Reza looked down at her as she stood. The body armor made her movements awkward. “You okay?” she asked as she followed him out of the company ops.
He said nothing for a long time. What could he tell her? That he knew the hunger that Sloban fought? That he knew how hard it was to stay sober and clean?
That he knew how this ended and it terrified him?
“I have to be,” was all he said instead.
She said nothing. But after a moment, her hand rested on his shoulder at the edge of his body armor.
A simple gesture, nothing more. But the marks on his arms burned where she touched him.
What would she say if she saw what he’d done to his body over the years? How would she react to the scars and everything else?
But instead of brushing her hand off, he simply reached up and squeezed it gently.
And for a moment, it was enough.
* * *
He rapped on the doorframe to Teague’s cubbyhole. “Where’s Captain Loehr? I need to make sure we’ve got clearance for the MOUT site today.”
Teague grinned and stood. “Perfect timing. I need a ride out to training.”
“There won’t be any training unless we get the green light from Captain America.”
Teague held up a folder. “You mean this? I swear, one range fire and you’ve turned into a timid little baby kitten afraid of his own shadow.”
Reza swore under his breath, wishing Emily wasn’t standing right there watching Teague show his ass—figuratively, of course. He wondered how long it would be before Teague tried to hit on her.
The thought made Reza’s spine stiffen as he glanced over at her.
Emily raised both eyebrows, her lips twitching. “Range fire?”
Heat crawled up Reza’s neck, along with a strong desire to throttle Ben Teague. “I may or may not have been involved in an incident involving a small fire here at Fort Hood.”
“Ha,” Teague snorted and grabbed his helmet. “He burned down three hundred acres of training area last year.”
“It was an accident,” Reza snarled. “Get your shit and let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”
“It’s always an accident,” Teague said. “What’s she doing here, anyway?”
“Wants to observe training,” Reza said, stuffing the paperwork in his cargo pocket. “She’s putting together an officer professional development program and asked for help.”
He saw Emily open her mouth then snap it shut as the wisdom of the lie took hold. It wasn’t actually a bad idea. He could practically see the shape of the good idea fairy forming in her thoughts. She pulled out a little moleskin notebook and jotted something down before climbing into the back of the Humvee.
He wondered if she always carried it even as she struggled to stuff it back into her cargo pocket. He watched as she moved, her body strong beneath the body armor. He’d thought she was prim and proper when he’d first met her but he was wrong.
The woman was so much more than she appeared. Dedicated. Smart. And so damned sexy.
The vehicle rolled out of the parking lot and headed to the MOUT site, leaving him to his thoughts for the moment.
That kiss still burned on his lips. A foolish gambit, one he wasn’t going to regret but one that he couldn’t repeat.
No matter how much he might want to.
He’d given up drinking and boozing. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself. But with Emily, there was something more there. A need. A desire for something more than a stolen kiss or an office flirtation.
He felt a pull of something real, something stronger than just sex.
Something that terrified him with the strength of it. He was trying to be the soldier the sergeant major wanted him to be. The warrior his men deserved. If he couldn’t get clean and stay clean, how was he supposed to expect his men to do it? He wanted to save the remains of his career. He wasn’t sure he could even go to bed with a woman without being shitfaced drunk.
He couldn’t remember the last time something like that had even happened.
Sex and alcohol were all twisted up inside him and he damn sure wasn’t about to admit his own personal psychosis to her.
He’d kissed her. She’d kissed him back.
It would have to be enough. Because the truth was, he didn’t trust himself to try anything more.
He swallowed the bitter pill of frustration as they pulled into the MOUT site a few minutes later. Life was so much easier when he was drinking.
“Ready to get your ass whipped?” Reza asked
“Oh yeah. I’m going to lay your ass out flat,” Teague said, pulling on his gloves.
“You wish, pretty boy. You better wear a face mask ’cause I’m going to double tap you right between the eyes,” Reza said. Reza tapped his own forehead
Emily came up beside them, adjusting her hair beneath her helmet. He had no idea how to help her with that. Claire would have been able to give her some pointers on that one but Claire was in California right then. Emily was on her own as far as her hair was concerned. “Um, can I be the complete and total newbie here and ask what you’re talking about?”
“You don’t know what we’re doing today?” Teague looked at her with an expression close to bafflement on his face. He looked back at Reza. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Tell me what?” Emily sounded like he was dragging her toward a darkened pit filled with slithering things.
“We’re going to a shoot house.”
“A what?”
“Shoot house.”
She went very still. The kind of still that made Reza think she was second-guessing her decision to come out here. “What’s a shoot house?”
“A building where we go shoot each other with sim rounds.”
“And sim rounds are…”
“Very painful,” Teague said with the wicked smile of someone who knew exactly how painful they could be.
Teague was enjoying her discomfort far too much. “Go see why they’ve stopped.” He was used to bossing the captain around. Teague was a good guy but he was ADHD boy. Needed someone to step on his neck to keep him focused and out of trouble. Teague unsupervised was a recipe for disaster. Reza wondered just how much of that was real and how much of it was a façade Teague put on to avoid any major responsibility. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re going to shoot each other?” Emily sounded shocked.
