I blink and turn away from Edge, even though his eyes are drawing me in like a magnet. It’s been at least a year since I bothered going on a date, way longer than that since I actually met someone I was even vaguely attracted to.
Stop it, I tell myself as I swallow hard and turn slowly to Edge’s commander. You’re not attracted to Edge! You’re just . . . just . . . just . . .
Just his, comes the rest of my thought from somewhere inside me, taking my breath away before I speak. You’re just his.
My lips move silently as I get that strangely confusing feeling again, the sense that something shifted in my life the moment I was placed in this room with this man—this man who calmly blurted out that I was his. I’ve always had a strong will, a deep faith in what I was put on this Earth to do. But I’ve never believed in fate or destiny or meant-to-be when it came to love or romance. Never fell for that Disney Princess bullshit. I’ve never believed there’s one special person out there for you. It’s always seemed obvious that you choose a mate based on who’s available, and then you just make it work.
And this . . . I think firmly as I shoot a look at Edge, his massive body rigid and upright, his square jaw clenched tight, blue eyes riveted on me in a way that’s unnervingly warm, unsettlingly peaceful, shockingly determined . . . this is not going to work. It’s just not. It can’t. It won’t. We’re not a match. There’s no way we’d ever . . . wait, why am I even thinking about it?! What the hell is wrong with me?! Three minutes ago this man proved himself to be a pervert at best, dangerously unhinged at worst! Yeah, I have unwavering respect for any man or woman who serves my country, who risks his or her life for the flag and for freedom. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to . . . to . . . ohmygod, stop!
And suddenly the blood is pounding in my ears, and I feel like I’m losing my shit. I never lose my shit! I thrive on stress and pressure! What’s happening to me?!
“No,” I say, blinking in shock at how hard it is to say the word. I shake my head at Edge’s commander, swallowing hard and saying the word again. “No.”
I see Edge flinch from the corner of my eye, his massive body tightening like he had to stop himself from . . . from what? Grabbing me? Pulling me into him? Kissing me?
Claiming me?
Once again that tingle ripples through my flesh, and I almost swoon on my feet at the way I’m reacting to Edge’s physical presence. This has never fucking happened with a man before, and it’s got me so turned around I don’t know which way is up. I’m a strong-willed, dominant woman, and I’ve never been attracted to dominant men—at least not the ones I’ve run into. But at the same time, every date I’ve been on with a sweet, polite, “nice guy” has found me yearning to finish dessert and get back to my emails! So who am I as a woman? Am I not who I thought I was?
“No,” comes Edge’s voice through the chaos in my head, and I frown as I glance over at him. But he isn’t looking at me. Instead he’s staring out the window, his face tight with urgency, blue eyes blazing with focus but somehow also glazed over. “No!” he roars.
And then he’s on me, this beast of a man leaping at me so fast I just scream and prepare to fight for my goddamn life! But my scream is drowned out by the sound of the window exploding inwards, shards of glass ripping through the air like knives as Edge shields my body with his, slamming me so hard to the ground I almost pass out!
Bullets whiz through the hot air as I scream again, but Edge covers me like a blanket, spreading his arms and legs out wide to shield every inch of my body from the rainstorm of lead. I feel his body flinch, and I wonder if he’s being hit! Suddenly I realize I don’t want him to be hurt, that I want him here to protect me, to keep me safe, to . . . to . . . to love me.
To love me?! Have I gone insane?!
And then everything goes quiet. Quiet like a graveyard. Silent like a meadow after a thunderstorm. I can hear the tinkle of glass as the remnants of the window fall to the floor, and I swear it sounds like bells. Warning bells?
Wedding bells?
I blink and take a deep breath, wondering if this is what the mind does when you go through a near-death experience. For some folks your life flashes before your eyes: all your memories, the places you’ve been, the things you’ve done. But for others maybe something else flashes past your thrashing mind. Maybe for some folks, a brush with death brings out the unfulfilled wishes, the dreams you buried, the needs you denied, the part of yourself you didn’t want to face, was afraid to face.
