Search & Destroy

by Julie Rowe

  His ribs were outlined in mottled bruises of varying shades of dark colors. Those were the older bruises. On top of those were a couple of new ones—the brighter red of fresh bleeding under the skin.

  She ran her hands over the evidence of his most recent fight, easily feeling lumps of collected blood that had pooled under the skin where the damage was the worst.

  Dozer sucked in a breath at her gentle probing. “Sorry,” he said when she jerked back reflexively. “Ticklish.”

  Liar.

  She put her hand over one of the worst bruises on his side. Just rested her palm and fingers on his skin without pressure or prodding.

  The muscles of his jaw clenched.

  “I call bullshit.” She slid around until she could look into his eyes. “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?” he asked, his tone that of a mystified man.

  “Stop trying to manage me. Stop putting yourself at risk to protect me.” Her voice rose until she was all but shouting. “Stop lying to me.”

  It was a repeating pattern of behavior. He’d assess a situation, decide on a course of action, and ensure everyone involved did what he wanted by saying whatever he thought they needed to hear. If the truth didn’t fit into his plans, he misrepresented, skirted, or hid it.

  “Manage you?” he asked, incredulous. “You’re the one in charge and giving the orders, not me. As for my protection methods, yeah, they need some work, hence the situation we’re in right now, but there’s no way I can stop doing it. It’s not in me to stand by and watch you get hurt.”

  So, he thought the ends justified the means? “And the lying? Got an answer, argument, or apology for that?”

  “I have to admit I’m stumped,” he said, his gaze wary. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What lie?”

  “Just now.” Was his concussion still impairing his ability to think, or was he truly oblivious to his own behavior? “My touch hurt you.”

  “What point is there in complaining about it?” he demanded. “You weren’t going to let it go until you checked out my ribs for yourself. What am I supposed to do? Whine and snivel every time someone bumps into me?”

  “How about a genuine, honest response? Pain is an indicator of the level of damage, a warning sign. How on Earth can I, or anyone else, know what you’re capable of physically if you aren’t honest in your responses and answers?”

  “Honesty? You want honesty? Okay, deal. From here on out, we’ll be one hundred percent honest with each other. Let’s start with the charade we’ve been maintaining. The one where we’d never met each other before I was assigned to be your Homeland liaison eight months ago.”

  He went there. He actually went there.

  “That isn’t a lie. It’s keeping our past personal…connection…separate from our current professional one.”

  He took a step forward into her personal space, their bodies almost touching. “I call bullshit.”

  “We’re both adults, and it isn’t relevant to our lives today. Talking about it isn’t necessary.”

  “Now who’s the liar?” he whispered.

  He was staring at her mouth, his gaze hot enough to melt steel. That heat was quickly melting the ice she’d used as a wall between them. If she didn’t build it back up, it was going to melt entirely.

  He wanted to talk? Fine. She had a few things to say to him on the subject of lying.

  “Are you sure you want to discuss what happened in Afghanistan?” she asked sweetly. “Because you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

  “Discussion is the last thing on my mind.” He swooped down and took her mouth. One hand cupped the back of her head, threading its way through her hair and hanging on so tight that she couldn’t move.

  His other hand slid around her waist and pulled her into his body.

  She raised her hands to push him away but stopped. His various injuries and bruises meant she might hurt him.

  His tongue teased and touched her bottom lip, and her breath caught. He slid inside, and his taste exploded across her tongue. Need wound its way through her as she kissed him back. His hair was soft under her fingers, his skin hot.

  He urged her closer with his hand in the small of her back, and the long, hard bar of his erection pressed into her belly.

  It had been so long since she’d allowed desire in her life. So long. She wanted to immerse them both in it until they drowned, but the last time she trusted him, he’d broken her heart, taken her belief in the power of love, and stomped the life out of it.

  The memory of the humiliation, horror, and agony she’d endured as a result of his lies swept over her. One of her own team members had had to fill her in on the fact that the man she’d just slept with, had fallen in love with, was married and going home to his wife in less than a week.

  She didn’t even realize she was crying until John pulled back, confusion and concern cooling the heat of his need. He wiped tears from her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” He scrutinized her, as if searching for a visible injury.

  Her wounds were all on the inside, with not even a bruise to give away their presence.

  “Lying is second nature to you, isn’t it?” The tears wouldn’t stop. “You lied to me in Afghanistan, and you’re doing it again. Whatever it takes to get what you want.”

  “What are you talking about?” He stared at her with a level of astonishment that couldn’t be feigned.

  “You made promises to me that night. Promises you had no intention of keeping.”

  She let the words sit between them, an earthquake that spawned a tsunami capable of destroying entire cultures.

  He jerked her closer to him. “I planned to keep every promise I made. I would have if you hadn’t run away.”

  The assault of his answer tore a jagged hole across her chest, but this pain fed her anger, her indignation. “Oh, really?” she asked, her words torn out of her. “Martin was only too helpful in telling me about some of your other promises to other women.”