“With fake bullets.”
“You just threatened to shoot him in the face.”
Frustration at her naiveté snapped at its leash inside him, surprising him with its intensity. “Haven’t we had this conversation before? The one where I explain to you that we’re not giving out candy and roses when we’re busy winning the hearts and minds?”
“Stop putting words in my mouth,” she said more sharply than he’d anticipated. Something had gotten under her skin in between leaving the office and coming out here. He wanted to know very much what it was.
But he didn’t know how to ask. “Then what is it?”
She opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut. “Never mind. I’m tired of you laughing at me because I don’t know anything about the world you’re from.”
Reza stepped close, until his body armor almost brushed against hers. “I’m not laughing at you, Emily,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You’ve never been to combat. You’ve never seen men die because of actions you’ve taken or worse, actions you did not take. You’re untouched by all the death and dying and killing that smothers a man’s soul.” They were alone near the truck. He did not bother to rein in his urge to brush his knuckles against her soft cheek. “You have no idea how rare and precious being untouched by the war really is in my world.”
She didn’t flinch beneath his touch but she also did not acknowledge it in any way. Her skin was soft, satin beneath the rough ridge of his knuckles. Her breath was a scattered thing, coming in fits and huffs.
He wanted to tell her more, so much more. Wanted to satiat
e her curiosity to know about the war and send her back to her protected office, where she would never have to venture out into the real world.
A knight in shining armor would want to protect her. Cherish her.
Reza was no knight. He was a warrior. A man who fought for what he wanted. But with Emily, those things were no longer clear. And for the first time in his adult life, he turned away from a woman who’d trembled beneath his touch. There was more to Emily Lindberg than Reza had realized. So, so much more.
If this went any further, he would ruin it. He always did. There was nothing in his life he didn’t screw up and he very much did not want to screw this up.
He wanted to keep her on her pedestal. Keep her unsullied by the war and the world he lived in. He pulled his gloves out of where she’d stuffed them into a small pocket. “Make sure you wear these today,” he murmured.
* * *
Reza felt Emily hesitate before she climbed the hill toward the MOUT site behind him. His gaze fell to his gloves on her hands, and an unexplained warmth spread somewhere in the vicinity of his belly as he watched her.
He wasn’t entirely sure what the hell had happened to him. Not so long ago, he’d gone up one side of her and down the other for keeping information about a soldier from him. Not so long ago, he’d told her she did not belong in the army.
Now she was out at the range with him, wanting to know about the world he lived in.
A world he didn’t want her to know. The scars on his body were testament to the ragged ugliness of war.
She’d watched movies about combat. He’d led men in combat. Bled with them.
What on earth had possessed him to bring her out here?
He knew what it was and it pissed him off. If she was going to deploy, maybe something she learned today would save her life later. He hated to think of her in a bunker with rockets landing all around. His stomach twisted hard. He wouldn’t be there to keep her safe.
People like her simply didn’t recognize the world for what it was: a cruel, hard place that would crush the best of them. It was a world that required exactly what they were about to do: train.
If he couldn’t protect her, he could train her. At least a little. A little was better than nothing.
If she backed away from the shoot house, he wouldn’t let her go. She needed to do this, to see this in training where it was safe. No matter how much he wanted to protect her from the smoke and chaos of war—even a mock war like they were getting ready to wage today—the simple fact was she was going to deploy. Better to learn what she could here today rather than head to the desert with zero training. The threat of violence was a very real thing in his daily life and if she was going to deploy, she needed to understand that.
He watched her as she approached, careful to keep his expression neutral.
Part of him wanted her to run, to turn away from the violence of his life.
But another part of him, the dark part, wanted her to join him in the muck and the mire. That darkness held a powerful lure, a quiet shame mixed with the pride: he was good at what he did.
She flexed her hands in those gloves and his guts clenched. Down, boy.
“You ready for this?” he asked as she stopped next to him.
She peered up at him intently through her army-issued protective glasses. They were at least three sizes too big. “Is one ever really ready for something like this?” She didn’t look nervous but he heard the stress in her voice.
“Would it help you to know that I’m looking forward to this? This is the fun stuff I signed up for.” Not the killing parts. No, not those. But the force-on-force mock fights? That was the fun stuff.
“Fun? Are you serious?”
“Hey, Sarn’t Ike, check this out!” One of his old lieutenants, Miller, ran up from the entrance to one of the blown-up windowless buildings of the mock city. He lifted his shirt, showing a brilliant purple and red welt on his side.
“That shit’s going to hurt like hell tomorrow,” Reza said with a low whistle. “Did the medics check you out?”
“I’m not fu— Nah, I’m good,” Miller said, stopping himself once he realized there was an officer present. “Ma’am.” He saluted and Emily returned the courtesy.
