by Cindy Gerard
Eva smiled. “It’s okay. And honestly, I don’t know how big it needs to be.”
“Because you don’t know if you want him to move in? Or because you don’t know if he wants to?”
She glanced toward the terrace where the men were all standing around the grill, most likely offering Gabe unwanted advice on the best way to charcoal a steak. “A little of both, I guess.”
Jenna kissed Ali on the cheek, then set her down on the floor with two wooden spoons and a pie tin. Grinning widely at her mother, the toddler started beating on the tin with gusto.
“Since I’ve pretty much walked in those same shoes,” Jenna said, smiling down at her little daughter, “the best advice I can give you is go with your heart. Advice you can feel free to ignore, by the way. I’m not usually this interfering. Can we blame it on hormones?”
Again Eva smiled. “It’s okay. Frankly, it’s nice to be able to talk to someone about it.” Someone other than Mike… who hadn’t been doing a lot of talking since they’d gotten back to D.C.
“I like Mike,” Jenna said decisively, as if she were talking about fruit or a soft drink. “Do you like Mike?”
That one threw her. “Is that a trick question?”
Jenna laughed. “No… it’s just… these guys are so intense, you know? And so present. They’re gorgeous, tough, intelligent, a lot driven, a little broken. Sometimes it’s difficult to see past the sensory overload and cut to the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter is: Do you like him?”
Eva glanced out the terrace door again and stared at Mike—at that stunning cosmic union of muscle and bone and brain and brawn. At that beautiful man who had been so broken, who would always be a little broken, and was all the more beautiful because of it—even covered in bruises.
Love him? Yes. And that had been a tough admission to make. Adore him? Absolutely. Want to heal him? More than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.
But did she like him?
A very astute question.
Jenna was right. She needed to figure this out. Could she step back, divorce who he was from how he looked and what he did, and like him?
How could she answer that? She’d known him all of seven days. Seven intense, wild, dangerous days that were hardly a traditional getting-to-know-you experience.
And she’d loved another man once. A gorgeous, driven and, she’d recently discovered, broken man. A man she’d never known well enough to like, but had married anyway.
Look how that had played out.
Then there was the other side to that question: Did he like her?
God, what was she, thirteen? This was so junior high school.
But she’d sensed a change in him. Now that the danger and adrenaline rush was behind them, maybe he was having second thoughts. Maybe he was running back-out scenarios in his mind. They’d been back in D.C. two days and he’d spent most of that time with the guys—time he’d needed to spend. Time she was glad he had with them, and she’d been busy, too. But at night, when they were finally alone, they still didn’t talk. They made love. Hot, intense, needy love, like each time was the last time.
“When this is over, we will figure this out and we will finish it.”
Was that what he’d meant on that gravel road, just before they’d driven into the UWD compound? When it was over, they’d be finished?
“You okay over there?” Jenna asked.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling to minimize the concern in Jenna’s eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
I just don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
39
Mike reached around Eva and flashed the key card over the lock on their hotel room door. She’d been quiet on the ride back from Gabe and Jenna’s. She was still quiet. And it scared the ever-loving crap out of him.
He shoved open the door and let her walk in ahead of him.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
That’s all she said as she walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Not, Plenty of room in the shower for two. Not, I’ll wash your back if you’ll wash mine. Wink wink.
“Sure. Go ahead,” he said to the empty room. “I’ll just be out here beating my head against the wall, wondering if ‘I’m going to take a shower’ is some kind of code for ‘It’s been fun and it’s been real, but now it’s time to move on.’ ”
Then he tried to convince himself that the click of the lock on that bathroom door wasn’t symbolic.
Rousing himself from his stupor, he walked across the room and tossed the room key on the bedside table, along with the keys to the rented SUV. Then he toed off the sandals she’d bought him, stripped off the rain-forest shirt, and flopped down on his back on the bed.
And stared at the ceiling. Feeling gutless and panicked and scared.