  “What other women?” He paused. “Wait…Martin? The same Martin who served a couple of years in the stockade for embezzlement and then was tossed out of the military? That Martin?”

  “Yes, him.” She stretched up on her tiptoes so she could get in his face. “That slimeball had been trying to get into my pants for weeks and laughed—laughed—when he realized you’d managed it. He figured since I gave it up to you, I should give it up to him.”

  Dozer grabbed her by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. “Did he…assault you?”

  Carmen’s jaw fell open.

  Gone was the confused man. In his place was a menacing, avenging angel.

  “Did he?”

  Chapter Six

  9:42 p.m.

  “He tried,” Carmen said through teeth clenched tight.

  That slimy piece of shit. Dozer was going to hunt that fucker down and kill him with his bare hands.

  “Hey!” Carmen slapped him. Not hard, but enough to get his attention. “I told you, he tried. Don’t go all Rambo on me and start planning to commit a homicide.”

  “How did you know—”

  “That you’re planning to kill him?” she asked with no small amount of incredulity. “Because that’s what you do when someone you consider your responsibility comes under threat. You kill the threat. Dead. Deceased. Destroyed.” She shook her head. “But in this case, there’s no need. I stopped him all by myself.”

  He frowned at her. Nine years ago, she’d been a new doctor fresh out of medical school, young, idealistic, and eager to make her mark. She hadn’t even gone through basic training before being assigned to his investigative unit. As a result, she didn’t know the first thing about self-defense.

  She must have read the disbelief and confusion on his face, because she rolled her eyes and said, “I kicked him in the nuts as hard as I could. I was wearing my combat boots with the steel toes. He went down and stayed down for ten minutes. During those ten minutes I found an o
fficer and reported his attempt to assault me. He tried to say I was the aggressor, but the officer didn’t believe it. Said the only way he got his balls smashed was if he got too close to me in the first place.”

  Dozer took in a deep breath. It was his fault Martin went after her.

  “I warned Martin to stay away from you,” he said, watching her face for a sign of what she might be thinking. “That asshole had a reputation for getting handsy and worse if he found a woman alone.” He let the words hang in the air for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what, exactly? Having sex with me?”

  “No.” It came out as an almost shout. Rein it in. “You…blew my mind. Intelligent, gorgeous, and funny. I’ve never met a woman, before or since, who could hold a candle to you.” He realized his fists were clenched tight and consciously opened them. “Our getting together the way we did wasn’t the way I wanted to do it. I wanted to take you out for dinner. Go dancing, see some movies, go…slow, but that explosion happened, and we…” He swallowed hard, thinking back to the moment of the blast. The moment he knew he might lose her before he could ever hold her. Love her.

  “There was a good chance we weren’t getting out of that ambush alive.” He met her gaze and said hoarsely, “I’ve never wanted anyone like I wanted you. If you’d said no, I’d have backed off, but you made it clear the attraction was mutual. There was no way I could not touch you, bring you pleasure, show you how much I wanted you.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I thought I was in love with you,” she said, her tone so sad he almost closed the distance between them so he could hold her. “I thought I’d met my knight in shining armor. I trusted you with…myself. But you didn’t give me all the information. You didn’t trust me to accept you as you were or to make the right decision.”

  “I was trying to find the right time, then I ran out of time. I didn’t…It wasn’t on purpose. It wasn’t malicious. I wasn’t trying to fool you or mislead you.” He clenched a fist. “I fucked up. I fucked up the best thing that ever happened to me.” He paced back and forth a few feet in front of her.

  “When I walked into your office eight months ago, I couldn’t believe it was you behind the desk. Even though your name was all over my paperwork, I didn’t dare hope it was you.” He stopped pacing to look at her. “But I prayed it was. I’ve spent every moment of every day since trying to prove to you that I’m not that moron anymore.”

  She broke the eye contact between them this time to stare at the floor. Her hands were shaking. Was she crying?

  “Carmen?” She never cried, never let anything get to her. His stomach dropped. He’d made her cry.

  She looked up, her face wet from tears, her eyes narrowed with anger. “You might not be that moron anymore,” she said, her voice shaking along with her hands. “But you’re still a moron.”

  She advanced on him, one hand snagging his shirt and pulling him down so his nose was a couple of inches from hers.

  “Why didn’t you just talk to me?” She gave him a little shake. “At any time during the last several months?”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  She let go of him and stepped back. “I wasn’t the one who lied.”

  “You could have requested someone else as liaison.”

  “You were an easier person to train than any of the alternatives. Besides,” she said with a shrug. “I had no idea you’d make the decision to just pretend it never happened. To continue behaving like a moron.”

  He’d done it for very good reasons. He’d thought this was his second chance.

  “I’m not the only one who didn’t mention important information before we…got together.”

  She let go of him and backpedaled several steps. “What are you talking about?” she asked too fast for innocence.

  “I was your first,” he said, remembering the moment he realized she was a virgin. The bone-deep satisfaction of knowing she’d never let another man this close. She’d chosen him, trusted him with herself. It had damn near sent him to his knees. “A man needs to know something like that before things go too far.”

