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Even at home her husband had been careful, checking the house out, checking windows and doors, his eyes always hard, wary, until he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt everything was safe.
Sabella would sit in the hall, file her fingernails, or pretend to. She had always paid more attention to the man she loved than she had to her nails. It had been a part of being married to him. One she had accepted even as she lusted after his tight, hard body while he looked all dangerous and predatory.
“Let’s get him inside.” Nik stepped out no more than a minute later and helped her steady Noah.
They pulled him into the apartment and back to the bedroom. When she stripped the sheets back she stared down at them in horror.
There was so much blood. So much blood. Blood he had to have shed through the night.
She turned and stared at him, watching as Nik helped him lie back then bent and unlaced his boots before taking them off.
“Go into the living room.” Noah was staring at her, hungry, fierce. “Go now, Sabella.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “Why didn’t you tell me you were bleeding like this?”
Nik looked up at her, then to the bed. “How much blood was smeared on you when you woke up?” he asked.
“I washed it off her while she slept,” Noah snapped, still glaring back at her. “Go into the living room and no farther. Go now.”
She shook her head, moving instead to grip the hem of his shirt and pull it off.
His hand jerked out, catching her wrist. “Do you remember what happened last night?”
She stared back at him silently, her breathing harsh, heart racing in fear.
“It will happen again. And I won’t give a shit who’s watching. We have company coming. Let Nik know when you hear them coming to the door. Don’t open it, you understand me?”
“Ease off, Noah,” Nik muttered, obviously wary, concerned.
“Answer me, Sabella,” he growled. “Do you understand me?”
She tugged at her wrist, jerked it, but his hold was like iron.
“Sabella.” He growled her name, an order, a hint of determination in it that seemed like a slap from the past. “Do you understand me?”
“I’ll wait in the living room,” she whispered hoarsely. “When I hear someone on the deck, I’ll let Nik know.”
He held her gaze; those eyes, they were molten, like blue fire staring back at her.
Finally, he nodded slowly and let her go, finger by finger, releasing his hold on her until she was drawing back, retreating slowly from the bedroom, walking through the hall, and standing silently in the kitchen.
She was the widow of a Navy SEAL. She knew agents from various law enforcement agencies, her father had been a detective with the Atlanta police department. She knew men like this. She knew how they moved, she knew how they looked, and she knew when she was being lied to.
She swallowed tightly and stared around the living room. It was dim. Curtains were closed, she knew the windows would be firmly locked.
What sort of government agents could they be? She searched her mind frantically then sat down on the couch, trembling. Border patrol maybe? No, they seemed too hard eyed for border patrol. The only thing she could think of were the deaths that had been reported in the park in the past year or so. Illegals that had been hunted down in the dark. And there had been that girl that went missing from the college a few months before. A pretty girl, Lisa? She had been a friend of Toby’s.
FBI? Maybe CIA. She could see a CIA agent with that hard, stony gaze, with the power in every command he issued. Or a SEAL.
A shudder swept through her. A SEAL acted like that. But SEALs wouldn’t be investigating anything in Texas. They were a strike force, not an investigative agency. Noah was something similar at least. An agent of some sort. Perhaps a former SEAL. A former SEAL as tall as her husband, the same age as her husband would have been, one that held her as Nathan had and one whose eyes had bled with sapphire fire just moments before. The same color as Nathan’s.
She shook her head. God, was she so messed up that she had to believe Noah was Nathan to excuse her attraction, her hunger for him? There was no other excuse. There were vague similarities, she knew. Even Duncan had seen them. But he wasn’t Nathan. Nathan was dead. The
man she loved was gone. Wasn’t he?
She felt the tension tearing through her, fighting to find the differences between Nathan and Noah. Noah was hard-core, Nathan had always been gentle in the bed. But she had sensed that darkness in him, had known there was more coming. Noah didn’t hide it.
She nibbled at her thumbnail. Her Nathan hadn’t been scarred. His voice had been lyrical, a pure dark sound that caressed her senses.
