by April Hunt
“I don’t know if I’ll be here long enough for that to happen.”
That seemed to catch Trey’s attention. He didn’t look at her, his attention still focused on the fireplace, but something in his body language had tensed. “You have someplace to be?”
“Right now? No. But when I can finally get back to my life, I’m hoping to pick up another assignment. It’s a sad reality, but there’s always someplace in the world that’s in need of medical help.”
“Thailand was your first post?”
“Yep.” Elle propped her chin on her bent knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Shay and I didn’t plan on staying as long as we did, but everything there was so much worse than any picture could’ve captured, so we extended our time. Some people lost everything—their families, their homes, their total livelihood. And yet they gave more to me than I could ever give them.”
Trey finally looked at her over his shoulder and studied her intently. “What did they give you?”
“Perspective.” And Elle meant it. “There was no contest as to who’d been through more suffering, and yet they were still trudging along, making the most of a really horrific situation. They made me realize that it was time to stop focusing on the things I didn’t have and start being thankful for what I do. Suck up. Buck up. And toughen up.”
“You’re plenty tough, if you ask me.”
Her eye roll–snort combination could’ve been seen and heard from the Hubble. “Right.”
Trey gave her a disbelieving look. “You uprooted your life and moved thousands of miles away to help take care of people who’d fallen on rough times. How the hell is that not the definition of tough? It’s brave as fucking hell.”
Because I did it to run away from my problems.
The words nearly fell from her lips, but Elle clamped her mouth shut—not because she didn’t think he’d listen or care, but a guy like him wouldn’t understand skirting past problems by using airline tickets and a few thousand miles of distance. He dealt with them via head-on collisions, as did everyone at Alpha.
“Don’t try and turn me into something I’m not,” she said wearily.
“I don’t need to turn you when you’re already it to begin with.”
Trey’s intense inspection forced her to look away. Knowing he saw her in that way was nice. It just wasn’t the truth. As far back as she could remember, fear of her father’s disapproval had fueled every decision of her life—even nearly marrying a man she didn’t love.
It was worry of backsliding into that naive, “Yes, sir” life that had sent her to Thailand, not the long list of altruistic reasons Trey had just recited. Hell, she’d been back in the States less than a few weeks and was already letting fear influence her decisions again. Instead of a medical clinic in Thailand, her reprieve from reality was Trey’s arms.
A live-action landmine would be safer than this conversation.
“You’re the brave one.” Elle turned back on him. “I’m not exactly a military expert, but even I know that they don’t let just anyone into Delta Force. And then when you left the Army, instead of taking a quiet, safe desk job, you joined Alpha. I’m sure you’ve been to a lot of interesting places. Where was your most memorable?”
“Thailand.” Trey stood, not even batting an eye.
He closed the distance between them, his sweatpants riding low enough on his waist to reveal that delicious arch over each hip. Her icicle toes—gone. Ability to talk—vanished. Her panties—dampening. Neither one of them spoke as he sat next to her.
Elle tracked a spark of embers as it cracked and sizzled in the fireplace—anything not to dwell on the burning hole Trey’s green eyes were boring through her defenses. She attempted to swallow a lump in her throat the size of a softball.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” Trey asked.
“Nope,” Elle croaked.
“Why?”
Afraid of the answer. Every inch of her was overly aware of every inch of Trey; his slow, even breath; the smell of soap and musk. From the corner of her eye, she scanned the length of his corded arms and the way his long fingers linked casually between his knees.
Hands said a lot about a man. Rough-tipped and callused, Trey’s were equally strong and gentle, able to protect her one moment and worship her body the next.
Next to her, he shifted. Their shoulders barely brushed, but it sent a zap of heat directly from his body to hers. He looked physically at ease, yet the tension hanging in the air said otherwise.
“Elle.” His thumb brushed a strand of hair that had gotten caught in her eyelashes, and then his fingers gently tipped her face his way.
“Don’t.” Unknowingly holding her breath, her head started going dizzy in a matter of seconds.
“Don’t what? Tell you the truth?” His eyes narrowed as he fought to understand the answers to questions even she didn’t know.
“Don’t say anything you can’t take back. Uncomplicated, remember?”
“Fuck uncomplicated.” His vehemence made her blink before he softened his words and dipped his head to hold her attention. “This whole damn thing’s been complicated since that day in the bar, and you know it.”
“One-night stands are meant to be uncomplicated.”
“What we had—have—is not a one-night stand. It’s not a two-night stand, or even a three. What we have is different…I don’t know how it is, or why. But I suspected it when I first laid eyes on you, and the more time we spend together, the more I know…it just is.”
She tilted her head away from his touch. “It’s because I’m your job.”
“No. It’s you. It’s because I’ve never met anyone like you before and I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to again. And it’s because I can’t get you out of my head, and a huge fucking part of me doesn’t want to.”
Elle summoned a mental suit of armor and hoped the glare she threw in his direction looked more solid than she felt. “You can’t get me out of your head because you’ve been forced to look at my face every day since I landed in New York. That’s all. End of mystery. Trust me, I’m nothing special.”
“Bull-fucking-shit,” Trey growled.
