Chapter 11
11
She tried to stay as quiet as possible so that she wouldn’t wake up Hazard. She stood in the doorway to his room, his body layered in soft shades of purple shadow and brilliant slices of moonlight. Her heart was still beating from that terror-filled memory of Conde taking away her ability to choose, and her relentless fight to get it back. It was weird how she hadn’t felt as violated as she’d felt powerless. Of course, she was sexually assaulted, there was no doubt about it. But it didn’t affect her the way she had thought it would.
It didn’t instill a fear of men in her—she’d seen who real men were in Hazard, his team, and her Marine guard. She shifted uneasily at the thought of him but didn’t know why. She shrugged it off as guilt at his death and returned to her previous thought. No, there was no mistaking the difference between Conde and the strong, decent men in her life.
And there was no guilt or blame she heaped on herself. She hadn’t gotten what she deserved for being reckless or unsafe. She had been attacked, held against her will, threatened, and beaten. This had all happened because she was pursuing justice by doing her job. She couldn’t fault herself for giving everything she had in that pursuit.
Most importantly, he hadn’t succeeded. He had been stopped by the man who supported her, pledged to keep her safe, and he had. He had come after her at great personal and physical cost, and danger after almost being killed himself. It was crazy that he didn’t see himself as the hero he was. He even tried to pass that honor onto his teammate, who in turn bounced it back to him. Yeah, these were quite the band of brothers.
Hazard had been…sweet, conciliatory, and careful around her, and it was getting on her nerves. Even three days afterward, he was still tiptoeing, and that made her feel even more fragile, too delicate, as if she was going to break at any moment. Maybe she was, would, could, but maybe that would also be a good thing. She wasn’t sure because she was in a transitory state of mind. She was re-thinking her whole life, the attack a catalyst to get her to see what she had been doing for so long. Isolation…in fear generated a kind of loneliness that felt familiar. Why? Oh, maybe because she’d been so goddamned lonely all through her childhood. And it pissed her off. She had never thought of herself as fearful. The whole thought process made her feel even more vulnerable. Once again, maybe a good thing.
She admitted to herself that she was still afraid, still experienced anxiety, but when she thought of Hazard, that thought always made her feel better. His presence made her able to calm some of her worries, which meant he had made inroads to breaching her armor, and that was a different source of anxiety altogether.
Her MO was to fight, every step of the way because not only did it feel good to stand up for herself, express herself, her opinions not tempered by expectations, but she just fucking loved the debate. Riling another person up often made them unpredictable, made them drop their guards some, and surprisingly, the truth came out of nowhere and God she loved that, too. Who wanted boring?
She thought about how warm and hard he was beneath that sheet and wondered at his reaction if she just climbed into bed with him, nonplussed because it wasn’t sexual at all. She just wanted to feel safe, and with him…would she? Could he take away this cold, empty, lost feeling, something she had long before she had been taken by men who wanted her dead, long before she’d met Jamie, in fact. A lifelong hollowness born out of…what?
She let out a hard rush of breath, telling herself that this was not stalking behavior, especially since he felt the same about her. She would never do to him what was done to her if she hadn’t been sure about his affection and sexual interest in her—something that also didn’t scare her. Should it? Would it when he put his weight on her? She didn’t think so.
It’s just that she couldn’t sleep, and when she did doze, there were so many horrors waiting for her in her mind. She wondered if he would understand that. If the whole of his team would understand her nightmares, suspecting they all had their own horrors to deal with.
She’d gotten up to relieve herself but feared going back to sleep. In the bathroom, she almost tripped over his discarded clothes. Reaching down, she snagged the edge of his navy T-shirt, and she brought the fabric to her nose, breathing deep. It smelled like him, all the male odors that made up that heavenly scent of him. She pulled off her nightgown, shivering slightly in her lace underwear, and slipped the shirt over her head and bare torso. She closed her eyes as the fabric fell over her skin, the tips of her nipples, and the surge of arousal it brought. Pulling at the cotton, she brought the collar to her nose again, and that’s when she’d drifted toward his room.
