Rogue Officer: A Protector Romantic Suspense Standalone (Gone Rogue) Page 12

  Shit. This is a hell of a lot bigger than we thought. And Max wasn’t this fucker’s first kill.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sloane

  I can’t breathe. Sirens blare, getting closer every second, but Dimitri has his hands around my throat and he’s smiling.

  “Goodbye, little whore.”

  Sitting up with a gasp, I blink hard until the room comes into focus. Until my fingers register the fluffy down comforter clenched in my fists. Grabbing for my phone, I silence the alarm and force slow, deep breaths.

  You’re okay. It was just a dream.

  Except Max is dead, and there’s a man in the next room whose entire job is to stop Dimitri from making me his next victim.

  It’s still early—just after eight—and I don’t know if Griff is awake, but I need some caffeine. The coffee pot is in the main room, so I tiptoe to the door and open it just an inch.

  Peering at Lake Zurich through a small crack in the drapes, he takes a sip of coffee, and my God. The man really is nothing but muscle. If there’s an ounce of fat on him, I’ll eat a pile of french fries.

  His left arm ends a couple of inches above where his elbow should be, and the scars on his shoulder and his waist are a testament to the violence of the attack that stole so much from him.

  The rich scent of coffee temporarily distracts me, and I snatch the robe off the end of the bed. I will not be making last night’s mistake again. No more parading around in just a t-shirt. Well, in front of Griff anyway. God knows what Beauty and Style has in store for me on the runway tomorrow night.

  I don’t want to spook him, so I skirt the small table next to the couch, moving slowly to give him a chance to see me.

  The second he knows I’m there, he stiffens. “Shit. Sloane.” Coffee sloshes onto the marble in front of the balcony doors, and he forces out a breath. “I didn’t know you were up. Give me a minute.” Shoulders hunched, he sets the cup down and snags his t-shirt from the couch.

  “Remember what I said last night?” The words escape before I realize he can’t see my lips while he’s struggling into the shirt, and I snap my mouth shut until his blue eyes are completely focused on me again. “You don’t have to hide, you know.”

  “Hiding is kind of my thing these days.” He shrugs, then nods toward the coffee pot. “Want some?”

  “God, yes. But I’ll get it.”

  “I can still pour coffee,” he says, an edge to his voice.

  “Fine.” Rolling my eyes, I perch on the arm of the sofa while he fills one of the bone china cups for me and tops off his own.

  “You take anything in it?” He glances over at me, and the intensity of his stare is both comforting and unnerving—he’s giving me his full attention like I’m the most important person in his world, even though he’s just trying to read my lips.

  “Not unless it’s the off season.” I miss lattes. Hell, I’d kill for a bagel right now. “Black coffee, green tea, fruits and veggies, lean protein, and lots of water.”

  “That sounds boring as fuck.”

  It feels good to laugh, and when I accept the cup, his hand lingers on mine for an extra second. “It’s easy. And mindless. But yes. Boring…’as fuck.’”

  Griff sits stiffly, and I slide down across from him, tuck my legs under me, and turn so I’m facing him, the coffee cupped in my hands like it’s the most valuable possession in this world. Which, after last night, it almost is.

  “We need to talk about today. The schedule, how we’re going to pull this off. What I need you to do to stay safe. How we communicate.”

  He keeps his tone gentle, like he’s trying to ease me in to this whole idea of being in danger. If only he knew the truth. That I’ve feared for my life every day since I got off the plane in New York City more than fifteen years ago.

  But if you tell him, he’ll figure out how damaged you are.

  “You need to see my lips. I remember. We need to be close for that, yes?”

  Griff reaches for an eyeglass case on the table and flips it open. “Yes. But there’s another option. Put these on.”

  “Your glasses?”

  I’m confused, but he gives me an encouraging nod. “Now say something. Anything.”

  “Did you sleep—? Oh, my God.” My words scroll across the lenses in a bright red. It’s odd—staring at the text so close to my eyes and having Griff’s face blur in the background.

