And Will forgot to breathe.
Like this, Cooper kneeling between his legs, the heat of her body close and her scent as thick as the steam that had rolled out of the room, he didn’t feel so damaged, so broken, so inadequate.
And Cooper didn’t look so whole and strong. Face to face, tucked neatly into the space between his legs, the heat of her body pushing away an encroaching chill, she looked so damn small.
All an illusion, of course. She might be on her knees before him, staring up at him, her eyes wide and her mouth parted, but she held the knife. Pressed it to his face, worked across his skin in short, smooth strokes.
“It’s temporary, you know,” she said, wiping the blade clean on the towel he still had wrapped around his waist.
“What is?”
“The weakness. The tremors. The exhaustion.” She brought the blade back to his face, angled his chin with her knuckles, and continued to work a line along his cheek. “They all fade. Faster than you think they will. And your strength will return.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he did.
“Already you’re bouncing back. Five days ago you were barely on your feet. Three days ago you were suffering beneath a fever so high it was inducing seizures. Now here you are, freshly showered and—”
“And unable to do something as simple as shave myself.”
“Lucky me.” She wiped off the blade again with a smile. “Though I bet you’d do just fine after a hot meal and a little more sleep.”
When he glanced away, she brought their faces close, her breath warm against his mouth. “Do you really think so little of me, Will?”
“What?” He pulled back, so he could stare into her eyes.
“How tall am I?” She trailed a finger across a smooth line of skin as if checking her work.
“I don’t know. Five-six? Five-seven?” he guessed.
She grinned. “Flatterer. I’m five-five and as my grandfather used to say, I have the shape and tenacity of a weed. Thin,” she explained, “and stubborn when I plant my feet.” She gently grasped his chin and tilted his head to the left. “Now, ask me what that was like in boot camp.” She moved the razor along his skin. “Ask me what that was like when I was the one selected for sniper school.” She paused, curving the blade up his neck and beneath his jaw. “Ask me what that was like, Will, when I got recruited by the CIA.”
He didn’t have to. Could all too easily imagine the condescension, the slurs, the abuse. Cooper wasn’t the sort of woman to back down from a fight, and she wore confidence like a favored outfit. To most men, it would have looked like a Texas-sized chip on her shoulder.
How many had tried to knock it off?
How many times had they succeeded?
How many times had she gotten up again anyway?
“No one wanted to work with me,” she admitted, her voice firm and flat, which was how he knew it still bothered her. “One of the best shots in the country, and I very nearly didn’t make the cut for sniper school.”
“I find that hard to believe.” He’d had her at his back more than once, now. Seen what happened when precision and destruction intertwined. When Cooper’s rifle was at her shoulder, a man would be damn stupid to give two fucks about what was between her legs.
“Men looked at me and saw a petite blonde who didn’t fit their image of what a sniper ought to be. Small. Feminine. Weak.” She cleaned her blade again, then inspected the line she’d made beneath his jaw and hmmed her approval. “Spotters have the hard job, you know?” She switched tracks as she tilted his head and began working on the other side of his face, but he had a pretty good idea of where she was going. “It’s technical and tedious and more often than not, the difference between a wasted round and a positive outcome. Spotters do the work—”
“And snipers get the glory,” he finished for her.
A smile touched her mouth, though her blade never stopped moving. “Everyone wants to pull the trigger, be the hero. Hard enough to realize that’s not how it’s going to go.” She cleaned up an area by the corner of his mouth, then closed and set aside the razor. “Most didn’t want to work with me. A few even outright sabotaged me.” She stood, turned on the cold water, and tossed a hand towel into the sink. “I had to pass all the major qualifiers on my own—until Cole, anyway.”
“I met him once, passing through an airport. He was coming. I was going. Nice guy.”
“He told me.” Fondness, like a warm drop of sunshine peeking through a sky full of clouds, entered her tone . . . and was gone just as quickly.
“Your strength is going to come back. Your muscles will return. Your stamina will improve. But I’m not ever going to get any taller. Or any bigger. I do my best to stay in shape, but let’s be honest—I’m small.”
She shut off the water and wrung out the towel.
“Without my rifle, I’m ordinary.”
Bull. Shit.
“And without a gun, I’m vulnerable. Does that make me weak?” she asked, pressing the cool fabric to his face and wiping away what remained of the shaving cream.
“You’re a field asset, Cooper, one of the best I’ve ever seen. I think we both know the answer to that.”
She nodded. “I am. And I had to work damn hard to get there. Had to find my limitations, push them, exceed them, and when that didn’t work, I had to find a way to live with them. Use them.” Cold air slapped his skin when she pulled the towel away from his face. “But if it came down to a fight—” She shook her head, as if arguing with herself about what she was about to say. “Nine times out of ten, in a straight fight, both of us at our best, you’d win, Will. Simply because you’re bigger. Stronger.” She smiled down at him. “I’d make you hurt for it, but you’d win.” She slid to her knees again, rubbed her thumb along his jaw. “But you’re not at your best right now.”
