In Love and War

by Lovelace, Merline; McKenna, Lindsay; Irvin, Candace

  As she had when he’d tried to hold her earlier, she flinched. Suddenly, he was sick of it. Of them. The past, the present. This entire mission. She wasn’t supposed to be part of his present anymore. And he sure as hell wasn’t supposed to be hanging around on the fringes of this woman’s life fantasizing about a future. He’d gotten out of the Army to get away from Dani and her overbearing father. Yet here he was, right back where it had all started a decade before, trapped.

  Well, he’d had enough. “You ready to turn in?”

  She jerked her gaze to his. Blinked. “Uh…sure.”

  “Good.” He grabbed the strap to his duffel, hefting the bag from the bed and dumping it on the floor with more force than he’d intended. The duffel skidded to a stop beside the dresser. He ignored the startled brow that arched in his direction and headed across the room, the hollow thumps of his combat boots counting off the paces to his pending incarceration.

  He slapped the light switch and darkness flooded the room. His night vision adjusted to the shadows and sliver of moonlight bleeding in from the single bare window as he returned to the bed to remove his boots and socks. He dumped them atop his duffel and withdrew his 9 mm from the holster at his hip, chambering a round before extending it butt first toward Dani who until that moment, once again appeared to be doing her damnedest to look anywhere but at him.

  “Tuck this under the pillow.”

  There wasn’t much left to do while she complied but loosen his holster and belt and start in on the buttons beneath. He took a deep breath as Dani stood to yank the quilt to the foot of the bed, then he tugged his trousers down as well, skivvies and all. He dumped the fatigues on top of his boots before he could change his mind and stepped up to the mattress.

  “Wh-what are you doing?”

  He glanced across the bed. Despite the shadows, there was enough moonlight for him to make out the shock in her face. That, he’d anticipated. But not the suspicion. And, dammit, it burned. Especially when she’d made it crystal clear through every one of those emasculating cringes that she meant what she said when they’d parted a year ago. She felt nothing for him. He snagged the sheet from her hand and snapped it to the foot of the bed. “What’s it look like? I’m getting into bed. So are you.”

  “Not like that you’re not.”

  “Dani—”

  “Don’t ‘Dani’ me, buster. You’re naked.”

  “Nice of you to notice.” The words snapped out before he could stop them. They caused her suspicion to sharpen.

  Her frown followed. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”

  “Really?” He turned away to grab the ashtray from the dresser. Ashes from the still-smoldering cigarette puffed up as he slapped the tin on the nightstand. “And here I thought you needed a hit of adrenaline to notice what I was wearing…or wasn’t.” For the first time that night he wasn’t offended when she stiffened; he was pleased. Unfortunately Dani had crossed her arms in her pique. Moonlight glinted off the fabric of his shirt as it strained to contain her pair of extremely generous breasts. A split second later, something else stiffened.

  Great. He needed an erection right now like he needed a second terrorist sleeper cell answering to Rurik’s own band of thugs. Jack forced himself to ignore his body’s reaction, praying Dani would have the tact to follow suit. Then again, this was General Ramrod-and-Ruthless Stanton’s daughter.

  “If you think I’m crawling in bed with you like that—”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. It’s a reflex reaction, nothing more.” That was no lie. “Any woman could have caused it.” But that was. It was also a low blow. One Dani didn’t deserve. Not given the day she’d had. She was perilously close to breaking. He could see it in her eyes. In the tears that were held just barely at bay. He sighed. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. Look I’m not crazy about bunking down with you either, let alone in the buff. We don’t have a choice. That door may be locked, but all it takes is a skeleton key. I wouldn’t put it past Rurik or Youssef not to waltz in here during the night to check up on us. Would you?”

  Silence. But he knew he’d made his point and made it well, because the tension began to ebb from her body. She finally dropped her arms. “You’re right, I wouldn’t put it past either of them. Given the conversation around here today, both of those bastards think rape is a spectator sport. Rurik probably only left when he did because he needs you.” She sighed. “I was out of line, too. I suppose I should be grateful. The Army could have sent in a stranger. At least we’ve slept together before.”

