He could feel the sorrow dragging at her, weighing her down. A thick blanket of oppression sucking the life from her. He’d wager the heartache was hitting her the hardest. To lose so many friends at once. Not just her mentor, but everyone she’d worked with. Sweet Jesus—that kind of loss would hit a person hard. He thought of losing Zane and Cosky, Mac, Aiden, Tram and Tag, and the rest of his buddies in ST7, and his soul went ice cold.
As soon as the lock clicked, Rawls pushed the door open, hit the switch to turn on the lights, and half carried Faith inside.
She stirred as they stepped through the doorframe. “I should go to my own room. I’m not good company at the moment.”
Like hell. But Rawls kept the thought to himself.
There was no way he was letting her suffer through the night alone. Whether she wanted it or not, she needed company. A warm body to remind her there was more than death in this world. A warm body to remind her that life was still there for the living.
“Let’s get you in the shower and warmed up,” he said, ignoring her comment.
“Okay.” She stared up at him with the saddest, most exhausted eyes he’d ever seen. But then her gaze dropped to his bicep and the beginnings of a frown knit her brow. “How’s your side and abdomen? Maybe you should go see the doctor.”
“The wounds are gone,” Rawls assured her. “One Bird is almost as good as Kait.”
In fact, he felt amazingly good. The ringing in his ears and aches and pains from hitting the ground had been vanquished along with the bullet holes. He stared down at her paint-streaked face and red-rimmed eyes as he tugged the T-shirt over her head. After returning to the chopper, he’d soaked a rag in water to wash her face. The effort had smeared rather than removed the paint, giving her the definitive raccoon look.
She didn’t protest when he started undressing her; instead she stood there, docile, while he unzipped and unbuttoned.
“I had thought we’d get there in time,” she said softly, anguish thickening her voice. She absently lifted one foot and then the other so he could remove her shoes. “I thought we’d have more time.”
Naked, her skin looked translucent beneath the harsh white light. Fragile. She was so thin he could clearly see the rise and fall of each rib and the points of her pelvis and collarbones.
“What happened was not your fault,” he said, in case she was suffering from survivors’ guilt, although from experience he knew the reassurance wouldn’t sink in right away—if it ever did.
He stripped his own clothes off and then urged her into the bathroom. After adjusting the taps until the water ran two steps below hot, he eased her under the spray. She flinched slightly as the water hit.
“Too hot?” he asked, keeping his voice soft and unobtrusive.
“No.” The word emerged on a sigh.
Although he wasn’t within the spray zone, the steam built steadily until they were surrounded by heat and humidity.
She tilted her face up and stood there, still, while the spray hit her full in the face. He didn’t realize she was shaking until he picked up the bar of soap and turned toward her.
Ah hell . . .
Dropping the soap back on the shelf, he dragged Faith into his arms and held her tight. She shuddered and pressed against him, her hot, wet face nestled in the hollow of his throat.
The shake to her shoulders was his first indication she was crying. But the tears were falling silently. The hurt so vast she couldn’t give voice to it. Somehow that made her pain even harder to witness.
“There you go. Let it out,” he whispered, running his hands up and down her slick back.
He ignored his own aching, a very physical one, as the wet, warm woman in his arms pressed fully against him. His dick signaled its approval with a steady increase in breadth and length, at least until Rawls mentally squashed its excitement.
Sweet Mary and Joseph . . .
She didn’t need lovemaking, not at the moment. She needed comforting, she needed caring for. No matter how badly certain regions of his anatomy wanted to do more . . . a lot more.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.” The words were a mumble against his chest.
“Who?” he asked gently, stroking his palms up and down her spine.
He tried to keep his caresses soothing, although the warm, satin glide of her naked flesh beneath his hands was anything but relaxing on his end. He wrapped a choke chain around his libido and wrestled it under control.
“Gil—” she whispered, her voice breaking. “It doesn’t feel real. None of this seems real.”