She tilted his chin down so he met her gaze. “Nine for ten . . . you’d still win. You’re big and you’re smart and you’re exceptionally well trained.” She swallowed hard, as if the admission itself had tried to choke her. “Even now, even like this, you still win. Does that make me weak?”
“No,” he croaked and forced himself to remain still and silent beneath her touch when her fingers slipped up along his jaw and into his hair. She tucked the still-damp strands behind an ear that was only half there.
“Are you sure? I can’t change it. I’ll never get bigger or stronger or more capable than I am now.”
He pressed a palm to her cheek, soaked in the heat of her skin, and nodded.
“This doesn’t make you weak.” She touched the ragged curl of cartilage that remained. “Neither do these.” She trailed fingers over scars, so many scars. Some long-healed and decades old. Others still new and pink and puckering. “This,” she said, running the flat of her palm along his chest to rest over his heart, “is the only strength that matters. Proof you survived. Proof you won,” she whispered the benediction against his ear, brushed her knuckles along his beard, and pulled away. “Don’t confuse weakness with vulnerability, or helplessness with trust.”
For a moment, it sounded as if she were reminding herself, as much as him, that those things weren’t the same.
Why she’d felt the urge, he didn’t know. Had only started to wonder and question why she was here, what she was running from.
When she touched him like this, with words as much as hands, it didn’t matter. He suspected she needed him, and that was enough.
He closed his eyes and caught her wrist, pressed a kiss to the pulse he found there. It was the only thank you he could muster, though God knew she deserved so much more.
“I just needed the reminder.”
“And a good shave,” she said with a grin.
“You plan to let me return the favor?”
“Are you accusing me of having a beard?” She laughed and went to stand.
He pulled her back down, boxed her in with his legs, and smiled.
“I’m prepared to make do.” He
brushed a thumb against the skin along her throat, reveled in the shiver it elicited. In the way her chin tipped up just enough to let him draw out the drag of his skin against hers.
Her eyes darkened, and she made a little hmm in the back of her throat. “Promises, promises,” she whispered beneath her breath, throwing him back in time to late night calls and whispered thoughts. For a moment, everything grew close and quiet and dark.
Charged.
In a whoosh, the past rushed forward, invading and saturating the moment with every promise, every denial, and every single night they’d spent apart. Will had wondered if the time would ever be right, and later, if he’d ever get the chance.
And all of it had led him here.
He didn’t know what day it was.
Didn’t know what country he was in.
But none of that mattered.
Because Cooper was willingly on her knees before him.
Only an idiot would waste that opportunity.
“I missed you, Coop.” He slid his fingers through her hair, a mid-toned brown that didn’t suit her, but given the time would definitely grow out to something lighter, something longer. Something he could wrap around his fists, or thread between his fingers. “I’d never met you, not really, but I missed you all the same.”
“Will, I—” She swallowed hard. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“I don’t care.” He clenched his fingers in her hair, gripped the back of her skull, and pulled her mouth to his. He swallowed down whatever she’d been about to say. He didn’t care about any other word than “no” or “stop.” Didn’t give two shits about yesterday, or tomorrow. Just the here and the now and a moment that had eluded him for far too long.
He’d wondered what this kiss would taste like. If it would come as a first negotiation or the very last surrender. Either way he’d expected it to be a hard-fought concession.
But this was none of those things. It was softer, sweeter, slower. An indulgence, neither illicit nor forbidden, but rare as a warm afternoon, with a cool breeze and nothing to do but relax.
She slid both hands along his forearms, her greedy fingers spreading wide as if she needed to touch as much of him as possible, then opened her mouth and invited him in.
He’d missed a lot of things in the last year. Craved everything from fifty-cent wings to a fifty-dollar steak. Had even fantasized, a time or two, about what he’d eat first.
As he stroked his tongue along Cooper’s, he doubted he’d crave anything else but her ever again. He released the tangle of her hair, cupped her cheeks, and pulled her lower lip between his teeth.
A promise for another time, another night.
He pulled away just enough to look at her, to flick his thumb against the flush in her cheeks, to swipe it along the corner of her mouth.
God, she was beautiful like this.
She didn’t move, didn’t sway, and didn’t get up to leave. Just gripped his wrists, circling them with her fingers and holding on with everything she had as he cradled her face. Her eyes fell closed and her chest heaved as if she had to swallow down a sob . . . then she said the last thing he wanted to hear.
“We need to talk.”
Chapter Nine
Half an hour and a solid meal later, and Cooper still had no idea where to start.
Or, she thought darkly, maybe she simply didn’t want to. Avoidance had never really been her play, but she could certainly make a case for it now. She could still feel Will’s hands in her hair. Still taste him on her mouth. Still hear the silent promises he’d made when he’d touched her, held her, kissed her.
She’d only meant to set him at ease. To drown out the voices in the back of his head, the ones that sounded like doubt and insecurity and guilt, with a truth that deep down he knew but didn’t remember.
His body was healing but he’d been hurting all the same . . . and she’d wanted to make it stop.