She bet he and his team would understand all about restless nights. Not for the first time since she’d been through the meat grinder of her kidnapping she tried to comprehend how they dealt with it day after day, in complete awe of their focused minds, their almost superhuman stamina, their strength.
Oh, who was she kidding? Her generalization was much too tame. It was all about the man who slept a few feet from her. It was all about Hazard’s mental toughness, his relentless physical power, his forceful personality all wrapped up in a hard, hot package.
She shifted her shoulders, the fabric rasping across her nipples again. Corporal…her Marine guard’s face haunted her along with that nagging feeling that she had forgotten something extremely important. He had given his life for hers, pure, stark, black-and-white reality, pure hero behavior. So what was it that was driving her crazy?
She watched the rise and fall of his impressive bare back, realizing that her breathing had just naturally synched with his. She absorbed the rhythm of his breathing for a moment, then unable to help herself, careful not to disturb him, she walked closer. Turning to the windows, she checked to make sure the one closest to him was locked. She eyed the other one, and unable to stop her feet, she drifted to it and reached for the release. Even knowing rationally that it was secure. Hazard wouldn’t have gone to bed without making sure. She felt a sick little knot of tension tighten up in her stomach, and she twisted the lock to make absolutely sure.
Then she turned back to the bed where she gazed down at his sleeping form, a strange kind of protectiveness unfolding in her. The sheet was pushed down to his waist, his exposed torso showing the delineations of thick, elongated muscles, lovingly defined by the brush of dark shadows, showcasing the hard ridges across his shoulders, and banding his sturdy and sexy collarbone, chest, and abs. Where the moonlight fell, his skin was a gleaming gold work of art, burnishing into different levels of hues with a patina’s corrugated shine.
The strong angle of his jaw was accentuated by a stubble of beard, harsh reality of running and gunning for hours, chasing her through the most dangerous plot of land in the world. Thick lashes, the color of a delicious caramel, rested against his cheeks, those lids covering compelling silver blue eyes, focused and intense with raw aggression when alert, soft and a bright luminous grayish blue when amused or calm. So many facets to such an intriguing man.
Careful not to wake him, she combed her fingers through the tawny thickness of his hair, gently drawing it from his forehead. It was so soft, and she loved the feel of the strands against her fingers.
If only he knew how much she needed him but was terrified of what that kind of need and thoughts would do to her independence. There were so many things about him that made her feel weak, but a million more that made her feel so damn strong. How did she reconcile all that?
She looked to the nightstand and there it was a black dangerous shape meshing with the darkness. She reached down and picked it up. The pistol’s grip felt solid in her hand. Of course, he would have a loaded weapon while he slept. He was in a dangerous business, every day, and she wondered again all over how he did what he did and remained sane.
His weapon felt good in her hand, powerful, the means to save a life or take a life, and she thought that if she’d had a gun, what would she have done when she’d been threatened? Could she have killed? He didn’t know that she knew how to use one of these, but she’d never fired it.
She started to tremble deep down inside, her body shaking, and a hand went around her wrist, and in a lightning-quick move, he took her down to the mattress with a hard, forceful move, straddling her hips, and a strong arm going to her throat with just enough pressure to keep her immobilized, the other pressing the gun against the mattress so that she couldn’t use it. How did he do that so effortlessly? She hadn’t heard a thing.
With a fierce expression on his face, he looked ready to do mayhem and murder. SEALs were direct-action guys. When they assaulted, unless the mission required them to capture a target, they went in and didn’t ask questions or take names, they just annihilated anything that moved. She had no doubt he could crush her windpipe.
But she didn’t fear him. Not at all. Not all that hot, hard muscle he had in his control. He’d made such an effort to talk to her instead of dismissing her as a mouthy woman with nothing of importance to say, and he came for her, not because it was his job, but because he cared about her. His hair was tousled around his head, and he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. He looked not only exhausted but dark and dangerous, as well.
