Taking Fire

by Cindy Gerard

  But she hadn’t, and now here he was. Following her and her exceptional ass up three creaky flights of stairs after she’d gone to the trouble of staking him out in the bar. And he’d love to know why, because if she was a journalist, he was a frickin’ nanny.

  She clearly wanted something from him that she thought only he could give her. He’d sensed it the first time he’d seen her and was convinced of it when she’d started giving him the sultry eye.

  If she was playing him, what did she really want?

  And how far would she go to get it?

  How far would he let her go?

  He checked out her ass again. Pretty far, no doubt about it.

  He’d noticed her three nights ago. Even looking worn-out and thirsty, her khakis covered in dust, her black hair bound in a thick braid, she’d been striking as hell. Hadn’t taken but one look, and he’d wondered what her hair would look like falling free. What it would feel like when he combed it through his fingers, when it brushed across his naked skin.

  Oh, yeah. She’d had him interested way before hello. One look, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Which was pointless as well as stupid. And worse, she was a distraction that could get him killed. Women and war zones didn’t mix. Especially conspiring women.

  So he knew he shouldn’t be here, he knew he should be beating feet back to his own hotel, but he was curious. And hell, yeah, a part of him hoped she wasn’t playing him, because damn, the woman was fine.

  In Afghanistan, every day was a crap shoot. And sometimes the need for human contact in the midst of all the brutality got a man in a choke hold and wouldn’t let go.

  So despite his second thoughts, he followed her down the hot, dimly lit hallway and stopped when she did at room 309. Three was his lucky number, and he could make four threes out of 309, which quadrupled his luck, good or bad.

  The key clicked when she slid it into the antiquated lock. She stepped inside and flipped a switch, and small lamps on either side of the bed lit up, casting a pale glow over the room.

  “Home sweet home.” She walked to the bed and tossed the key onto a nightstand.

  He followed her into the room and glanced around. A ceiling fan turned lazily over a double bed covered with a red-patterned spread. Two side tables flanked the bed. An open laptop sat on one of them. A camera with a big bulky lens sat beside it along with a well-used paper notebook.

  Nicely done, he thought. Her props supported her story. Still unconvinced, though, he walked to the wooden wardrobe that substituted for a closet, opened the doors, and checked inside. Empty except for more drab khakis and a pair of sandals. Same thing with the bathroom—no terrorist lying in wait to whack an American.

  She looked amused when he checked under the bed. “So . . . what do we call this? Paranoia or a basic distrust of women?”

  “Call it anything you want,” he said agreeably as he straightened up, dusting his hands together. “Mostly, it’s called life lessons.”

  Her deep brown eyes weren’t exactly smiling, but clearly, she felt entertained. “And do I pass inspection?”

  “The room does.” He stalked slowly toward her. “But I haven’t thoroughly inspected you yet. Got any explosive devises hidden under that ugly shirt?”

  Because he was taller than her by a head, she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. “No IEDs. Hope that doesn’t disappoint you. And I’m so sorry I didn’t dress for the occasion.” She smiled as he gripped her hips and eased her up against him.

  When she looped her arms around his neck, he pushed a little harder, just to see how far she’d let this go. “Dressing is highly overrated. Now, undressing”—he started tugging her shirt up and out of his way—“that’s something I could get into.”

  She didn’t resist, but she didn’t exactly melt against him, either. He, however, was about to go up in flames. She was slim and compact and soft where a woman was supposed to be. Especially where her breasts pressed against his chest. It had been a damn long time since he’d been naked with a woman; his job didn’t allow time even for one-night stands. Didn’t make him much of a long-term prospect, either.

  He smiled into her eyes, then bit back a groan when he slipped a hand beneath her shirt and touched warm, bare skin. Smooth and silky and gloriously alive. And that wasn’t all. Her lean body coiled tightly in anticipation as he worried a thumb back and forth across the skin above her waistband.

  Just before he reached the point of no return, while he still had it in him to think straight, he called her out. “It’s not too late to back out, Talia—if that’s really your name.”

  She frowned, then flattened her palms on his chest. “What? Of course it’s my name.”

  When he said nothing, she looked at him through narrowed and suddenly wary eyes.

  “Wait. You think I’m lying?” Her expression shifted from beleaguered amusement to a simmering anger. “Oh, my God. You do. You think I’m lying to you.”

  “What I think is that you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get my attention and make contact with me.”

  “Excuse me? Did I move into your space and offer to buy you a drink?”

  “No, but you would have if I hadn’t made the first move.”

  She glared at him. “You know what? You’re an asshole.”

  That shocked a laugh out of him. “You’re not the first woman to suggest it.”

  She shoved against his chest, but he held her right where she was.

  “Look. It’s no big deal. Just tell me who you really are and what you want from me. Then I’ll tell you I don’t have anything of value, and we can—”

  “Screw you.”

  “I wasn’t going to put it that way, exactly—”

  “God.” She cut him off with a disbelieving glare. “You really don’t trust me?”

  If she was playing him, she was damn good at it.