“Turn your face to the left,” comes Edge’s voice from above me. He’s still on top of me, his weight still squeezing my flesh in a way that’s strangely perfect. I can feel his massive weight, but somehow the contours of his big, hard body seem to fit just right with my curves, like we’re two pieces of a jigsaw.
“What?” I say, realizing that my arms are around his neck and I’m breathing deep of his scent. He smells like grit and gunmetal, American leather and clean sweat. He smells like a man. Like a goddamn man. Not like those finance guys who bathe themselves in so much cologne it makes you want to throw up. Not like the “nice guys” who use women’s deodorant because it’s not as harsh on their delicate underarms. Yeah, I actually went on a date with a guy who excitedly told me just that! Edge has probably never used deodorant or cologne. He probably—
“I said turn your face to the left,” he says again, his breath hot on my eyelids as I flutter them open and try to get my bearings, try to come to terms that we were just attacked, that I’m in a goddamn war zone! What the hell was I thinking coming here?! I’m not ready for this! And to think I was just going to head to that meeting on my own! Thank God the State Department insisted I report to the U.S. Army base here as a condition of authorizing my visit to Afghanistan. Not that the State Department particularly liked the purpose of my visit in the first place. They said the topic was a hot-button issue with the Taliban, and things were still too unstable in Afghanistan to push those buttons. But when I threatened to go to the media and tell them that the U.S. government wanted to stop me from helping oppressed Afghani girls get access to education, they grumpily backed down. In return I agreed that I wouldn’t say a word to the media—not about anything. Which was my plan anyway—this is about the result, not the publicity. The people I’m meeting with are risking their own safety to do this. The last thing they need is some fame-seeking American CEO plastering their names and faces all over the newspapers and Internet.
“Ouch,” I say, frowning and then gasping when I see Edge slowly pluck a long, devilishly sharp shard of glass from . . . from my face?! “Where did that come from?” I say in horror, staring at the speck of blood on its tip.
Edge looks at the glass and grunts before tossing it over his shoulder and grinning. “Don’t worry. You won’t get a scar. It didn’t go deep enough.”
“Are you capable of saying anything that isn’t sexist?” I say, still frowning as I google my eyeballs to try and see where I’ve been wounded.
“How is that sexist?” he says, his blue eyes going wide, his grin going even wider. He’s still lying on top of me, propped up on his elbows, his face squared up with mine. “I care about my own skin, about not getting scars.”
I snort as I study his angular face, allow myself to take in the sight of his high cheekbones, his square jaw, his thick neck that resembles a goddamn tree-trunk. He’s got scars all over his handsome face, marks old and new, deep and shallow, straight and squiggly. “Um, hate to break the news to ya, but whatever you’re doing for your complexion isn’t working,” I say, shrugging under him and just about holding back a giggle.
“Don’t look at me. I’m hideous,” he whispers through that killer grin, his blue eyes shining with energy, his body trembling as he chuckles. I can feel the muscles of his body clearly against my flesh, even through our clothes, and I let out a short gasp when I realize his crotch is lined up squarely with mine.
Then s
uddenly I’m hot, the arousal whipping through me like those bullets, and I swear I feel Edge’s bulge pressing between my legs, his hardness unmistakable, undeniable, unbelievable.
“Unbelievable!” comes the commander’s voice from behind the desk. “When was the last time that happened, Edge?”
Edge takes a moment to answer. He’s still looking into my eyes, and I see that odd mixture of intense focus and what I can only describe as a faraway, almost trancelike look. I remember noticing it the moment before the window exploded and the room turned into a hailstorm of bullets and flying glass. And then I cock my head when I realize that shit, this man just saved my life, didn’t he?! A second too late and I’d be dead. Dead!
“Been a couple months at least, Sir,” Edge says with an amused grunt. Slowly he rolls off me, blinking as his gaze drifts down along my body.
