by Trish Wylie
‘You forget up until not so long ago those boxes were in storage. Everything I needed I carried on my back.’
‘Everything a Marine needed,’ she clarified. ‘You’re home now, so why not make one? You can’t tell me after the number of times you’ve moved apartments there haven’t been places you liked enough to stay.’
‘There were.’
‘Then why do you …?’ Her voice trailed off as some of the pieces slotted together. ‘You move because of the nightmares, don’t you? The minute someone hears you or you think they’ve heard you …’ She knew instinctively she was right but it didn’t make sense. He’d been moving from place to place for as long as she’d known him. She took a short breath. ‘I’m just gonna jump right in here …’
‘Do you have another speed?’ ‘Did something happen when you were overseas?’
‘It’s not the first time you’ve asked that question.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What makes you so sure something happened?’
‘If it didn’t where do the nightmares come from?’
‘How about we try to forget I have them?’
‘Go back to pretending I don’t know?’ Her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Can you even do that?’
‘Works better if you don’t bring it up.’
‘How long have you had them?’
The desire she felt to give him what he’d been searching for returned with the shadows in his eyes. There was no point denying it. Since the first night she heard him yelling beyond the wall, it had felt as if he were calling out to her. Now, if she could take his pain and give him even one night of peace, she would do it for him. Any secrets he wanted to stay hidden she would keep safe, tucked away with one she already carried for him. But when it came to anything more, she couldn’t see past a sudden crippling fear of falling for him.
Using every trick she had learnt in the past to hide how she really felt, she lifted her chin. ‘What happened to trying to communicate better?’
‘The theory behind that was we wouldn’t argue as much.’ He smirked. ‘In case you hadn’t got it by now, pushing me on this will have the opposite effect.’
‘If having an argument is what it takes to get you to talk to me then we’re about to have one.’
‘We both know you’ve been itching to pick a fight with me since I got here.’
The sensation he was backing off again wasn’t helping. She hated when he did that. Frustration bubbled inside her. ‘How long, Daniel?’
‘And now I’m Daniel again.’ Taking his hands out of his pockets, he pushed off the counter and headed for the chair where he’d tossed his jacket. ‘How about I go back into the hall and we try starting tonight over again?’
Jo followed him. ‘Whether you like it or not we’ve been in these nightmares together since you moved in.’
‘Now you’re using guilt to get me to talk to you?’ His fingers closed around his jacket. ‘Keep this up and we’ll go from communicating better to name, rank and serial number.’
‘Do you have any idea how difficult it is to hear you in that much pain?’ She frowned as the truth left her lips. ‘I spend half the night waiting for it to start and when it does it’s hell.’
When he clammed up in a way that suggested he had never intended to talk about it, Jo wanted to slap him. Knowing she would have equal difficulty discussing certain things didn’t seem to make a difference. She just wanted to help or offer comfort or simply listen while he talked it through. Not to feel so cut off from him when they suddenly had so little time left.
‘Yesterday you wanted one reason why I still help Jack. Now I’m asking you for an answer.’ Taking a breath, Jo vowed it was the last time she would bend unless he bent a little in return. It was uncomfortable, not to mention a little scary, being out on a limb alone. ‘How long?’
She didn’t think she could get into an argument without other things spilling out in the heat of the moment. Things she wasn’t ready to talk about yet, if ever. Avoiding his icy gaze, she pointed across the room. ‘I’ll be over there on the sofa while you decide whether to stay or go.’
It was as much leeway as she could give him. His refusal to talk to her about the nightmares after she’d talked to him about her past felt like a rejection. What was worse, it hurt. She should have kept her mouth shut, had no idea why she had confided in him in the first place, and if the first time she shared things with someone ended with her feeling like a fool …
Suffice to say she wouldn’t be in a hurry to do it again.
Daniel wavered in a manner that would get him killed on the front line of a battlefield. As she sat down, switched on the television and started jumping between channels he ground his teeth together. But what difference did it make how long he had nightmares? Wasn’t as if she could figure out the rest without help, even if she’d worked out why he moved apartments a tad too quick for his liking. Drawing a breath, he decided he could give her the one thing she wanted to know. But it was a case of give a little to get a little. Once he had answered, she was telling him what had been bothering her.
Tossing his jacket back on the chair as she settled on a channel, he walked around the sofa and sat down beside her.
‘Eight years.’ He eased the remote from her hand. ‘And we’re not watching a chick-flick.’
‘We’re not watching something with explosions and a high body count either,’ she retorted.
‘Car chases.’
‘No.’
He continued scrolling through the options at the bottom of the screen. ‘Alien invasion: that one’s good.’
‘Nerd.’
‘Bank robbery it is, then.’
She sighed heavily. ‘You’re going to criticize the police procedure the whole way through this, aren’t you?’
‘Yup.’ Tossing the remote out of her reach, he leaned back and stretched his arms over his head, casually dropping one of them on her shoulders on the way back down.
Her head turned, brows lifted as she looked into his eyes. ‘Seriously?’
‘What?’