Reza almost shook his head at the sharp perfection of her salute. She obviously hadn’t learned the half-assed officer salute that so many officers passed off as real customs and courtesies. He watched her expression change from horror to pure curiosity.
“Is that—”
“Some of the guys were screwing around, Ma’am. Doesn’t hurt that bad.” Miller had turned about as red as the bruise on his side.
“How did that happen?” she asked, peering closer.
Miller glanced at Reza for permission and Reza nodded. Unless he was mistaken, that bruise had come from an epic case of fucking around and he didn’t mind Emily hearing that. She needed to see the fun side of the guys in addition to the fucked up stuff inside their heads. Maybe if he could get her to see them as people, she’d stop thinking of them as victims.
“Couple of the guys cornered me. I let my guard down and well…there you have the results.”
Reza grinned, feeling the warm comfort of familiarity slip around him as Miller ran back toward his boys. This, Reza knew. This was the only thing that kept him from crawling back into the bottle. A chance to lead his boys again.
He wasn’t in charge today. No, that day was still a long way off. But he wanted—no, he needed—to be back with guys like Foster and Miller. With captains like Teague.
“Just follow me and stay close. It might get a little loud.” Reza watched as she tried to get her bearings over the sounds and the movement and the noise.
People who had never been to combat didn’t understand the chaos on the battlefield. It was oh so easy to second-guess the actions of the men and women on the ground when the videos captured everything, but in the thick of the fight? Yeah, it was never as easy as the video games and armchair quarterbacks made it seem. There was too much smoke, too much yelling, far too many people.
One wrong choice and the squeeze of the trigger ended a life. It might be fun, what they did in the shoot house, but that fun ended the minute they rolled with real rounds in the chamber.
“A little loud?” She was shouting. “I’m not sure it can get any louder.”
“If you’re still talking to me in a few months, I’ll take you out on an op in the tunnels. You want to talk about loud.”
“Tunnels?”
“We do tunnel training because we never know when we have to go below the cities, or literally in tunnels.”
Her eyes widened slightly as though she was only just starting to grasp the variety of situations his boys faced. It was fascinating watching the scales fall from her eyes. She took everything in. Watched with a fascination that told him she wasn’t missing anything.
Her brows drew down in a slight frown. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing. You’re just…You’re different out here.” She tipped her chin at him. “More intense. You really do enjoy this stuff, don’t you?”
The strange feeling in his belly unfurled completely, spreading warmth wide through his blood. “There is nothing better than leading men in combat,” he said over the noise.
Nothing until he held that experience up next to the possibility of touching Emily again.
What would he give up for a few more minutes alone? To touch her the way he wanted, to feel her soften beneath his mouth and his fingers.
An explosion ripped through the noise and he ducked, more on instinct than anything else. When he looked over at her, her jaw had tightened in determination.
And Reza fell a little harder.
Chapter Seven
Emily had never been so terrified in her life. For the last three hours, she’d watched grown men run around shooting each other with tiny rounds that looked like miniature lipsticks.
She felt alive. More alive than she’d ever felt before in her
entire life. Even when one of those tiny rounds had slammed into the concrete next to her face, she didn’t want it to end.
Her blood pounded through her veins, slammed with adrenaline and fear and laughter. She’d never heard so much trash-talking, ever. Her father’s country club would never be the same to her again. There was an easy comfort in the way the men bonded, the way they’d mostly adjusted to having her on the mock battlefield with them. She covered her mouth with one hand, hiding her smile. Her mother would be so ashamed of her thoughts right now. Her behavior was most unladylike.
And she was loving it.
But there was something else, something she hadn’t counted on. Reza. He shadowed her as they walked through the shoot house, his big body blocking her when the guys got a little too close. He wasn’t obvious about it. He was just there. Solid. Steady.
Her shield. It was not something she might have appreciated otherwise, but the shouts of the men when they got hit by the rounds was enough to set her nerves on edge with a prickle of fear. How badly did it hurt?
She’d actually shrieked at one point when a burly specialist had crashed into the wall near her, only to practically bounce back to his feet and charge back into the fray.
It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. She’d never felt anything like the raw power of the sound of weapons reverberating off her breastbone or the exciting chaos of rounding a corner and wondering what skulked down the next hallway.
They were outside now, taking a break for lunch, if one could call the food product contained in a Meal Ready To Eat, or MRE, actual lunch. She bit back a growl of frustration as she tried to open the thick brown plastic that encased the foodstuffs. She glanced longingly at the knife Reza had produced from a hip pouch and then she blinked and her MRE was snatched from her hand. A flick of his wrist and he’d sliced the top off and handed it back to her.
“You need a knife,” he said mildly, “when you deploy.”
She started pulling each item out of the pouch, reading the heavy black letters carefully. There were half a dozen pouches inside the first pouch. Applesauce. Ham slice. A tiny pouch with a little folded napkin, a mini bottle of Tabasco sauce. Salt, pepper. A spoon. It was a complete three-course meal in a bag. “Is this really a ham slice?” she asked. “And do we eat so many MREs in Iraq that I’d need a knife?”
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