I can’t miss the way he takes in the sight of my curves, the way the thin cloth of my suit is pressed tight against my boobs, flattened against my crotch. I want to be uncomfortable, but I’m not. There’s something about the way he looked at me that wasn’t threatening. He glanced but didn’t stare. He looked but didn’t leer. It’s almost puzzling, because a part of me has decided that Edge is basically a caveman in camo, exactly the sort of man that needs to be re-educated in how to interact with women in today’s world, that needs to learn the harsh lesson that you can’t go around deciding that a woman is . . . is . . . yours!
“More like six months,” says the commander. “Last time the Taliban took a pot-shot at us was back in July.”
“Might not be the Taliban,” says Edge, standing up and carefully stepping away from me before casually brushing off glass and plaster like it’s lint. He turns, and I stare in shock at his back. There are three triangular shards of glass wedged in there—and that’s what I can count! God knows how many splinters of glass he took into that massive back when he was shielding me! Does he even know he’s bleeding?! “Could be one of the splinter groups just trying to get us to retaliate against the Taliban, kill off a few more of them so the smaller fuckers can rise up.”
I hear the sounds of activity outside the door, shouts and orders being barked out in the courtyard outside the window. The commander strides past us and pulls open the door, immediately getting a casualty count, nodding and shaking his head as he finally turns back to me.
“Nobody hurt,” he says, frowning down at me like he’s only just remembered I’m here. “You all right, Miss?”
“Yes,” I say, finally sitting up and looking down at myself. I feel a slight sting on my face, but I know it’s just a scratch. Edge was right. It won’t leave a scar.
The commander glances over at Edge, who just nods as if to say he’s all right. The commander doesn’t even ask. I open my mouth to say something, to say that Edge needs medical attention, but then I clamp up when I see the way he’s looking at me.
“We’re scanning the perimeter and surrounding buildings,” the commander says. “We’ve got strict orders to not take the bait and get the fighting going again. If we find out exactly who did this, we’ll retaliate with lethal force, but until then we’re on alert and nothing else.” He turns back to me and shrugs. “This wasn’t a real attack. Just some hot-shots with an AK-47 they found in the mountains. Think of it as teenagers throwing stones at a police station or something.” He smiles reassuringly at me before looking back at Edge and nodding authoritatively. “All right, Edge. I need you downstairs now.”
But Edge doesn’t move. Not a muscle. Not an inch. Not an eyelash. He just stares back at his commanding officer with those blue eyes.
“I’ll stay here, Sir,” he says after a long pause. “With her.”
I feel my heart leap as that confusing wave of warmth and security washes over me. Yeah, I’m shaken up from what just happened. I’m probably in shock, probably scared, probably insecure about my ability to protect myself in a foreign land where Americans appear to be target practice. But that isn’t the source of the warmth that’s flooding me from the inside, making my toes curl in my laughably fashionable hiking boots.
No, I think as I blink and shoot a glance at Edge, who’s still standing stiff as a board even though I know he’s bleeding down his goddamn back. That warmth is something I haven’t felt before. But yet it feels familiar, like my body knows what it is, like every part of me except my brain knows what it is.
I felt it in the way he said he wasn’t going to leave my side, that he was going to stay here, stay here with me.
It’s because I’m his, comes the thought from the bottom of my curled up toes, that wave of raw emotion rippling up along my thighs, along the ridge of my back. Because I’m his.
Ohmygod, I think as the commander pauses, grunts, and then nods and leaves the room. I’m his!
4
EDGE
“His and hers,” I say as we walk past the restrooms on our way down to the ground floor. “You need to go?”
She turns and frowns at me. Fuck, she’s pretty. Big brown eyes, thick dark hair, smooth skin that I want to lick up and down so she knows she’s mine. So every fucker in this building knows she’s mine.
“Do I need to go?! What am I, a child?”
