"He took me." More with that hand-on-the-neck thing. "As I've never been had before. He was so--"
"--hung like a fire hose and did you twelve different ways to Sunday. Congratulations. Your subconscious should be directing porn. What does this have to do with Eliahu Rathboone."
Holly glared at him . . . and then yanked her lapel to the side. "Because when I woke up, I had this." She jabbed at what certainly appeared to be a hickey on her neck. "And I'd actually had sex."
Gregg frowned hard. "You . . . How do you know?"
"How do you think I know."
Gregg cleared his throat. "Are you okay?" He put his hand on her arm. "I mean . . . ah, do you want to call the police."
Holly's laugh was low and achingly sexy. "Oh, it was consensual. Whatever it was." Her expression lost its glow. "That's the point . . . I don't know what it was. I thought I'd dreamed it. I didn't think it was real until . . ."
Until there was some undeniable evidence to the contrary.
Gregg brushed her blond extensions over her shoulder. "You sure you're all right?"
"I guess so."
Man, it didn't take him even a moment to make up his mind. "Well, that's it. We're leaving tomorrow."
"What? Oh, my God, Gregg . . . I didn't mean to cause problems--" She frowned. "Maybe . . . maybe I dreamed the after part where I woke up, too. I took another shower . . . maybe none of it really happened."
"Fuck it, I'll call Atlanta in the a.m. and tell them it's back on. I'm not going to have you staying where you're not safe."
"Jesus, I mean, that's very chivalric of you, but . . . I don't know. Everything's so fuzzy, and now I wonder if I'll just feel better in the morning. I'm really confused . . . it was weird." Her fingertips went to her temples and started rubbing in circles, like her head was aching. "I will say that I wanted it to happen, every step of the way--"
"Was your door locked?" He wanted an answer to the question, but he also didn't need to hear about the Ghost with the Mostest, thank you very much.
"I always lock a hotel room door before I have a shower."
"Windows?"
"Closed. I guess they're locked. I don't know."
"Well, you stay with me tonight. You'll be safe here." And not just because he wasn't going to hit on her now. He had a gun with him. Always. And the thing was permitted and he knew how to use it: Back when people had been getting popped in L.A. traffic, he'd decided to get armed.
Together they stretched out on the bed. "I'll leave the light on."
"It's okay. Just lock the door."
He nodded and slipped off the bed, throwing the dead bolt as well as the chain; then he did a quick pass by the windows to inspect the latches. When he lay back down, she nestled into the crook of his arm and sighed.
With a lean, he pulled the duvet out from under their legs and over them, turned off the lamp and eased back into the pillows.
He thought of that man out walking the grounds and nearly growled. Fuck. This. Shit. Either it was a local with a passkey, or a staff member who could jimmy the lock.
Assuming anything had happened at all. Which she seemed less and less sure of--
Whatever. They were leaving in the morning and that was that.
He frowned in the darkness. "Holly?"
"Yes?"
"Why did you think it was Rathboone."
She yawned widely. "Because he looked exactly like the portrait in the living room."
TWENTY-SEVEN
Down in the exam room at the underground clinic, John stood before Xhex and felt utterly powerless to help her. As she sat screaming on the stainless-steel table, her arms strained against her hold on the sheet, and her face stretched long, her mouth tearing open, red tears spilling out of her eyes and falling down her white cheeks. . . . And he could do nothing about any of it.
He knew the rough place she was in. Knew that he couldn't possibly reach the well that she was down at the bottom of: He'd been there himself. He knew exactly what it was like to trip and fall and be in agony from hard impact . . . even though your body technically hadn't gone anywhere.
The only difference was that she had a voice to give her pain wings.
As his ears rang and his heart broke for her, he stayed strong against the gale force she let loose. After all, there was a reason why here and hear were separated by so little and sounded one like the other. Bearing witness to her, he heard her and was there for her because that was all you could do during a fall apart.
But God, it pained him to see how she suffered. Pained him and focused him, Lash's face gathering like a ghost taking physical form in John's mental eye. As she screamed and screamed, he vowed vengeance until his heart beat not blood, but the need for revenge.