  The moment that last statement left her mouth, she regretted it. He could tell from the way she flushed—dark enough for the tide to show despite the shadows. He knew what she was thinking, because he was thinking it too. They might have shared a bed for four hours but, technically, they hadn’t actually slept. They’d been too busy doing something else. Lots of something else. In lots of ways. And every blessed one of them had been incredibly good.

  He purged the flood of memories before his body could react to those as well, then clipped the lighter and pack of Marlboros from the nightstand. He crushed the first cigarette into the ashtray and took his time lighting the next, praying she’d use the delay wisely. It would have worked—if the raucous notes of the latest folk song hadn’t died out then, leaving just enough dead air for him to make out the swish of fabric followed by two soft plops as his shirt and shorts hit the floor. He cursed the sultry ballad that filled the room as the bed dipped.

  Dammit, get it over with.

  He dumped the smoldering cigarette into the ashtray and braced himself. By the time he turned, Dani was hugging the opposite edge of that painfully narrow bed, her back to him, quilt pulled firmly to her neck. He snagged the corners of the covers and crawled in, cursing every inch of his oversized, hulking body as he struggled to maintain the microscopic buffer of air between them. Air that was growing hotter by the second. He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. Everywhere.

  Eventually, he felt her relief ease out as his body managed to behave. An eternity later, he felt her yawn as exhaustion scored its first and probably only victory of the night. In this room, anyway. From the moment he’d accepted Rurik’s invitation, he’d known he’d be facing a long, sleepless night. But when Dani finally succumbed to sleep—and her warm, silky length gradually eased closer until it was searing completely into his—he also knew it had just gotten a hell of a lot longer.

  Chapter 4

  The bedcovers were missing.

  Even with the sleep-induced mist fogging her brain, Dani was sure. She could feel a cool breeze drifting across her body. Jack must have opened the window when he’d gotten up to turn off the radio. Except for their breathing, the room was quiet. The mist cleared from her brain, only to leave a more disturbing discovery behind. She’d rolled during the night. Even though she’d yet to open her eyes, she was certain. She could feel one of Jack’s hands cradling her breasts. That wouldn’t have been so humiliating…if her fingers weren’t knitted together and tucked snuggly between the man’s thighs. His muscular, upper thighs. In fact, her hands were all but fused to Jack’s—

  Maybe he was still asleep. It was possible. They were here, weren’t they? Trapped together on a case she’d never have volunteered for if she’d known the man lying two inches away, completely nude, would be on the same continent as her. She held fast to the belief that fate owed her one and opened her eyes. Unfortunately, fate had decided to leer back. Again.

  Not only had Jack’s lashes parted, revealing dark, knowing pools, but the rest of his body was rapidly waking to the predawn light. Within seconds, the flesh brushing her fingers grew hot and hard. Very hard. Her nipples stiffened in response, pressing directly into his palm. And that made Jack’s flesh harden even more. His gaze merged with hers as the air between them smoldered. Ignited. Memories seared in. Another room, another bed. Hopes, dreams. The heady promise of what could have been. Someone’s breath caught, then rushed out.

&
nbsp; Whose, she couldn’t be sure.

  In the end it didn’t matter, because the half rasp, half groan that followed jolted both of them from the trance. The length of Jack’s erection singed her fingers as she jerked her hands from his thighs. A split second later, he pulled his hand from her breast, turned and jackknifed off the bed, snagging his fatigue trousers as he shifted away to don them. She grabbed the reprieve, swinging her legs off the bed and reaching down to snatch his T-shirt and shorts from the floor. By the time Jack had finished buttoning his trousers and turned to retrieve the pack of cigarettes from the nightstand, she’d donned both.

  He tapped out a cigarette and exchanged the pack for the lighter she’d never have imagined he’d actually have the nerve to use. But he had. Based on the number of scratches marring the silver casing, more than once. Either that or he’d taken to carrying the lighter with him years before. Both options unnerved her more than she cared to admit. So much so, she took perverse satisfaction in the distaste he didn’t bother hiding as he purged the initial drag from his lungs. She hoped he choked on the filthy smoke. God knows she had.

