It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

by Suzanne Brockmann

  "Please tell me you've got a condom," she breathed as she helped him pull her jeans down the long, smooth lengths of her legs.

  "I've got a condom."

  "Where?"

  "Bathroom."

  She slid off the bed as he wrestled with his own pants, but even so, he still managed to beat her into the attached bath. He always kept protection in his toilet kit on the counter next to the sink, and he searched for a foil-wrapped square without even turning on the light.

  She pressed herself against him, her breasts soft against his back, reaching around him to slide both hands down past the waistband of his shorts. As he found what he was looking for, she did, too. Her fingers closed around him and it was all he could do to keep from groaning aloud.

  Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined sweet Nell Burns would be so bold.

  He could have had this for an entire month. He could have...

  She took the foil packet from his hands, tore it open, and began to guide the condom onto him.

  But she took too long, touched him too lightly, and he pulled away, breathing hard, quickly finishing the task himself as she dragged his shorts down his legs. When he turned to face her, he saw that she'd taken off her own panties as well.

  She was beautiful, standing there naked in the moonlight, all silvery-smooth skin and shining hair, like some kind of goddess, some kind of faerie queen.

  Crash reached for her, and she was there, filling his arms, kissing him hungrily. He reached between them, touching her intimately, finding her more than ready for him.

  She turned them around, backing herself up against the sink counter. He knew by now that she was far from shy when it came to sex, but when she lifted herself up onto the counter, opening herself to his exploring fingers, pressing him more deeply inside of her, he thought his heart would stop.

  But then he stopped thinking as she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him toward her. She kissed him hard, and with one explosive thrust, he was inside her.

  Crash heard himself cry out, his voice mixing with hers.

  It was too good, too incredible. He could feel her fingernails sharply against his back as she gripped him, as her legs tightened around him. She wanted him hard and fast and he wasn't about to deny her anything.

  She moved beneath him, meeting each of his thrusts with a wild abandon, a savage passion that left him breathless. And he knew that this was more than mere sex for her, too. This was a way for them both to take comfort. This was a way to reaffirm that they were both still very much alive. It wasn't so much about pleasure as it was about trying to drive away the pain.

  He'd always been a considerate lover, always taking his time, giving slow, leisurely pleasure to the woman he was with, making certain that she was satisfied several times over before he allowed himself his own release. He'd always been in careful control.

  But tonight, his control had gone out the window with his good judgment. Tonight, he was on fire.

  He lifted her off the counter, still kissing her, still moving inside her. He carried her toward the bed, stopping to press her back against the bathroom wall, the closet door, the bedroom wall, stopping to drive himself inside her as deeply as he possibly could.

  She strained against him, her head thrown back and her breath catching in her throat as he roughly took first one, then the other of her breasts into his mouth, drawing hard on her deliciously taut nipples.

  It was there, against the wall that separated his room from hers, that he felt her climax. It was there, as she cried out, as she shook and shattered around him, that he lost all that remained of his shredded control. He exploded, his release like a fiery rocket scorching his very soul.

  And then it was over, but yet it wasn't. Nell still gripped him, still clung to him as if he were her only salvation. And he was still buried deeply inside of her.

  Crash stood, his forehead resting on the wall above her shoulder, more than just physically spent. He was emotionally exhausted.

  One minute slid into two, two into three and Nell didn't move either, didn't shift, didn't stir, didn't do more than hold him and breathe.

  He kept his eyes closed, afraid to open them, afraid to think.

  Dear God, what had he done?

  He'd used her. She'd come to him for comfort, offering her own sweet comfort in return, and he'd done little more than use her to vent his anger and frustration and grief.

  He lifted his head and somehow the Jell-O that had once been his legs made it over to the bed. He sank down, pulling himself free from Nell. He immediately missed the intimacy of that connection, but who was he kidding? They couldn't stay joined that way for the rest of their lives. He leaned back on the mattress, pulling her down with him, so that her back nestled against his chest, so that he wouldn't have to meet her gaze.

