He grabbed her wrist around the same time he choked out a strangled command.
‘Don’t tell me that wasn’t good,’ she offered mildly, as though her heart weren’t hammering in her chest for fear of getting it wrong.
‘I think you know it was,’ his voice rasped over her skin, making it tingle. ‘But I want us to take our time, and if you carry on like that, it’s going to be over embarrassingly quickly. At least for me.’
A wicked shiver rippled down her spine, bolstering her, making her voice so husky she barely recognised it.
‘I think I’d like to see that.’
‘I can assure you that I would not,’ he growled.
He rammed his point home by pinning her arms behind her back, one hand circling her wrists, whilst the other moved back around to cup her breast, to graze his thumb over its straining, aching peak, before lowering his head and drawing it into his mouth. He was playing with her, toying with her. And she, for her part, seemed incapable of doing anything other than arching her back and offering even more of herself to him.
Then, suddenly, his hand was grazing over her abdomen, sliding beneath the waistband, hooking it down. His other hand let go of her wrists so that he could slip off her ballet-style pumps and her soft trousers in one easy movement. And when he grazed his hands back up her legs, his hungry, dark gaze locked with hers, his fingers inching their way up her inner thighs until she could barely keep herself from wriggling on the edge of the desk in anticipation, she stopped breathing, couldn’t even remember how to start again.
‘Myles...’
* * *
And then he was scooping her up, carrying her across the room as she hooked her legs around his hips, his sex pressed, like an iron rod, deliciously against her. She shifted, revelling in his groan, rocking into him, making her objection heard when he lowered her to the bed and moved away.
‘Stop grumbling,’ he teased, hauling off the rest of both their clothes in a couple of all too slick moves, leaving her naked but, for the first time in her life, not remotely self-conscious.
Instead he made her feel beautiful, desirable, proud. It was an empowering experience, lying there and watching his eyes sharpen with desire as he took her in, his breathing growing shallow and his body...growing.
Rae almost giggled, but the sound caught in her throat. For a long moment she could only gawk at him. He was so impossibly hard, like the most revered, chiselled marble sculpture, from his wide, strong shoulders, to his broad chest and athletic torso. Even those muscled, pumped legs. Her fingers ached to touch him, to trace those hard planes and edges, to lower her mouth and taste that tempting skin, but she didn’t know where to start.
It didn’t matter anyway. Suddenly he had moved down her body, his mouth scorching a trail on the insides of her thighs, working his way higher and higher with deliberate laziness, teasing her, toying with her, heightening her senses.
She found her fingers had worked their way into his hair at some point. Her legs had fallen that little bit wider to welcome his touch. And when he finally skimmed over the centre of her need, she heard the most impossible carnal sound escape her lips.
‘Tell me what you like,’ he murmured.
‘Myles...’
‘Tell me.’
‘I...like that,’ she whispered.
‘And this?’ He slid his finger through her wet heat, flicking the tiny bud, which had her bucking in response.
‘And that,’ she confirmed, her voice almost too thick to be her own.
‘And this,’ he muttered.
And this time she wasn’t prepared for him to press his mouth to her core, licking into her, branding her as his. She cried out, possibly an acknowledgement, possibly his name, possibly any number of glorious things, her body helpless to do anything but rock against the perfect rhythm of his tongue, losing herself with every stroke and every suck, feeling herself sinking beneath the waves of lust until they were finally closing in over her head.
When she was writhing in the bed, unable to believe she could take any more of this exquisite torture, he anchored her down with his hands, and feasted on her some more. As though he could never get his fill of her. As though he never wanted to.
Her release came so swiftly, so forcefully, that everything seemed to go black in Rae’s head moments before an explosion of colours filled her mind as she cried out his name. She might as well have been catapulting through them, soaring, gliding, with no sign of gravity ever pulling her down again.
But slowly, so slowly, it did, as she came back to herself.
‘That was...’ She shook her head, searching for the right words but none seemed adequate.
‘It’s not over yet,’ he assured her.
And then he was moving over her, his body coasting slickly over hers, fitting to her as if they were each two perfect parts of a unique, bespoke design. She didn’t think, she just reacted, looping her legs around his hips, thrilling in the sensation of his blunt head sliding through her wetness, her hands acquainting themselves with the muscled contours of his arms.
Need poured through her. She recognised it so perfectly, had traced and retraced it almost every night in her dreams since the first time they’d been intimate, but it hadn’t remotely compared to the reality of touching him again. Of lowering her lips to his skin. Of tasting him. Salt and sin, maleness and magic.
‘Easy,’ he murmured as she lifted her hips to press against him.
‘It’s fine.’ Rae slid her hands over his shoulders and down his back. ‘I’m ready.’
She didn’t know what made her do it—instinct, not experience—but she suddenly twisted her body and lifted her hips again, drawing Myles inside her, gasping as he stretched her, faster and wider than she’d imagined. She had no idea how much self-control it took him but she felt him brace himself, holding himself back, allowing her time to adjust to his size.