  “My eyesight is fine. Those glasses can pick up multiple voices at once. Each one gets its own color. They don’t work in crowded or loud rooms, but lipreading is sometimes unreliable. Different accents, rapid speech, strong emotions… The glasses don’t care.”

  My words faded in the middle of his explanation, and I frown. “Why didn’t it pick up what you said?”

  Griff chuckles as I set the glasses back in the case. “Because I know what I’m saying. It doesn’t need to.” Picking up his tablet, he taps the screen. My words appear there too, and he scrolls back to the previous night where everything Marina said appears in orange. “I can program the voices with names and colors, and any unknown voices will be assigned random numbers I can go back and categorize later.”

  “This is amazing. How far away does the microphone work?” Another sip of coffee, and I feel almost human.

  “Thirty feet. Give or take. It depends how loud the person’s voice is. The official story is that I wear them to look cool. Not because I need them.”

  “The official…story?” Everything I know about the CIA comes from TV, but that’s another one of those pastimes I rarely get to engage in unless I have a long break from shoots.

  Griff nods. “My boss and the rest of the team in Boston built a whole cover persona for me. Business major in college, bounced around three different agencies, then took a job with Ulstrum a year ago. That’s where we met. You need to memorize as much of the file as you can before the press conference.” Setting his cup on the table, he scoots closer to me. “Are you okay with me touching you?”

  “What?” No one’s ever asked me that question before. Not the doctor who examined me after the police raid, not the plastic surgeon or the counselors at rehab, not Max, Marina, or anyone I’ve worked with over the past fifteen years.

  “We’re supposed to be dating. People will expect us to be affectionate.” Griff’s entire body language screams how uncomfortable he is with this plan, and I wonder. Is he worried about touching me? Or the other way around?

  “You don’t know anything about modeling, do you?” I hold the coffee cup between us like a shield, hoping it will help him relax.

  “Nope. Only how boring your diet is.”

  I laugh, and we both relax by degrees. “People touch me all the time. The Christmas Book Beauty and Style is releasing after tomorrow night’s runway show? Every one of the outfits I’m wearing in those shots required boob tape, butt tape, or nipple shields. Some of them needed all three.”

  Griff gapes at me, his cheeks taking on a ruddy tinge. “Oh. Well, that’s…”

  “Uncomfortable?” I drain the last of my coffee, then pick up his empty cup as well before refilling them both and returning to his side. “Humiliating? Degrading?” My voice cracks, and I’m relieved Griff can’t hear it.

  Keep it together. Smile. Change the subject. He doesn’t need to know how hard it is to have someone pawing at your breasts to get them to spill just so or being stripped of your panties so wardrobe can thread the string of a thong up your ass instead.

  “Sloane? Take a deep breath,” Griff says, close enough now we’re hip to hip. “The most important thing I need you to do over the next few days? Talk to me. Don’t shut down like you were about to.”

  “I wasn’t—” The words die in my throat. He saw right through the emotionless mask I slide into place when I’m scared.

  “Hiding’s my thing, remember?” He lifts his left arm slightly. “I know the signs.” With his right hand, he cups my cheek and his thumb skates over the remains of the bruise I didn’t even tr
y to cover up this morning.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking me to do.” I’m dangerously close to letting my guard down, despite only meeting this man last night. “The file you have on me? The one filled with lies? I have to live those lies every single day. If I don’t…”

  “What? What’s going to happen if you tell me the truth?” He’s so earnest. Like he truly believes there are no secrets I could reveal that would send him running as far and as fast as he can.

  My phone alarm—blaring from the nightstand—saves me from answering. “I have to start getting ready. Can you send me the file? Everything you want me to memorize? I can read it while I dry my hair.” Without waiting for a reply, I hurry into my bedroom, scribble my email address on a piece of the hotel stationery, and turn around, only to find Griff standing just inside the door. “Here.”