  Jack braced his right hand above the open window as he turned away, no doubt to keep that stifling smoke swirling inside the room instead of out. Despite the broad back obscuring her view, she knew he wasn’t studying the shadowy hills or even the darkened dairy barn off to the right. He was studying the lighter. The engraving. Thanks for the lesson.

  Like her father, he probably still assumed those words and that lighter were meant to get back at him for the stunt he’d pulled the day after they’d met years ago. They were. But they’d also meant more. To her, anyway. Of course she’d had to mature a bit before she’d understood her own unconscious dig.

  When she’d first met Jack Gage, she’d been a kid. Sixteen years old, newly expelled from Miss Porter’s Prison for Proper Ladies and downright desperate for her father’s attention—good or bad. Getting caught with a pack of Lynette Cove’s cigarettes and condoms on the eve of one of West Point’s stuffy spring banquets—specifically, one her father had to attend—had finally earned her the latter. It had also earned her Jack, West Point formal, dress gray uniform and all. Though Cadet Gage had tried to hide it at the time, Jack had been as dismayed as she when his mentor had asked him to play junior jailer for the night. To their surprise, they’d actually hit it off. Or so she’d thought.

  Her polite, but too-proper escort had loosened considerably after he’d discovered that she, too, studied jujitsu. By the time Jack had taken her into his arms on that dance floor, her first serious crush was already budding. The next day, it was in full bloom. A late-afternoon movie with a handsome, though still very serious twenty-one-year-old Jack would have turned any girl’s head—much less the intimate dinner for two at a quiet, out-of-the-way sidewalk café in nearby Highland Falls. So when Jack had excused himself and slipped inside the café for a moment, she hadn’t suspected a thing. Not even when he’d pulled out a pack of Marlboros over coffee. She’d been so full of herself, not to mention too terrified to let him know she wasn’t the fallen—or rather, mature—girl her father had accused her of, she’d accepted the cigarette Jack had casually lit for her and inhaled.

  She’d nearly lost her dinner on his boots. Even after she was breathing again, she hadn’t suspected a thing. Jack was that good, that concerned, that contrite. And she’d been that dumb. It wasn’t until he brought her home and she’d snuck downstairs to listen in at her father’s study that she’d discovered the truth. The betrayal. The debrief. Jack wasn’t interested in her. He’d simply been tasked with a mission. Colonel Stanton wanted to know if his daughter smoked, so Cadet Gage had set out to uncover the truth. Mission accomplished. In return, Cadet Gage had earned the gratitude of one of Delta’s most respected senior officers. She, however, had received nothing but yet another wave of her father’s cold, distant fury…and a broken heart.

  Dani waited as Jack tapped the line of ashes from the dwindling cigarette out the window. With no one around but her, he didn’t bother with a second drag. Nor did he face her. He simply braced his hand above the frame once again, though this time he actually stared out the window. Silently. Tired of waiting, and definitely tired of avoiding that muscular back and the memories it stoked, Dani turned to the bed. Big mistake.

  She’d rather face the man’s sleek back than their rumpled sheets. Though white instead of blue, the covers spilling over the foot reminded her of another bed. Another silent, predawn morning. Of her burning need. Not so much for sex. That had been well-sated by then. No, by then she’d been consumed by a searing need to ask Jack if those steamy hours they’d just spent together had been about more than blistering sex. Did he care about her? For her? Did they have a future outside the bedroom?

  Before she could scrape up her nerve, the alarm had gone off. Jack had suggested they meet after work for the conversation they’d skipped hours before, along with a fresh pizza to replace the cold one still sitting in his oven. She’d agreed, hoping she’d get the answer to her question. She’d gotten it, too, sooner than she’d expected. It just wasn’t the one she’d been praying for. But it was one she should have expected.