Yeah. Scared. He’d never been so fucking scared.
There were times in a man’s life when he had to admit he was in over his head. Afghanistan had been one of those times. When he’d laid in that trench with Cooper and Taggart, with the heat from his burning Black Hawk turning the night into an inferno and his buddies lying dead all around him, he’d known that life as he’d known it was over. But he’d survived.
He’d survived a military tribunal that had twisted lies around the truth and destroyed his career before his very eyes. He’d survived assholes like Lawson and Brewster who wanted him dead.
But that kind of fear he knew how to handle. Don’t let ’em see you sweat. Don’t let ’em know they’ve got you by the short hairs.
That kind of fear he knew he could survive.
But this… whatever he was facing with Eva… he didn’t have a clue. Not one freaking clue how to come out of it in one solid piece.
Not if he lost her. Hell, he’d just found her.
Now she was pulling away.
He couldn’t let that happen. But his old standby bag of tricks wasn’t going to help him. He couldn’t laugh. Couldn’t crack jokes. Couldn’t swear or shoot his way out of this one. He simply had to face the fire.
He needed a cigarette.
He needed a drink.
Hell—he needed a game plan.
Lucky for him, one popped into his head.
He bolted up off the bed before he could think about the wisdom or lack of it, stomped over to the locked bathroom door, gave it a hard glare, then hauled back and kicked it off its hinges.
Eva screamed and peered around the white shower curtain.
Eyes wide, she blinked at him, then at the door, then back to him as clouds of steam billowed out from the curtain. “Why did you do that?”
He jammed his hands on his hips, jutted his chin. “Because I wanted in.”
She swiped a fall of heavy, wet hair away from her face. “You couldn’t have asked?”
“And where’s the fun in that?”
Her mouth dropped open. “What is wrong with you?”
What wasn’t wrong?
He swallowed hard. Looked at the ceiling. Looked at the floor. Finally, looked at her. “You. You’re what’s wrong with me.” He lifted a hand. Dropped it, feeling helpless and stupid and scared. So scared his next words were barely a whisper. “You’re shutting me out, chica. I’m scared to death that I’m losing you.”
His heart beat so hard he could hear it swooshing in his ears. He hadn’t even realized he’d clenched his hands into fists until his knuckles started aching.
She became very quiet. Hung her head. Then, her shoulders started shaking.
Oh, God. He’d fucking made her cry.
But then she looked at him, and she wasn’t crying. She was laughing.
Scared and sorry instantly transitioned to pissed. “You think that’s funny?”
“No.” She held out a hand to him. “I think it’s hysterical. I think we’re hysterical.”
If he lived to be one hundred, he would never understand this woman. He took a halting step toward her. “If there was a joke, I missed it.”
“No joke. Just
two very stupid people, thinking very stupid things.”
“For the record,” he said, feeling hope growing, “what stupid things was I thinking?”
“That I was leaving you?”
She nailed that in one. And the look in her eyes, oh, God, the sweet, loving look in her eyes did things to his heart he wasn’t sure he could survive. Probably wouldn’t survive if relief hadn’t revived him. “And what stupid things were you thinking, chica?”
“That you were leaving me. No more questions. Come here.” She shoved the shower curtain aside, reached for the waistband of his pants, and yanked. “Just come here to me.”
Never let it be said that he didn’t know how to take an order. He scrambled into the tub and under the shower spray—to hell with his clothes—and pulled that wet, lush, and laughing woman against him.
“Wait!” she covered his mouth with her hand when he would have kissed her.
He groaned. Okay, he whimpered. “You want me on my knees here?”
“Do you like me, Mike?”
“What? What kind of question is that?”
“A legitimate one. Please. Answer me. Do you like me?”
He closed his eyes, felt the water wash over his face. What was she doing to him? “I like you. I really, really like you.”
“In bed.”
“Yes, in bed. Also out of bed. In a car. On a boat. In a plane. Eva. What do you want from me?”
