by Juno Rushdan
Which was reason enough not to embroil her in the horrible nitty-gritty bits of this job analysts never had to see. Bits he never wanted her to see. Much less touch without gloves.
“You didn’t ask. I offered. And I don’t dream, so no danger of nightmares.” She set everything on the dinette table. “I’ll work better without gloves. Latex irritates my skin.”
Suddenly, not having condoms was a positive.
As quickly as the errant thought had sprouted, he hacked it away. He was bleeding from his gut. This wasn’t the time to think about the wild, dirty sex he wasn’t going to have with her.
“Let’s get started.” She gave him an expectant look. “Take off your pants and lie down on the bed.”
The words tangled in his head, curling like strangling vines. “What?”
“With the irrigation, you should remove your jeans. The blood will ruin them.”
“Yeah. Sure. Okay.” Hell no. Trapped in a confined space with Willow and no pants on added up to bad idea. Far from okay.
“Gideon.” A question danced in her eyes. “Your pants?”
Holy mother. He was scared, a big yellow-bellied coward, and nothing scared him. Nada. Zilch. Not deep-cover missions, hunting terrorists, hit squads, the prospect of dying—none of it elevated his pulse past eighty. Yet this sexy half-pint had his pulse in a flat-out sprint over the idea of taking off his stupid pants.
Willow snagged a finger through a belt loop and tugged him closer. His mutinous feet moved forward, and the next thing he knew, she lowered his zipper.
He swatted her hand away. “I’ve got it.”
If his pants were coming off—and they had to, as clothes were limited and blood on his jeans wouldn’t be inconspicuous in the Caymans—then he’d be the one to remove them.
“Don’t snap at me when I’m only trying to help,” she said, letting her steely backbone show. “I don’t appreciate it.”
He admired a woman who wasn’t afraid to put him in his place. “Got it. Sorry.” Kicking off his boots, he slid his pants down, revealing his boxer briefs, and shoved them aside.
Her gaze dipped past his waist. She wet her bottom lip and snagged it between her teeth. “You’d be more comfortable lying down. Let’s go to the bed.”
Yeah, that was not going to happen. “We’ll do it out here.” He sat on the L-shaped bench.
“Fine.” She sank to her knees between his legs and draped a towel across his hip below the wound. Her knuckles skimmed his inner thigh, stirring a tingle across every nerve ending. The hot and hungry kiss they’d shared came roaring back to him, her curves filling his palms, her eager tongue licking up into his mouth and luring him deeper.
Stiffening, he beat his monstrous libido unconscious, threw it in a trunk along with the memory of that kiss, and locked both away.
He popped a couple of pain-reliever tablets and snagged a packet of ceftriaxone. The one-dose antibiotic came as a crystalline powder. He mixed it with water, filled a sterile syringe, and injected it in a vein in his arm.
Peeling off the gauze, Willow inspected his injury. Then she looked up at him with those sparkling eyes. His skin turned tight as a vacuum-sealed pack with the need for something ineffable, and for a split second, he forgot the pain.
Ice-cold saline shot into the wound. Shards of agony bloomed and splintered through his body.
“Jeez!” He clenched his jaw and turned his hands into fists, breathing through his nose. “It’s freezing. A little warning next time.”
“Warm water sits in a hot water tank where sediment and sludge accumulate. I thought it was better to use cold water to flush the wound.”
In theory, it sounded smart. In reality, it gave him the startling equivalent of a much-needed cold shower. He’d take a lot of those in the next two days.
Blood leaked from the gaping flesh onto the towel. She dabbed at his abdomen with gauze. He watched for any signs she was about to toss her cookies, but her gaze didn’t waver, and her fingers stayed steady. Impressive.
She grabbed a new dressing treated with the blood-clotting agent and pressed it to the slit. “You’ll have to talk me through stitches. The more specifics, the better. In college, I could wing anything, except social stuff. I’ve always sucked at that.”