  Defeat weighs on his shoulders as he tucks the note into the pocket of his shorts. “There’s still a lot we need to talk about.”

  “In an hour. We have time. Just…not right now.”

  With a nod, he backs out of the room and shuts the door with enough extra force, it shatters the small bit of peace I found sitting with him, pretending we were two normal people getting to know one another.

  This is why I can’t get close to people. Why Marina is my only friend. Because eventually, no matter how hard I try, my secrets always get in the way.

  Griff

  Fuck.

  Why did I have to push her? Our conversation felt almost easy in parts, and then she shut down like a switch.

  Rubbing the end of my left arm, I head for the bathroom. Marina hasn’t opened her door yet, but she moved all her stuff from this suite into the adjoining room, so I don’t expect her until close to ten—the time she said she needed to start on Sloane’s makeup.

  This is the fanciest bathroom I’ve ever seen. Six knobs and three separate shower heads let the hot water hit me from all angles, easing some of the tension in my shoulders. For a brief second, I wonder if Sloane would be open to booking a couples massage at the hotel spa, but then I’d have to take my prosthetic off in front of a stranger. Not to mention, it’d be an hour I wouldn’t be able to defend her properly.

  The idea of jumping off a massage table, naked, to fight a killer is enough to make me smile and shudder at the same time.

  You’re already at enough of a disadvantage. Stay focused.

  Water sluices down my back, and I brace myself with my right arm against the shower wall. Every time I see the end of my residual limb—or say the words residual limb—I wonder how Austin can trust me to protect anyone. What the hell am I going to do if someone comes after us? Sure, the prosthetic is the most advanced on the market. But it still has a fuckton of limitations.

  I run my hand over my scarred shoulder. I’m lucky to have full sensation—luckier still that Austin had contacts at Johns Hopkins who rerouted my nerves so I can feel whatever I touch with the prosthesis. But no amount of luck will make me whole again. Or free me from this quiet, lonely prison of near deafness.

  “You don’t have to hide, you know.”

  God, how I wish that were true.

  Dumbass, get over yourself.

  Sloane didn’t run away when she saw me without my shirt. Didn’t look disgusted. Or horrified. Maybe she’ll understand. Maybe she’s the only one who can. She has her own past, and it’s not a pretty one.

  Fuck it. This relationship may be all an act, but I can try to let her in. Maybe it won’t all blow up in right my face.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Griff

  If I stop to think about this, I’ll lose my nerve. As soon as I dry off and pull on a pair of boxer briefs and dark gray slacks, I grab the case for my prosthetic arm and knock on Sloane’s bedroom door.

  A full three minutes pass before she answers, and I walked away twice, only to turn around and knock again.

  “Griff. What…?” She pulls the plush, hotel bathrobe tightly around her, and a thick white cream covers her face.

  “We’re dating. Remember?” I nod toward my left arm. “You need to know how this all works.”

  “Let me rinse this mask off. I can’t stand the smell of tea tree oil. Plus, if I leave it on too long, my entire face will be red for the next eighteen hours and Marina will kill both of us.”

  That’s it? She doesn’t protest, doesn’t stare at the ugly scars on my upper arm, just disappears into the bathroom while I set the case on her dresser and pop it open.

  I can’t read her, and that bothers me more than I want to admit. One minute, she’s running away from me. The next, she’s an open book. Or…at least comfortable with me being one.

  When she returns, her face clean, skin perfect, hair shining in the sunlight streaming through the french doors, I don’t know what to say. How to begin. Or why I’m here.

  Yes, we’re supposed to be dating. But no one’s going to ask her how I put my arm on in the morning.

  “Our first date was at a Mets game? Really?” she asks. “I don’t know anything about baseball.”

  She read the file.

  “You don’t have to. I only brought you there because the Ulstrum Agency has a luxury box at Citi Field and I wanted to impress you. It worked, too. Because even though the Mets lost—”

  “I agreed to a second date.” She smiles, and fuck. The light it brings to her face? It’s like she’s a different woman. One whose past doesn’t define her—or haunt her. “I’m assuming we had the box to ourselves and made out. A lot. Because otherwise, there’s no way I’d sit through an entire game.”

