "Did someone destroy your lab?"

"This is how the professor kept it. Controlled chaos."

"And you can navigate this mess?"

"With a blindfold on."