Crossing the Line

by Candace Irvin

  Oh, boy. This was not good.

  Not good at all.

  If Rick hoped to distract her, he was already succeeding. Her body fit far too easily against the hardened muscles of his chest and thighs for her peace of mind. She cleared her throat in a desperate attempt to clear her thoughts. “So, what took so long? They run out of paper towels?”

  His scar furrowed.

  “You were gone a long time.”

  His brow cleared as he nodded. “I stopped to help a couple of college kids place a call to the States.”

  No, he hadn’t.

  She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did. Maybe it was his eyes. He seemed to be staring at her too intently, almost as if he was waiting to see if she’d believe him.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t call him on it.

  Panama City would be in the throes of Carnaval in two days. The hotel lobby had been crowded by kids who’d already kicked off Spring Break. “You couldn’t get through?”

  “No, I did—they did. Why?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. You seem…distracted.”

  “You seem refreshed.”

  A definite change of subject.

  Even more damning.

  She smiled anyway. “It’s amazing what a quick shower can do. And a long talk with a good friend.” She glanced across the room toward their table, but several of the couples dancing alongside them obscured her view.

  “She’s gone.”

  She wasn’t surprised. “I told you she couldn’t stay.”

  Rick frowned. “Meaning you already agreed.”

  Here it came.

  Might as well get it over with. Eve nodded. “I did. Look, I know we said we’d make the decisions together. But you also led me to believe you could trust me. Lord knows it’s obvious you don’t trust her. But I do. Frankly, that ought to count for something. I’m the one who’s known the woman long enough to know that when Anna gives her word, it’s worth something.”

  Unfortunately, she received nothing.

  Just that blasted magnetic silence.

  Rick continued to stare down at her. If anything, his gaze appeared darker and more impenetrable than ever.

  What was the use?

  She should have known better than to think Rick would ever trust her. She sighed. “It doesn’t matter, does it? No matter what I said—heck, no matter what you said—you’re not about to take my word on anything. Fine.” She jerked her arms from his neck and stood there in the middle of the dance floor, not moving, as he continued to stare at her.

  It wasn’t until she noticed that several of the couples dancing closest to them were staring as well that she realized what she’d done. She hadn’t raised her voice.

  She didn’t have to. Her body language said it all.

  So much for Anna’s meticulous cover.

  So much for his trust.

  “Look, I appreciate everything you’ve done. I really do. But maybe it’s best if we part company now. People are already paying attention. If we stage a fight, you’ll be off the hook. You can tell the Brass you followed me down here to stop me, but that I slipped away from you. Heck, you can tell them whatever you want. They’ll never know the dif—”

  He swept her into his arms before she could finish, hauling her in so close, so fast, she didn’t even see it coming. Before she could blink, one of his hands tunneled into her hair, the other splayed out firmly across her back. The tips of his fingers delved beneath the edge of her dress, his calluses rasping over her tender flesh as he caressed her intimately. She sucked in her breath as he discovered firsthand that there was no bra beneath this dress.

  His pupils flared as he stared into her eyes.

  A split second later, he lowered his mouth and swallowed her gasp until there were no more secrets between them.

  Nothing but slick, hungry heat.

  Just like that, she was flying.

  Unable to do anything else, Eve gave herself up to the joy of it. The thrumming in her ears, the surge of adrenaline as it thundered through her blood. The mind-blowing sensation of shooting through the air at a hundred and fifty knots, climbing higher and higher, followed by the reckless rush of slamming into a sudden thermal pocket and plunging ninety feet in the blink of an eye. If this was what kissing Rick Bishop was like without the fog of grief dulling her senses, she wanted more. She wound her arms about his neck and stretched up to get it—

  But he was gone.

  She came crashing down to earth with a solid thud as he ripped his mouth from hers, leaving her cold, shaking and strung out on the acrid tarmac of unfulfilled passion as she struggled to hold on to his shoulders and regain her balance. She cursed him a thousand times over in the taut moments that followed. She didn’t give a damn that his breath seemed to be coming in and out as short and as raw as hers, or that the callused fingers still fused to her back seemed to be trembling as fiercely as her legs—until she remembered.

  Their audience.

  She finally found her nerve and raised her head, staring into deep-brown eyes still smoldering with passion. She licked her lips. “We’re not…settling anything like this.”

  “I thought we just did.”

  She blinked.

  He leaned down to nuzzle her neck, before dragging his mouth to her ear. “We’re following her plan, aren’t we?”

  The plan.

  Reality seared through her confusion, burning away her lingering passion as he slipped his arms around her waist and once again eased them into the rhythm that had been kept up by the openly amused couples around them. What they saw as a passionate make-up from a lovers’ spat was simply an act. That’s all this was. What an idiot she was.

  A stupid, lusting idiot.

  Yes, the man had been turned on. The hard ridge still pressing against her abdomen was proof enough of that. But so what? It didn’t mean Rick trusted her, believed in her or cared about her, much less respected her. And it certainly didn’t mean he had any intention of sticking around. You’d think she’d have learned that lesson enough times already.