“I just got what I wanted.” She threaded her fingers through his wet hair, pulled it back from his face. “And for the record I really, really like you, too.”
“Wonderful. Can I freaking kiss you now?”
“Yeah. You freaking can.”
So he did. He kissed her. And kissed her and kissed her until there was nothing but tongue and teeth and heartbeats and hungry hands and hope. Kissed her until the water ran cold and he picked her up and carried her out to that king-sized bed. Kissed her until he’d stripped off his soggy pants, covered her wet, warm body with his, and buried himself deep inside her heat, where he stayed. Deep and snug and not even a little bit scared.
40
“So,” Mike whispered from the pillow beside Eva, “are we gonna do this or what?” He loved that soft spot behind her ear. Nuzzled it until she stirred, then stretched, then made that amazing sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a purr and turned into his arms.
Eva by morning. Somebody ought to write a sonnet. Sunlight filtered in through the slit in the drapes, kissed her skin, shined through her hair.
He sighed in contentment. Nothing in this world compared to the feel of her warm skin, soft breasts, and insanely sexy legs wrapped around him, lying in the middle of sheets that smelled of sex and her.
Last night around midnight, he’d texted Gabe that they were fine but were not to be bothered for at least twenty-four hours—please spread the word to Taggart and Cooper. Then he’d turned off the phone, ordered room service, and gone back to bed.
Where they’d talked. And eaten. And made love. And finally slept.
Lather, rinse, repeat. All night long.
Most of all, they’d talked. About Ramon. About Mike’s drinking. About their families. About their dreams.
About the burn scars on his leg. About the scars Ramon had carved on her heart, but that Mike had every intention of healing.
“Gabe made me and the guys an interesting proposition,” he’d said finally.
She’d listened intently as he’d given her the details. “And what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I need to find a hangar close to Langley for the Beechcraft.” Taking Gabe up on his offer wasn’t a decision he’d come to lightly. But now that he’d made it, it felt good. It felt right.
She’d kissed him. “The One-Eyed Jacks, back in the game. It’s a good plan.”
Something else had been weighing on him. He was getting a second chance, and maybe he wasn’t the only one who deserved it. “We’re going to need an operations manager. What would you think about recruiting Peter Davis for that position?”
The approval in her eyes had made his heart swell.
The touch of her hands had made something else swell.
They’d made love again; gotten hungry again.
Somewhere between the cheesecake, Greek yogurt, franks and beans, spinach crepes, and sparkling cider, he’d proposed.
The first two times he’d asked, she’d been asleep—make that comatose, after he’d plied her with multiple orgasms—so he figured the stand-up thing to do was ask her again, this morning.
So he repeated the questions. “Are we going to do this or what?”
“Do… this?” She yawned, let a hand, heavy with exhaustion, rest on his cheek. “Are you taking those little blue pills or something?”
He hugged her. “You’re my ‘or something.’ But that’s not the ‘this’ I was talking about. I was talking about that other ‘this.’ ”
She smiled against his chest. “Is this one of those ‘Who’s on first’ shticks?”
He raised up on an elbow so he could see her face, watch her eyes when he asked her. “Will you marry me, chica? Will you be my wife?”
She smiled. “You know I will.”
He swallowed back emotions so huge that, if he let them out, he might bawl like a baby. “Wait, there’s more. Will you cook for me? Clean for me? Kiss my boo-boos? Wear that sexy little red bustier and pretend you’re a pepera girl who plans to roll me for my money?”
Her eyes sparkled with laughter and tears, and a whole lot of love. “Since you make it sound so appealing, how could I possibly say no?”
“So… that’s a yes?”
She pressed her forehead to his. “That is a definite yes.”
“Wow,” he said and kissed her.
“You want to talk about wow? Wait until I introduce you to my parents.”
“Daddy’s little girl?”
“For a fact.”
“So I should probably do some heavy editing on the details of the night we met.”
She smiled into his eyes. “I love you. Promise you’ll always make me laugh.”
“With me, not at me, right?”