‘That move went out with drive-ins.’
‘I heard they were making a comeback.’ Setting his feet on the chest she used as a coffee table, he pulled her closer to his side.
It took another five minutes for her to take her shoes off. Tossing cushions out of the way, she leaned into him and curled her legs beside her body. Finally she took a breath and looked up at him, her voice low and soft. ‘You can’t have gone that long without sleep. You wouldn’t be upright.’
‘Eventually your body says enough’s enough. I’m due an eight-hour coma soon.’ He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘With any luck it’ll get here at night so I don’t wake you up.’
She grimaced. ‘Despite what you think I didn’t say that to make you feel guilty.’
‘I know.’ But since he’d already given her more than he planned, it was his turn. ‘Tell me what’s been bothering you since I got here.’
Turning her head, she dropped it back against his arm, closed her eyes and scrunched up her face. There was a low, strangled sound from the base of her throat before her eyes popped open. Then she turned towards him, tucking her legs underneath her. ‘Can we talk about the whole thoughtful and protective combo you’ve been using on me first?’
‘Okay,’ he replied with suspicion.
‘Could you stop doing it?’
He stifled a smile. ‘Taking the independence thing a tad too far, don’t you think?’
‘See?’ She scowled. ‘You’re doing it again. It’s the tone you use.’
‘I only have the one voice.’
‘No, you don’t. It changes.’ Lifting a hand, she counted them off on her unfurling fingers. ‘There’s your considerate voice, your seductive voice, your “I’m in trouble if I don’t shut up soon” voice—’
He captured her hand. ‘Let’s go back to the problem you have with thoughtful and protective.’
‘I don’t like it.’
Yes, he got that from the number of times she’d resisted it. ‘Protect is what I do,’ he reasoned. ‘Along with the word serve it’s written in big letters along the sides of vehicles with big flashing lights on top. You may have noticed them in the city.’ A corner of his mouth tugged wryly as he admitted, ‘Thoughtful I have to work on from time to time.’
‘No,’ she said with a small pout. ‘You’re pretty good at that one too.’
He took a breath. ‘Let me get this straight. You want me to not care what happens to you and be more inconsiderate.’
Jo opened her mouth, closed it and rolled her eyes. ‘It sounds stupid when you put it like that.’
‘Little bit.’ He nodded.
She jumped from one subject to another. ‘You can’t text me when I’m in work.’
‘If you were busy you wouldn’t have answered.’
‘That’s not the point. Some of those messages were …’ She rocked her head from side to side while seeking a word in the air beside his head.
‘I could point out it takes two people to have text sex.’
‘We weren’t having text sex.’
‘Text foreplay,’ he corrected. ‘Still takes two people.’
She changed subject again. ‘What happened yesterday?’
‘Might need you to narrow that one down …’
‘You backed off,’ she said with a note of accusation.
‘Said I would, didn’t I?’
‘Not to the point where finding food was as urgent as someone lying across the bar with a gunshot wound.’
The second he realized he’d stepped into an ambush Daniel swore viciously inside his head. He’d been right to think she knew there was something wrong. On the way home he’d put her uncharacteristic silence down to exhaustion. But she’d been thinking about it the whole time, hadn’t she?
‘And there’s that look again.’ She aimed a brief glare at him. ‘I swear you’re turning me into a harridan.’
‘A what?’
‘Never mind.’
Without warning she changed position, freeing her fingers so she could brace her hands on his shoulders as she straddled his lap. When she wriggled her hips Daniel clamped his hands on her waist to hold her still before their bodies aligned. It was difficult enough to stay one step ahead of her without the kind of moves he’d pictured them doing naked.
‘Talk to me,’ she demanded.
‘You know I can move you off me if I want to end this conversation.’ He set his feet on the floor in preparation.
‘Still sitting here, aren’t you?’ She arched a brow. ‘Did you feel bad about trying to play me?’
What the—? Daniel frowned. ‘When did I do that?’
‘All those thoughtful things you claim you have to work at—they’re part of your campaign to get me into bed.’
‘Considering my many skills in the art of seduction, I’m a little insulted by that.’ He shook his head. ‘Guy can’t make the effort to be nice to you, can he?’
‘Being nice isn’t supposed to take effort.’
‘That’s the thing with resistance. It makes everything more difficult.’
‘So stop resisting and tell me what happened yesterday.’
Daniel sought a safe route through the minefield they were entering and—since it seemed pointless trying—dumped pretence in favour of a little dose of honesty. ‘Think you’ll find it any easier to talk to me about why you still have doubts than I’m finding this?’
‘No,’ she admitted in a thicker voice. ‘But while we’re on the subject, why don’t you have doubts?’
‘When it comes to sleeping with you, I thought I’d made it clear where I stand.’ One of his hands slipped from her waist to her hip. ‘I can run through it again if you like …’
Her eyes darkened. ‘Not necessary.’
‘Well, then …’ Sliding his hand further down her leg, he edged his fingertips beneath the hem of her skirt. Gaze fixed on her face, he watched her reaction as he touched the soft skin on the outside of her thigh.