  She gulped and tried to don a nonchalant mask, but she couldn’t disguise the rapid beat of her pulse along her neck. “Why would that make a difference? It’s a small thing.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “It had to happen sometime with someone.” She tried a shrug, but it was stiff and unconvincing. “I hadn’t had time to deal with it until then.”

  “You chose me,” he reminded her. “After waiting a long time for the right person.” He moved toward her again, crowding her up against a wall. “Do you have any idea what it did to me when I realized you were a virgin?”

  Breathing fast and deep, she stared at him with wide eyes.

  He put his hands on the wall on either side of her head and leaned down to whisper, “I was inside you, and you were so fucking tight I was sure I was going to lose my mind. When I realized why there was some resistance, I nearly came then and there.”

  He eased closer, and she put her hands on his chest. She didn’t push—he’d back off if she gave him the slightest indication of panic or that she didn’t want him.

  “I was glad,” he said, so damned hard for her that his voice came out sounding like he was some monster in the dark. “So fucking glad you gave yourself to me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were still married?” Her bottom lip quivered, and he wanted to kiss it better. Love every hurt away. But would she let him?

  “I planned to, but shit kept hitting the fan until we were inside a hurricane of fucking crap. I wanted privacy and enough time to fully explain. By the time those two things were available, you’d left.”

  A tear slid down her face, and her hands fisted in his shirt. “Martin—”

  “Is an asshole who wanted to make you vulnerable to his brand of abusive bullshit.”

  She leaned her forehead against his chest as her shoulders shook, but she didn’t utter a sound, not one.

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her for long seconds while she cried hard enough to get his shirt wet. And rip out his heart.

  When she calmed, he put one hand under her chin and tilted her face up so he could gaze into those gorgeous brown eyes before lowering his head slowly. He put the intent to kiss her plainly on his face and waited for her answer.

  Her hands tightened on the fabric of his shirt, and she pulled him down so she could kiss him.

  The chokehold of control he’d had over himself broke.

  He took over the kiss with a growl, pressing her into the wall with the weight of his body. But her lips and tongue weren’t enough. Her hands were in his hair, tugging on the strands, making him want all of her, in every way, always.

  Kissing his way down her neck, he rocked his erection into her belly.

  “John,” she moaned as he managed to undo the top couple of buttons on her shirt with one hand. Her eyes opened, and she looked at him with so much naked need on her face he had to have her mouth again.

  He kissed her again and again, her taste going to his head faster than aged whiskey. Her breasts were soft and warm under his hand, her nipples hard, her skin so silky he could touch her for hours and still be completely fascinated with the texture of her.

  When had he taken off her top?

  When he pulled back, he discovered he’d ripped through the rest of the buttons on her shirt and shoved her bra up, freeing her breasts.

  Shit. He was turning into an animal.

  “Say no,” he said, low and dark. “Say it now, before I completely lose my shit and fuck you up against this wall.”

  Her breathing was as labored as his, her lips swollen from his kisses. She grabbed him by the shirt again. “If you don’t fuck me in the next ten seconds, I’m going to throw you on the floor and ride you until you stop saying stupid shit.”

  He blinked. He’d thought his cock was as hard as it could ever get. Until now. “Christ, you make me greedy for a taste of you.�
� Once would never be enough. “On second thought, I think a bed is needed. This might take a while.”

  “I don’t want to wait,” she hissed at him, her hands diving down to pull at the button of his pants, then yank at the zipper. “I want you right here, right now.”

  As hot as that idea was, it wasn’t good enough. Not for her. The first time they’d been together, it had been in a dangerous, dirty death trap.

  He’d be damned if he let that happen again.

  One corner of his mouth kicked up. “Going slow has its benefits.” He let go of her hands slowly to caress her hips. “I want to worship you. I want to give you orgasms. Lots of orgasms.”

  Her breathing, a fast pant, feathered across his face. “How many?”

  “Ten. Twelve. Twenty-six. As many as I can.”

  “Twenty-six?” Her voice was incredulous. She stared at him for a long moment, then laughed.

  Joy lit up the dark places in his heart for the first time in longer than he could remember, because that right there, that smile was the one he’d missed seeing on her face. The one that had captivated him when he’d first met her. “I’m not putting a limit on them.” He let go of one of her hands to cup a breast and tease her nipple. “Are you?”

  “No. You owe me lots.” Eyes wide and pupils dilated, she whispered, “Take me to bed. Let’s not keep the orgasms waiting.”

  Right. She couldn’t go anywhere until he moved.

  If he moved, he’d have to let her go, and he didn’t want to.

  Frowning, she patted his chest, her fingers stroking his skin. “John?”

  It took more effort than it should have to force himself to back away, to draw her with him, and not yank her at a run for the bedroom. But he was going to make this good for her, starting now.

  He walked backward, never taking his gaze off her face, his hands off her body. He wanted to touch her everywhere. Taste her everywhere. Take the time to love her so thoroughly she’d never leave him again.

  The wall came out of nowhere to block their way.