Desert Ice Daddy by Marton, Dana (pocket ebook reader .TXT) 📕

a bad end right now, right here. Akeem pressed his arm harder into his Adam’s apple and watched dispassionately as he gasped for air.

And as he waited for the guy’s head to turn purple, for some indication from him that he’d made his decision, he realized that Taylor hadn’t made a sound since he had come back inside. He knew what she must be seeing: him turned into a murderous animal, the violence of his true temperament showing at last. A quick glance sideways at her wide-eyed faced confirmed his thoughts.

But it had been a mistake to look. The guy dropped his weight and twisted out of Akeem’s grasp, grabbing for the knife still embedded in Akeem’s thigh and making him see stars as he yanked it. That split second, while Akeem caught his breath in the middle of the searing pain, was enough for the guy to throw himself at Taylor, the nasty-looking knife back in his hand.

The balance of power shifted as easily as that.

“Tell me where the boy is and you can go. I have no argument with you.” Akeem dropped the gun, but not in capitulation. He needed to free his right hand.

“Get out of my way,” the man growled, pressing the tip of his knife to Taylor’s throat.

Akeem watched as a bead of blood formed, then ran down her pale neck. The trail of blood looked black in the dark.

Rage filled him, more powerful than anything he had felt before. Rage that pushed him to act without thought. And that was dangerous. So he tempered it to cold anger as he locked eyes with the man. And realized that the guy wasn’t about to negotiate. He clearly thought he had the upper hand, especially with his buddies nearby to back him up. Depending on where they were in the refinery, they might or might not hear a shout in the night.

The man was already opening his mouth. More blood ran down Taylor’s neck. She stood completely still, without so much as a whimper, her gaze locked on Akeem’s.

And he realized that he really had no choice. He brought his own knife from his back the next second and threw it with enough force to embed it in the man’s windpipe, with only the handle sticking out, a skill he’d learned from his uncles in the desert on their gazelle-hunting trips.

Then he grabbed for Taylor and yanked her from the man before blood spurted from behind the base of the knife’s handle. The kidnapper folded soundlessly to the ground.

When Taylor tried to turn and look, Akeem held her to him and pressed her face into the crook of his neck, his body awash in adrenaline. “Go to the pickup. Get in on the passenger side. Get down. Don’t look back.” He wouldn’t let her go until she nodded against him.

He positioned himself between her and the body on the floor anyway, and waited until she was out before turning to pick up his shirt. He ripped off one sleeve to make a tight bandage around his thigh, the other to wrap up the bleeding bite on his hand.

Damn.

He drew a deep breath when he was done, his blood calming as he looked over the dead man. “Who the hell are you?” His gaze locked on eyes that stared into eternity.

Then he thought of Taylor.

He hated that she’d had to see this.

For him, it was different. Wasn’t the first time. Not that it got better or easier. He’d shot a man at sixteen in the Arabian Desert in self-defense. His grandfather had insisted on taking him to a tribal skirmish. To make a man out of him, the old sheik had said.

And made him fear just what kind of man he would become.

Now he knew. And so did Taylor.

He drew a slow breath, telling himself he needed to get moving, yet hesitating for another moment. When he had talked the kidnappers into letting him come along, he had known things might come to this. That was specifically why he was here, to protect Taylor and Christopher at any cost, even at the cost of human life, even if that life were his own.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to take his knife back. He grabbed the attacker’s blade from the floor instead, then patted him down. No other weapon. He’d probably left his gun in the pickup when he got out to lock the inner gate behind him and open the outer one so he could leave. No identification. He pocketed the man’s cell phone, swore under his breath, pried up the floorboards in the corner then hid the duffel bags and briefcases after having grabbed a handful of items from the first-aid kit. Then he picked up the guy’s baseball hat and shoved it onto his own head before heading for the pickup.

“You okay?” were his first words when he got in and saw Taylor bent over to keep down. “How bad is your neck?” He couldn’t see from this angle.

“Just a scratch.” She straightened in her seat. “You?” She was watching him carefully.

Warily? He couldn’t see well enough in the dark to tell.

He remembered Carolyn all of a sudden. “I just don’t feel safe around you. I’m sorry.” She’d fidgeted across the table from him at one of Houston’s most expensive restaurants. It had been just after 9/11. He hadn’t bothered to discuss the issue. She hadn’t been that important to him. He had stood and walked away. But Taylor was important to him. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. He grabbed the dead man’s gun from the dashboard and shoved it into his waistband, next to his own, out of sight.

“No damage.” He wanted to check her neck, to treat it, to see the full extent of the injury, but he didn’t want to turn on the light in the cab, in case someone was watching from a window somewhere. There’d been enough funny business going on around the guardhouse to draw