  She lifted her head only slightly—not far enough to look into his eyes. "May I sleep in here with you tonight?"

  She sounded so uncertain, so afraid of what he might say. Something in his chest tightened. "Yeah," he said. "Sure."

  "Thank you," she whispered, shivering slightly.

  He shifted them both so he could cover them with the sheet and blanket. He pulled her closer, wrapping her tightly in his arms, wishing he could make her instantly warm, wishing for a lot of things that he knew he couldn't have.

  He wished that he could keep her safe from the rest of the world. But how could he? He hadn't even been able to keep her safe from himself.

  Chapter 8

  Crash sat up in bed. "What time is it?"

  One second, he'd been sound asleep, and the next his eyes were wide open, as if he'd been awake and alert for hours.

  "It's nearly six." Nell resisted the urge to dive back under the sheet and blanket and cover herself. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed with her back toward him, briefly closing her eyes, feeling her face heat with a blush.

  Her jeans were here on the floor. Her shirt and bra were across the room. Her underpants...in the bathroom, she remembered suddenly, with a dizzying surge of extremely vivid memory.

  She slipped into her jeans, forsaking her underpants. There was no way she was going to walk naked all the way across this room with Crash watching. Yes, he'd seen her naked last night, but that had been last night. This was the morning. This was very different. She was leaving for Ohio today, and if he shed any tears at her departure, they were surely only going to be tears of relief.

  Nell knew with a certainty that could have gotten her hired by one of those psychic hotlines, that what had happened between herself and William Hawken last night had been a fluke. It had been a result of the high emotions of the past few days, of Daisy's death and the wake and funeral that had quickly followed.

  It had been an incredible sexual experience, but Nell knew that a single episode of great sex didn't equal a romantic relationship. When it came down to it, nothing had changed between them. They were still only friends—except now they were friends who had shared incredibly great sex.

  She stood up, fastening the button on her jeans, knowing that she couldn't keep her back to him as she went across the room in search of her shirt and bra. She was just going to have to be matter-of-fact about it. That's all. She had breasts, he didn't—big deal.

  But Crash caught her arm before she could take a step, his fingers warm against her bare skin. "Nell, are you all right?"

  She didn't turn to face him, wishing that he would prove her wrong. Right now, he could do it—he could prove her entirely, absolutely wrong. He could slide his hand down her arm in a caress. He could pull her gently to him, move aside her hair and kiss her neck. He could run those incredible hands across her breasts, down her stomach, and unfasten the waistband of her pants. He could pull her back into the warmth of his bed and make love to her slowly in the grey morning light.

  But he didn't.

  "I'm..." Nell hesitated. If she said fine, she would sound tense and tight, as if she weren't fine. His hand dropped from her arm,
and her last foolish hopes died. She crossed the room and picked up her shirt.

  It was inside out, of course, and she turned away from him as she adjusted it. She slipped it over her head and only then could she turn and look at him.

  Bed head. He had bed head, his dark hair charmingly rumpled, sticking out in all different directions. He looked about twelve years old—except for the fact that even the simple act of sitting up in bed had made many of his powerful-looking muscles flex. God, he was sexy, even with bed head.

  Nell used all her limited acting skills to sound normal. "I'm...still pretty amazed by what happened here last night."

  "Yeah," he said. His pale blue eyes were unreadable. "I am, too. I feel as if I owe you an apology—"

  "Don't," she said, moving quickly toward him. "Don't you dare apologize for what happened last night. It was something we both needed. It was really right—don't turn it into something wrong."

  Crash nodded. "All right. I just..." He glanced away, closing his eyes briefly before he looked back at her. "I've been so careful to stay away from you all this time," he said, "because I didn't want to hurt you this way."

  Nell slowly sat down at the foot of the bed. "Believe me, last night didn't hurt at all."

