“Don’t you realize, when you chose to go in after my father’s platoon, you turned your back on dozens of other Marines who also needed rescuing that day?”
Jake didn’t know what to say. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”
“It’s all a crapshoot,” she told him seriously, gazing at him with those impossibly beautiful brown eyes. “Every decision, every choice. You go with your gut, and you’ve got to trust yourself. But after it’s all said and done, you’ve got to celebrate life. Seventy-four men went home to their wives and mothers because of you. Seventy-four lives that you directly touched, and hundreds and hundreds that you indirectly touched. Mothers who didn’t spend twenty years flying an MIA flag on their porch. Wives who didn’t have to raise their children alone. Children who didn’t have to grow up without a father—or children like me who would never even have been born.”
“I know all that. I just wish…” He sighed. “It just never seemed to be enough. I always found myself wanting to save just one more man. And then just one more, and one more. But the truth is, I could’ve been bringing five hundred men out of that jungle each day, and it still wouldn’t have been enough.”
“You told me you weren’t that superhero from Scott Jennings’s book, that you were just a man,” Zoe said. “And if that’s the case, you should try to keep your personal expectations down to the mere mortal level.” She took a deep breath. “And as long as I’m criticizing, I’ve got to be honest and wonder why a man who’s as alive as you would want to spend all his time keeping company with the dead.”
She wasn’t just talking about Vietnam anymore. She was talking about Daisy.
“Grieve and let her go, Jake,” she whispered.
How was it possible that he could be thinking about Daisy while gazing into Zoe’s face and wanting desperately to kiss her?
Grieve and let her go….
“We should go back,” Jake whispered. “It’s getting dark. You must be cold.”
“I’m not cold,” she told him, her gaze dropping to his mouth before she looked into his eyes. “Are you?”
He couldn’t stand it anymore. “I really want to kiss you,” he whispered. “It’s killing me to sit here, holding you like this, and not kiss you.”
“Then kiss me,” she said fiercely. “You’re not the one who died, dammit!”
Jake didn’t move. He didn’t have to move, because she kissed him.
What he should do and what he wanted fought the shortest battle in the history of the world, and what he wanted won.
He kissed her almost roughly, completely on fire, sweeping his tongue possessively into her mouth, pulling her on top of him so that she was straddling his legs. The heat between her thighs pressed against him, her breasts soft against his chest as he lost himself in the hungry sweetness of her mouth.
He heard himself groan as he touched the smoothness of her back, as his hands slipped beneath the edge of her shirt.
He might’ve gone along with it. Might’ve? He knew damn well he would have. If Zoe had tugged at his clothes, if she’d reached for the buckle on his belt, he wouldn’t’ve been able to fight both her and himself any longer. He would’ve made love to her, right there on the roof.
But she pulled back, pushing herself off his lap, nearly throwing herself a solid five feet away from him, breathing hard, and swearing softly under her breath. “I’m sorry.” She dropped her head onto arms that were tightly hugging her folded knees, unable to look at him. Her voice was muffled. “I promised you I’d back away, not attack you.”
“Hey, it’s not like we both didn’t—”
“No?” she said, looking at him, her eyes a gleaming flash in the rapidly falling darkness. “Then what are you doing sitting over there? Why didn’t you follow me over here?” She answered her own question. “Because just letting it happen is a whole lot different from making it happen.”
He couldn’t deny it.
“You know I want you,” she said softly. “But I want you to want me, too, Jake. I don’t want to make love to you thinking that this is only happening because of some temporary insanity on your part, or some chink in the armor of your code of ethics. I don’t want to have to feel guilty for seducing you, or overwhelming you, or tempting you, or anything. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you want to make love to me. I want to meet you as an equal. I respect myself too much to accept anything less.”
Zoe pulled herself to her feet, brushing off the seat of her pants. “So,” she said. “Unless you want to come over here and take my clothes off, I think I’ll head back inside.”
