Chapter 8 #2
What a fucking mess. He was holed up in a house with her, thinking about her sleeping in the bed next door to his room and wondering how in the hell he was going to survive the next few weeks.
“Sure,” he lied. “Why do you ask?”
Matt sank down in the chair beside Kev’s desk, leaned back, and folded his hands over his abdomen. His eyes were sympathetic and Kev’s gut clenched.
“I know it’s got to be hard on you, being responsible for Lucky.”
An understatement. Marco had asked him to look out for her, but fantasizing about her naked probably wasn’t what he’d meant. Worse, it wasn’t what she wanted, regardless of her questions about why he’d walked away after she’d been rescued.
She was still hurting over losing Marco. That much was obvious. And he was a bastard for wanting to take advantage of that.
“She’s been through enough thanks to us, don’t you think?”
Kev refused to take the bait and talk about the way Lucky’s presence made him feel. Enough of that and he’d be spilling his guts like a little girl. Worse, he’d probably be off the mission and sent to the shrink to discuss his inappropriate thoughts about his friend’s widow.
“Yeah, I do.” Matt frowned. “But we need her. You know how crucial this is.”
Kev gritted his teeth. “Yes.”
Matt leaned forward then, elbows on knees. “She needs to be ready. And I need to know you can keep your emotions out of this.”
Kev wanted to deny there were any emotions involved. But what was the point? They both knew otherwise. Except Matt thought the emotions were because Lucky was Marco’s widow. And Kev wasn’t about to let him think otherwise.
“We watched our brothers die out there,” Kev said, his throat tight. “If I didn’t fall apart then, what makes you think I will this time?”
Matt’s gaze searched his for a long moment.
And then he straightened. “All right. That’s exactly what I wanted to know.
” He got to his feet, but he didn’t walk away.
“If this changes for any reason, I need to know. If you prefer one of the other guys to take on the role of her husband in Qu’rim, you have to let me know soon.
Once we go in, there’s no changing places. ”
Kev didn’t even blink. Let one of the other guys be responsible for Lucky’s safety? No way in hell. “Copy that.”
In another hour, Kev logged off his computer and went to find Lucky. She was in a briefing room, film of the Freedom Force running on screen, her eyes shining suspiciously as she turned to see who’d interrupted her.
She hit the pause button and turned away, and he knew she was working to regain her composure.
There was no film of Al Ahmad, of course, but they had ibn-Rashad and many of the others.
Not to mention shots of the terror they wrought—suicide bombings, massacres, beheadings.
It wasn’t light viewing, and it wasn’t for the weak at heart either.
“We have to stop them, Kev.”
He came inside and pulled out one of the chairs around the conference table. “Yeah, we do.”
She drummed her fingers on the tabletop.
“I guess I thought I could make it all go away by running as far as possible and trying to be someone different. But the reality is that it didn’t go away.
Guys like you are still fighting these bastards while people like me pretend they don’t know what’s going on.
” She looked up at him, her eyes still shiny. “How do you stand it?”
He sighed. “I don’t think you do. You just get numb deep down. And you keep on fighting because you know it’s the right thing to do. People like that can’t be allowed to win. Whatever the cost.”
She leaned her head back on the chair. “I know. Poor Marco.”
A tear leaked out of the corner of one eye and slid down her cheek. His heart twisted. He wanted to drag her into his arms and hold her close, tell her it would all be okay someday, but how could he do that? He had no right.
“I’m not going to tell you that he died doing what was right and therefore that makes it okay. It’s not okay. But he made a difference, Lucky. What he did made a difference.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “He deserved better.”
“He did, and we’re going to get those assholes and make them pay.”
She didn’t say anything. Her chin trembled, and he felt like an asshole himself. He wanted to give her the comfort she needed, but he didn’t know how to do it. She was vulnerable in this moment, and he knew he couldn’t take advantage of her emotional state. It wasn’t right.
Instead, he cleared his throat, hands on his knees, gripping them tight to keep him from reaching for her and saying to hell with it.
“Hey, you ready for some shopping? Let’s blow this joint and get you some warmer clothes.”
She swiped beneath her eyes almost angrily and then she gave him a watery smile that wasn’t quite genuine. “Now you’re speaking my language. What woman can resist an offer like that?”
He shot her a smile. “None that I know.”
She snorted softly. “That’s a lot of women, I bet.”
His grin widened, though he ached deep down. He didn’t want to play the part of the womanizer right now. He wanted to show her there was more to him than that.
But he couldn’t.
“Sure is.”
She rolled her eyes and he knew that teasing her was working. He wanted to tell her that he had feelings, but he kept them locked away for a reason. He’d seen the dark side of emotions. Seen the destruction they could cause.
In Kev’s world, sex with a variety of women was easy. It was love that was impossible.