He tightened his arms around her, still stroking her back, wishing he could absorb her pain.
Eventually the water cooled, so he pulled back to find the soap and washrag. He lathered her up and rinsed her off and started in on washing her hair. She sighed, resting against him, as he massaged her scalp. Once her hair had been washed, conditioned, and rinsed, he turned the water off and wrapped her in a towel. The towel wasn’t a particularly large one, yet it swallowed her fragile frame.
Concern rose as he dried her off, his touch gentle against the frailty beneath his hands. She was too damn thin. He should have taken her to the cafeteria before taking her to his bed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, an odd, almost cautious tone in her voice.
He glanced up to find the same wariness in her eyes. “You need to eat. Don’t go to sleep yet. I’ll run to the cafeteria and grab us somethin’.”
She caught his hand as he started to rise. “Don’t bother. I wouldn’t be able to eat anything anyway.”
His frown deepened. “You need to try. You’re too damn thin. You can’t afford to miss a meal.”
A flash of hurt crossed her face, and he gently shook her.
“Don’t even go there. If I didn’t find you insanely sexy, you might have gotten some sleep last night. I want you healthy, that’s all. Healthy enough so last night can repeat into infinity.”
She chuffed out something close to a laugh, but not quite. Running her hand up his arm, she slowed at his bicep and squeezed. “I believe the fact that I couldn’t keep my hands to myself had a lot to do with our lack of sleep.”
Rawls locked down his response. Instead of pouncing on her, like every instinct insisted, he leaned up and over, snagging the sheets and blankets and dragging them down. Lifting her, he set her on the mattress and climbed into bed beside her. Once they were settled, he dragged the bedding over them.
Tucking her against his chest, he kissed the top of her head. “If you start questionin’ how sexy I find you, just remember that I’m naked, so that’s not my Heckler and Koch MP7 pokin’ you in the ass.”
Another of those soft chuffing sounds broke from her. With a sigh deep enough to lift her chest against his arm, she relaxed.
“If we were at my place, I’d cook you somethin’ special. Like French toast,” he said, pressing his lips against her hair. It was the strangest thing, but she still smelled like berries, even though the shampoo and soap in his shower was scentless.
“French toast, huh.” She sounded drowsy. “Is that what you make all the ladies?”
“Only you, sweetheart.”
Which was true. He’d never cooked for a woman; it had always been the other way around. His girlfriends, and he’d had a fair—albeit fleeting—share, had cooked for him. But French toast was high in nutrition and calories. A perfect combination. He’d be making a lot of it in Faith’s future.
Which brought up the question of what the future held for them. Or where they’d be living. He glanced toward the counter where the coffeepot sat. If he picked up a hot plate and a minifridge, he could make do for the time being.
“Gilbert just turned sixty, he was talking about retiring. And Monica had gotten engaged. Hannah had barely returned from maternity leave. My God, her poor husband. Her poor daughter. She’ll never see Ally grow up . . .” She paused, and a long raw silence built and then—“They were more than my coworkers, they were my friends.”
“I know, baby.” He cuddled her closer.
“I didn’t really have any other friends,” she added in a small voice, as though she were confessing a shameful secret.
Did she realize she’d spoken in the past tense?
He cradled her closer but didn’t say anything since there wasn’t much he could say.
“Dr. Benton, he was my professor and then my adviser, but I think . . . I think he was the closest thing to a friend I’d had up to that point.” Her voice was distant, as though she were talking to herself.
His chest tightened and ached. Did she hear the loneliness in her voice? “Didn’t you have friends as a kid?”
She sighed, and the loneliness he sensed in her increased substantially. “My parents discouraged friendships. They felt my immune system was too compromised and that any old cold or flu would be my demise.”
The ache in his chest increased in proportion to the ache in her voice. “They homeschooled you?”
It was a guess, but a good one. If they hadn’t wanted her around kids, they wouldn’t have enrolled her in school.
