He clenched his jaw, his grip tightening on the beer bottle until she thought it might shatter, slicing his hand.
She waited tensely, breath suspended in her lungs. She was surprised at just how badly she wanted him to confide in her, bare his soul.
They were quiet for several moments before he finally spoke, his voice low and remote. “The commander of my SEAL platoon was a guy named Dustin Shaughnessy. He came from a long line of naval officers dating back to his great-grandfather, who’d served in World War One and earned the Medal of Honor. Shaughnessy’s grandfather and father were also decorated war heroes. If ever there was such a thing as navy royalty, Shaughnessy was it. He graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, reported for duty as an ensign and was promoted to lieutenant within a year. But he never acted entitled, never lorded his family pedigree over anyone. He was a good teammate and a damn good SEAL. A frogman’s frogman.”
“Sounds like you had a lot of respect for him,” Zandra observed quietly.
“I did. We all did. Out in the field, rank rarely ever matters. Officers and platoon leaders never have a problem taking advice from their men. We’re a team, working together to achieve the same goal. I was second in charge to Shaughnessy. I was an LTJG—lieutenant junior grade. But even though he outranked me, Shaughnessy never tried to pull rank.” Remy paused, his expression hardening. “Until that night in Fallujah.”
He stared into the distance for several moments, lost in memories that were beyond Zandra’s reach.
She waited.
He took a deep swig of his beer, as if he needed to shore up the courage to proceed with his narrative.
“Three years ago my platoon was tasked to conduct a body snatch, which is an operation to kidnap high-value enemy personnel. Our target was a Muslim cleric I’ll call Jaffar. He had ties to a terrorist cell that was plotting to attack several U.S. embassies and navy warships. But Jaffar wanted no parts of the plan. He’d had some sort of spiritual reawakening, and he wanted to defect from the group. But by doing so, he would have signed his own death warrant and endangered his family. So my team was sent to Fallujah to extract him. We weren’t supposed to kill him. He was wanted alive. Like I said, he was a high-value target, and we needed the intel he could provide about the terror plot.”
As Remy paused to down the rest of his beer, Zandra could sense his growing tension. She braced herself for what he would reveal next.
He set the empty bottle on the floor, leaned back against the chair and started bouncing one leg up and down, an agitated gesture he probably wasn’t even aware of doing. “That night we were inserted by helicopter into Jaffar’s residential compound. We’d executed these kinds of operations so many times before, we could do them in our sleep. But not that night. After we dropped in from the roof of Jaffar’s house, all hell broke loose.”
Zandra stared at Remy’s grim face, every muscle stretched taut. “What happened?”
His eyes hardened. “Shaughnessy went way off course. After we secured the target, we should have gotten the hell out. But Shaughnessy insisted on rounding up Jaffar’s family members and putting them in one room. Jaffar had a pregnant wife, five children and an elderly mother. None of them were armed. By this time some of my other teammates were engaged in a gunfight with Jaffar’s guards outside.”
Remy shook his head. “Everything happened so damn fast. One moment I was in another room guarding Jaffar. He was rambling in Arabic, talking about Allah and the gift of redemption and second chances. He was scared, but not because I was holding a machine gun to his head. He was worried for his family, and I assured him that they wouldn’t be harmed. No sooner had the words left my mouth than I heard gunshots down the hall. I put a man on Jaffar and ran to the room—” Remy broke off, rubbing his face with trembling hands.
Zandra waited, her heart pounding with dread.
He swallowed tightly. “Shaughnessy had shot and killed Jaffar’s family members. All of them, including the youngest child. A four-year-old.”
“Oh, my God,” Zandra breathed in shock.
