better soft-shoe around her for a while. He’d seen the stark terror in her eyes when she looked at him, and it hadn’t been pretty. He cursed himself yet again for putting that look in her eyes. He hurt everyone who got near him, dammit. He had no intention of killing her, too.
“I like being alive,” she murmured.
The words shot through like an electric shock. His men had liked being alive, too. Yet he’d gotten them all killed.
As misery washed over him, drowning him in its icy depths, she added in a whisper that he thought maybe he hadn’t been supposed to hear, “I don’t want to die.”
“Must be nice.” He jolted to realize he’d made that comment aloud.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind,” he replied hastily. He had no intention of explaining that being alive held no great appeal to him, personally. He might have promised Brady Hathaway that he wouldn’t kill himself until Mel was safely delivered to her final destination. But after that, he was checking out with all due haste. And that was that.
Melina could have all that perky, zest-for-living crap. But it did beg the question of why she’d made the comment. Why was she thinking about death? And why was she expressing her fear of it in terms that led him to believe she expected to die-and soon?
She snuggled in a little closer, her left hand roaming across his belly to lodge somewhere in the vicinity of his lower right rib cage. He’d get her to talk eventually. Her naturally honest and outgoing nature would betray her. She would either come to trust him enough, or he’d simply take advantage of a gregarious moment to get the truth out of her.
She was a hell of a woman. If he’d been planning to stay alive, he’d have to give serious consideration to giving up his career for her. He’d never been married-he was the kind of guy who didn’t do anything halfway, and he’d never figured out how to have as demanding and capricious a career as the Special Forces and still manage to do a marriage justice. But nobody stayed in his business forever. The ones lucky enough to live eventually got out of the service and settled down to something approximating normalcy…assuming they could tame their demons enough to sleep at night.
He’d decided long ago that the woman didn’t exist for whom he’d actually consider getting out of the business. But he hadn’t met Melina Montez when he’d made that decision. She was something special, no doubt about it.
Her fingernails scraped lightly across his side, and he sucked in his breath, startled into momentary ticklishness.
“The big bad commando is ticklish?” she laughed.
“Commandos are human, too, you know,” he retorted. “We have families and live normal lives and coach Little League and mow the lawn.” Not that he’d ever gone for that, but several of his guys had-very successfully and happily. Until he’d gone and gotten them killed.
He shoved away recollection of those agonizing marches up front sidewalks to tell Judy Gill and Samantha Criswell and Marley Ledbetter that their husbands were coming home-but in flag-draped caskets. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done to hand that folded flag to Bobby Criswell, who’d been all of nine years old and trying so damned hard not to cry at his daddy’s funeral.
He swore violently under his breath. He needed something. Now. He didn’t care if it was carisoprodol or a bottle of vodka or a sledgehammer between the eyes…something, anything to take away the pain!
He shifted restlessly. Abruptly, the back of the Land Rover felt suffocatingly small, its sides closing in on him inch by inch.
“Are you okay?” Melina murmured.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just longer than the backseat of a Land Rover.”
“Do you want to shift more diagonally so you can stretch your legs out?”
“No, I’m fine. I’m sorry to disturb you. Go to sleep.” He managed not to snap at her…he thought.
She pulled back from him like she was offended. What was wrong with her? A cool hand touched his forehead and he jumped, startled.
“You’re sweating,” she announced.
“Thanks for that update, Doc.”
She sat up at that. “Give me your wrist. I want to take your pulse.”
“I thought you said you don’t practice medicine.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it.”
“Lie down. I’ll be okay. It was just a rough day.”
“No, it wasn’t. Not for you. It was a hell of a day for me, but you were as cool as a cucumber the whole time. You didn’t show the slightest sign of stress until about two minutes ago.”
“Delayed reaction,” he ground out.
“Not buying it,” she announced blithely. “Gimme your wrist.”
She was one of those women you just knew would get more stubborn the more you dug in your heels with her. Rather than argue all damned night about her taking his pulse, he handed over his wrist and pressed his lips together in irritation. “I suppose you have a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope in your bag, too.”
“Be quiet,” she ordered.
He rolled his eyes while she counted his pulse for the next week-and-a-half. Finally, she let his wrist go.
“I don’t need a blood pressure cuff or a stethoscope. I’ve had my ear on your chest for the past five minutes, and I heard your heart beating harder and faster the longer I lay there.”
“Mmm. I like the sound of that. Too bad it’s a lie.”
He stared up at her in the dark. He was an accomplished liar. He was professionally trained to be good at it! And she’d seen through him like he was a freshly washed window.
He didn’t know what to say next. All the usual putoffs he gave doctors-she’d brushed past them like they were pesky gnats. He had no more gambits left. There was always the truth, of course. But if he’d managed for eight months not to spill his guts to shrinks who extracted confessions from special operators for a living, there was no way he was telling this woman after knowing her for two days. She already was looking at him weirdly and he needed her to follow his instructions without hesitation if things got dicey for them again. He didn’t need her thinking he was a complete nutcase and questioning everything he told her to do.
He could make it through the night. Just one night without the sleeping pills. No big deal. He had superhuman self-discipline. Could tolerate vast amounts of fatigue. Had pain tolerances that most people couldn’t even imagine, let alone achieve. He could lie here and grit his teeth for six hours if he had to, no matter how jumpy and desperate he felt.
Thankfully, she lay back down beside him.
“Could you relax your shoulder muscles a little, John? They’re as hard as steel right now and frankly don’t make a very comfortable headrest.”
“Take the duffel bag. It’s full of clothes.”
“No, that’s okay. I like your shoulder. Just less tense.”
He did his best to relax. He really did. He went through all the usual exercises, releasing his muscles one by one, working his way down from his forehead to his toes. But by the time he got to his knees each time, the back of his shoulders were knotted up as badly as ever.
Melina finally sat up again. “Roll over on your stomach.”
“Huh?”
“Roll over. I’m giving you a back rub.”
“I don’t need one. Really.”
She merely knelt, glaring down at him in expectant silence. Damn, that woman was pushy!
He huffed and levered himself over onto his belly, his legs bent at the knees and his heels sticking up in the air. Not exactly dignified, but he forgot all about it when Mel swung her left thigh over his upper legs, straddling him between her soft inner thighs.
Her hands were heaven. She wasn’t afraid to use some force to really knead into the muscles. The pleasure bordered on pain, and couldn’t have been more perfect.
