Heatseeker (Atrati)

by Lucy Monroe

  He almost laughed, but he kept his cool and managed a nod. “Sure.”

  “You sound …” Her voice trailed off as her gaze slid down his body and snagged on the damn painful bulge in his trousers. “Oh.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You want me.” He couldn’t read her tone.

  Did that disgust her? Please her? Not affect her at all?

  He was disgusted with himself enough for both of them. “I know. I’m a real bastard, getting excited by touching you after what you’ve been through.”

  “No.”

  He shook his head, refusing to accept her denial.

  She frowned. “I want you, too.” She paused as if gathering her thoughts … or enough voice to go on. “Just old memories.”

  “No.” It was his turn to offer the stark denial.

  “You left … didn’t want me anymore.” Her face set in concentration. “Maybe you want the new me. It worked, then.” She sighed, turning her face away. “Too late.”

  He didn’t know what she was talking about.

  She said it as if she was no longer the girl he’d once known. And maybe she wasn’t, but essentially? At the core of her being, Rachel Gannon would always be the angel of his dreams.

  She was right about it being too late for them, though. It had been too late the day he took a kill shot that led to an innocent man’s death. He’d been exonerated of any wrongdoing—his superiors had put it down to bad intel—but Kadin would never forget that the enemy wasn’t always the only bad guy.

  And shooting people was still his job.

  “I never stopped wanting you,” he said, returning to the present.

  “You dumped me.”

  “I wasn’t worthy anymore.”

  Her eyebrows drew together, the hazy relaxation almost completely gone from her features. “What?”

  He wanted her to go back to that relaxation, but he didn’t know how to not have this conversation. “You were so innocent and pure.” Too pure for him.

  “You were my white knight.”

  “No. The Marines made me a killer.”

  The confusion in her beautiful blue gaze grew. “For your country.”

  “You deserved something better.”

  “Than a military hero?”

  “There’s nothing heroic about shooting the enemy from behind the scope of a sniper’s rifle.” No matter what his pile of medals tucked away said.

  She didn’t say anything for several long seconds, just looked at him with eyes that used to see into his soul. That was one of the reasons he’d left.

  He didn’t want her looking and finding the black mark there.

  Rachel gave a tiny shrug, and he took it as a win that she didn’t wince in pain from the movement. “Doesn’t matter.”

  He’d believed that for ten years. That the truth didn’t matter. He’d walked away, and that was what was important.

  “Kiss me.”

  Shock jolted his body with the strength of a falling power line. “What?”

  “No more talk. Kiss.” Her voice sounded rough. “Need to remember.”

  “The passion between us?” he asked in disbelief.

  “That not all touch is pain.”

  Oh, shit. How did he respond to that?

  All the reasons that giving in to her was a bad idea went through his head even as his head lowered of its own volition. “Just a kiss.”

  She licked her lips with unconscious sensuality, her head dipping in a tiny acknowledgment.

  He wanted to ask, why a kiss, damn it, but knew he owed this woman whatever she wanted. Had for a very long time.

  Their mouths barely brushed, but damn if it wasn’t good. Too good.

  He let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for a decade, and she matched it with a small sigh, her expression unreadable.

  Chapter Seven

  Kadin pressed down for another kiss, because that was what he needed, when a soft knock interrupted, immediately followed by the opening of the door.

  Eva carried in a tray of food for them. “I was going to ask how my patient is doing, but it’s pretty apparent she’s feeling better.” Eva gave Kadin a look with a single raised eyebrow.

  He couldn’t remember the last time his face had heated with a blush; before he’d left the Marines, for damn sure. But he was blushing now. “I thought you were going to have the food sent up.”

  “I needed to check on Rachel once more before hitting my rack.”

  Kadin nodded, moving to stand, but Rachel’s hand on his arm stopped him.

  She didn’t say anything, but her expression spoke eloquently. She wanted him to stay.

  She felt safe with him. And safer when he was within touching distance.

