It was still dark, but a hint of light shone through the trees. The stark beauty of his face, the coiled power of his body, his height, the breadth of his shoulders… Though she’d seen it all, felt it all, experienced it all, his magnificence struck her anew.
Something in her chest pinged. Her throat locked. Apprehension, tangled with an unaccountable joy, sifted through her.
Oh dear.
Surely this feeling was not what she thought it was.
They’d known each other two days. Kissed a few times. Made love twice. Why did she feel as though, if he walked out of her life today, she might die?
And why, for heaven’s sake, was she wrapped in fear that he might not feel the same?
She’d gone the length of her life without this man in it.
It had been dreary and dull, but she’d survived.
Perhaps she could ignore the fact that the sight of him, the thought of him, the knowledge of him, changed everything.
Or perhaps not.
Her attention snagged on his rippling muscles as he pulled on his body armor and cinched it up. She should have closed her eyes and pretended she was still asleep, but she couldn’t look away. He noticed after a while that she was awake, and he sent her a tight smile.
A tight smile? Why did that make her mood plunge?
“Good morning.” His voice was a gruff rumble, as though he’d worn it out calling her name the night before.
“G-good morning.” It was an effort, forcing out the words. She sat up and worked her fingers through the tangles of her hair.
“How did you sleep?” He held out a PowerBar. She took it, though her fingers were numb.
“Well.” She ripped open the bar and took a bite. It tasted like cardboard. She hated this wall between them. This cool politeness. Where had it come from? “And you?”
“Fine. But I’m used to this.” He shoved a few more things into his pack. “We should get ready to go. I want to be on the beach when the chopper arrives.”
“Oh.” Right. The chopper. Which would take them away. Was it wrong of her to want to stay? Just a little while longer? “Stone?”
He stilled, and then shot her a cold glance. No, not cold so much as…dispassionate. Hooded. Distant. “Yes?”
“Can we talk about…last night?”
He crossed his arms and looked at her.
Just looked. Waiting for her to speak. But she didn’t know what to say. Silence hummed between them.
At long last, he muttered, “We shouldn’t have.”
Her pulse thrummed. Oh, hell no. She wasn’t letting him off that easy. “But we did.” And then, when he didn’t respond, “Twice.”
There was no need for him to glare at her. She glared right back.
“Lily—”
“Don’t say it.” She knew. She could tell from his tone, his expression, the tension in his stance. It was over. She didn’t want to hear it. She leaped to her feet and began folding the blanket.
“Leave that.”
She frowned at him and continued folding, though she didn’t do a very good job because she could barely see. Fury blinded her.
They’d shared something amazing last night and now he was acting as though it had been a mistake. Apathy would have been better than that blank, impassive stare, that ripple of regret.
“Lily…”
“What?” She whirled on him, dropping the blanket on to the ground, fists on her hips.
“I’m sorry. But we shouldn’t have.”
“Was I that bad?” It hadn’t seemed as though he’d hated it.
“No!” He sprang toward her, and then remembered himself and backed away again. “It was amazing. You were amazing. But…we shouldn’t have done it.”
“Why not?”
He raked his fingers through his hair—what there was of it. If he had hair, maybe his ears wouldn’t poke out so much. A petty thought, but she felt at the moment she deserved at least one. His lips worked as he tried to find the words, the justification, the lame excuse. “For one thing, I’m on a mission…”
“And I’m the mission.”
“Yes!”
“Well, you did your mission.” He didn’t laugh at her joke. Probably because it didn’t sound like a joke, snarled as it was.
His lips tightened. His face went pale beneath his tan. “Goddamn it! It wasn’t like that. You just don’t understand. I don’t do things like that. I never do.”
The PowerBar in her belly churned. It was not pleasant. “Really?” she snapped. “Is that why you carry condoms with you?”
He made a noise. Something between a growl and a grumble. “Those were a prank. Someone put them into my pack. And they weren’t very—Shit, Lily. We need to talk about that too.”
“About what?”
“One of them…broke.”
“Great.” She threw up her hands.
“You’re on birth control, right?” Why his question filled her with rage was a mystery. Or not.
How dare he make that the issue, rather than the real reasons for his retreat? And she knew the truth. The real reasons were either disinterest—that he had only used her to scratch an itch—or fear. Both options pissed her off.
“It hardly matters, whether I’m on birth control or not, does it?”
His throat worked. “It matters very much.”
“It’s none of your business, so it doesn’t matter.”
“If you get pregnant, it is my business.”
“Is it?”
Tension crackled as he stared at her. “All of this is beside the point.” Oh dear. This soft, silky tone was even worse than the bellowing. “It was wrong of me to weaken. To…lead you on.”
“Lead me on?” A cold wind blew through her.
A tangle of befuddlement and regret rippled over his features. “I’m a SEAL, Lily. The life, the mission is all there is for me.”
She flinched as his meaning hit home.
“There can never be anything more between us.”
Ah. There it was.
