Taking Fire

by Radclyffe

  “Yeah. You are.” Max went out to find a nurse to medicate him so she could irrigate and debride the wound and get it closed.

  What was left of the night was uneventful, and at seven she met her replacement, a big man with the personality of a teddy bear, in the coffee room.

  “So I saw the article in the newspaper the other day,” Ben Markowitz said after Max finished filling him in on the patients who were waiting for X-rays to be read, lab tests to come back, or for the OR to open up for their urgent but noncritical surgeries.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, hoping that would be the end of it.

  “Seriously, that was an incredible story. I…I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but I don’t know—I feel like I should say thank you.”

  Max put the charts down and looked into his well-meaning face. His blue eyes were soft and compassionate, his broad, soft features gentle. A wave of anger passed through, surprising her with its heat. No one would have known what she’d done if Tom Benedict hadn’t written about the rescue, and he wouldn’t have known about that if Rachel hadn’t needed to bail her out. She spoke with measured calm. “It’s not necessary. I didn’t do anything that thousands of others haven’t done.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, but your story makes it real, Max. To me, to a lot of people. And that’s important.” He leaned forward earnestly. “It’s important to put a human face on the cost of it all. That’s what makes it real.”

  “Real,” Max murmured. She’d looked at the story, saw the pictures that Benedict’s photographer had taken at the end of the interview of her and Rachel posed together. She’d read the account of what had happened in the jungle, but the telling of it—no matter how accurate Benedict had been—sanitized the events. Even the descriptions of the dead were impotent compared to the truth of it. Rachel, she discovered in the article, was Rachel Winslow Harriman, daughter of the Secretary of State. That put the pieces together, finally, of why the Black Hawks had been deployed to extract the aid workers, particularly Rachel. Her father’s surprise visit to the Middle East was probably related to the timing. And now Rachel was traveling with her father while he toured the war zone, assessing the need for retracting troops or redistributing them or simply boosting morale.

  Max hadn’t known any of that when she and Rachel had spent those hours together preparing for another attack. She hadn’t known when Rachel had come to her CLU and taken solace in her arms and pleasure in her body. The article didn’t make it real for her because none of that had anything to do with what mattered to her.

  “Like I said,” Max said, “things like that happen all the time out there. There are thousands of heroes. I don’t deserve anything special.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Okay. Well, I’m glad you’re back.”

  She took a breath and said what he needed to hear. “Thanks. So am I.”

  Maybe one day it would be true.

  Max wished Ben a quiet shift, collected her gear, and walked out into the morning. She blinked in the sunlight, surprised as she always was to realize another day had begun while she had spent the night locked away in a world that might have been a galaxy away from the life that passed outside the hospital. She was forty blocks from home, but she liked the walk and headed in that direction.

  “Max?”

  Max stopped, not certain she’d actually heard her name. She turned and watched as Rachel handed money to a cabbie, picked up a suitcase, and walked toward her.

  “Rachel?” Max waited, breathing slowly and carefully, afraid to disturb the air and dispel the apparition.

  “Yes.” Rachel set down the suitcase a few feet from Max and pushed hair out of her eyes. Her hand shook. She was pale, circles under her eyes, weariness in the lines around her mouth. She looked thinner, haunted, like a ghost figure from one of Max’s dreams.

  “Are you okay?” Max grimaced. “Dumb question. Sorry. I just didn’t expect to see you.” Ever.

  “Yes,” Rachel said. “Sorry about that. I’ve just spent eighteen hours on a couple of airplanes. Sorry to barge in on you like this. But—I had to see you.”

  “I thought you were still in Mogadishu.”

  People walked by, streaming around them as if they were an island in the midst of a fast-running river. Max feared Rachel might be caught up by the current and swept away at any second. She wanted to hold on to her—to keep her close.

  “I was until last night. I couldn’t get away before then. My father—”

  “Yes, I saw in the paper about his surprise visit to the forward bases. You traveled with him, it said.”