  That was fine. He could play with the best of ’em. “With my heart? Oh, you’re going to steal it for certain. And I’m okay with that. With my life? That I’m not so sure of.”

  Her eyes cooled from fiery anger to Arctic cold. “I thought we both understood what we wanted from each other. My bad. But I warned you that I’ve never done this before. Apparently, I really suck at it.”

  Embarrassment joined her anger, and this time, when she pushed, he let her go.

  “Here’s something you can trust.” She walked to the door and opened it. “I’m out of the mood. Please leave.”

  That was when he noticed her limp. He’d seen it earlier when she’d slid off the bar stool and headed toward the stairs. But he’d been busy watching her ass and wondering what she was up to, and he hadn’t processed it. Truth was, he hadn’t really wanted to know about it then. Now he did. He wanted to know real bad.

  “What’s with the limp?”

  “I asked you to leave.”

  “Why are you limping?” he asked in a tone that demanded an answer.

  She stood stiffly, her grip tight on the doorknob. “I told you. I had a close call today.”

  Yeah. Yeah, she had said that. He’d pretty much ignored it, too, because he’d been so busy trying to get a read on her motivation. But now he had an unsettling idea of where that close call had been. “How close?”

  She lowered her head on a long breath, and when she met his eyes again, she wasn’t nearly as steady as she wanted him to think she was. “Close enough to need a few stitches. No big deal.”

  He walked up beside her, pried her hand off the knob, and closed the door. “Sounds like a very big deal. Let me see.”

  “Why? Because you think I’m lying about that, too?”

  “Because I want to see.”

  Her dark eyes snapped with anger. He was pretty close to pissed now, too, and not altogether sure why. He gripped her upper arm, walked her over to the bed, and, cupping he
r shoulders, sat her down.

  “Take ’em off.” He nodded toward her pants.

  She glared up at him.

  “Don’t get shy on me now. A few minutes ago, we were about to strip each other naked and do the big nasty.”

  “I repeat. You’re an asshole.”

  He could glare, too, and evidently, he got his message across—either she’d take them off, or he would—because she finally unbuttoned her pants and undid the zipper.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “Right leg. My calf.”

  He knelt in front of her, propped her right foot on his thigh, and undid the laces on her boot. Once he’d gotten both it and the sock off, he helped her tug down her pants so her entire right leg was exposed, except for the white bandage wrapped around it from just below her knee to her ankle.

  She said nothing during this process. She sat there, eyes pinched in anger. Her ugly shirt gaped open just above her navel, revealing a smooth wedge of olive skin between it and the band of her bikini panties. Flesh-colored. Practical. Sexy as hell without meaning to be.

  A visual of him taking them off with his teeth shot through his mind and straight to his dick.

  He dragged his attention back to her bandaged leg. “Lie down. Roll over.”

  “I’m not a damn dog.”

  He grinned. “True—you look more like a defiant bunny. So stop with the glares, and just do it.”

  She muttered something under her breath but hitched herself lengthwise on the bed, then rolled to her stomach.

  He sat down beside her and carefully undid the gauze wrap, forcing his gaze away from her luscious ass. When he uncovered the wound, he swore.

  A four-inch gash, ragged and mean and still seeping blood, ran down her calf. Clumsily made stitches bit into the raw flesh.

  “What happened? And what quack stitched you up?” He laid his hand over the wound. It didn’t appear to be infected. Her skin was only slightly warm to the touch, but it was clearly sore, because she winced as he continued his examination.

  “An Army combat medic stitched it and field-dressed it for me,” she said, as he carefully rewrapped the dressing. “He was too busy trying to save lives to worry about tidy stitches.”

  His anger and mistrust deflated on a long breath, and he realized just how weary he was. Of this country. Of this damn war.

  He lay down beside her, not liking that he let her get to him. Crossing his hands beneath his head, he stared at the ceiling. For a long, long time, the fan spun overhead, and his thoughts spun out over how much he hated this place.

  “You were there? At the school today?” he finally asked.

  He’d heard about the ambush. Taliban fighters had opened fire on a group of children, specifically targeting the girls who dared go to school. The death toll was staggering. Inconceivable.

  He felt her shift beside him, sensed her gaze on him. And he knew before he turned his head what he’d see on her face.

  “They massacred them,” she whispered through tears she couldn’t hold back. “They killed those innocent children.”

  He’d survived this long by listening to his instincts. But even though he might be wrong in discounting them now, he gathered her in his arms and pulled her against him. He’d worry about lies and trust later.

  Her tears fell, hot and wet against his shoulder, where they seeped through his shirt and dampened his skin. She was so tense she trembled. And for the first time in a very long time, he felt empathy. Not the sympathy he felt daily for the Afghan people who were besieged by this endless war, but compassion for a single, fragile soul.

  A fragment of their conversation in the bar played back in his mind.

  Because today I need human contact.

  To remind you that you’re human?

  To remind me that humanity isn’t dead . . . even in the midst of this inhumane war.

  And what had been his sensitive response? My room or yours?