‘That’s why I said easy,’ he berated her softly.
She shook her head.
‘I didn’t realise.’
‘No, but I did.’ He dropped a kiss onto her forehead, still careful to hold back. ‘You can stop frowning now.’
‘Am I? Sorry.’
‘Does it hurt?’
She wrinkled her nose. It had, for a moment, but not now.
‘No,’ she confirmed, experimentally rolling her hips.
He groaned and she couldn’t help but grin.
‘This time, I set the pace,’ he warned.
He began moving again, slowly at first, with gentle pressure, sliding himself in and out, a little further each time, his eyes not leaving hers, and it felt to Rae as if she were the most precious thing in the world.
She couldn’t have said when the tightness eased completely, she only knew that she had moved her hands lower, gripping him tighter, moving with him as he began to pick up the pace, sliding deeper and harder, their breath mingling as they rode the wave together. Her body lifted up to meet his, to match his, with every perfect thrust. It drove them both on, making need pound through them.
And then her hands dropped lower, clutching at him, pulling him deeper than ever, and this time when he slid inside she shuddered and then she heard his groan of release and everything ignited, like a glorious blaze all around them, consuming them both.
Devouring them alive.
* * *
The blow came from out of the blue, pain jolting her awake. As if someone had just body-slammed her to the ground, winding her. Temporarily paralysing her. And then suddenly Myles was growling at her, his tone brutal, dangerous, making her heart pound in her chest with fear even though the words seemed to make no sense.
‘Myles? What’s going on?’ She could hear the rising panic in her voice, but she still couldn’t move. She certainly couldn’t get up.
It took her another few unnervingly long moments to
work out that Myles wasn’t really engaging with her at all. And then she realised that he was actually asleep.
Nightmares.
Or night terrors.
The demons of the night that so often came with PTSD.
She’d almost forgotten what her half-brother had told her about Myles’ last mission.
Her brain raced. There was a safety protocol associated with this, wasn’t there? Something Rafe had once mentioned to her in passing, neither of them ever imagining she’d be in this situation. And that included not waking him whilst he was in this state. At least, not by shaking him awake.
God, what must he be going through? Her chest tightened, and she had to fight every instinct to go to him, to wake up. To stop this nightmare for him.
But that wouldn’t work.
Besides, hadn’t Rafe once said that some doctors advocated letting the nightmares play out, just managing their effect? Wasn’t there a line of thought that suggested that, as long as the individual wasn’t a danger to themselves or others, it could be beneficial to allow sleep to play out the fears, to allow the brain to process whatever traumatic event had occurred? Especially if a conscious Myles wouldn’t talk about what had happened?
But she needed to get out of the bed. Out of his range. Right now, it seemed, she was too close. He could actually touch her. Had touched her, not that he would have realised it. But by being in contact with him she was putting herself slap-bang in the middle of whatever trauma he was reliving right at this moment. And that was pretty much the last place anybody should be.
Carefully, gently, she slid out of the bed and moved away from him. The loss of contact immediately seemed to take the edge away from Myles’ actions, although it was clear he was still in some horrible, terrifying world. Her stomach clenched for him.
Would he hear her if she talked to him? Could that help to remind him of where he was? Or at least that he was no longer wherever his mind had taken him?
‘Myles,’ she murmured quietly. ‘Myles, can you hear me?’
She watched the figure but there was no indication that her voice was having any effect. Still, she couldn’t leave him like this, not when he was so clearly troubled. She sucked in a steadying breath.
‘Myles, it’s Rae. Raevenne. Can you hear me? We’re at Camp Sceralenar. We’re volunteers at a hospital for pregnant women.’ Still there was no response. ‘You’re dreaming. You’re safe. Myles, everything is going to be okay.’
She had no idea how long she kept talking, repeating the same things over and over, her voice as quiet and steady and soft as she could make it. Tweaking here, adding there. And slowly, bit by bit, it began to take effect.
Finally—she couldn’t have said how much later it was—Myles settled, his sleep becoming more regulated. More relaxed. Deeper. She stopped talking but sat still on her chair in the corner, allowing him to rest. Then, eventually, she stood up, padding slowly around the room as she located her discarded clothing from earlier.
She didn’t realise he was awake until she heard him sit up.
‘Raevenne?’
She spun around with relief.
‘You’re okay?’
‘Say again?’
He sounded curt. Almost forbidding.
‘You were dreaming.’ Why was she the one sounding apologetic? ‘Well, having a nightmare.’
‘Did I hurt you?’ He was out of bed and across the room before she could move.
She hated that she couldn’t stop herself from taking a step back. Trying to keep some distance between them.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
He stopped abruptly. Hands that had been reaching out to her dropped to the side with a heavy sound. His expression was heart-rending.
‘I hurt you.’
‘What were you dreaming about?’ she asked.