“Fine.” She turned away and began moving things around. She wasn’t cleaning or packing, she didn’t have the wherewithal for that. Just moving things around so she looked busy and he wouldn’t notice her tears.
“Lily…”
“I get it, Stone. Just drop it.”
“I want you to understand. It isn’t you—”
Her laugh was harsh. Incongruous. “Yes, yes. It isn’t you. It’s me. I know. I know.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He whipped her around with a hard hand to her arm. He stilled when he saw the tears. His flinty façade wavered. “Don’t cry, Lily.”
“I’m not crying.” She yanked away and rubbed at her cheeks.
“Shit, I’m fucking this up. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Lily. It’s just that I made a vow, never to get involved. Never do to a woman what my dad did to my mom.”
“Which was?”
“Leave her. I have a dangerous job. I go places. Do things. Sometimes, men don’t come back.”
“So you’ll never have a meaningful relationship with someone—ever—because sometime, at some point in the future, you might not come back?”
“My mom was devastated.”
“Thousands of soldiers, thousands of military wives deal with that fear every day. Children deal with that fear every day.”
“It’s not the same—”
“It is exactly the same thing.” They glared at each other as silence sizzled. “Tell me one thing, Stone, and be honest. Did you even enjoy it a little?” She didn’t mean for her voice to wobble.
He seemed to soften then. An infinitesimal crack in his battlements. “Ah, hell. Of course I did. It was incredible. It made me want—” He broke off and turned away, storming to the other side of the enclosure and then back again.
“It made you want…what?”
His expression was pained when he looked at her. “More. It made me want more. With you.”
“But you won’
t allow it.”
“I can’t.” He held out his hands in the age-old gesture of helplessness.
Bullshit.
Lily crossed her arms and turned up her nose. “You are a coward.”
His jaw dropped. “What?”
“You heard me. A coward. I’m glad you don’t want anything more to do with me, because as gorgeous as you are, and as funny and smart and, I’ll be honest, good in bed…frankly, I don’t have any use for cowardly men.”
He blinked. “I… What?”
“Now, where is this helicopter going to land? I think we should get moving.”
“But…wait.”
She waggled her fingers at him, a dismissive gesture. “There’s nothing more to talk about. It was fun while it lasted—as you said, probably just reaction to the adrenaline—but it’s over. Wham, bam, thank you, Mr. SEAL. Goodbye.” Oh, it hurt, her heart. It hurt like hell. And this blasé attitude was far from easy. But by God, he would not leave this debacle thinking he’d wounded her.
She couldn’t bear it.
She just couldn’t bear it.
Without looking at him, she picked up her rifle and her pack and started marching for the beach.
“Lily,” he said, and her sure steps faltered. A faint hope flickered. It died when he murmured, in a desolate tone, “The beach is the other way.”
Well, fuck. That had not gone well.
Stone followed in Lily’s wake trying not to cringe as he ran through their conversation in his head. Well, okay, their fight. Because that’s what it had been.
This was probably the real reason he didn’t ever have relationships with women. Because he always screwed everything up.
He should have woken her with a kiss and thanked her for that lovely night and gently explained his vow and his reasons for it, instead of bleating it out like a sheep. No wonder her feelings had been hurt.
The sight of tears on her cheeks had killed him. Never in his life had he felt more inept than when seeing her cry.
But the real horror? The cold wave washing through his gut? When her expression had gone stony and her lips pursed and she said…
What had she said?
“You’re a coward.”
He shuddered.
Yeah. Pretty fucking heinous.
Though he had to admit, it was probably true.
Even that hadn’t hurt as much as what she said next.
“I don’t have any use for cowardly men.”
He comforted himself with the fact she’d said he was gorgeous. And funny. Smart. Good in bed. He’d really liked that one.
But she had no use for him.
He shouldn’t feel devastated. It was what he wanted.
Wasn’t it?
To protect her from a danger no one could predict? To protect her from…the call?
The day the call had come about his father was burned on his brain. He’d never heard a woman wail the way his mother wailed. Never seen a human being crumble. He still woke up at night sometimes in the cold clutch of that memory.
The image of Lily getting such a call, screaming to the heavens and pounding her fist on the countertop was untenable. The thought of Lily losing her bright spirit and slipping into the darkness raked his soul. When grief was too much to bear, sometimes people did desperate things.
Stone had been the one to find his mother three days later. He’d been a boy. Fifteen. He’d never seen so much blood; the bathroom was drenched in it. Thank God he’d come home from school early. Thank God he’d found her in time.
Thank God she’d been able to get the help she needed to deal with her anguish. But she had never been the same. Not really.
He would do anything, give anything, to protect Lily from that.
Because, damn it all to hell, he loved her.
Somehow she’d snuck in under all his defenses. Snuck in like a stealth warrior and buried her talons deep in his heart.
It was going to be hell walking away from her, but at least he had his memories of last night to keep him warm in the cold nights ahead.
It was for the best.
She’d move on. Find some guy she did have use for.
Marry him. Have babies.
Never get the call.
Stone tried not to let that thought burn him alive.