  Not something she’d ever admit aloud, he’d bet, but he wasn’t going to ignore the message in her pale gaze.

  He changed his movement to one of lifting her into a sitting position. The blanket slipped, but he tucked it back around her, doing his best to ignore the creamy flesh exposed temporarily.

  “Did the massage help?” Doc asked as she set the tray with two bowls of lentil soup between them.

  “Yes,” Rachel answered, her voice soft.

  “Good.”

  The sound of yelling male voices came from down the hall. Rachel jerked, her eyes skittering to the door.

  Doc just smiled and patted Rachel’s shoulder before sliding a blood-pressure cuff onto her. “Don’t mind them. The boys are arguing about who gets their own space and who has to share.”

  “You’re not worried they’ll leave you in the shared room?” Kadin teased.

  Eva grinned, her expression just short of evil. “They know better. I can dose their breakfast with something that’ll keep them in the latrine for most of the day.”

  Rachel let out a small laugh.

  Kadin just shook his head. “You think she’s kidding. I know she’s not. I’d pit Doc against any man on my team and guarantee she’d come out the winner.”

  “Even you?” Rachel asked, a glimmer of familiar mischief glowing in her tired gaze.

  “No comment.”

  Eva snorted. “I’m a sneaky bitch, and they all know it.”

  Rachel’s smile felt to Kadin like getting the drop on the Taliban, but she didn’t say anything as Eva finished her quick examination.

  “Well, your massage brought down her blood pressure. Which I would not have expected, considering what I walked in on.” Eva tucked her blood-pressure cuff and stethoscope away.

  “It was just a kiss.” And a damned innocent one at that.

  “I didn’t think you knew how to kiss, Trigger.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened and then narrowed, and Kadin realized how Eva’s words could be taken.

  “We’ve been drinking buddies. I’m not known for romancing my dates.”

  “You’re not known for dating. Hooking up? Yes. Though not nearly as often as Peace. That soldier is a man-whore for sure. But dating? Not Kadin ‘Trigger’ Marks, superwarrior and damn fine leader.”

  Kadin realized Eva was doing her own version of talking him up to Rachel, and he was unexpectedly moved. “Don’t get soft on me, Doc.”

  The beautiful Puerto Rican grinned again, her expression purely evil now. “Not going to happen.”

  “Good to know.”

  The sound of a door slamming reverberated through the room, and Eva grabbed her bag. “That’s my cue to find my room and make sure no one is stupid enough to be in it.”

  “She’s tough,” Rachel said after Eva had left, closing the door firmly behind her.

  “She is.”

  “You like her.”

  “I do.”

  Rachel nodded, looking down at her soup. “Good to know.”

  Well, shit. This woman had always been more complicated than any other female he’d known. “Not like that.”

  Rachel just took a spoonful of her soup. Her hand shook a little, but she managed to get the lentils into her mouth without spilling.


  Kadin waited until she was done chewing before placing his hand under her chin and bringing her head up so their eyes met. “There is nothing between me and Eva, and there never has been.”

  Rachel shrugged, the movement bigger than before, and winced.

  Damn it. “You need pain meds?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Eat your soup first. It’ll make it easier to keep them down.”

  He ended up feeding her and then giving her the meds with a water bottle. She was falling asleep sitting up by the time they were done.

  He helped her under the covers and over to one side of the bed. “I’m sleeping in here tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  He looked at her sharply but didn’t see any disagreement with his pronouncement in her expression, either.

  “Someone needs to stay with you. I could get Eva.”

  Rachel could have made a joke about the other woman making it clear she wanted her own space, but she didn’t. His angel looked at him with eyes too damn jaded and vulnerable at the same time.

  “I want you to stay,” she said simply.

  He nodded, getting beneath the covers. Calling Roman again could wait until the morning. Kadin positioned himself so he was lying on his side facing Rachel and put his arm across her stomach.