  Rachel’s gaze roamed Max’s face. “Part of the trip. He wanted me along. PR. I don’t suppose I need to explain.” She winced, shook her head. “Well, not that at least. A lot of other things.”

  Max slid her hands into the pockets of her black cargo pants. “Rachel, you don’t need to explain anything to me.”

  Rachel’s eyes looked older than Max remembered. Wounded in a way they hadn’t even in the midst of all the terror. She wanted to brush her thumbs over the bruises below Rachel’s eyes and whisper them away. She wanted to heal her the way she sometimes healed others, only this need to erase the pain touched her so much more deeply than ever before.

  “Please, Max.” Rachel took a step closer and clasped Max’s arm, her fingers warm and soft. “I know it’s not something you even want to hear, but if you would just let me explain—”

  “You’re not going to do any explaining until you’ve eaten and slept.” Max couldn’t bear the sadness in Rachel’s eyes. She cupped Rachel’s jaw. “How about I make you breakfast.”

  Rachel smiled and made a small sound that was half laughter and half sob. “Are you still taking care of me, Commander de Milles?”

  Max picked up Rachel’s suitcase. “As much as you’ll allow, maybe.”

  “I could have gone home,” Rachel said, not moving. “My apartment is uptown, but I came here because it’s the only place I knew you might be. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “No, neither have I. Let’s get a cab.”

  “All right,” Rachel said.

  Max stepped to the curb, waved down a cab, and as it pulled over, returned to Rachel. She hefted the suitcase and slid her arm around Rachel’s waist. Holding her was the first thing that felt totally right since she’d left Djibouti. “My place okay with you?”

  “Perfect.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The cab bumped along in the stop-and-go morning traffic. Rachel caught herself about to lean against Max’s shoulder, knowing she shouldn’t, couldn’t…but she was so very tired and Max was there. After so long, after what felt like forever, Max was there. She hadn’t really expected her to be. She’d thought when she arrived at the hospital, Max would be gone. That when she asked for her, the people inside would say they’d never even heard of her. As if Max was all an illusion, born out of terror and hope and desire. If Max hadn’t been there, she would have dragged her suitcase back out to the street and gone home. She would have pulled down the shades, crawled into bed, and prayed that when she woke, her world would have righted itself. That when she woke she would be in control again, that her heart would have stopped aching. That she would know how to find Max.

  She could smell her. Different than before. The earthy, sun-drenched scent was gone. In its place was a hint of spice—shampoo, maybe, or hand soap—and the underlying bite of something medicinal and stark. Her hair was a little longer. She needed a cut, but the shagginess suited her all the same. A little defiant and wild, like Max. Her maroon scrub shirt hung outside her black pants. Her black boots laced up, like combat boots, and she still wore no jewelry. The chain around her neck was gone, but the dog tags might as well still have been there. Max was still on duty, maybe still at war.

  “You’re just coming from work,” Rachel said, her brain functioning again. “You must need to sleep. This is a bad idea.”

  Max shifted on the seat until her knee touched Rachel’s and
their eyes met. Max’s eyes hadn’t changed. Still that electric blue deeper than any Rachel had ever known. She’d expected anger or distance or cold dismissal, but Max’s eyes were tender, the way they had been the first time the two of them had touched on the edge of the jungle. Absurdly, Rachel wished they were still there, standing under the hot sun with Max’s hand on her waist, steadying her, Max’s eyes gentle and warm. When had she become so desperately needy? She tried to escape the pull of Max’s gaze, but she couldn’t. Not when she’d come so far to be near her.

  “Tell the cabbie to take me home when we get to your place. You can call me or—”

  “No,” Max said. Just that. No. “I have to run out to get some food. I don’t think there’s anything except maybe some leftover Chinese.”

  “That sounds wonderful to me.” Rachel didn’t want Max to go anywhere, afraid if she left, disappeared from sight, she’d be gone again. Maybe forever. “I don’t need you to do anything special. I’m just…glad to see you.”

  Max took Rachel’s hand. Her fingers were as warm as Rachel remembered. She squeezed gently and let go. Rachel wanted to cry out when the contact slipped away.