“Hazard,” she whispered.
He jolted and his eyes widened. His whole body vibrated with aggression just waiting for a reason to snap. “Leigh? What the actual fuck!” he said, his voice rough-edged. She wanted to feel calm. But she felt unbalanced, needy, and raw, and the question about how she would react when he was pressing his weight against her was answered.
Hot and bothered. A knot of need expanding.
“Are you okay?” He released her hand, stripping the gun from her, racking the slide, and ejecting the bullet in the chamber, then he released the mag and it dropped into his hand. It was sexy as hell to see how effortlessly he handled the gun. He set everything on the nightstand, once again turning to her.
“N-no,” she managed to croak out. She wasn’t okay. She was frustrated, half-scared out of her mind from nightmares, sleep- deprived, and she wanted him. That knot in her stomach started to twist and turn feverishly. God, how she wanted him.
“Fuck!” he growled, immediately contrite to the point of pain. “Did I hurt you?” He started to get off her, but now that she was free, she reached up and twined her arms around him, keeping his body on top of hers.
“Don’t,” she whispered, and he stilled. “I’m not physically hurt, Hazard.”
“ Geezus , Leigh,” he bit out, guarded emotions flickering through those silver-blue depths. “Why the hell did you have my gun?” His question was gruff and demanding.
“Archer,” she breathed, not sure what to say for pushing him to this extreme, but unable to regret it. She exhaled a deep breath and, more calmly than she felt, said, “I don’t know.”
His expression was a mixture of incredulity and anger. “You don’t know why you were standing there fondling my weapon?”
Her breath caught in her throat at his use of words. Why did he say it like that? She couldn’t help her response, experiencing the arousing chemistry that sparked between them whenever they were near one another. All those heated glances and unspoken desires. It was time to end it all. “Well, if you put it like that, I have thought of nothing but fondling your weapon. I think you want that, too.”
His eyes narrowed, but she saw him swallow hard. “Don’t change the goddamn subject.” A muscle in his cheek ticked, and he pressed his thumb against the rapid beat of the pulse in her wrist. His intense eyes bored into her, searing her with all that blue fire. His hot, dark gaze raked over her as though she was wearing something see-through and provocative. After a lengthy, and very slow and intense study of her body, his dazed eyes finally came back to her face. “What were we talking about?” he asked huskily, before his disorientation was chased away with a scowl.
He was so adorably cute in his aroused male confusion, his desire working hard to distract him from simple speech. She smiled with affection, happy that she was able to slide into this sex talk, even if he was trying to keep things on track. She wanted him derailed. “Fondling your weapon.” She swallowed hard and glanced down, following that tantalizing tawny line of hair that bisected his abdomen, swirled around his naval, and arrowed down to his groin. The material of his boxer brief shorts, a decadent black, started to expand.
“Are you trying to make me hard ?” he asked on a ragged breath. “What am I talking about? You always make me hard as fuck without even trying.”
Hard as fuck . God that sounded so good. The heat and male scent of him overwhelmed her thoughts, arousing her body, and creating a heavy, tingling sensation between her thighs. He sounded so annoyed with himself and with her. Arguments and confrontations always seemed to end up this way with him. Maybe that’s why she liked goading him so much.
“I’m a simple guy, babe. I’m trying to be sensitive to your needs right now after what you’ve been through. Help me out here.”
Mesmerized by the look in his eyes, she somehow managed to swallow, her voice so uneven it didn’t sound like her own. “I’m at a loss, too, Hazard. I’ve been so tough, so tough that I’m lost.”
Hazard slid his fingers along her neck, his touch making her shiver, then he rubbed his thumb against her frantically beating pulse point. “I understand internal armor, Leigh, and this is such a bad idea for us professionally, but I’m finding it very difficult to step away.”