  She seemed to relax, her breath going shallow in sleep almost immediately.

  Well, this assignment had gone FUBAR for sure, and he couldn’t even make himself regret it.

  Wyatt leaned against the door, watching Neil. The sexy blond man was as volatile as a vial of nitroglycerin.

  “I am not sharing this room with you,” Neil growled.

  A totally inappropriate smile took over Wyatt’s face. And didn’t he just know that was going to piss the other man off something fierce?

  “We slept in the same tent last night. That was a smaller space than this.” He indicated the room with the sweep of one hand.

  There were two narrow beds and another one almost as wide as a double under the grill-covered window. It was pretty typical for a house in Marrakech and a hell of a lot nicer than a lot of places the men had been forced to sleep on assignment.

  “Get out of the way.” Neil’s tone was as aggressive as his words, but he stayed on the other side of the room.

  As if he was afraid to get too close to Wyatt.

  Come on, baby, get closer.

  “I’m not going to attack you in your sleep,” Wyatt promised. As if the man didn’t know him well enough to know that.

  Oh, they were going to end up in bed together again, but not without Neil admitting he wanted it.

  “I never said you would.” The blush of guilt across the techno-geek’s cheekbones indicated otherwise, though.

  “Seriously?” Damn it, this man, of all men, knew Wyatt better than that. “Sugar, when have we ever done anything that we both didn’t want?”

  “I didn’t want you to date a woman and end up engaged to her.” The anger in Neil’s voice couldn’t compete with the pain in his eyes.

  Wyatt had spent the last year regretting that mistake, but it was time they both moved on from it. Not just for his sake, but Neil’s, too. In all this time, the man hadn’t gotten over Wyatt, and Wyatt was never going to get over Neil.

  He’d been a dumb shit, but that didn’t change one inconvertible truth: they belonged together. Forever.

  Wyatt gave Neil the best honesty he could. “Me, either.”

  Neil could have said something cutting to that. Wyatt would deserve it.

  But instead his squid just sighed and shook his head. “What happened?”

  “I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I had dreams.” Dreams of running the family ranch with his brothers, living the “family” life in East Texas just like his daddy and his daddy’s daddy before him had done.

  “I don’t mean that. We already hashed out the why a year ago.”

  The problem was, they really hadn’t. Oh, they’d tied one on for sure once he’d told Neil about the engagement, but not a lot of intelligent discussion had happened then. And sure as hell not since.

  “What did you mean, then?” Wyatt took a cautious step away from the door and toward Neil.

  “You’re not married.”

  “No.”

  “Are you still engaged?”

  “After leaving the bride at the altar? I don’t think so.”

  “You what?”

  “You telling me your intel didn’t include that tidbit?”

  “I’ve done my best not to keep tabs on you.”

  Hearing that hurt, though it was no less than Wyatt could have expected or deserved. “I couldn’t go through with it.”

  “You left her at the altar?” Neil asked with disbelief. “That was cold.”

  “I tried. Damn, I really did.”

  “What stopped you?” Neil asked, as if Wyatt’s answer didn’t matter at all to him. The intense look in his dark blue eyes said otherwise, though.

  “You. I dreamed about you the night before my wedding.”

  Neil’s expression turned cynical.

  “Not a sex dream, though the good Lord knows I’ve had plenty of those. You were old, sitting on the front porch of my family ranch. Another man was in the rocker next to you, giving you a look that said you were his.”

  “You?”

  “No.” And, waking from the dream, Wyatt had been sweating as if he’d had a nightmare worthy of a Hollywood B movie. “It was someone else, and I could see you were both happy.”

  “On your parents’ front porch?” Neil asked, sounding strange … almost amused, but something else, too.

  “Yeah. It was messed up. That should have been you and me. I wanted to kill the other man.”

  “There is no other man.”

  “But there would have been. If I didn’t get my head out of my ass, I was going to lose you forever. And on the morning of my wedding, on the cusp of having what I always thought I wanted, I realized that was the one thing I could not stand.”

