and was all the more beautiful because of it—even covered in bruises.
Love him? Yes. And that had been a tough admission to make. Adore him? Absolutely. Want to heal him? More than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.
But did she
A very astute question.
Jenna was right. She needed to figure this out. Could she step back, divorce who he was from how he looked and what he did, and like him?
How could she answer that? She’d known him all of seven days. Seven intense, wild, dangerous days that were hardly a traditional getting-to-know-you experience.
And she’d loved another man once. A gorgeous, driven and, she’d recently discovered, broken man. A man she’d never known well enough to like, but had married anyway.
Look how that had played out.
Then there was the other side to that question: Did
God, what was she, thirteen? This was so junior high school.
But she’d sensed a change in him. Now that the danger and adrenaline rush was behind them, maybe he was having second thoughts. Maybe he was running back-out scenarios in his mind. They’d been back in D.C. two days and he’d spent most of that time with the guys—time he’d needed to spend. Time she was glad he had with them, and she’d been busy, too. But at night, when they were finally alone, they still didn’t talk. They made love. Hot, intense, needy love, like each time was the last time.
Was that what he’d meant on that gravel road, just before they’d driven into the UWD compound? When it was over, they’d be finished?
“You okay over there?” Jenna asked.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling to minimize the concern in Jenna’s eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
39
Mike reached around Eva and flashed the key card over the lock on their hotel room door. She’d been quiet on the ride back from Gabe and Jenna’s. She was still quiet. And it scared the ever-loving crap out of him.
He shoved open the door and let her walk in ahead of him.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
That’s all she said as she walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Not,
“Sure. Go ahead,” he said to the empty room. “I’ll just be out here beating my head against the wall, wondering if ‘I’m going to take a shower’ is some kind of code for ‘It’s been fun and it’s been real, but now it’s time to move on.’ ”
Then he tried to convince himself that the click of the lock on that bathroom door wasn’t symbolic.
Rousing himself from his stupor, he walked across the room and tossed the room key on the bedside table, along with the keys to the rented SUV. Then he toed off the sandals she’d bought him, stripped off the rain-forest shirt, and flopped down on his back on the bed.
And stared at the ceiling. Feeling gutless and panicked and scared.
Yeah. Scared. He’d never been so fucking scared.
There were times in a man’s life when he had to admit he was in over his head. Afghanistan had been one of those times. When he’d laid in that trench with Cooper and Taggart, with the heat from his burning Black Hawk turning the night into an inferno and his buddies lying dead all around him, he’d known that life as he’d known it was over. But he’d survived.
He’d survived a military tribunal that had twisted lies around the truth and destroyed his career before his very eyes. He’d survived assholes like Lawson and Brewster who wanted him dead.
But that kind of fear he knew how to handle.
That kind of fear he knew he could survive.
But this… whatever he was facing with Eva… he didn’t have a clue. Not one freaking clue how to come out of it in one solid piece.
Not if he lost her. Hell, he’d just found her.
Now she was pulling away.
He couldn’t let that happen. But his old standby bag of tricks wasn’t going to help him. He couldn’t laugh. Couldn’t crack jokes. Couldn’t swear or shoot his way out of this one. He simply had to face the fire.
He needed a cigarette.
He needed a drink.
Hell—he needed a game plan.
Lucky for him, one popped into his head.
He bolted up off the bed before he could think about the wisdom or lack of it, stomped over to the locked bathroom door, gave it a hard glare, then hauled back and kicked it off its hinges.
Eva screamed and peered around the white shower curtain.
Eyes wide, she blinked at him, then at the door, then back to him as clouds of steam billowed out from the curtain. “Why did you do that?”
He jammed his hands on his hips, jutted his chin. “Because I wanted in.”
She swiped a fall of heavy, wet hair away from her face. “You couldn’t have asked?”
“And where’s the fun in that?”
Her mouth dropped open. “What is
He swallowed hard. Looked at the ceiling. Looked at the floor. Finally, looked at her. “You. You’re what’s wrong with me.” He lifted a hand. Dropped it, feeling helpless and stupid and scared. So scared his next words were barely a whisper. “You’re shutting me out,
His heart beat so hard he could hear it swooshing in his ears. He hadn’t even realized he’d clenched his hands into fists until his knuckles started aching.
She became very quiet. Hung her head. Then, her shoulders started shaking.
Oh, God. He’d fucking made her cry.
But then she looked at him, and she wasn’t crying. She was laughing.
Scared and sorry instantly transitioned to pissed. “You think that’s
“No.” She held out a hand to him. “I think it’s hysterical. I think
If he lived to be one hundred, he would never understand this woman. He took a halting step toward her. “If there was a joke, I missed it.”
“No joke. Just two very stupid people, thinking very stupid things.”
“For the record,” he said, feeling hope growing, “what stupid things was
“That I was leaving you?”
She nailed that in one. And the look in her eyes, oh, God, the sweet, loving look in her eyes did things to his heart he wasn’t sure he could survive. Probably wouldn’t survive if relief hadn’t revived him. “And what stupid things were you thinking,
“That you were leaving me. No more questions. Come here.” She shoved the shower curtain aside, reached