Jake didn’t move. “Zoe, I’m—”
“Sorry,” she finished for him. “Don’t be. I know I’m asking for too much.” She started for the stairs leading down off the roof. “Give me a few seconds before you follow. It can’t hurt to give Chris the impression that we’re still fighting.”
A few seconds. Jake needed more than a few seconds to regain his equilibrium.
He stared at the sky and watched the first few stars of the evening begin to shine. The air had grown crisper, colder, and his breath hung in front of him in a cloud.
Indisputable proof that, as Zoe had pointed out, he was not the one who’d died.
Chapter 14
Zoe hummed to herself as she got ready for bed. She hoped if she sounded calm and relaxed, she’d look calm and relaxed, as well—instead of completely, teeth-jarringly, heart-janglingly nervous.
Jake had watched her all through dinner. She’d sat at the table with the other women, and he’d sat next to Christopher Vincent. And every time she’d looked up, Jake was gazing at her.
She’d laid everything she was feeling out on the table this evening on the old recreation deck.
Well, nearly everything. She hadn’t revealed this feeling of intense warmth she got every time the man smiled at her. She hadn’t revealed the feeling of pulse-pounding, dizzying free fall she got from the desire she sometimes saw in his eyes.
She had told him how much she wanted him.
And Jake had turned her down. Again.
Yes, he was a man, and yes, he was attracted to her, but he didn’t want her. Not really. Not desperately. Not the way she wanted him.
Normally, she didn’t require being hit over the head with a hammer to receive a rejection. She didn’t know why with Jake she insisted upon embarrassing herself again and again.
She put on her nightgown, wishing desperately that she’d brought something a little less revealing, wishing she’d brought her bathrobe. She’d purposely left it in the trailer, thinking it didn’t quite seem like something Zoe the waitress would own. It was a little too demure, a little too classy for the part she was playing right now.
Jake sat on the edge of the bed, untying his boots, the muscles in his powerful arms and shoulders flexing beneath the cotton of his T-shirt and standing out in sharp relief in the low-watt light.
He’d told her no in every possible way. He wasn’t ready for a physical relationship. He’d made that clear. He’d told her he wanted to be friends. And up on the deck, they’d been doing really fine as far as friendship went—or at least they had been before she’d gotten all stupid and started holding his hand.
She knew that was a mistake right from the moment her fingers had touched his, but she’d tried to convince herself that friends sometimes held friends’ hands. Same thing when she suddenly found herself holding him in her arms.
But then she’d lost it. And she’d kissed him. Again.
And then, stupider and stupider, she’d had the gall to feel hurt when he’d let her know—again—that he truly wasn’t interested in their relationship going in that direction.
Oh, if she hadn’t stopped them, he might’ve let his good intentions slip. He might’ve let himself be carried over the line, bulldozed by the intensity of her passion.
She watched Jake’s reflection as he pulled his T-shirt over his head and unfastened his jeans. He glanced over, and Zoe qui
ckly looked away, but not before he’d met her eyes in the mirror. Great. Now he’d caught her watching him undress.
But instead of turning away, he moved toward her, toward the mirror. “If this bothers you, I can wear a shirt to bed.”
It took Zoe a few long seconds to realize that he was talking about the latticework of scars on his chest.
“No,” she said. Was he nuts? Was that really why he thought she’d been staring at him? It would have been hysterically funny if her sense of humor hadn’t been stretched so thin. “Really, Jake, that doesn’t bother me at all.”
He was looking critically at himself in the mirror. “Funny, isn’t it, that I survived Vietnam virtually unscathed, only to have this happen when I was supposedly safe at home?”
“I look at those scars,” Zoe said softly, “and I can’t believe you survived. It was some kind of assassination attempt, right?”
The killers had come into his own home, past his security guards. They’d gained entry by pretending to be part of a team of Navy SEALs sent to protect the admiral from death threats he’d been receiving. After he’d been shot, the Navy had taken him to a hospital safe house and had publicly released news of his death, both to protect Jake and to catch the man who’d sent those killers.