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

  Well, she wasn’t going for thrice. Dani stepped up to the dresser and switched on the radio. The bawdy sevdalinka that filled the room was easier on her nerves than Jack’s slow, studied breathing. In deference to the thin walls and open window, she nudged the volume down and turned to shake out the quilt before smoothing it over the mattress. She retrieved Jack’s Beretta next and fluffed the pillow. The bed made, there was nothing left to do but clear the round Jack had chambered the night before. He finally deigned to turn around as she thumbed the 9 mm’s safety and released the magazine onto the bed.

  “I want you to carry the extra pack of cigarettes.”

  She jerked back on the slide, tracking the ejected round’s trajectory from the top of the barrel down to the quilt. “We’ve been through this. Unless my fashion ensemble changes, that pack will stick out like a transvestite in a wet T-shirt contest.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well, I do. Frankly, I’ve got enough—”

  “Dammit, woman, look at me.”

  She slapped the slide home. “Why? Because you’ve decided it’s time for eye contact, oh Great Delta Master?” His answering growl skirted beneath the fractious folk song. Barely.

  She didn’t care. Nor did she comply. The three hundred bucks the man had shelled out had obviously gone to his head. Either that or he was still pissed because she’d managed to cut through his lies and beat him to the punch—chalking up the night they’d shared to pure emotionless sex before he could. Adrenaline hadn’t driven her into bed with him a year ago. It had driven him. Whether he’d admitted it or not. Jack might have been twenty-one the first time she’d overheard his Benedict Arnold routine, but he’d been thirty-one the second. She might’ve been able to chalk up the first betrayal to youthful indiscretion, but not the second. There was no way he could have cared about her and then blithely said what he had to her father.

  She plucked the bullet from the quilt, ignoring his sigh as she snapped the round into the top of the magazine.

  “Dani…will you please look at me?”

  She slammed the magazine home as she finally complied. “Why? So you can order me to do something that could very well get me killed? Rurik may like them young, but Youssef doesn’t much care. He may not have raped me yesterday, but neither did he keep his hands to himself. Those filthy paws were all over me and I don’t just mean my neck. His friends aren’t any better. Do you understand what I’m saying or must I spell it out for you?”

  From the way Jack’s jaw locked as his gaze shifted past her shoulder, he’d caught the image vividly enough. Or maybe not. She had the distinct impression there was more to that frozen stare than the sight of Youssef’s hands on her body, copping a feel. He continued to stare at the wall
as his fingers closed over the smoldering cigarette. They didn’t stop until he’d crushed it, glowing ember and all. He didn’t even flinch.

  “Jack?”

  He wrenched his gaze back to hers. “No. You don’t have to spell it out.”

  “Good. Then maybe you can see why—”

  “You need to carry the transmitter.” He pitched the pulverized cigarette to the floor and closed the distance, his gaze burning more fiercely than the flame on that stupid lighter as he locked his fingers to her shoulders. “You have to listen to me. Rurik and I are supposed to finalize our deal today. I may have to leave the farm with him. Not only will I probably not know when, I may not even know where I’m going, much less how long I’ll be gone. In other words, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to watch your back. If you don’t carry that transmitter, Hamid won’t be able to watch it either, however distantly.”

  “And what happens when Youssef corners me by the well and shoves his hands up my shirt and finds cigarettes tucked in my shorts? You think he’s going to wait until Sgt. Jackson returns before he opens the pack and steals a ‘sample’ from there, too?”

  Jack closed his eyes.

  Dammit, he had to stop doing that. Jack didn’t care for her any more than he cared for Lina and the rest of those girls. She was just another component to his increasingly complicated mission. She wished he’d stop making her feel like she was more. He jerked his hand from her shoulder and shoved it into his pocket. The unopened pack of Marlboros surfaced with it. He grabbed the Beretta and shoved the barrel into the waist of his fatigues, then pushed the cigarettes into her palm.

  “You can’t order me to carry this and you know it.”

  He plowed his fingers into her tangled hair, forcing her head and her gaze up until she was drowning in those dark, unnerving pools. “I’m not ordering you. I’m begging.”