Her openness was astonishing, took his breath away, and left him in awe.
“No stitches. You’ll have to use this.” He handed her the skin stapler. “Hold the wound closed and line up the arrow with the center of the cut. Then press down hard with the device and deploy a staple about every centimeter.”
He pulled away the gauze. The blood-clotting agent had worked, giving him a clear view. All in all, the wound wasn’t too bad. Barring infection, it would heal, but with a nasty scar.
“This is going to hurt, isn’t it? A lot.”
He nodded. It was going to hurt like a son of a bitch, but there was no way around it. “Have at it. Has to be done.” He gripped the edge of the table and braced himself.
She held the two sides of the wound together and, following his instructions, pressed the first of ten staples in.
A sharp pang arced through him and he gritted his teeth. If he were the one wielding the stapler, he’d focus on the internal ticking in his head until he was done. But with Willow touching him, the one sound in the world he longed to hear was her voice.
“Talk to me. How is it that you’re not squeamish about this?”
“During my checkups, I have to watch as they draw blood. Not seeing the needle sink into a vein is unbearable. When I was little, I had trouble with some types of physical sensations.”
He recalled reading about that in his research. “Sensory processing disorder?”
Her gaze flickered up to his, her mouth agape for an instant in surprise. “Uh, yeah.”
She lowered her eyes and pushed another staple in. He groaned through the pain.
“Touching certain things would make my skin crawl. My parents had me work with a therapist who put me through loads of tactile exercises like putting my hand in a box filled with sand or grains of rice and groping around for as long as possible.” Drawing in a deep breath, she shuddered. “I’d last a whopping thirty seconds. And it felt an eternity, screaming on the inside, wanting to rip off my skin.”
He stayed focused on her voice as she manipulated his gaping flesh. She worked quickly but with precision, and he gripped the table, refusing to flinch or make the slightest sound of weakness.
“Then the therapist had me accomplish something specific such as fishing out ten marbles from funny foam. Shifting the focus from time to completing a task changed everything. This daunting world crammed with insurmountable obstacles became something manageable.”
She depressed the last staple, and he hissed with relief.
“Attagirl. You showed no mercy.” Downright ruthless. Kind of twisted, but he liked that about her. A lot.
“It had to be done. Besides, I knew you could take it.”
Hot. Damn. He didn’t know if it was her smile, the way she’d bucked up to help him without getting jittery and squeamish, or how she didn’t apologize for torturing him, but what she’d said was so damn hot.
He ached to do the one thing he absolutely couldn’t.
Kiss her.
* * *
Willow was thankful Gideon had accepted her help.
Tough didn’t skim the surface of what he was. She’d wondered how he’d survived some of his missions, the ordeals he’d endured. Must be his high threshold for pain, combined with a rare quality most people lacked—mettle.
She finished cleaning around the wound, pressed a fresh dressing on, and used the last antiseptic wipe on her hands. His gaze landed on hers. Their eyes locked, and her belly fluttered, but she couldn’t tell whether he wanted to haul her closer or push her away.
“I would’ve
guessed you had a delicate disposition, but your intestinal fortitude is a surprise.” He licked his lips, and she clenched her thighs. “I wish…things were different.”
Things was such a vague word. He meant more than this on-the-run-for-her-life situation, but she had no clue what.
“Thank you for doing the staples.”
“You’re welcome.”
Sitting back on her heels, she took him in. Really took him in. This was the first time she’d seen him practically naked. Two hundred and ten pounds of pure shredded muscle, with eight-pack abs—apparently that was a real thing.
After everything they’d just survived, what she needed most was to curl up against his warm, broad chest and sink into the security of his strong arms wrapped around her. To take comfort in his skin on hers and bask in his smell.
Oh, the smell of him.
She placed her hand on his knee and stroked his thigh. He snapped ramrod straight, nostrils flaring.
“Gideon—”
“We should get underway. We need to make it to the Atlantic.” His brusque tone had her sitting back on her heels away from him. “It’s not good to sit out in the open. We’re in a vulnerable position.”