  He didn't smile at her poor attempt at a joke. "You know as well as I do," he said quietly, "that it wouldn't work, right? A relationship between us..." He shook his head. "You don't really know me. You know this...kind of PG-rated, goody-two-shoes, Disney cartoon version of me."

  Nell wanted to protest, but he wasn't done talking and she held her tongue, afraid if she interrupted, he would stop.

  "But if you really knew me, if you knew who I really am, what I do...you wouldn't like me very much."

  She couldn't hold it in any longer. "How can you just make that kind of decision for me?"

  "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you have some kind of sick thing for cold-blooded killers—"

  "You are not cold-blooded!"

  "But I am a killer."

  "You're a soldier," she argued. "There's a difference."

  "Okay," he said levelly. "Maybe you could get past that. But being involved with a SEAL who specializes in black ops is not something I'd wish on my worst enemy." His usually quiet voice rang with conviction. "I certainly wouldn't wish it on you."

  "Again, you're just going to decide that for me?"

  He threw off the covers, totally unembarrassed by his nakedness. He found his pants, but they were the ones he'd worn to the funeral. Dress pants. He tossed them over a chair and pulled a pair of army fatigues from the closet.

  Nell closed her eyes at a sudden vivid image from last night. His hands around her waist, his mouth locked on hers, his body...

  "Here's the deal with black ops," he said, zipping his fly and fastening the button at his waist. "I disappear—literally—sometimes for months at a time. You would never know where I was, or for how long I'd be gone."

  He ran his fingers back through his hair in a failed attempt to tame it, the muscles in his chest and arms standing out in sharp relief. "If I were KIA—killed in action—you might never be told," he continued. "I just wouldn't come back. Ever. You'd never find out about the mission I was on. There'd be no paper trail, no way to know how or why I'd died. It would be as if I'd never existed." He shook his head. "You don't need that kind of garbage in your life."

  "But—"

  "It wouldn't work." He gazed at her steadily. "Last night was...nice, but you've got to believe me, Nell. It just wouldn't work."

  Nice.

  Nell turned away. Nice? Last night had been wonderful, amazing, fantastic. It hadn't been nice.

  "I'm sorry," he said softly.

  She looked out the window. She looked at the rug. She looked at a painting that hung on the wall. It was one of Daisy's—a beach scene from her watercolour phase.

  Only then did she look up at him. "I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry you think it wouldn't work," she finally said. "You know, I knew most of what you were going to say before you even said it. And I was going to pretend to agree with you. You know, 'Yeah, you're right, it would never work, different personalities, different worlds, different lives, whatever.' But to hell with my pride. Because the truth is, I don't agree with you. I think it would work. We would work. I think we'd be great together. Last night could be just the beginning and I'm...saddened that you think otherwise."

  Crash didn't say anything. He didn't even look at her.

  Nell bolstered the very last of her rapidly fading courage and tossed the final shred of her pride out the door. "Can't we at least try?" Her voice broke slightly—her final humiliation.

  Crash didn't speak, and again she found the courage to go on.

  "Can't we see what happens? Take it one day at a time?"

  He looked up at her, but his eyes were so distant, it was as if he wasn't quite all there.

  "I'm sorry," he said again. "I'm not looking for any kind of a relationship at all right now. I was wrong to give in to this attraction between us. I wanted the comfort and the instant gratification, and the real truth is, I used you, Nell. That's all last night was. You came along, and I took what you offered. There's nothing for us to try. There's nothing more to happen."

  Nell stood up, trying desperately to hide her hurt. "Well," she said. "I guess that clears that up."

  "It's my fault, and I am sorry."

  She cleared her throat as she moved toward the door. "No," she said. "I knew last night...I mean, it was clear that's what it was. Comfort, I mean. It was that way for me, too, sort of, at first anyway, and… I was just hoping... Billy, it's not your fault."