  “You’d already lost me. You threw me away.”

  Wyatt couldn’t deny it, couldn’t change it, but he wasn’t living in that place anymore. “I screwed up. And maybe another man wouldn’t forgive me. Another couple couldn’t make it past that kind of mistake.”

  “But you think we can?” Neil looked at Wyatt as if he’d lost his mind.

  “I know it. What we have … it’s too big for my Texas-roots prejudices, or even my old dreams, to keep it buried.”

  “Those prejudices are all over the place. Too many people think I shouldn’t have a right to love you.”

  “But you do, anyway.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “If I let you in again, you could destroy me.”

  “But I won’t.” Wyatt covered the distance between them, pulling Neil to him. “Trust me, sweetheart, please.”

  Neil shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “You will. I won’t give up.”

  Neil didn’t believe Wyatt. It was in every inch of his tense frame, but he didn’t say it.

  Wyatt was grateful for small mercies.

  “If we share a room, you’re not touching me.” There was no give in Neil’s voice.

  “Okay,” Wyatt agreed. “For now.”

  Neil nodded, clearly smart enough to realize that was the best he was going to get. “Let me go.”

  “One kiss.”

  Neil opened his mouth, and Wyatt just knew he was going to refuse.

  “Please.” Wyatt’s pride had cost him this man once before. He was never going to let that happen again.

  Neil stilled, his body relaxing the tiniest bit toward Wyatt. “Not a sex kiss.”

  They were all sex kisses, because for them sex was love, and their love made for damn good sex, but he knew what the other man was saying. And Wyatt would comply.

  This time.

  Their lips brushed, and electricity arced between them, the c
harge so intense, Wyatt’s eyes burned from the power of the moment. He didn’t press to deepen the kiss, didn’t push their bodies closer together, didn’t take advantage of the arousal saturating the air around them.

  Wyatt kept his mouth closed as he moved his lips against Neil’s, relearning the contours he’d craved for every day of the year they’d been apart.

  He didn’t want to stop the kiss, but if he didn’t, he was going to break his promise to Neil. This kiss was going to go carnal in about one second, and they would be in bed a heartbeat after that.

  But that wasn’t what Neil wanted, or what Wyatt had agreed to. And he wasn’t going to break his word to the other man ever again.

  Using all the self-discipline he’d learned as a Marine and later in the Atrati, Wyatt stepped back.

  Neil’s eyes opened, their indigo depths hazy with an emotion Wyatt was hesitant to name. “You didn’t push the advantage.”

  “I said I wouldn’t.”

  “You used to say I was it for you, but you were dating her on the side.”

  “I never had sex with her. Not once.” Hell, they’d never even come close.

  “Didn’t she think that was odd?”

  “She wanted to wait for marriage.”

  “You hurt her, walking out on the day of your wedding. Like you hurt me.”

  “Yes, I hurt her, but not like I hurt you. She didn’t love me like you do.”

  “But she did love you.”

  “She thought she did, but she didn’t know me, so how could she?”

  “She loved the man you let her see.”

  “Yes.” Wyatt would regret using a good woman and a good friend like that until his dying day, but following through on the marriage only would have added to his sins, not mitigated them. “What I did wasn’t fair to her, but marrying her would have been worse.”

  Understanding and agreement burned in Neil’s gaze. “You didn’t love her.”

  “Oh, I loved her … like a little sister. I wasn’t in love with her.” A major disaster had been avoided on what would have been their wedding night—and all the nights thereafter.

  “Do your parents know?”

  Wyatt stepped back, needing distance if they were going to have this discussion. “Why I called off the wedding?”

  “Yes.”

  “They do.”

  “And?”

  “Daddy said he didn’t raise any of his sons to use a woman like I used Candace.” Wyatt turned away and grabbed his duffel, dropping it onto one of the smaller beds. “He’s disappointed in me.”