“Of course.” What was she thinking?
She scrambled to her feet, gathered the gauze, and reached to take the towel across his lap.
He blocked her hand. “I need it.”
Nodding, she went to chuck the blood-soaked materials in the bathroom trash. Her cheeks burned, flames fanning down her chest. She looked in the mirror. Her face was berry-red.
“You idiot,” she whispered. “You’re a mission. An assignment.”
Don’t confuse his kindness for something more. No foolish, trumped-up fantasy is going to happen. You’re still you, and he’s still amazing. And working.
Drawing a deep breath, she left the bathroom. Gideon sat in the captain’s chair, pants on but glorious chest on full display, steering the boat.
If she could call it a boat. You wouldn’t call a Maserati or Lamborghini just a car.
When he mentioned they’d travel by boat to the Cayman Islands, she’d pictured a little dinghy or a canoe with a motor. Silly in hindsight, considering they had to travel to the Caribbean Sea, but she wouldn’t have imagined something quite so spacious.
In movies, fugitives on the run slept in cars and hid out in seedy motels. He’d managed to steal a high-speed vessel outfitted with a cabin. But this was his job. Outmaneuvering. Improvising. Using his wits to survive.
“Look in the cockpit locker,” he said to her, pointing to a compartment by his leg. “Get the manual for the boat and find out the top speed. I bought maps. They should be in one of the bags. Calculate how long it’ll take us to reach Grand Cayman Island.”
Reaper was back, barking orders like she was a robot instead of a person. She was used to this side of him, the composed operative who never got rattled and rarely smiled.
The beautiful man cloaked in mystery she’d longed to know.
Today was the first time, though, she’d seen the killing machine up close. Steel and ice, too sharp to hesitate, too cold to feel. Necessary, of course. Someone wanted to nail her as a traitor. He was all that stood between her and death.
But with her life hacked into ones and zeros that no longer added up, she needed the gentleness he hid so well. Needed him, regardless of his motives. She could handle long work hours and a high-ops tempo. Caring for her sick father was taxing, but she’d do anything for him. Solitude recharged her batteries, and she enjoyed her alone time. More or less.
Around Gideon, it was definitely less.
She’d gone a long time without being touched, almost stopped missing the physical warmth. Almost forgot the healing power of an embrace.
Almost.
Then he’d kissed her, his hands running all over her body, gentle and full of heat, and her universe changed gears. Like that moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy was ripped from a black-and-white Kansas and crashed into a Technicolor world—vibrant energy and singing and dancing.
His affection was a salve. She could use a simple hug in this tornado of chaos. Something to let her forget the horrors wrecking her life for a few seconds. Her house had burned down. Her poor father was helpless in a coma. And it was her fault.
Her lack of friends, her isolated lifestyle, her difficulty passing a polygraph—something had painted her as the perfect person to frame, making her sick to her stomach.
“Willow.” The sharpness of Gideon’s voice brought her back to the task at hand.
Following his orders, she dug out the manual and maps from the locker and did the calculations. Although Grand Cayman Island was a short flight away, the number of nautical miles they had to cross was staggering.
She’d never ventured more than a five-hour drive from home. Breaking from her routine and doing it by herself was too unnerving. Every possible deviation from the safety net of structure unraveled a thread that held her life together.
Now everything was gone, and she was free-falling. She drew in a deep breath.
“If you run the boat at top speed, with no sleep, we could be there in thirty-two hours.”
He raked a hand over his close-cropped hair. “Eventually, I’m going to need sleep.” His tone and countenance were glacial. “I didn’t get any last night. The bank closes at two on Saturday afternoon, and we won’t make it in time. I planned supplies for two days on the water, so we’ll shoot for Sunday evening. It’ll give me time to scope out the bank and limit our exposure on the island before it opens on Monday morning.”