“Well, you are pouting like my six-year-old niece,” I say with a grin, licking my lips as I try to push back the filthy thoughts that are dancing through my wired brain. I feel awake and alive, in my goddamn element right now. Truth is, I fucking love the adrenaline rush of being shot at, the chaos of combat, the energy of the battlefield. I’m not a bloodthirsty psycho, but I do get a kick out of a good fight. What can I say? I’m a soldier. A fucking warrior. I knew it before I could even walk. It was like a flame burning in me, something I was born with, something that connected me to warriors over the centuries, a thread of fate, destiny, whatever the fuck you wanna call it.
And it’s that same fire that burned with white heat when I saw this woman, I think as she snorts and opens her mouth wide with indignation that I know is hiding an involuntary smile. The same feeling of fate, destiny, meant-to-be.
Meant to be . . .
And meant for me.
“You have a niece?” she says. “That’s a shame. Thankfully you probably don’t see her much.”
I turn to her and raise an eyebrow. This woman wants to play? She’d better be careful.
“What?” she says from behind me as I push open the door to our armory and walk in. “No response?”
“I don’t respond to prejudicial hate speech,” I say with a smirk.
“Oh. My. God,” she says with a gasp, blinking as much in disbelief as wonder that I really don’t seem to give a fuck about what she thinks of me. And that’s true. I don’t give a fuck. My whole life has been based on instinct, and I trust my gut more than I trust that the goddamn sun is gonna come up in the morning. My instinct tells me she’s mine, and she’ll see that soon enough. I just need to make sure I don’t let her out of my sight until then.
A chill goes through me as I think back to the attack up in the commander’s office. There was something about that attack that didn’t sit right. Yes, the wild spatter of machine-gun bullets matched the pattern of what’s essentially a drive-by shooting in this environment. But the first shot wasn’t. The first shot was targeted.
Targeted for her.
I almost black out as the rage builds quickly until I’m red fucking hot. Just put me in a room with the motherfucker who dares to threaten what’s mine, I think as I glance over at El. She’s talking up a storm, blasting me for calling her prejudicial or something. The sight of her all worked up somehow calms me down, and it’s all I can do to not break into a smile, pull her into me, and kiss her hard on the lips. Maybe grab that divine ass, push my big hands down the waistband of her pantsuit, down her panties, run my fingers along her crack, down beneath her legs until she moans and spreads for me.
Fuck, maybe I
am a caveman who doesn’t belong in the modern world, I think as I blink away the image of El naked before me, her curves shining in the yellow light, boobs bouncing as I take her with the wildness that’s flowing along with the adrenaline in my hard body.
“Put this on,” I say, forcing myself to stop thinking and start acting. I grab a bulletproof vest from the rack and toss it at her. “Now.”
“Ow!” she says as the vest bounces off her and falls to the floor. She stands there like I’m supposed to fucking pick it up for her. “Did you hear a word I just said?” she demands.
“No,” I say. “Now put that on, or I’ll do it for you.”
She blinks again, her mouth opening like she’s about to blast me with some more insults or whatever the hell she’s been tossing at me. Then she sighs and picks up the vest, takes one look at it, and drops it back to the floor.
“XXXL?” she says. “Really?”
I frown as I see her face turn red, see her shift on her feet, pull at her top like she’s suddenly self-conscious. It surprises me, because this woman projected confidence and poise from the first moment I saw her. Is she seriously self-conscious about that gorgeous body?
“Bigger is better,” I say, immediately realizing that I just my foot deeper into my big fucking mouth. “I mean the vest. A bigger size is better. Listen, just put the damned vest on, OK?”
“Jeez, OK,” she says finally, and I know she senses the urgency in my voice. She puts it on and pulls the side-straps tight. Then she looks back up at me. “Are you all right?” she says softly.
I frown at her. “Of course I’m all right,” I say. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Because you’ve got glass sticking out of your back,” she says. “Here. Let me.”
Curvy for Him: The CEO and the Soldier (Curvy for Him Series Book 5) Page 2