  “It’s good to see you too. But the Chinese is way too left-over to be safe.” Max smiled a crooked smile and moved her knee.

  Silence filled the cab until it pulled up before an apartment building in a long row of them on a narrow street dotted with the occasional maple and lined with cars parked bumper to bumper. Three steps led up to each wooden double front door.

  Max handed over money, climbed out, and while Rachel followed, grabbed her luggage from the trunk. Max’s building was brown stone, with tall narrow windows on every floor and nothing else to distinguish it.

  “It’s the third floor,” Max said, leading the way inside.

  Rachel entered a tiny foyer and climbed a twisting set of stairs, through hallways smelling of disinfectant past closed doors that echoed with emptiness. Max fumbled a key from the backpack she’d slung over one shoulder, opened the door that said 3B, and held it wide. Rachel stepped in past her and stopped in the center of a single large room with a kitchen tucked into one corner, a sofa under the tall front window, a plain oak coffee table in front of that, several bookcases filled with books on the wall by the door, and a medium-sized television on a stand that needed dusting. No dishes in the sink, no magazines and newspapers lying around. Neat and Spartan, like Max’s CLU had been. There was even a pile of clothes next to the sofa, which she guessed was Max’s bed. Functional and nothing else. The door closed behind her, the suitcase thumped to the floor, and they were alone again. She was almost afraid to turn around, she wanted Max so desperately. The hot glide of her flesh, the cool oasis of her mouth, the steady strength of her arms. Everything she needed. She wrapped her arms around her waist and kept facing the window.

  The silence was still and heavy.

  Max wasn’t yet completely sure Rachel was real, standing there in the middle of her barren life, not sure she wouldn’t wake from a dream to find Rachel gone and herself caught in another form of nightmare where the loss would be more than she could bear. Rachel was battered and bruised now, and Max was the only one who really knew why—they shared the same haunted memories. In time, Rachel would heal and Max might be a reminder of what she’d rather forget. Rachel was not only too strong to need anyone to slay her demons, she also had another life far different than anything she shared with Max.

  And none of it mattered—not the risk, not the pain, not the empty place her life would become if she let Rachel in and Rachel walked out again. Nothing mattered except Rachel, and she was here. Nothing else had mattered since the moment she’d run toward the rising Black Hawk, taking fire from every direction, jumped into its belly, and turned to see Rachel waiting for her. Rachel was here now, and she looked on the verge of collapse.

  “I’ll get you a towel and you can grab a shower,” Max said. “I’ll pick up some food and be back before you’re done.”

  “Yes, all right,” Rachel said softly.

  Max rummaged in the single closet and found clean towels. “It’s in here.”

  Rachel followed into the small bathroom.

  “Take as long as you need,” Max said. The space between the sink and the wall was just large enough to turn around in, and with two of them, the fit was tight. Rachel was an inch away, so still and vulnerable Max’s heart bled. She cupped her face, ran her thumb over the arch of Rachel’s cheek. Rachel drew a breath that quavered.

  “Then you sleep,” Max whispered.

  Rachel’s fingers closed around Max’s wrist, sending a surge of fire through her.

  “I need to tell you things.”

  “Maybe,” Max murmured, “but that can wait.”

  “I’m afraid,” Rachel said so softly Max wasn’t sure she heard her. “Afraid if you walk out, I won’t see you again.”

  Max cradled her head in both hands and kissed her gently, not with the passion that roared inside her, but with all the tenderness and reassurance she could put into it. “I won’t. I told you that before.”

  Rachel’s hands fisted in Max’s shirt and she rested her forehead against Max’s. She laughed unsteadily. “I seem to keep losing you.”

  “No, you don’t.” Max closed her eyes, drew in the light scent that clung to her hair, the same vanilla that had lingered on her pillow. Her heart raced so fast she was dizzy. “You never have.”

  “If you say you’ll be back, I believe you.” Rachel raised her eyes. “I always have.”