  “We did. Until one of the staff walked in on us. Then you refused to let me do more than hold your hand until the seventh inning stretch.”

  What am I doing? This is more than assuming a cover identity. Those details weren’t in the file. She’s flirting—and so am I.

  “I got you back on the second date, though.” Mischief sparkles in her eyes. “Took you to one of my drawing classes where you had to watch me sketch a very naked, very fit male model for two hours and not say a word.”

  “That wasn’t in the file.”

  She blushes and closes the distance between us. Her fingers skim the prosthetic, tracing its contours and hard lines before she meets my gaze again. “Because no one knows about those classes. They’re just for me.”

  “Then why did you bring me?” Every little thing I learn about her makes me want more. I’m in too deep, and it’s been less than a day.

  “I was tired of hiding who I really am.” Her sigh is utterly silent to my ears, but I feel it deep in my chest. “You should know…I’ve never had a normal relationship. Max—” she swallows hard, “—he set me up a few times. Photo ops only. An actor, another model on his way up, one ‘everyman’ he found at a local improv group.” The roll of her eyes and her air quotes tell me exactly what she thought about these fix-ups.

  “You can’t tell me you never dated.”

  “When your entire life is a lie, you don’t get close to people, Griff. It’s too dangerous.” That sadness is back in her gaze, and I’ll do anything to chase it away.

  Offering her a wry smile, I hold out my hand. When she drapes her fingers over mine, I guide them to my left shoulder. “I’ll make you two promises, Sloane. First? As long as you trust me, I’ll keep you safe.”

  “And second?” Her touch is warm and gentle, and an emotion that might just be hope brightens her expression.

  “I won’t hide from you. Don’t hide from me.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.” Her fingers squeeze my bicep and find the spot where the nerve is mapped to my thumb. It’s the weirdest sensation, and it must show on my face, because she freezes. “What did I do?”

  “Nothing, sweetheart.” I cover her hand with mine, and she relaxes slightly. “I was part of a medical trial at Johns Hopkins. The nerves responsible for sensation in your fingers? They run down the arm. Most of the time when a person loses a limb, the nerves…? They freak t
he fuck out. The body doesn’t understand the hand is gone, and the brain continues to try to send signals through the nerves. You’ve heard of phantom pain?”

  Sloane nods.

  “That’s where it comes from. But there’s a new procedure called Targeted Sensory Reinnervation that deadens the nerves to specific areas of the upper arm, then remaps the finger and hand nerves to those areas. Your index finger? Just touched what feels like my thumb.”

  “Seriously?”

  I chuckle and pick up my prosthesis. “Yep. See the contacts in the socket? They send signals to the different locations on my arm when I use my hand.”

  “So, last night, I wasn’t imagining it. I squeezed your hand, and you squeezed back.”

  “Because I felt it.”

  Ten minutes later, I roll the sleeve from the socket up my arm. “This is enough for most days. The sleeve, the socket, and the liner all work together to keep the prosthetic in place. But if I’m worried about lifting anything heavy or I know it’s going to be a long day, I can reduce the strain on my shoulder by using a harness, too.”

  Sloane helps me with the snaps, and despite this being the weirdest interaction I’ve ever had with someone I’m protecting—or anyone outside the medical field—the intimate contact, having her so close her scent invades my nose, and her hands on my skin are the keys to selling this “relationship.”

  She’s relaxed now in a way she wasn’t before. Asked all the right questions. Didn’t shy away from touching me.

  “And taking it off? Is it harder?”

  “Just reverse the steps. If my arm swells—heat, overuse, exhaustion—it’ll hurt. Or the socket won’t want to come free of the liner. But a couple of gentle tugs will do it.”

  Sloane takes my hand—the artificial one—and lightly touches each finger. “You can feel all of this?”