Remy’s nostrils flared, his eyes burning with raw emotion. “I lost it. I stormed over to Shaughnessy and cracked him on the jaw with the butt of my gun. When I asked him what the fuck had happened, he said that Jaffar’s family had been whispering to one another, plotting to kill him. He said the oldest son rushed him with a knife, and he was just defending himself.” Remy snorted bitterly. “The kid was fourteen years old. Fourteen. I’d seen Shaughnessy dismantle a three-hundred-pound, AK-47–toting tango without breaking a fucking sweat, and here he wanted me to believe he’d felt threatened by a skinny teenager wielding a butter knife. I was furious. We started yelling at each other, and then I heard a scream from the doorway. An anguished, bloodcurdling scream I will never forget for as long as I live.
“Jaffar had overpowered the man guarding him and run down the hall. When he saw his family members sprawled across the floor...his pregnant wife...his children...all the blood... Jesus,” Remy whispered hoarsely, closing his eyes with a hard shudder.
Zandra was horror-stricken. She couldn’t speak as nausea clawed at her throat.
After several moments, Remy inhaled a shaky breath and opened his eyes. “When Jaffar saw what Shaughnessy had done to his family, he tried to kill him. But as he pointed the gun at Shaughnessy, I couldn’t let him do it. So I shot him without thinking twice. When he fell to the floor, I went over to check his pulse. Before he died, he looked into my eyes and he...he condemned all of our souls to hell. I was the only one who spoke Arabic, so no one else understood what he’d said. But I did, and it’s haunted me ever since.”
“Oh, my God, Remy.” Zandra touched his thigh, feeling his muscles tighten beneath her hand. “I’m so sorry. What an unspeakable tragedy.”
His jaw hardened, grief and regret stamped into his features. “It was.”
Zandra rubbed his knee, trying to soothe him. “What happened after that night?”
He grimaced darkly. “The operation was a colossal clusterfuck. We’d not only lost our high-value target, we’d lost one of our own. Heads had to roll.” His lips twisted bitterly. “I was a convenient sacrificial lamb.”
Zandra was stunned and outraged at the injustice of it. “So that’s why you were discharged.”
He nodded tightly. “Shaughnessy wanted to cover his hide, so he accused me of misconduct and insubordination. Our commanding officer intervened to ensure that I received an honorable discharge.”
Zandra was livid. “And what about Shaughnessy? He slaughtered eight innocent people that night, including an unborn child. Why wasn’t an investigation launched? Why weren’t charges brought against him?”
“The Pentagon didn’t want the public to know,” Remy admitted grimly.
Zandra snorted. “How fucking typical.”
Remy pushed out a heavy breath. “You have to understand something. There are some classified missions that aren’t disclosed to the public for years. And then there are covert operations that will never see the light of day. The Fallujah op fell into the latter category.”
“So what happened to Shaughnessy? He’s the one who went rogue and botched the mission. He’s the reason you were forced to kill Jaffar. Did he at least get discharged?”
“No,” Remy answered in a low, embittered voice. “As I explained before, Shaughnessy hailed from a long line of decorated naval officers. No one wanted to tarnish that legacy.”
Zandra frowned, growing angrier by the second. “But he was obviously a loose cannon.”
“That’s true. He was. But he hadn’t always been.” A dark shadow fell over Remy’s face. “Four months before the Fallujah operation, he’d lost his best friend in Afghanistan. It devastated him. That night at Jaffar’s house, he looked into the faces of Jaffar’s family members, and all he could see were the insurgents who’d killed his childhood friend. It was too much for him, and he snapped.”
“Dear God,” Zandra murmured, shaking her head at the se
nselessness of the carnage. One tragedy begat another tragedy, and innocent lives were destroyed. When did it ever end?
“Shaughnessy wasn’t discharged,” Remy continued, “but he was reassigned out of the platoon to a desk job.” He paused, his eyes darkening. “Four days ago, he shot and killed himself.”
Zandra gasped, staring at Remy. “Oh, my God. Why?”
He pressed his lips into a grim line. “Knowing the type of man he was, my guess is he couldn’t go on living with the guilt of what he’d done that night.”
Zandra felt moisture pricking her eyes. This story couldn’t get any more tragic.