  He closed his eyes in self-disgust and pulled her closer.

  Was she who she said she was? Maybe yes, maybe no. And maybe he’d turned into a callous, cynical bastard who no longer knew how to trust.

  Most likely, he’d simply lost it. Everything about her skewed his judgment, and he knew he should be careful. But right now, he didn’t give a damn about caution. He just cared about comforting her as she cried.

  3

  The room was dark when he woke up. The power must have gone out again—nothing new in Kabul—because the bedside lamps were dark and the overhead fan was still. Along with the heat, random scents and sounds drifted in through the open window. A slim band of moonlight snuck in through the darkness, painting pale shadows on the walls, on his boot tips at the end of the bed, on her arm draped across his chest.

  His internal clock told him it was the middle of the night, and he was still holding Talia Levine. Him in his dusty fatigues, her half dressed and sweet-­smelling, her breathing deep and slow.

  He dragged a hand across his jaw. How, in this shithole country where the softest thing he ever encountered was the powdery dust that stung his eyes every day, had he ended up in a bed with her soft, warm body nestled against him?

  She stirred and snuggled closer in her sleep, and he quit asking questions. He indulged in her heat and her softness and her ill-advised trust in him. A stranger who could have robbed her, raped her, or just badgered her to death with his dogged disbelief in her story. And it made him wonder. Could a woman who was capable of such trust also be capable of a deceitful game he’d been certain she was playing?

  In his world, anything was possible. Case in point: he’d just slept with the woman, and he’d laid nothing but an altruistic hand on her. Mark that one down in the record books.

  It hadn’t been easy, either. Especially when the rutting-bull part of his brain kept coming up with excellent reasons to just take her.

  He breathed deep, pressed the heel of his hand against his swollen dick to relieve a little pressure—and realized he wasn’t the only one awake.

  He didn’t say anything, hoping she’d go back to sleep so he could slip away before the rutting bull got the upper hand. But when it became clear that wasn’t happening, he knew he couldn’t dodge the bullet any longer.

  “You doing okay?” he whispered into a night that had suddenly shifted from self-assessment to acute awareness.

  She rolled onto her back and out of his arms, and damn if he didn’t feel a chill despite the still, dry heat of the night.

  “I’m fine.” She didn’t sound fine. “Considering I keep managing to make a fool of myself.”

  It didn’t take a psychic to know where this was going, but he wasn’t touching it. She was embarrassed that she’d picked him up and then botched their hookup by crying—an act she thought was weak.

  “I don’t cry,” she announced, with an edge in her voice that spoke of defensiveness and anger but, most of all, mortification.

  “You had good reason.” It came out before he could stop himself.

  She hiked up on an elbow and looked down at him. In the shadowy darkness, he could make out every contour of her delicately sculpted face. The curve of her full lower lip. The thick, satiny tail of the black braid lying against her neck.

  “You don’t understand. I. Don’t. Cry.” She repeated it emphatically but without the anger this time. This time, there was something in her tone that told him flat out: she’d had reason to cry many times in her life, but she considered giving in to that self-indulgence inexcusable.

  “Everyone cries, Talia. Not everyone gets caught.”

  There’d been a time when he’d been too broken to be ashamed of his tears. He’d watched his team die in an ambush not far from here. And later he’d listened in painful disbelief as his best friend sold out not only himself but him and Coop, too.

  Less-than-honorable dischar
ge.

  It was pure bullshit. Stink-to-high-heaven bullshit. But his world as he’d known it was suddenly gone with the slam of a military judge’s gavel. A world he’d bled for and would have died for. And now he was an outcast in that world.

  He breathed deep. No good would come from mourning everything he’d lost that day. And no good would come from getting soft over a woman he’d cast as Mata Hari less than four hours ago.

  “I should go,” he said abruptly. He didn’t like the turn his thoughts had taken.

  He sat up and swung his feet to the floor in one quick motion. He hadn’t yet gathered the wherewithal to get up and walk out the door when her slender fingers touched his arm and her soft whisper stopped him.

  “You should stay.”

  * * *

  Nothing real should feel this good. And yet as he held his weight on his elbows above her, with nothing but perspiration and heat between their naked bodies, he knew this was as real as it got.

  You should stay.

  Desire and need shot straight to his core with those three words. She’d meant it. And to make sure he knew it, she’d sat up and tugged his shirt over his head. He was already gone by then. Already twisting around to return the favor.

  Somehow, despite their frantic rush, they managed to get rid of their clothes without hurting each other and fell naked together on the bed.

  He didn’t ask if she was sure. The way her mouth tracked hot, brazen kisses across his skin, the way her lithe and toned body moved against him, was all the answer he needed.

  Could he trust her? Did she lie? He didn’t know. Didn’t care. Not now, as he moved over her, kissed her deeply, and pumped his hips against hers, so hot and ready for her all he could think about was sliding inside her.

  She ran greedy hands over his shoulders, down his back, fingers splayed, as if to touch as much of him as fast as she could. “Please.”

  The single word fractured his lust-crazed mind and stopped him from pushing into her.