Chapter 6
John didn’t know what time it was when he finally pulled off the dirt road and hid the Land Rover behind a thick clump of bushes and vines. Melina disappeared into the darkness to relieve herself with strict orders not to go far. Meanwhile, he pulled armfuls of the vines across the top of the Land Rover, further disguising its presence. When he was satisfied that even a thorough look at this spot wouldn’t reveal the vehicle, he moved their gear up to the front passenger seat, folded down the rear seats, and made a makeshift bed for them out of a couple blankets and her soft-sided suitcase full of clothes for a pillow.
He’d slept in worse. A personal favorite was the op he’d led in a Turkish sewer-running with raw sewage. It had taken him a month to get rid of the stink and longer to get the taste of that mission out of his mouth. But they’d gotten the kill, and one less psychopath was loose upon the world. And not one of his guys had complained about the conditions. It was the only approach to the target, so they’d sucked it up and gotten the job done. Good men. Dead men…
“Whatchya lookin’ at?”
He jumped violently at Melina’s cheerful voice behind him.
“Easy, Cowboy,” she murmured. “It’s just me.”
Afraid she’d do that disconcerting thing again where she looked into his soul and stripped him bare, he mumbled, “Which half of the bed do you want?”
“As in left/right or top/bottom?”
His gaze snapped to her in surprise. He commented cautiously, “Most women find a good car chase and getting shot at too scary to be turned on by it.”
She shrugged. “Life’s short. Why waste a little privacy and a hot guy?”
He didn’t know whether to laugh at her forwardness or be depressed that he was only some convenient stud for her. Faintly alarmed that he actually gave a damn what she thought of him, he settled for arching an eyebrow. “Hot, huh?”
She flashed a coquettish dimple. “Want me to show you how hot?”
The laugh won out and he chuckled. “Naughty
She tossed her head, sending her honey hair bouncing around her shoulders. “That’s what they all say.”
The undertone of dishonesty in her voice caught his attention. Not a lot of men in her life, huh? A surge of possessive pleasure startled him. He might not be able to keep her for the long term, but for the moment, she was his. And because that seemed like enough for her, he wasn’t going to feel too guilty about taking advantage of her.
He took a step forward and laid his hands on her slender waist. His fingers didn’t quite span it, but he didn’t fail by much. “You don’t have much to do with men, do you?”
She blinked up at him in surprise. “Why do you say that?”
He gazed down at her, the thick blanket of night wrapping around them, hiding them from the rest of the world. “You’re not jaded enough. Which probably means you haven’t made the rounds of the dating scene a whole lot.” But then he cocked his head, studying her further. “Or maybe it’s that you’re so jaded you’ve checked out on romance completely. Us guys do a number on beautiful women like you. Mess with your heads. By the time you’ve been dating for a few years, you start to get cynical. You swear off men for the most part. Which camp do you fall into?”
Momentary surprise flickered across her face.
“What in the world makes you think that?” she asked, far too casually.
So, she’d declared herself lost long ago, had she? “You looked into my eyes last night. And you let me look into yours. That’s a dangerous thing.”
“Dangerous?”
He shrugged. “It takes guts to let someone look into your soul.”
“You looked into my soul?” she asked, in what sounded suspiciously like dismay. “What did you see?”
“Honestly?”
She nodded up at him, her eyes dark and shuttered. Was she aware that her fingers were twisted in the front of his shirt, clutching almost violently at the cotton fabric? He reached up to save his shirt from a premature shredding, gently disentangling her fingers. “You can turn my shirt loose now.”
“You’re stalling,” she accused. “What did you see?”
He sighed. “Probably the same thing you saw in my eyes.”
“Which was?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
She went still all over, absorbing that with a pained intensity that surprised even him-and he’d been expecting her not to like his observation. She spun away, staring out into the night, which was to say, she was looking at nothing. It was damned dark out here, and there wasn’t anything to see in this gloom anyway but a bunch of rocks and scrawny trees.
He opened the Land Rover’s rear hatch and said, “Climb in. We both could use some rest.”
“You’re not going to insist on one of us standing guard while the other one sleeps?” she asked in surprise.
“I’m a light sleeper.” Usually. Too bad he hadn’t been sleeping light the night of the ambush. Maybe a few more of his men would still be alive today if he’d heard the Taliban patrol sneak up on their position. Hell, maybe they’d all be alive. Sure, there’d been other guys standing guard. But he was the commander. Ultimately responsible for all their lives. And he’d been asleep on the job. Hell, unconscious on the job.
He blinked away the nightmare swimming before his eyes yet again, and instead of seeing his men’s bloody corpses, he was suddenly staring at a denim-cupped, juicy tush that would make any grown man sweat. He silently cursed himself as Melina crawled into the back of the Land Rover. He didn’t deserve even one second’s pleasure in this life while his men lay six feet under.
She took the passenger’s side of the back, and he took the driver’s side. They tossed and turned until they finally settled into positions of rough comfort. He propped his head and shoulders on her suitcase, and she curled up against his side, tucked under his outstretched arm, her head resting on his shoulder, her knee nestled far too comfortably against his groin. His bent knees flopped against the tire housing and the ribs of the truck bed only mildly dug into his back.
Damn, he could really use a pile of sleeping pills right about now.
And as soon as the thought entered his mind, there was no dislodging it. He couldn’t think about anything but the sweet relief of chemically induced nothingness coursing through his veins, wiping away everything in its path.
Except a freaking doctor was lying on top of his arm, effectively trapping him in more than one way. Who’d have guessed the hot chick in a short skirt who’d sashayed into Pirate Pete’s was an M.D.? He swore under his breath at his rotten luck.
“John?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you scared?”
Hell yes, he was scared! Scared he couldn’t make it through the night without his pills, scared he’d get another nightmare and wake up screaming or worse, crying like a baby. The shrinks said the nightmares would go away with time, but it had been months, and they were as vivid as ever, dammit. He really didn’t need to embarrass himself in front of Melina.
Lying his ass off, he answered, “Nah, nothing scares me. Why? Are you?”
A small nod against his shoulder.
“Why?” He asked as gently as he could, infusing that simple question with as little interest as he could muster. Didn’t want to scare her off completely of talking to him. And after his nearly violent outburst with her earlier, he’d