Remy shook his head slowly at her, his eyes haunted. “I’ve killed more men than you will ever know. I’ve killed with guns, with bombs, with improvised weapons. I’ve killed with my bare hands, and I’ve watched men take their last breath as I shoved my knife through their heart. Fighting to win is what I was trained to do, and I did it well. But no life I’ve taken has ever affected me the way taking Jaffar’s life did. Watching him fall next to the body of his pregnant wife...surrounded by their dead chil—” His voice hitched, and he dropped his head.
Zandra’s heart constricted painfully. She pushed to her knees, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him, absorbing his pain and anguish as if it were her own.
When he lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes were bright with unshed tears, and so full of sorrow her heart broke.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered fiercely.
His nostrils flared with suppressed emotion.
“Do you hear me?” Zandra urgently cupped his face between her hands. “It wasn’t your fault, Remy.”
He stared at her another moment, then made a muffled sound deep in his throat and threw his arms around her. Tears flooded her eyes. He clung tightly to her, and she clung right back. Nothing could have separated her from him at that moment.
He’d finally opened up to her, giving her the missing piece to the puzzle he’d become over the past three years. She was devastated for him. Devastated for the innocent people who’d paid the ultimate price that harrowing night. She was grateful that Remy had finally entrusted her with the painful secret that had been slowly ravaging his soul. Right then and there she vowed she’d do whatever it took to help him find peace and healing.
She didn’t know how much time passed while they clutched each other. It didn’t matter.
When Remy eventually drew away and exhaled a shuddering breath, she kissed his forehead and whispered, “Let’s go to bed.”
He nodded silently.
He helped her to her feet, then Zandra took him by the hand and gently led him back to the bedroom.
As they climbed into bed, she pulled him into the cradle of her arms. Her heart swelled to aching as he curled his big body into hers and tucked his head beneath her chin. She held him close, rubbing her cheek back and forth against his soft, low-cut hair.
They didn’t speak. Words would have interfered.
But when his breathing had grown deep and even, she brushed her lips across his forehead and tenderly confessed, “I love you, Remington.”
And tomorrow, when he was awake, she would tell him again.
Chapter Nineteen
“Did you know that vibrators were once used by doctors to induce orgasms in female patients suffering from hysteria?”
The audience for Zandra’s impromptu lecture on antique vibrators included Remy and an elderly couple wearing matching T-shirts emblazoned with the American flag, brand-new white sneakers and bulging fanny packs. The couple looked as out of place in a museum of sex as two nuns at a biker convention.
Remy, on the other hand, looked like a badass who’d feel right at home at a rowdy gathering of Hells Angels. He wore a black T-shirt that showed off his tattooed biceps, black jeans and black combat boots. His eyes glinted with wicked fascination as he watched Zandra deliver her spiel while handling the antique vibrator.
“That’s right,” she continued as the elderly couple exchanged shocked glances. “In Victorian times, it was believed that the way to cure any disease was to induce a crisis during the course of the illness. So if you had a fever, sweating would break the fever and you’d feel better. Well, the crisis that supposedly cured female hysteria was hysterical paroxysm—known today as an orgasm.” She held up an unwieldy metal device. “Before the vibrator was invented, doctors had to use their fingers to manually massage their patients to orgasm.”
The old man chortled. “Not a bad gig.”
His wife shot him a lethal glare.
Smothering a grin, Zandra held out the vibrator to her. “Would you like to touch it, ma’am?”
She shrank back from Zandra, looking scandalized. “Absolutely not.”
Her husband gently patted her arm, his blue eyes twinkling with laughter as he thanked Zandra for the “informative lecture.”
As he and his wife shuffled off, Zandra didn’t have to wonder whose idea it had been to visit a museum of sex that day. When the old man glanced over his shoulder and winked at her, she chuckled.
As she returned the antique vibrator to the glass display case, Remy sidled close and murmured in her ear, “You’ve been a very bad girl.”
Zandra gave him a cheeky grin. “What do you mean?”
