How many times over the years had he done this? Jerked himself off while fantasizing that it was Abby’s small hands wrapped around him? Abby’s hot mouth sucking the head of him—
BOOOOMMM!
An explosion rocked the building, thundering and quaking and rattling the headboard against the wall. Steady felt the percussive effects in his chest. His ears popped. A dozen memories of similar detonations—those he’d lived through as a soldier and operator, and the one that’d killed his beloved sister—buzzed through his brain. But they didn’t stop him from hopping out of the bed in an instant and jumping into a pair of jeans. Damnit! And neither did they do anything to abate the boner he was still sporting. It was funny what adrenaline did to a man’s body. Not so funny was how a hard-on and denim went together about as well as oil and water. Gritting his teeth, he yanked up his zipper and hoped he didn’t catch skin in the process. A second later, he nearly wrenched the door from its frame.
Chaos…
He took it in with a glance. Thin smoke filled the hall in a gray film. The overhead lights flickered and failed, plunging the space into momentary darkness before they lit once again. An artistic photo, once displayed on the hallway wall, now lay decimated on the floor, its frame splintered and glass shattered.
“For Chrissakes!” Dan bellowed, and Steady glanced over to find him standing in the doorway of his hotel room wearing nothing but a pair of black Saxx boxer briefs. Besides Abby and her security detail, the Knights were the only other guests on this floor—though technically, and according to the hotel manifest, the three BKI boys were officially booked in rooms one floor below—which was a good thing since Steady had no desire to deal with civilians right now. All he cared about was getting to Abby and getting her the hell out of Dodge. “What the fuck is happening?” Dan yelled.
“Hell if I know!” he barked over his shoulder as he ran toward Abby’s room. “Abby, open up!” He pounded on her door. “We need to vacate the building! There’s been an explosion!”
Der. As if that wasn’t obvious. And where the hell were the Secret Service agents? Why weren’t they pouring out of their rooms like ants from an anthill?
“Abby!” A prickle of dark foreboding skittered up his spine when nothing stirred on the other side of the door. “Open up the—”
“Oh, Jesus!” Dan thundered. “Steady, help!”
He turned to find Ozzie leaning against the doorjamb of Agent Ledbetter’s room, smoke billowing around him in a thin, ominous cloud. But that’s not what immediately struck Steady. Hell no. What immediately struck him was the blood. It was everywhere. Covering Ozzie’s face and naked torso, turning his white boxer shorts an angry crimson, and gushing from between the fingers he used to cover his thigh.
Arterial spray…
Steady knew it in an instant.
“Ah, hell,” he whispered hoarsely, his heart having gone nuclear inside the confines of his rib cage as he raced to Ozzie’s side. Seriously, he wouldn’t be surprised if there were little mushroom clouds puffing out of his ears.
“Lay down, bro,” he told his friend, reaching to cover Ozzie’s blood-soaked hands with his own. Dan was already there, kneeling on the floor, trying to stymie the flow of life-giving fluid by squeezing Ozzie’s thigh above the wound.
“Julia,” Ozzie rasped, coughing. The move caused more blood to pulse between their interlaced hands in a rhythmic spurt, spurt. It was hot, and its scent filled Steady’s nostrils. He would always equate that particular aroma with the delicate path all humans tread between this world and the next, with the awful day his sister died. He’d run into that coffee shop expecting to find something horrible. But the explosion had been so immense there was nothing of her left. Nothing left of any of the patrons save for the iron-rich aroma of their blood slicking the remaining surfaces. He’d come to be grateful for that. Grateful that it’d happened so quickly, been so violent, that Rosa hadn’t felt a thing. He liked to imagine she’d been sitting there enjoying a coffee, and then…lights out. On to the next plane without a moment of pain or doubt or regret…
“Somebody needs to check and see that Julia—” Ozzie continued, dragging him back to the situation at hand.
“Down!” he bellowed. He didn’t have time for Ozzie’s chivalry or heroics. If he didn’t get a clamp on that bleeder soon, the guy was going to hemorrhage out right here in the doorway.
Ozzie didn’t immediately comply, and Steady was forced to stop applying pressure to the wound in order to grab Ozzie’s shoulders and swipe his feet out from under him. With Dan’s help, he carefully controlled Ozzie’s fall. By the time Ozzie was lying on his back, half-in, half-out of the doorway, his skin was ashen.