Full lips parted as she sucked in a low breath. Her long lashes lowered as she focused on his mouth. Distracting them from the topic of conversation wouldn’t take much, but while Daniel knew he could get lost in her, he sensed a small corner of her mind wouldn’t be there. Selfishly he wanted it to be; for her to share with him the moments when everything became sharper, clearer, there was one common goal and nothing else mattered. No yesterday, no tomorrow, no half an hour ago or two hours from then. He wanted her to see the side of him few people did outside his working environment—before the mistakes were made or the self-recrimination could set in.
‘Do you think about when this is over?’ she asked in a smaller voice as if she stepped inside his thoughts. ‘About the mess we could leave behind?’
‘Yes,’ he said roughly.
‘Me too,’ she whispered before distracting him with a swipe of her tongue across her lips. ‘Best-case scenario, we end up in a better place than we were before. Worst case—’
‘We end up saying things to each other we can never take back,’ he finished.
‘Yes.’
When Daniel looked into her eyes again he found enough vulnerability to punch a hole in his chest. She didn’t just have doubts, she was genuinely terrified … of him? What had he done to frighten fearless Jo? When the thought entered his mind, he dismissed it as swiftly as it arrived. A woman didn’t kiss as she did, move as she did or look at a man the way she did when she wanted him if she didn’t have an intimate knowledge of sex. So what else could it be?
He thought out loud. ‘Maybe the problem we have right now is trust …’
Her gaze lowered to the hands that had moved from his shoulders to his chest. ‘You’re saying you don’t trust me.’
‘No, babe, that’s not what I’m saying.’ He took a long breath and chose his words carefully. ‘I can’t promise you this won’t be a mess when it’s over …’
‘I know.’ She smiled the same tremulous smile that had sent up a warning flare for him in the first place.
‘Do you know I would never willingly do anything to hurt you?’ It floored him how much he needed her to know that. But even as he said the words he knew he had to amend them. ‘If anything I said or did in the past—’
‘Don’t.’ She pressed a forefinger to his mouth for a second. ‘I get it. You think I don’t trust you.’
‘Why would you? I haven’t done anything to earn it.’
She thought it over for a second. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you. I’m just—’
‘Wary,’ he supplied, feeling the something he still didn’t recognize expand inside his chest when her eyes warmed at the understanding.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not sure you should trust me, Jo,’ he heard his voice say. ‘When I’m around you, I don’t trust me.’
‘Why not?’ She used the hand on his jaw to turn his head when he broke eye contact. ‘No, I need to look into your eyes when you tell me so I can see if they’re there.’
‘See if what’s there?’
‘The blue goes cloudy. You have shadows.’ Her fingertips whispered over his jaw. ‘They’re how I know there’s something you’re not telling me.’
Daniel felt as if something heavy were pressing down on his chest, each breath requiring considerably more effort.
As if she could sense it, Jo angled her head and looked deeper into his eyes, her hand turning so the backs of lightly bent fingers could skim the side of his neck. ‘Tell me why you don’t trust yourself around me.’
‘I carry a lot of baggage. I’m not willing to offload it on you.’ He frowned, both at the confession and the roughness of his voice. So much for the techniques the Marines taught in the event of capture and interrogation. She might as well hand him a pen and paper so he could save them both time by mapping out the weaknesses in his lines of defence.
‘You think you’re the only one with baggage?’
‘No.’
Hand turning, she ran her fingertips under the curved neckline of his sweater, her gaze lowering to watch what she was doing. ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ she whispered as her gaze tangled with his again.
Daniel nodded, mesmerized by her eyes and hypnotized by her touch.
‘I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone.’ When she smiled, it was steeped in sensuality. ‘I fantasize about you, what we’ll be like together and how it will feel. Right now, when we’re like this, I doubt my doubts.’
If she was saying what he thought she was saying …
Leaning in, she pressed her lips to the throbbing pulse on his neck. A jolt of heat seared through his body, settling hot and heavy in his groin. Moving his hands to the curve of her spine, he slid her forward on his lap, aligning their bodies the way nature intended. She took a shuddering breath when she discovered what she was doing to him, moved her hips in a way that made him stifle a groan. He wanted her with a desperation he’d never experienced before. It suddenly felt as if she were a lifeline and if he didn’t grab hold of it and hold on tight—
When she whispered in his ear, her warm breath caressed his skin. ‘What scares me is how I feel when I can hear you on the other side of the wall and I can’t get to you. The times when you’re so far away from me it feels like I can’t reach out and touch you …’
Daniel had experienced similar scenarios, so he knew how it felt from her point of view. But he had never been on the other side.
She took another shuddering breath. ‘I need to know that you’re with me and we’re in this together …’
For the first time in his life he knew what it felt like to be trapped and helpless. The kind of faith it took to hand over control. He didn’t consider himself a hero when he went to work. He was just a guy doing his job, failing more often than he would prefer. The real heroes were people who trusted completely and laid their lives in another person’s hands.
‘I’m right here, Danny. Let go …’