  He’d said it himself, right there at the table.

  Men simply didn’t help someone out with a problem as muddy as hers without expecting something in return. Well, Rick had just proven without a doubt that he was a man. And he did want something in return. He just didn’t want her.

  What he wanted was answers.

  Like her, Rick wanted to bring his sergeant home and lay him to rest without any lingering questions.

  Best she remember that.

  He tipped her chin, the simmering heat in his gaze at total odds with the seriousness in his low voice. “What’s wrong? I didn’t hurt you when we—”

  “No.”

  Not physically. She dropped her gaze to his tie, concentrating on the tiny threads of blue woven in amid the silvery gray. It was easier than staring into those smoky eyes and that imaginary seduction.

  “Then what is it?”

  The music trailed off on a series of what should have been soothingly gentle notes. She waited for him to release her, but he didn’t. He kept them moving until the guitarist plucked at the opening notes of another, sultrier, arrangement. Like the others, it was hauntingly beautiful.

  “Eve?”

  She sighed. He wasn’t going to give up, was he?

  She finally looked up.

  It was a mistake.

  His phony desire was bad enough. His concern nearly did her in. She steeled her nerves as his fingers smoothed her hair behind her ears. Especially as his hand slid down the side of her face, its heady warmth coming to rest at the base of her neck. Filmmakers everywhere must have mourned the day Rick joined the Army instead of the Actors Guild.

  If she didn’t know any better, she’d have sworn he cared.

  Especially when his thumb snuck up to graze her lips. “This isn’t going to work if we don’t trust each other.”

  That snapped her resolve into place—firmly.

  “I guess we’re more
alike than you’d like to think.”

  “How so?”

  “Oh, come on. You’ve got some nerve, accusing me of holding out when you’re doing the same thing.”

  His brow shot up.

  “Anna?” Eve swept her gaze to the surrounding dancers, quickly ensuring that no one was eavesdropping. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that you’re suddenly, miraculously, willing to accept my word that she’s on the level about—”

  “I do.”

  “—tonight.” She stiffened in his arms. So much so, he had to nudge her legs into motion. “Wh-what did you say?”

  “You heard me.”

  She had. She just didn’t believe her ears. She searched his eyes for a good minute, looking for something, anything, that would support her suspicions, only to be completely floored by what she couldn’t find. Doubt.

  He honestly believed her.

  “Why?”

  His stare remained rock-steady as he picked up on the rest of the words she couldn’t seem to form. “You gave me your word, didn’t you?”

  She had. Right before the kiss. But so what? It’s not like her word had been enough before.

  Like yesterday, in her apartment.

  Again, he seemed to read her mind. “I’m here aren’t I? Helping you?” His shrug barely registered beneath her nerveless fingers. “I admit, I still have concerns about the woman. But I’m willing to hold them in check for now.” He reached up and covered her hands with his, tugging them down to study her fingers as he cradled them against his chest. “What else can I do to prove myself?”

  He fell silent.

  She knew he was waiting for an answer.

  Too bad, she didn’t have one to give him. Not one that would make sense, much less one she was willing to share.

  From the deep puckering of his scar when he frowned, she suspected Rick had reached the end of even his superhuman patience. His soft growl as he lowered his forehead to hers confirmed it. “I swear, Paris, you trusted me more six weeks ago when I was a total stranger.”

  She stared at his mouth.

  At the faint lines where his dimples should be. She hadn’t seen them once today. But then, he hadn’t had much of a reason to smile lately, had he? She closed her eyes as the subtle scent of his shaving cream swirled through her. He was right. She had trusted him more when he was just some unknown soldier on a joint mission. Trusting the uniform was easy. It had never let her down before. But the man beneath?

  Trusting that was hard.

  Perhaps impossible.

  “Eve?”

  She knew what he wanted. He wanted her to share everything he thought she was holding back. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. To do so would betray two friends now. So she opened her eyes and said the only thing she could.

  “You still are a stranger.”

  Eve Paris had been burned.

  Badly.

  He didn’t know by whom and he probably never would, but if the bastard were to materialize before him right now, he’d be hard-pressed not to strangle him with his bare hands. Rick dropped his towel on the bathroom tiles and stepped inside the hotel room’s blistering shower for the second time in as many hours. He refused to feel guilty about the water. Even if he hadn’t needed to wash away the lingering scents of shampoo and shaving cream before reinserting into the jungle, he’d have needed the steam to clear his head and assuage the guilt.

  Not that that was possible.

  He’d walked a fine line out on that dance floor with Eve tonight and he still wasn’t comfortable with the results. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had a choice. Misleading her had been the only way to preserve her quest and possibly her life. He only wished Eve’s so-called sorority sister was as concerned with the latter as she’d been with the former.

  Anna Shale.

  Now there was an actress.

  What the woman’s true game was, he had no idea. Tom had been unable to share that with him during their brief meeting after he’d slipped out through the bathroom window and into the alley behind the restaurant. Nor would he have time to investigate Anna on his own. Not if he and Eve were to leave at 0400 as planned. And they were leaving. Tom had been able to assure him that although Anna was into something unsavory up to her neck, it had nothing to do with the supplies and the chopper she’d managed to procure on their behalf.