He wasn’t weak or broken or any of the myriad things he’d been contemplating as he’d stood at that sink and clutched that razor.
She just hadn’t expected that reminding him of that simple truth would so ruthlessly remind her that she was both of those things.
Broken, in that she’d left little pieces of herself in so many different places, so many foreign countries, that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to collect them all again.
Weak, in that she wanted to push everything aside, bury it deep and pretend it didn’t exist so she could take every single thing Will had been offering.
Comfort. Solace. Forgiveness.
Except, that last one had to be earned. And she hadn’t, not yet, maybe not ever.
Not from him, at least. Saving his life didn’t erase the fact that she’d taken others.
It would be his right to hate her.
She could live with that. Would live with that, as she did so many other things.
So long as he didn’t walk out on her.
Will watched her from the sofa, an empty bowl of chicken and rice on the coffee table. “Cooper,” he said gently, his voice packed with patience that would soon dissipate like rain on a hot summer sidewalk, “why am I here?”
Right, okay. He’d given her the opening, told her to rip off the Band-Aid.
“Because I need your help.”
“Anything.” He went to stand, to come toward her, as if he couldn’t fathom that she’d ask anything he wouldn’t or couldn’t give.
He had no idea.
“Three blocks from here, there’s a bank with a safety deposit box in your name.”
He sat, his face shuttering as if a trespasser had tripped a security gate.
So he knew. She’d wondered. Figured it was a fifty-fifty shot that he’d been told about that box. It might have been better if he hadn’t known, if this was all new to him. He’d have been less wary, less reluctant. Curiosity, if nothing else, would have led him through the door. And Cooper could have saved her confession for after.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A lie, and an obvious one. She wondered why he bothered. But then, people had died, and worse, because of the contents of that box. But no more. Not if she could help it.
Not unless they deserved it.
“Yes, you do.”
He didn’t deny it. Just propped his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together. His expression remained neutral, but his shoulders bunched, and his eyes never left hers.
In a blink, she’d gone from friend to enemy.
She didn’t give herself time to mourn the change.
“I need you to access it.”
“How do you even know about it in the first place?” he asked, his voice going hard and stubborn and suspicious.
It was the one question she didn’t want to answer. Knew that any explanation she could give would only enrage him.
“I need the contents to—”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She snapped her mouth shut.
“Fine. Why don’t I start with what I know?” He looked up at her, his jaw set and his eyes fierce, determined.
But memories haunted that face. Guilt. Sorrow. She’d seen their shallow lines and subtle curves often enough to recognize them on someone else.
“Eighteen months ago, I was deployed to Afghanistan. An operation went bad, and my unit was called in for support.” He cracked his knuckles, popping each finger in turn. “In the end, it didn’t matter. Sniper took out six men that day. Could have just as easily been seven.” He sighed, forcefully exhaling the grief and anger and guilt only survivors carried. “I got lucky.”
No. Luck had never played a role in any of it. He simply hadn’t been the target.
“Ever wonder what it’s like on the other side, Coop?” he asked, though it didn’t sound like an accusation, just an honest question he didn’t expect her to have the answer to. “I’ve been in a lot of shitty situations in the field. But that one stands out.” He stared through her, his min
d in the past. “By the time you hear the shot, it’s already too late. Another man’s dead, and you’re just glad it wasn’t you. But then you wonder if the next one has your name on it. If you’ll hear another round. See another man fall.”
He brought himself back to the here and the now, and she wondered just how often he’d been in that position, waiting for the kill shot. Waiting to be next.
“I lived that day. Did my best to put it behind me. Told myself it was for a reason. But other men—some of them friends I’d known for years—didn’t.” His laugh was brittle and broken, with sharp edges and missing pieces. “Chalked it up to a bad day.”
One of the worst, she’d imagine. It had been chaotic and brutal, and, in the end, people had died . . . and others had been left to live with it.
“It happens, you know? The rest of us pick up and move on. I would have—did, if I’m honest—but then five months later Felix Harrigan sends me a fucking letter from beyond the grave.” He wiped his palms against the fabric of his sweats. “Tells me that his team was betrayed. That they’d stumbled across intel—something highly classified and highly illegal—and that if he or any other member of the team died, that I should assume the C-I-Fucking-A had killed them over it.” He shook his head, his laugh still tinged with the incredulity he must have felt upon reading that letter. “He told me to watch my back. I might have dismissed it all out of hand—men die, soldiers more than most. But that day . . . that day stood out to me. Always had. Quiet one minute. Chaos the next. Between the explosions and the gunfire, everything had gone tits up . . . but the sniper—that felt personal. Precise. Patient.” He reached for the glass of water on the coffee table, chugged down half, then sighed. “Kill count could have been higher. Probably should have been higher.”
“But it wasn’t,” she offered.
“No. Which had always felt odd to me. Even so, I might have dismissed that letter as a bad prank or the stress of the job.”
“Except for the box.”
“Except for the box,” he agreed. “It was all so damn surreal. Impossible to believe and impossible to ignore.”
Fearless (Somerton Security Book 3) Page 9