“Yeah. Like that.” She kissed him.
“Say it again.” He wasn’t laughing now. He needed to hear it. Lived to hear it.
“I love you. But more important, I really, really like you, Mike Brown.”
“I really, really like you, too.”
They made love slowly this time, like they were going to take all the time in the world. And they might have, if some knucklehead hadn’t picked that moment to pound on the door.
Mike groaned and buried his face in her neck. “Don’t make a sound. They’ll go away.”
The pounding got louder.
He growled and shouted at the door, “Unless this room is on fire, go the hell away!”
“Primetime. Yo. Open up.”
Taggart.
He swore into her neck. “And to think, three days ago I was happy to see him.”
Eva grinned and gave him a gentle shove. “Go on. Let him in.”
“Do I have to?” He stopped, looking horrified. “Did I just whine?”
She laughed and gave him another little shove. “Go.”
His heavy sigh had her giggling, but he got up, found his pants, and had the pleasure of watching her sweet naked ass disappear behind the bathroom door.
He opened the door. “What the hell do you want?”
“Not a morning person. I just remembered that about you.” Cooper grinned and shouldered past him into the room.
Taggart, also grinning because he knew damn well Mike was irritated, pushed in after him. “Whoa. Dude. Looks like you ate the whole menu up here last night.”
“Hi, guys.”
All eyes turned when Eva walked out of the bathroom, wrapped from neck to ankle in a white terry robe—and still sexier than any woman had a right to be.
“Eva.” Cooper sauntered across the room and hugged her. “How
’s my favorite kick-ass road warrior?”
Mike muscled in between them. “She’s not your anything. Now what are you doing here?”
“We thought you might miss us,” Taggart said, deadpan.
“Did you get hit on the head with something? You do see her, right? Do you honestly think that I would give you knuckleheads even a passing thought when I’m alone with her?”
Cooper winked at Eva. “Well, when you frame it like that, I guess it makes us look kind of silly.” He added a Jethro laugh that broke Taggart up.
Mike shook his head. Then smiled. Then gave it up.
He had missed them. For too damn long.
These were his friends. These were his brothers.
He looked at Eva. This was the woman he loved.
He was never going to risk losing any of them ever again.
“What the hell. Let’s go get breakfast.” He pointed a finger at Taggart. “You’re buying.”
“Oh, no. We settle this like we always did.”
He reached into his hip pocket, pulled out his wallet, and produced his one-eyed jack.
“I’ll be damned.” Mike couldn’t believe he still had it.
Then Cooper whipped out his card, too.
Without a word, Mike walked over to the closet. When he came back, he was carrying his own one-eyed jack.
“To tradition.” Taggart’s sober tone spoke of all that had passed between them.
“To tradition,” Mike and Cooper echoed.
“You do the honors, chica.” Mike gathered the three battered cards together, and with great care for all they represented, all they’d been through, he shuffled them.
“Close your eyes and hold out your hand. Now pick one.”
“Whoot!” Cooper crowed when Eva held up Mike’s card. “Breakfast’s on Primetime.”
Eva gave him a grin and mouthed, “Sorry.”
Taggart pecked her on the cheek. “I think I love this woman.”
“Yeah,” Mike said taking her into his arms, “but I really, really like her.”
About Cindy Gerard
CINDY GERARD’s wildly popular Black Ops, Inc. series with Pocket Books—Show No Mercy, Take No Prisoners, Whisper No Lies, Feel the Heat, Risk No Secrets, With No Remorse, and Last Man Standing—has garnered numerous industry awards and nominations (among them the RITA, Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, Reader’s Crown, Daphne du Maurier, and Australian Romance Readers awards) and appeared on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today bestseller lists. She is also the author of the bestselling Bodyguards series and more than thirty contemporary romance novels. She lives in the Midwest with her husband, a Brittany Spaniel, two cats, and too many tropical fish, where she is hard at work on the next installment of her knockout new One-Eyed Jacks series.