  That was enough for him.

  He only wished he’d been able to share the real reason as to why he’d changed his mind with Eve. Not that she hadn’t suspected he was being less than truthful for a while there.

  The woman was sharp.

  She was also on target more than she knew.

  He had been holding out on her. For six weeks now.

  He’d thought about coming clean at her apartment. He’d even wanted to. But in the end, he hadn’t. Why add more to her burden than she already carried? Especially when this load was his to bear and his alone. He shoved his head under the scalding spray and scrubbed the remaining scent of his earlier shampoo from his hair. Eve wasn’t the only one suffering from guilt. But at least hers might be vindicated. There was no hope for his. The truth of it was no matter what Eve uncovered in that wreckage, she wasn’t the one responsible for his platoon sergeant’s death.

  He was.

  Rick turned and subjected his face and chest to the scalding water as regret lashed through him. Hell, the only reason Turner had boarded that chopper at all was because he’d ordered his sergeant to accompany him to the presidential compound that day. He was the only one needed at that briefing. But Turner had come to him two weeks before the crash, sixteen years into his Army career—a mere four years from retirement—and told him he wanted out.

  At the time it had been inconceivable.

  To work that long and then throw it all away before the man had even asked Carrie to marry him?

  What if she refused?

  Even Turner had admitted he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t. And if she hadn’t? With the current crackdown on officer–enlisted fraternization, a captain openly dating, much less marrying, a recent sergeant would have done more than raise brows. It would have killed careers.

  Hers.

  Would Carrie have traded in her wings for a wedding ring?

  He’d never know.

  All he knew was that Bill Turner would never have the chance to find out. Rick turned around and twisted the knobs at the rear of the stall. The scalding stream ceased. He stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. It was time to turn the room over to Eve. He hoped she’d finished eating the takeout dinner their waiter had bagged for them after they’d returned to the table, neither of them in the mood for food anymore.

  Damn. His sweats.

  He’d been so rocked by a charade that hadn’t quite managed to stay a charade with either of them that he’d locked himself into the bathroom without fresh clothes. His trousers lay at the base of the shower, still drenched from the spray that had shot out from the stall before he’d changed the angle on the nozzle.

  Now what?

  Should he step out with a towel at his hips? His sweats were lying on top of his suitcase, a mere three feet to the left on the opposite side of the door. Or would Eve worry that he’d decided to carry the charade back to their room?

  Not that he honestly didn’t want to.

  He simply couldn’t.

  Even if the Army no longer cared how they passed their off-duty hours, he did. It was obvious Eve was still shell-shocked by the crash and the board’s decision to ground her. He refused to take advantage of that. He refused to take advantage of her. Rick stared at his soaking trousers and then the dry towel.

  Bloody hell.

  Eve was a soldier, so was he.

  He wrapped the towel around his hips and tucked the trailing end firmly into place before he opened the door. He stepped out into the room—and froze.

  Eve was in bed, on her side.

  Naked.

  In an instant, that kiss came crashing back. His arms damned n
ear ached with the memory of her curves. He could even feel the side of her breast, soft and full against his fingertips. He closed his fists. Banished the memory.

  He was a stranger.

  But even as the insult flayed his pride he knew, strangers shared the same bed all the time.

  He ought to know.

  But did she?

  She stirred, spoke. But with her back to him, he couldn’t make out her words. He turned toward his suitcase and reached for his sweats, only to drop them as he heard her again.

  Tears?

  “Eve?”

  Silence.

  He checked the tuck on his towel, cleared his throat and tried again. “Are you okay?”

  This time the sobs were unmistakable.

  The sheet had slipped past her shoulder. He could see the curve quaking softly. He approached the bed slowly, lest he startle her. But as he rounded the foot board, he realized he couldn’t. She was sleeping, deep in the throes of a dream.

  No, a nightmare.

  Tears were spilling freely from beneath her lashes, soaking into the white pillow at her cheek. He stepped closer and discovered she wasn’t naked. The sleeve of her dress had simply slipped off her shoulder. A fresh stream of tears poured into the pillow as he tugged the sheet higher and tucked it beneath her chin.

  Should he wake her?

  She had to be dreaming about Carrie. But that could be for the best. If she was still determined to hold in her grief as she had after the crash, she’d need the release. But damned if each of her silent sobs didn’t pierce his heart. He leaned close and smoothed the curls from her brow. When she didn’t stir, he leaned closer. Before he realized what he was doing, he pressed his lips to her temple. “Shhh.”

  She stirred. “Please don’t go.”

  His gut twisted at the odd, unfamiliar note in her voice. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear he was comforting a small child, not a grown woman. He leaned down to smooth her brow again and whispered, “It’s okay, Eve. I’m here.”

  “It doesn’t hurt, mommy, I promise. Please don’t go. I’ll be good.”

  He froze.

  Horror congealed along every single inch of his body as she continued to murmur and plead until it was suddenly, completely, seared away by pure, unadulterated rage.