“Come on,” Remy gently guffawed. “Are you gonna pretend you didn’t notice the way that old dude was checking you out during your presentation? Wearing this tight little blouse and short black skirt. Hell, he probably didn’t realize his old dick could still get that hard.”
Zandra choked out a laugh. “Will you stop that?” she whispered, glancing around at the crowd of people browsing about with audio-guide phones pressed to their ears and studious expressions on their faces.
Remy grinned. “I’m just speaking the truth. His wife should send you a thank-you card, because if that smile on his face was any indication, they won’t be needing any Viagra tonight.”
“Stop it,” Zandra laughingly scolded, ushering him toward the next exhibit.
“How did you remember all that stuff anyway?” Remy marveled, briefly stepping out of character. “It’s been almost thirteen years since you worked here.”
“I know, but I’ve always been good at memorization. Spend a year lecturing tourists about antique vibrators and ancient sex practices, and after a while the facts just roll off the tongue.” She winked lewdly. “Pun intended.”
Remy laughed.
After enjoying a day of sightseeing capped by an early dinner, they’d headed to the Institute of Sex, where Zandra had a memorable evening of role-playing planned for them.
The museum’s nondescript three-story building in London’s East End was off the beaten path, but its obscure location had never hurt business. If anything, it seemed to heighten the museum’s risqué appeal, adding to the allure of the forbidden. Back when Zandra had worked there as a tour guide, herds of tourists had arrived daily to view sexually explicit photographs, illustrations, books, stag films and an eclectic collection of artifacts that included vintage condom tins, tokens from burlesque peep shows and prototype sex machines.
Before leaving Chicago, Zandra had contacted the museum’s owner, who still remembered her fondly and had been pleased to hear from her. After Zandra explained what she wanted—sweetening the unusual request with a generous donation to the museum’s coffers—the woman had graciously granted Zandra and Remy free roam of the building tonight. She’d even provided Zandra with an updated tour guide uniform to wear as part of her role-playing.
Remy was thoroughly enjoying himself—and they hadn’t even gotten to the grand finale yet.
Returning to character as an irresistibly sexy stranger she’d just met, he followed her into a cool, dimly lit room that featured pornographic woodblock prints and brothel guides from eighteenth-century Japan. This, too, was one of the museum’s permanent exhibits that Zandra was already familiar with.
“So,” he drawled, “what’s a nice girl like
you doing in a place like this?”
She gave him a coy smile over her shoulder. “How do you know I’m a nice girl?”
“You mentioned earlier that you’re from a small town.” He raised an amused brow. “Aren’t all girls from small towns nice?”
“Only the ones who stay behind,” Zandra quipped.
He gave a low, husky laugh that made her nipples harden.
“As for the other part of your question,” she continued challengingly, “what do you mean by ‘a place like this’?”
Remy grinned, glancing around at the explicit paraphernalia on display throughout the exhibit hall. “I think that’s self-explanatory.”
“Oh, I see. You’re one of those people who thinks this is nothing more than some raunchy sex museum, like you’d find in some red-light district. But you’re wrong. This isn’t a sex museum. It’s a museum of sex. There’s a difference.”
“Really?” His dark eyes glittered with genuine amusement. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“Well, for starters, this is one of only a handful of museums in the world that takes an academic approach to sex. Our exhibits aren’t designed to titillate, but to educate.”
“Educate,” Remy repeated thoughtfully as he wandered farther into the hall. She fell in step beside him as they walked the length of the wall, studying a series of handpainted scenes that depicted men with monstrously exaggerated penises in various sexual positions with women.
“The society was really obsessed with genitalia,” Zandra explained.
“Aren’t we all?” Remy mused, giving her a sidelong look that naturally made her think of his obsession-worthy genitals.
Ignoring the hungry throbbing of her pussy, she continued her educational spiel. “These prints are called shunga, which means ‘spring pictures’ in Japanese. Each shunga was mass produced to be used as masturbatory aids.”
“You don’t say.” Remy had stopped to face her. “So they were basically like porn in those days.”
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