  Max forced herself to break away. She wanted to be inside her, lost in the scent and taste of her. But that wasn’t what Rachel needed. Maybe not even what she needed. She took another step away while every inch of her protested. “I’ll be here.”

  “Thank you.” Rachel smiled wanly and reached for the buttons on her shirt.

  Max fled.

  She grabbed her keys, checked her wallet to be sure she had money, and raced down the stairs to the street. In the twenty-four-hour market on the corner, she hastily gathered juice and bread and eggs and whatever else she thought Rachel might want to eat, waited impatiently while two people in front of her checked out, and sprinted back. When she let herself into the apartment, the water was still running in the bathroom. The tightness in her chest eased. She didn’t want Rachel to think she wouldn’t be there for her.

  She poured some juice and popped bread in the toaster. When she turned around with the juice in her hand, Rachel stood in the bathroom door, the plain white bath towel Max had given her wrapped around her chest beneath her arms. It fell to midthigh, a V opening along the outer aspect of her left hip. Her thigh was smooth and long and sleek. Her hair was wet and hung in tangles to her shoulders. She was barefoot. She was beautiful.

  “I made toast,” Max said inanely.

  Rachel smiled. “I can smell it. I didn’t think I was hungry, but it smells wonderful.”

  “Eggs?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Maybe later. I think right now just the toast.”

  Max nodded, realized she was still holding the glass of orange juice. She set it down on the coffee table, aware of Rachel moving closer. She carried the heat of the shower with her, the scent of soap and shampoo. Max’s hands trembled.

  “Max.”

  Max straightened and Rachel was there, inches away. She groaned, the wanting a beast that tore through her, shredding sanity and reason. “I’m having trouble thinking of anything except touching you.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Max shook her head. “Sorry.”

  Rachel slid her arms around Max’s neck and the heat of her skin wafted over Max. “Don’t be.”

  Max tugged the towel free and pulled Rachel the rest of the way to her. Rachel was naked and warm and fit perfectly in her arms. Max held her tightly and kissed her with everything she’d held back earlier, ripping aside every barrier she’d ever made to take her in, needing her taste more than water in the desert. Rachel whimpered and fiste
d her hands in Max’s hair, wrapping one leg around Max’s to join them more closely. Max kissed her for a long time, their bodies locked, stroking the length of Rachel’s smooth back, over the curve of her ass, up her sides until her thumbs brushed the full swell of Rachel’s breasts. Rachel whimpered again, her hips circling beneath Max’s hands.

  “The couch,” Max gasped. “I have to open it.”

  “Hurry.”

  Max shoved the coffee table aside and flipped open the bed. She hadn’t slept in it much and the sheets were neat and regulation tight. She ripped down the top one, yanked her scrub shirt off over her head, and shoved free of her pants and boots. She grabbed Rachel’s hand and pulled her down onto the bed. Sunlight streamed through the window over their heads, painting Rachel’s skin golden. Max leaned over her and kissed her again, running her hands over her breasts and belly and the arch of her hip. Rachel’s legs parted and her hips rose. Max eased back to look into Rachel’s eyes as she caressed her. Rachel’s lips parted on a sigh and her eyes went liquid.

  “I dreamed this,” Rachel whispered.

  “So did I.” Gently, Max filled her. She shuddered, feeling as if she was holding back a tidal wave. She wanted to drive inside her, to take her and take her over and drown in her pleasure. She pressed her forehead to Rachel’s shoulder and fought to catch her breath, to find her control.

  Rachel’s fingers came around her wrist, pushed her deeper. “Don’t go slow. Not this time.”

  Max kissed her and followed the call of Rachel’s rising and falling hips. Gliding deep and long and smooth, circling her clit with every stroke. Rachel’s nails dug into her shoulders, urging, demanding. Max let go of her last restraint and sped up. Rachel came with a sharp cry, her mouth pressed to Max’s neck. Max kept going, heeding the pulse of desire tight around her.

  “Yes, yes,” Rachel cried, lifting to take her deeper. She came again, and again when Max slid down and put her mouth where her thumb had been, teasing and stroking until Rachel gripped her head and came in her mouth.