“At first, but once I outgrew their knowledge, they brought in tutors. I wouldn’t have gotten nearly as good an education at regular school.”
Maybe not, but at least she’d have had a fucking childhood.
He forced back the anger. That wasn’t what she needed right now. She needed someone to hold her and listen.
“Dr. Benton was the first person in my life who didn’t treat me like a walking casualty. Who didn’t assess me by my transplants or tachycardia or lowered immune system. He was the first person who saw the whole me. Faith. The good, the bad, the ordinary.”
“That’s why you joined his research team after college?” Rawls prompted, hoping to keep her talking.
He’d bet this kind of openness, this kind of vulnerability, was new to Faith. Her guard was down, but who knew how long that would last, and he wanted to know more about her. Everything about her.
“Maybe . . . but I still loved it. There was always something new to learn or study or do. It didn’t feel like work, so I stayed late most nights and got there early. Everyone did.”
“What you’re describin’ is life on the teams.” He paused, laughed softly. “My team, that is. We train together, work together, and play together. They’re my teammates, but my friends too.”
He could feel her thinking that through—thinking that he still had his friends, while hers were gone.
“You still have friends, Faith,” he reminded her softly. “New friends. You have Kait, Beth, Zane, and Cosky. You have me.”
Did she hear the promise in his voice?
She stirred restlessly against him. “It’s not the same thing. I barely know them. I thought Kait was a charlatan, for God’s sake.”
Rawls smiled in satisfaction. Thought . . . past tense again.
“There’s plenty of time to get to know them. We’ll be hangin’ out with them a lot.”
She obviously noticed the way he’d linked them because her hand slipped around his hip and wrapped around his dick.
“So we’re friends?” she asked, without a hint of coyness.
He tried to concentrate on the curiosity in her voice—but sweet Jesus—he could barely string two thoughts together with the way her soft, hot hand was burning around his cock.
“That we are.” His voice sounded strangled.
“Then what is this?” She pumped her hand up and down his cock before giving it a light squeeze. “Friends with benefits?”
“Hell no!” He caught her hand, easing it from his dick. “This is a committed relationship. The kind where if another man tries to touch you, I break every bone in his body.”
She must have liked that announcement because her body melted into his. “What if another woman touches you?”
He shrugged and stroked a long, slow hand up her abdomen to cup her breast. “Then you can break every bone in my body.”
She snorted out a laugh. Leaning down, she kissed the arm locked around her waist. “I don’t mind . . . you know . . .” She wiggled her ass against his crotch. “Doing it, if you want to.”
He chuckled. Doing it? Look at her getting all bashful.
“Lovemakin’ can wait,” he said, knowing she could feel the missile pressing against her hip.
“But doesn’t it hurt?” Her hand closed over the rigid length of his shaft.
She sounded more inquisitive than worried, as though her scientific curiosity was getting the better of her.
“It’s not exactly pleasant,” he said dryly. “But there are plenty of things that hurt a hell of a lot more.”
Like losing her in the tunnels. Absently, his arm tightened around her waist, sealing her against him until he could feel every breath she took and every beat of her heart.
The fact that she didn’t protest told him his instincts were right. She needed cuddling tonight. The heat could come later.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Three
* * *
FAITH AWOKE TO a furnace roasting her backside from shoulders to toes. Dazed with sleep, she tried to wiggle away, but the band of steel wrapped around her waist tightened, dragging her flush against the heater again. Vaguely the sound of breathing registered and her memory stirred.
The vise around her waist was a male arm. A heavy male arm. The furnace against her back, a long, lean male body. The bulge nudging her bottom, either a hip or a knee or . . . something else entirely . . .
Rawls.
She squirmed back a few inches and snuggled down, contentment spreading through her in a warm, fluffy wave. It felt so good to have him wrapped around her like this. So . . . right.