  She opened the door and stepped into the hall. Crash hadn't moved. She wasn't even sure if he'd blinked.

  "Happy New Year," she said quietly, and shut the door behind her.

  Chapter 9

  A year later

  Someone opened fire.

  Someone opened fire, and the world went into slow motion.

  Crash saw Jake pushed back by the force of the gunshots, arms spread, face caught in a terrible grimace as an explosion of bright red blood bloomed on the front of his shirt.

  Crash heard his own voice shouting, saw Chief Pierson fall as well, and felt the slap as a bullet hit his arm. His years of training kicked in and he reacted, rolling down onto the office floor, taking cover and returning fire.

  He shut part of his brain down as he always did in a firefight. He couldn't afford to think in terms of human beings when he was spraying lead around a room. He couldn't afford to feel anything at all.

  He analyzed dispassionately as he evaded and struck back. Jake had pulled out the compact handgun he always wore under his left arm, and even though the glimpse Crash had had of the other man's chest wound made him little more than a still-breathing dead man, the admiral somehow found the strength to pull himself to cover, and to fight back.

  There could be as few as one and as many as three possible shooters.

  Crash noted emotionlessly that his captain, Mike Lovett, and Chief Steve Pierson, a SEAL known as the Possum, were undeniably dead as he efficiently took down one of the shooters.

  Not a man. A shooter. The enemy.

  At least two other weapons still hiccupped and stuttered.

  He could hear the rush of blood in his ears as he tipped what had once been Daisy's favourite table on its side and used it as a shield to work his way around to an angle where he could try to take out another of the shooters.

  Not men. Shooters.

  In the same way, Mike and the Poss weren't his teammates anymore. They were KIAs. Killed in action. Casualties.

  Crash could do nothing for them now. But Jake wasn't dead yet. And if Crash could eliminate the last of the shooters, maybe, just maybe Jake could be saved....

  Crash wanted Jake to live. He wanted that with a ferocious burst of emotion that he immediately pushed away. Detach. He had to detach more completely. Emotion made his hands shake and skewed his perception. Emotion could get him killed
.

  He separated himself cleanly from the man who wanted to rage and grieve over the deaths of his teammates. He set himself apart from the man who was near frantic from wanting to rush to Jake's side, to stanch the older man's wounds, to force him to fight to stay alive.

  Crash felt clarity kick in as he looked at himself from the outside. He felt his senses sharpen, felt time slow even further. He knew the last of the shooters was circling the room, looking for a chance to finish off Jake, and then take Crash out as well.

  One heartbeat.

  He could hear the sound of the admiral's FInCOM security team, shouting as they pounded on the outside of the locked office door.

  Two heartbeats.

  He could hear the almost inaudible scuff as the shooter moved into position. There was only one left now, and he was going for the admiral first. Crash knew that without a doubt.

  Three heartbeats.

  He could hear Jake struggling for breath. Crash knew, also dispassionately, that Jake's wounds had made at least one lung collapse. If he didn't get medical help soon, the man was definitely going to die.

  Four heartbeats.

  Another scuff, and Crash was able to pinpoint precisely where the shooter was.

  He jumped and fired in one smooth motion.

  And the last shooter was no longer a threat.

  "Billy?" Jake's voice was breathy and weak.

  With a pop and a skip as jarring as a needle sliding across a phonograph record, the world once again moved at real time.

  "I'm still here." Crash was instantly at his old friend's side.

  "What the hell happened...?"

  Jake's shirtfront was drenched with blood. 'That's just what I was going to ask you," Crash replied as he gently tore the shirt to reveal the wound. Dear sweet Mary, with an injury like this, it was a miracle Jake had clung to life as long as he had.

  "Someone... wants me... dead."

  "Apparently." Crash had been trained as a medic—all SEALs were—but first aid wasn't going to cut it here. His voice shook despite his determination to maintain his usual deadpan calm. "Sir, I need to get you help."