Glancing around, Willow looked for something useful to do. She unpacked the shopping bags and put away the groceries. The fridge already had butter, eggs, bacon, beer, and water. The owner must use the boat regularly. Gideon had bought a variety of foods, ensuring no threat of going hungry.
After rooting through the cabinets, she wiped out the cupboards, washed the dishes, and reorganized everything to stay busy—any out-of-band patch for a semblance of normalcy.
Whenever Gideon’s gaze fell to her, she sensed it—a trickle of heat running down her spine like warm syrup—but she never managed to catch him looking. Only the turn of his head while he radiated assassin on a mission.
By the time she finished alphabetizing the spices, her jitters were gone.
“Try not to worry,” he said. “I’ll do everything I can to help you.”
Gideon was an army of one. Everything for a man like him would be nothing short of World War III. She stared at the bruises on his chest and the wound on his abdomen. “I couldn’t do this without you, but you’ve already done too much. If anything happened to you because of me, if you—”
“I’m hard to kill. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m going to keep breathing, because I won’t let anything happen to you. Okay?”
She nodded, although she wanted to do the exact opposite.
“Get some rest. Once the adrenaline fades, you’ll need it.”
Her body was fatigued, but her mind was still restless. She trudged to the bathroom and flipped on the light. Her gaze raked the compact facility, bouncing from one spot of grime to the next. Most people wouldn’t label the bathroom filthy, but the dirt nettled her.
She scrubbed every inch until it gleamed and the scent of orange oil tickled her nose.
A hot shower loosened her muscles, and she was relieved to scour off remaining traces of blood. She wrapped a towel around herself and traipsed to the bedroom two feet away.
She took the clothes Gideon purchased to the closet. Inside, she found an extra life jacket, a folded blanket, a windbreaker, and a feminine sweater. She hung Gideon’s clothes and ran her hands over two dresses from the same bag. Both smelled of plastic and were the same mix of fabrics. The polyester blend chafed her fingers, and without looking at the tag, she could tell they
were a size too small.
The good news was he’d chosen solid colors and the material wouldn’t wrinkle, but she wouldn’t be able to sleep in either dress, much less wear one for hours.
Tomorrow was supposed to be navy skirt and baby-blue blouse day.
She’d double-checked the bags. No pajamas. She didn’t wear any at home, but with Gideon vacillating between consuming her in a rush of sweet fire and freezing her out, the situation warranted jammies.
She ran her fingers over the thin cream-colored cardigan in the closet, baby-soft cashmere smelling like fabric softener. It was long enough to act as a robe but didn’t have buttons to close the front. If she also threw on one of Gideon’s T-shirts, the makeshift PJs would do. She adjusted the towel wrapped around her and padded around to the foot of the bed.
A beam of golden light fractured the darkness in the kitchen.
Gideon was crouched in front of the open mini fridge. His gaze collided with hers. Electric awareness arced between them in the charged silence.
She quivered at the tingle licking her spine, the erotic tease of possibility.
He rose, holding a beer, and kicked the refrigerator door shut, ensconcing him in darkness. She couldn’t see his eyes but felt his stare caress her bare skin. Her breath stilled. A languid ache snaked through her, twisting in her belly.
They were safe on the water, out of danger. He didn’t have to be Reaper anymore, just Gideon. It stung he didn’t want her in the same way she wanted him, but she did want him. The one-sided desire embarrassed her. Heat whipped over her face, trailing down her body. If only she could make it go away and be numb.
He sauntered toward her, his steps measured. A quiver shot straight between her thighs, and her toes curled against the smooth hardwood floor.
His darkening eyes burned, lips parted in a ragged exhale. The bottle of beer shook in his hand. Stopping in the threshold, he grasped the door handle. His gaze wandered along the length of her body in a slow perusal.
“You should rest.” The husky gravel in his voice stirred butterflies in her chest, but the words deflated her silly drop of hope. “I’ll sleep out here later.” He shuttered his eyes and closed the door.