His burst of ferocity stunned Elle still.
He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw and took a breath. This time when he spoke, it was a stern rumble. “Do you know what it does to me when you do that shit?”
“And what shit would that be, exactly?” she asked, hovering between shocked and annoyed.
“When you downplay what you are? You have no fucking clue how much it pisses me off. It makes me want to hold you in front of a mirror until you see what I see—a strong, competent, and caring woman.”
She was already shaking her head, but he reached out and captured her gently by her nape, holding her still…and looking at him.
“It makes me want to hold you…” Trey murmured, slowly bringing her closer, “and touch you…and kiss you…until you feel it, too.”
Elle let her eyes drift closed, hoping the break in eye contact would dampen the effect of his words, but she had no such luck.
“Look at me.” Trey softly coaxed them open again. One second, she worked to fight the pull, and the next, she was on his lap. “The ship Uncomplicated has already sailed, sweetheart. It is so damn far out to sea, Poseidon himself can’t fucking track it. Get complicated with me, Elle. What do we have to lose?”
Everything.
And God help her, he stared at her like he could read the panic beginning to swell in her chest. And he didn’t say a word. The only sound in the room was the faint crackle of the fire and Elle’s own heartbeat.
Trey silently eased her off his lap, and after pulling the blanket from the back of the couch, sprawled on the floor in front of the hearth. “Come here.”
Elle couldn’t bring herself to move—even after he lifted the blanket and tried coaxing her closer with the promise of warmth. “I’m not going to bite, sweetness. At least, not unless you want me to.”
> Doing the smart thing meant either returning to her room to freeze alone, or finding a separate blanket and cocooning herself in it like a burrito. She did neither. Elle slowly shifted her body beneath Trey’s blanket, but before she turned into spooning position, he reached out and tucked her snugly into his arms.
She had no choice but to nestle her cheek against his chest, and when she did, the steady beat of his heart lulled her own into a rhythmic trot. When he was inside her, it was easier to delude herself into believing that the warm tingle she felt at his nearness was physical lust.
But this?
It went way beyond desire. It was more than lust, or even need.
With a feather-soft touch, Trey’s hand gently traced a path over her hip. It didn’t lift any higher than her panty-line or travel any lower than her upper leg. It was soothing and innocent—and still packed one hell of a punch.
And it was what lovers did—lovers with a lot more on the line than sex of convenience.
Chapter Sixteen
Trey rolled from the makeshift bed he and Elle had made in front of the fireplace and got to his feet. At some point in the last few hours, the fire had died, and each breath created a white halo around his head—a stark contrast to when he’d fallen asleep with a very warm Elle blanketed over his chest.
Damn. He could still feel the warmth of her body pressed against his, despite the fact that she was MIA. He was about to find his personal furnace when the satellite phone shrieked from the kitchen table.
“Any word on the asshole?” Trey answered in lieu of a normal greeting.
“Good morning to you, too, love.” Charlie’s voice dripped sarcasm from the other side of the line. “Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? Or did you even make it into one?”
“Charlie,” Trey warned.
“Oh, lighten up, Hanson. Stone has me practically chained to the computer, so I need to get my thrills in where I can. Trust me, thinking about your sex life isn’t my first choice of ways to catch a thrill.”
“How’s my ma?” He peeked into the bedroom, even though his gut told him Elle wasn’t there.
“Not as unobservant or as easily distracted as Stone would like. But I guess when you see your only son haul arse up a hill with a gun in his hand, and then he disappears, you tend to have questions.”
Trey rubbed his hand over his face. He knew through years of first-hand experience how relentless his mother could be when she was determined. “How bad is it?”
“The guys started drawing straws to see whose turn it is to be on Mama Hanson protection duty. Loser gets the detail—and the foodie equivalent of blue balls, because she goes on a cooking spree and won’t let any of them have a bite.”
That was bad, because his mom lived for feeding people. The larger the audience, the happier she was. “I’ll call her and try to smooth things over, but it’s not like I can answer any of her questions. And speaking of answers, do we have any idea how that asshole found Elle at the youth center?”
“Not a one, and he vanished like he’s a bloody ghost, which makes me even more convinced he has some kind of military background, but I’m not giving up. I’ll track him down.”
“I know you will.” Trey trudged back through the kitchen and glimpsed out the back window—and froze.
Elle, snow nearly up to her knees thanks to last night’s squall, wielded an ax like a sexy Paul Bunyan. Swing. Thwack. And back again. The woman swung it like it was her life’s mission to bring heat to the northern half of the continent.
“Keep me updated, okay? And tell Stone that I’ll try to calm the water with my ma, but not to expect any miracles.”
“You’re trying to rush me off the phone,” Charlie said astutely.
“Damn right I am.” Trey chuckled. “Updates,” he reminded before signing off.
After watching Elle scare away the wildlife for a full ten minutes, Trey changed and pulled on his boots. He grabbed an extra wool hat that had been stowed away in one of the back closets, and headed outside.
Despite the clear blue skies, it was colder than a witch’s tit, his balls shriveling close to his dick in an attempt to keep warm. Elle didn’t see him as he approached. She was muttering under her breath, each word adding to the puffy white cloud hovering over her head. And fuck—he’d heard his name…right before she brought the ax down on a big-ass block of wood.