He glanced down at her as they emerged from the trees onto the beach. The sun was just starting to rise and the soft light licked her features and glimmered off her hair.
So beautiful. So precious.
The best thing he could do for her was give her up. And as hard as it would be, it would be worth it.
Because she’d be happy. She’d be safe. And—
The bullet hit him with no warning, slamming into his chest with a bone-breaking smack. He flew back, dimly registering Lily’s cry and the bellow of an approaching pirate.
Fuck! He railed at himself. He should have been paying more attention. His body armor had stopped the round, but pain snarled through his shoulder; his right arm was numb. He tried to grasp his weapon, but couldn’t close on it. Fear for Lily’s safety whipped through him like a cold wind.
He looked over to where Lily had been and saw her backing into the woods.
Good girl, he thought. With any luck, they hadn’t seen her. Or at the very least, he could buy her some time to escape. At any rate, she would need help.
With his left hand he pulled out the canister and flipped the lid, sending a plume of red smoke up into the air—red for distress. The extraction team should be out, watching for it, and they could whip in and save her.
As for him? He was helpless as a babe. He couldn’t even reach his grenades.
Sand sprayed his face as a skinny, bedraggled pirate skidded to a halt over him, pointing an old AK47 in his face and screaming in Somali.
Stone had stared down the barrel of a rifle before, but he’d never been so certain that this was it.
This was the moment. This was the time he’d expected and prepared for since the day he’d joined up.
This was the day he was going to die.
His only regret was that Lily, sweet Lily, would witness it.
Chapter Ten
‡
Horror curled through Lily as a shot rang out and Stone fell. It must have been pure instinct that sent her scrambling for the bushes, because her brain had simply stopped working.
She found herself hunkered low with her rifle held up, and no memory of moving at all.
The pirate, a man she recognized from the boat but hadn’t seen since, ran down the beach toward Stone’s prone form. Revulsion rose in her throat as he lifted his rifle and snarled something in a language she didn’t understand. She could tell from his stance, from the angle of the weapon, he intended to shoot Stone in the head.
Oh no. Hell no.
The thought of losing him—like this—was beyond contemplation.
Though she’d never held a rifle before, though she’d never sighted one or pulled a trigger, she sucked in a breath and aimed. This weapon had misfired before. She hoped to God it wouldn’t do so again.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she pulled the trigger.
The retort was deafening, or maybe that was the sound of her pulse pounding in her ears. The impact knocked her back as the butt slammed into her shoulder.
She scrabbled back up and peered out at the beach, every nerve humming.
A plume of red smoke obscured the scene—but then the wind shifted and it cleared. The pirate was on the sand, next to Stone. But the shot had been so deafening, Lily didn’t know if she and the pirate had shot at the same time…and Stone was so still. Dreadfully still. She dropped her pack and the rifle and sprinted onto the beach.
Her heart clenched as she collapsed at Stone’s side. His eyes were closed. He wasn’t moving. With all his gear, it was impossible to check for a chest rise.
Terror settled like a cold cloud on her soul. “Stone!” She bellowed, shaking his shoulder. To her relief, his lashes fluttered, and then o
pened.
“Lily,” he croaked. His lips tweaked.
“Oh, you’d better be okay,” she muttered. “If you were hurt, I’d kill you.”
For some reason, this made him laugh. He glanced over at the pirate. “You shot him?” He groaned as he sat up.
“I think so.” She hadn’t looked. Kind of didn’t want to know. She’d never shot a person before. “I closed my eyes.”
He snorted. “You closed your eyes?”
“Mmm hmm.”
He leaned over and checked the pirate’s face. “Oh, yeah. You got him.” But when she moved to check for herself, he held her back. “You…don’t want to see.”
Probably not.
“Do you think he was he alone?” she asked scanning the beach. She saw nothing. Nothing but the gently shushing waves, the palms waving in the breeze and the shimmer of a deserted beach reaching into the distance.
“Probably a lone scout,” Stone said. “I don’t see anyone else.” Still, he reached for his rifle and held it at the ready.
Reaction set in and Lily shivered. Her pulse still thrummed in her temple and her skin was clammy. The gush of relief that he wasn’t hurt made her dizzy. “Oh, Stone, I was so scared. Normally I would never shoot someone—”
“Normally?” He chuckled.
“But he was going to hurt you.”
“Yes. He was. Thank you very much for saving me.”
“Well,” she said with a huff, a sudden heat crawling up her cheeks. “You saved me. More than once.”
The wind changed and the cloud of smoke blew back over them. Lily waved her hand in front of her face and coughed. “What is that?”
“A marker. So the chopper can find us.”
And even as he said it, she heard a distant, rhythmic thrum.
Was it wrong to be so swamped with regret? That this was over? That soon, they could no longer be together? That she would probably never see him again?
She didn’t think. Didn’t bother to consider her actions. She took his face in her hands and kissed him. He sifted his fingers through her hair and held her there as he returned the kiss.
“I understand,” she said as she lifted her head. “I understand why you feel so strongly about keeping yourself detached.”
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