Zoe had been in Kuwait when she’d heard the news on CNN, and she’d sat on the balcony of her hotel for hours that night, just looking at the lights of the city, deeply mourning the loss of a man she’d never met.
Jake met her eyes in the mirror. “It happened two years ago, Christmas. It took me a long time to get back to speed, physically.” He turned and tossed his shirt into the laundry pile in the corner of the room, then took his wallet and keys and change from his jeans pockets, lining them neatly up on the dresser as he spoke. “You know, in a way getting shot wasn’t so bad. I mean, with a physical injury, recovery goes in stages. It’s all laid out for you. The doctors have done it before, there’s no real mystery to the process.
“First the bullets are removed, and then the doctor stitches you up. Then the wound is bandaged and drained, and you lie in a hospital bed, and you focus on surviving, one day at a time—one hour at a time if you have to. Then the bandages get changed, and the injury is cleaned, and you fight infection and sleep a lot so your body can heal. Then finally after you’re out of the ICU, you stop merely surviving and start rebuilding your strength, still through bed rest. Then, even though it hurts like hell, you get mobile. You get out of bed and take first one step, and then two until you can make it over to the bathroom and back without falling down. Then there’s physical therapy, more restrengthening.
“Sure, no two injuries are ever exactly alike,” Jake continued, “and I had individual challenges each step of the way, but even getting around those challenges was pretty clear-cut. If I do A, then I’ll improve. If I do B, I’ll improve that much faster. If I do C, I’ll hurt myself, so don’t do C.”
Zoe understood. He was talking about far more than his physical trauma. He was trying to explain himself, explain what he was feeling and why exactly he had turned her down again this afternoon.
“Emotional recovery isn’t as easy.” All his coins were in perfect little stacks on the dresser, and he knocked them over with a sweep of his fingers and went to sit on the bed.
He glanced at her, one hand on the back of his neck, as if it ached. “You’re not dealing with muscles and bones. You’re dealing with something far more fragile and far less identifiable. Something that doesn’t have as clearly a defined list of steps to do, you know, to go about fixing the problem. See, like, if you do A, you might improve, but if I do A, I might end up in a worse place than where I started. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Zoe nodded, holding his gaze. He was talking about losing Daisy, about his dealing with his loss. “I do understand, and Jake, really, you don’t have to—”
“On the other hand,” he said with a crooked smile, “since it’s all trial and error in terms of what works and what doesn’t, it seems crazy to just never try A or B or even C, out of fear it’s going to hurt worse. Because what if it doesn’t hurt? What if it helps?”
What was he telling her?
“I’m tired of being afraid, and I’m tired of feeling so damn alone.” His voice shook slightly, and he stood up swiftly, using both hands to push his hair from his face as he laughed in disbelief. “Jeez, this is perfect. Can I make myself sound any more pathetic?”
Zoe took a step toward him but stopped herself. Dammit, she wasn’t going to do this again—offer comfort and then get horribly embarrassed and hurt when her deep-burning desire for this man overpowered her self-control.
But this time, Jake reached for her.
And as he drew her into his arms, she felt herself melt. Oh, God, she was the pathetic one.
His hands were against her back, her shoulders, her neck, running through her hair, the sensation enough to make her cling to him mindlessly. Dear God, what would happen if he kissed her?
He did, so sweetly, so gently, she had to close her eyes against the rush of tears that came. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it—she opened herself to him, and he kissed her harder, possessing her mouth with absolutely no uncertainty, completely and unquestionably in command.
This was all for the cameras. Zoe knew that their conversation must have been cryptic and confusing to anyone listening in, but this embrace was completely obvious. To anyone watching, anyone who didn’t know better, it would look as if Jake wanted her. And as if she wanted him.
They’d be half right.
It was all she could do to stay on her feet, and she wasn’t aware that he’d pulled her with him into the bathroom until he closed the door behind them.