“Didn’t know I bedded Lumberjack Elle,” Trey said, once the weapon wasn’t poised above her head.
She jumped, startled. Her blue eyes shot to him faster than a goddamned bullet. Fuck-and-him. That wasn’t a look of a woman who’d woken up on the right side of the bed—or floor. Obviously, something had happened between last night and now, and he didn’t like the fact that he didn’t know what that something was.
“What are you doing out here?” Elle’s voice was breathless as he tugged the hat over her already red ears, wondering how long she’d been at this.
“Protecting those pretty little ears from falling off. And I think the more accurate question here is what you’re doing out here at all, much less alone.”
“I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time, Trey. I can’t exactly be expected to sit back and do nothing now.” Elle tossed the newly chopped log onto an impressive pile.
“Yeah, but jungle living and winter mountain living are two entirely different beasts. You know that you don’t have to do this, right? We have enough wood to get us through.”
“Through what? The day? The week?” She backed him up with the bump of her ass, and thwack. Wood splintered and flew as she brought the ax down again. “I don’t particularly like the idea of freezing to death, plus I was awake and I needed to do something. In Thailand, I worked at the clinic until I dropped. At Alpha, Charlie’s workout schedule kept me fairly close to exhaustion at all times. If all I do around here is sit, I’ll go crazy.”
Something told him there was a bit more to her madness. “It’s been a while since I’ve been out here. How about we go for a hike?” He gestured to the ax she gripped tightly in her hand. “Or I could rescue you from a few blisters and help you bring down the entire Pocono Mountain range.”
She cocked up a lone blonde eyebrow. “There’s only one ax.”
“Then let me have a turn.” He extended his hand, and Elle eyed it like it was a snake prepped to strike. When it became obvious he was wasting his time, he crossed his arms and leaned against the back of the cabin. “Fine. I got the message. Continue on, then.”
Her pretty blue eyes narrowed on him. “You mean you’re just going to stand there watching?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to do. And the scenery doesn’t get much better than a hot blonde wearing three layers of flannel.”
“Four,” she corrected, turning back to her task.
People who couldn’t stay quiet for longer than a minute at a time had always irritated Trey. He liked the quiet, liked hearing himself think. But mind-reading powers weren’t necessary to realize he’d somehow ended up Elle’s Shit Creek without so much as a toothpick for a fucking oar.
Trey didn’t even last five seconds. “Are you going to continue stewing to yourself or are we eventually going to talk about what I did to piss you off?”
“You didn’t do anything,” she muttered and added another log to her stack of firewood.
“The glacial dagger you hurled my way when I came outside says otherwise.”
If it were Rafe or Vince withholding information, Trey would beat the answers out of him, but he couldn’t do that with Elle, for obvious reasons. And even though he wasn’t as walled-off to his emotions as Stone, he was far from being an express-your-inner-turmoil kind of guy. So Trey did the only other thing that came to mind…something he would’ve done if it had been Penny or Rachel giving him the silent treatment.
Trey scooped up a handful of snow, patted it into a perfect palm-sized orb, and then hurled it with dead-on accuracy—smack on Elle’s glorious ass.
/> Mouth agape, she bolted upright and spun in his direction. “Did you throw a snowball at me?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Are you going to talk to me?”
She scowled at him with all the severity of his second-grade teacher. “I don’t talk to overgrown toddlers who don’t own up to what they’ve done.”
He hoisted another snowball. It exploded against her puffy jacket in a dramatic powdery spray that left flakes clinging to her lashes. “There. I threw that one. Now are you going to talk to me?”
“Guys never want to talk. It’s a dominant characteristic of the Y chromosome, or something like that.” Her frown deepened. “Why can’t you be like every other guy in the world? Why do you have to be so…you?”
He would’ve laughed if he hadn’t seen that flicker in her eye. Something in his gut told him there was a hell of a meaning behind her rhetorical question. He molded another projectile and bounced it in his hand. “What can I say except that I’m one of a kind? I defy the laws of genetics, and thanks to my ma, I had a solid upbringing. So, what’s it going to be, Elle? Talk…or eat another snowball?”
She pursed her lips. “You can’t be serious.”
“Beep.” He buzzed a mock alarm. “Too long. Time’s up.”
He aimed his next ball at her stomach, immediately followed by a quick one to her thigh.
“Will you stop that?” She held out her hands to deflect the blows.
“Come over here and make me.”
“Yeah, that’s real mature.”
“No, mature would be talking about whatever it is that set you off.” He pushed off the side of the cabin. With each step in her direction, she switched more from full-on glare to skittish kitten. “I fell asleep wrapped around a warm woman, and I woke up cold and alone to find that very same woman doing serious damage to a tree stump. What the hell did I miss?”
“Maybe you muttered another woman’s name in your sleep.”
When he stopped, their bodies were so close he had to angle his attention downward. “Not possible.”
She’d trapped her lower lip beneath her teeth and was in the process of nibbling it raw. “Why? Because the great Trey Hanson is infallible?”