She knew it was a mistake the moment the question fell from her lips. Even before his body shuttered down.
‘I don’t remember.’
She should stop now. No good could come from pushing it.
‘I think you do,’ she said softly. ‘And I think you need to talk. Bottling it up can’t be helping you.’
‘I think I’ve overstayed my welcome.’
‘Myles, please. I want to help. Let me help.’
‘I’m leaving. Now.’
She stood immobile, her mind desperately searching for the words that would change his mind; wondering how she could prove to him that she meant what she said. She wanted to help.
But his forbidding expression bit into her. An icy shiver rippled down her spine. This was a battle she wasn’t going to win.
Wordlessly—helplessly—she dipped her head in acknowledgement as he gathered up his belongings, and left her room.
CHAPTER TEN
MYLES HEFTED ANOTHER crate onto his shoulders and carried it from the four-by-four to the supply room in the compound, his eyes trained on the steady stream of people crossing the river.
He told himself he wasn’t brooding. That his head wasn’t still stuck back in Rae’s room last night. That his mind wasn’t still full of her words, her scent, her taste. But mostly, that his heart wasn’t full of self-loathing for whatever he’d done to her in his hellish sleep.
He should have known better.
He should never have gone near her, never have let his desire for her overwhelm logic. He was supposed to be looking out for her, not sleeping with her. However undeniable the attraction between them. However intoxicating.
Because, ultimately, where could it ever lead to? What did he have left to offer a woman like Raevenne?
He’d lost his career in the army, he couldn’t function as a surgeon, he didn’t even have control over his own head. He was broken. Damaged. Defective.
And she deserved so much better.
He could scarcely believe that last night he had come so astonishingly close to telling her what had happened that last mission. That he had been on the verge of spilling every last regret, and fear, and anguish that had been crowding his head—making him feel as though he was inevitably going to implode at some point—for far too long.
So, instead, Myles concentrated on the tiny figures stretched out for miles on the flat plains on the other side of the river. They travelled fast or slow, in groups or alone, as far as the eye could see. Just like hundreds of thousands of caribou migrating annually across the arctic tundra. Only they weren’t wild animals. They were humans. Wretched and frightened, involuntarily displaced from their homes.
His eyes followed the straggling groups as they got closer, became more tightly packed, until they were swarming and grouping, and all desperate to cross the single rope and plank bridge. It was sheer madness how being on one embankment rather than the other would make such an incredible difference to their lives.
In other camps they might be alone because of an earthquake or a flood, or some other kind of natural disaster. But here, over a day’s drive from the Camp Sceralenar, the people weren’t coming for those reasons. They weren’t coming for the women’s hospital that Rae ran so smoothly.
He knew what these people were running from.
Only too well.
For a brief moment, flashes of other images played in his brain like a horror show he never wanted to watch.
He shut them down. But not before he heard Rae’s voice in his head telling him there was no shame in talking about it. Logically, he knew she was right. He’d spent the last six months trying to stuff it back down, pretending the memories didn’t exist.
And look where that had got him.
‘That’s the last of it.’ Pushing the thoughts from his head, he approached the camp leader. ‘Where do you want me now?’
She eyed him up and down with a grin.
‘Take a break. Get some water. You must be exhausted. You were like a machin
e, lifting three crates to everyone else’s one. Talk about a man on a mission.’
‘I just want to work.’ He forced himself to sound pleasant.
There was no need for everyone to know how preoccupied he was. How he wished he weren’t here, but back at the main camp. Back near Rae, where he could make sure she was okay. Happy.
Or, at least, happier than he’d made her last night.
What the hell had he been thinking, telling her all that stuff? Things he’d never told anyone else. Never wanted to tell anyone else. Because outside the army no one else’s opinion of him had ever mattered. Until now.
Until Rae.
He clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. Why couldn’t he get her out of his damned head?
‘Well, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.’ The camp leader laughed. ‘They’re starting to build a couple of new buildings. It’s more a matter of putting prefab wooden panels together. Fancy giving us a hand?’
‘Not a problem.’ He even dredged up a smile. Hard manual graft would be more than welcome. ‘Just point me in the right direction.’
‘Right around that wall over there.’
He was heading off before she’d even finished talking. Anything to distract him; to help smother the fire he feared was smouldering in him, ready to consume him from the inside out. The embers that he was very much afraid Rae had begun to fan.
Myles looked at the kit, like a flat pack on an enormous scale. The panels were pre-insulated, lightweight and easily assembled, designed to be thrown up quickly to enable rapid erection of refugee camps in times of emergency, especially for geographical disasters like earthquakes or volcanos when rapid reaction times were essential.
He was a few hours into the build when they heard the explosion. For a moment he was sure the very blood had frozen in his veins. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe.
And then that split-second reaction was over, and Myles was heading for the door, racing out of the compound and towards the noise, his senses taking in everything. Ready to stop, to regroup, if there was any unexpected danger.
Christmas with Her Bodyguard Page 12