He broke their kiss to lift her up as he stepped into the bathtub. Zoe was slightly off balance, and he held her with one arm as he yanked the curtain closed and turned on the water with a rush.
Jake still wore his jeans and she had on her black nightgown and they both were instantly soaked. The water was cold, it hadn’t yet heated up, but maybe that was a good thing. God knows she was way too hot.
She tried to pull back from Jake but then stopped, extremely self-conscious about the fact that her silk gown was glued to her body, extremely aware that she was still touching him and he was still touching her.
But instead of letting her go, he pulled her close and kissed her again.
It was a kiss that meant business, a kiss loaded with passion and need and a wildly burning hunger.
It was a kiss no one but Zoe and Jake could possibly know about.
She looked at him in surprise, unable to believe what he was telling her.
“I want to make love to you, Zoe,” he said softly, touching her hair, her face. “But there are four billion reasons we shouldn’t. The cameras—”
Her heart was pounding. He wanted. She was in his arms, her body pressed against the very solid length of his, her hands against the taut, slick muscles in his arms, his shoulders. It was finally okay to touch him. He wanted her to touch him. “No one can see or hear us in here.”
“Our age difference—”
“I don’t have a problem with that.”
He smiled slightly at her vehemence, his fingers still in her hair. “How about the fact that I’m your team leader—”
“Technically, I’m here as a consultant for your team. You’re not my boss. Pat Sullivan is. Believe me, I’ve already checked the rules. This isn’t fraternizing. I’m a civilian.”
He exhaled a short burst of laughter. “Well, it’s good to know the shore patrol isn’t going to rush in to arrest us.”
“I can think of only one reason we shouldn’t make love right this second,” Zoe said, “and that’s that all my condoms are in the other room, in my purse.”
Jake took a small square of foil from his back pocket and tossed it into the soap dish that was attached to the tile wall. “I’ve got that part covered,” he told her. He smiled crookedly, sweetly un
certain. “Or at least I will, if this is still what you want.”
“It’s what I want. Oh, God, it’s what I want.” Zoe pushed his wet hair from his face, her heart in her throat, completely aware of what he’d just told her by having that condom ready and in his pocket. He’d planned this. He’d come to terms with all of his reservations and he’d consciously made a choice. This wasn’t accidental. It wasn’t about reacting to high emotions and high passion. He wasn’t being bulldozed. He truly wanted this to happen.
Still she had to be sure. “About those other three million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand reasons we shouldn’t—”
“The hell with them. They don’t hold up to the one very solid reason we should,” Jake told her, kissing her hard but much too briefly on the mouth. His voice was husky, his eyes filled with heat. “Dammit, I want to, and you want to, and life’s too bloody short. We’re both grown-ups and—”
He kissed her again. Longer this time. Pulling her even closer and covering her breast with his hand. Touching, gently kneading, exploring the tautness of her nipple, his thumb rasping against the thin wet silk that covered her. The sensation was nearly unbearable, and she moaned aloud.
Jake did, too. “God,” he gasped pulling free from their kiss. “I’ve wanted to touch you like this since you walked into that meeting in the Pentagon.”
Zoe had to smile. She had him beat. She’d clocked many, many fantasy miles with Jake Robinson—starting all the way back when she was a young teenager. He’d been her hero nearly half her life as she’d thrilled to stories of his bravery, his ability to command and his loyalty to those men who followed him.
But it was his soul, his very humanness—his confessed imperfections—that moved her in ways she’d never dreamed she could be moved.
Time seemed to slow as he looked at her, as he touched her, still gently, through the black silk of her gown. The fire in his eyes was incredible as he caught one finger in the slender strap and tugged it down her arm. The clinging triangle of fabric peeled away from her breast infinitesimally slowly, and Zoe felt her desire-tautened nipples tighten under the heat of his gaze.
Tall, Dark, and Dangerous Part 2 Page 62