But then the memory of the night before crashed into her mind. The forest, the explosion. Her friends and colleagues dead. All dead. Grief rose, drowned the contentment beneath a whirlpool of loss. So much death. So much evil.
She concentrated on the furnace toasting her from behind until the hollow raw grief eased. She wasn’t going to give the bastards who’d stolen her friends the satisfaction of destroying her life as well. There was proof of life behind her. Proof of good, rather than evil. She’d focus on what was important. What really mattered—like life and friendship and love.
Love?
The realization snapped her fully awake. Fully aware.
She loved him?
Well, sure she was attracted to him, but when had that physical attraction morphed into an emotional connection?
The answer came immediately. She’d fallen in love with him the night before, when he’d vetoed his teammates’ invitation in order to spend the night with her.
Looking back, the emotion had been building for days—driven by his loyalty to his teammates, his kindness toward her, his determination to do the right thing no matter the personal cost, his unfailing, unflinching courage, which he seemed completely unaware of.
But she’d fallen completely for him the day before when he’d put her first—put her life and her needs before his own.
She took a shallow breath, suddenly wide-awake. He’d used his body as a shield to protect her. Not just the night before, but ten days ago as well. Back at her lab, when he’d pulled her from beneath Big Ben. After they’d been attacked, he’d pinned her against the wall, using his flesh and bone for her protection. It had been an instant, instinctive reaction, this willingness to give up his life so that she might live, even though they’d been strangers at the time. He’d done the same thing—repeatedly—the night before.
And then he’d brought her home and he’d bathed her and held her and listened to her grieving, ignoring his own needs to focus on hers. He’d put her first the night before, above everything, above everyone, even above himself.
And she’d fallen completely and irrevocably in love with him.
Stunned by the realization, she lay there, concentrating on the warm arm pinning her to the mattress, and the big body heating the entire length of her from behind. Whi
le he’d told her that they were in a committed relationship, he’d never said he loved her. But if you extrapolated his feeling based on his actions . . .
A man wouldn’t cuddle a woman all night long, ignoring his raging erection—his own needs—unless he cared about the woman he was holding . . . would he? He’d talked about feeding her, for God’s sake—that alone indicated he felt something for her, right? Something beyond the physical?
Suddenly desperate to see his face, she tried to turn over. His arm tightened around her again, pinning her in place. Grabbing his hand with both of hers, she dragged it up, which loosened some of the pressure from his arm. She turned over, dropping his arm as she started the roll. Instantly his arm cinched back around her waist, locking her in place. But this time she was facing the opposite direction.
The bulge that had been pressing against her bottom was poking her in the belly now, and she knew with absolute certainty that it wasn’t a hip or a knee—indeed, it was something else entirely.
Not that he seemed aware of it. She studied the relaxed lines of his face and frowned slightly. His face looked much thinner than it had at the airport terminal all those months ago. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who needed feeding.
With his eyes closed, he’d lost the intensity she associated with him. He appeared almost vulnerable, or maybe just tired. Impulsively, using the tips of her fingers, she smoothed the lines between his eyes and smiled as the corners of his lips tipped at her touch. A sunny, warm glow filled her chest. When she shifted her fingers to his mouth, she felt his lips curve beneath her fingers. Her gaze shot to his eyes, but they were still shut, his face still relaxed.
Her heart melted. He wasn’t even awake, yet he smiled when she touched him. Tickled by this discovery, she pressed in closer, her right hand stroking his belly while she kissed the side of his neck. Her hand took a detour to the side of his abdomen to verify that One Bird had healed him to the extent that Rawls had claimed the night before.
His flesh flowed smooth and hard and completely unmarred beneath her hand. She grinned when his heart rate quickened beneath her touch. His erection, which she’d been trying to ignore, grew more demanding, prodding rather than nudging her belly. She strung kisses down the side of his neck and then around to the front, where she nuzzled the hollow of his throat.
Forged in Smoke (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel Book 3) Page 34