That admission did unbearable things to her heart, and she closed her eyes against the sudden fullness in her chest.
Hazard shifted his hold, taking her face in his hands. “Look at me, babe,” he whispered. “I need you to look at me.” Feeling as if she was drowning, she opened her eyes, drugged by sensation, paralyzed by his touch. He stared at her, his expression strained. “You weren’t trying to hurt yourself with my gun, were you?”
“What?” she asked, startled. “No, I wanted to feel the power of it. That’s all.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, searching deeply into her eyes. “That would kill me, babe.” The look in his eyes made her heart pound and all her nerve endings flare. His grip turned urgent and tense, almost desperate. “Tear out my heart and leave me broken.” There was a flare of emotion in his eyes, and he tightened his grip on her face and slowly, so slowly, stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “So, promise me,” he whispered roughly. “You’ll never hurt yourself. We can get through this together.”
Leigh closed her eyes and drew a shaky breath, trying to understand the feelings inside her. His admission…his words made it clear that he was one hundred percent on her side. It was so alien, so strange to feel as if she had someone in her ring, knowing that if she won or got knocked out, it didn’t matter.
“I promise, Archer. I swear.” She was trembling so hard and the only thing that kept her together was the tight grip he had on her face. Unable to take the unbearable pain and torment in his eyes, the guilt of her kidnapping and assault weighing on him. She didn’t have to guess at that agony. With a soft cry, she lifted and locked her arms around his torso, closing her eyes against the deep emotion he was radiating, the feel of him setting off a new fever of sensation. His chest expanded, and she could almost feel his relief at her words. Tucking her face against the curve of his throat, he drew her firmly against him and smoothed back her hair, his touch not quite steady when he kissed the curve of her neck.
Tightening her arms around him, Leigh pressed her face deeper against his neck, feeling as if she were on the verge of shattering. Her voice catching on raw emotion, she struggled to get out the words. “I just can’t stop wanting to be near you, to touch you, to be with you. I’m hurting from wanting you.” Wow, talk about really putting herself out there, way out on a limb. The silence was deafening. Was that the sound of it cracking?
He didn’t reply, just remained quiet, emanating a sexual kind of tension that seemed to increase with each passing second between them.
He scrubbed a hand along his taut jaw, his defenses flaring again. “You are the bane of my existence, and every testosterone-laden need I’ve had since I hit puberty is focused on you,” he muttered.
She lifted her hips and his big body shuddered. He buried his face against her neck, his ragged breath hot and damp against her skin. “Leigh, tell me you’re ready for this, that you won’t have regrets, that this isn’t something you’re trying to use to deal with your fear and pain. I can’t—I won’t—compromise you. I won’t participate in that kind of shit no matter how much I want to fuck you.”
In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but think if this need for him was her way of showing she was coming to life after being in limbo for a long time or if she was just tired of her own bullshit. The authenticity of her feelings felt so damn good. It made her gasp softly against his mouth.
She released a soft breath, completely undone by him. “I wouldn’t have initiated anything with you to hurt you in any way or to compromise you. I’m so in awe of your humbleness, even when you do heroic and aggressive things like expose yourself to enemy fire and jump on a fifty cal, whatever that is, and save your team.”
Hazard bent his head and dragged his hand across his eyes, then inhaled raggedly. He looked away, the muscles in his throat convulsing, and she nearly broke down before she got the words out.
“That would tear out my heart and break me beyond repair. You are the kindest, most caring and giving guy I have ever met, and I want you so badly. Conde didn’t take anything from me, not a thing. Even if he had succeeded, he still would have gotten nothing . I was saving it all for you, just you.” She took a hard breath. “It was you who got me through all of it. I knew you’d come for me.”
His gaze came back to hers. “Ah, geezus, Leelee,” he whispered, his face contorting with raw emotion as he reached for her, cupping her face. Then he tipped her head back and slowly lowered his lips, and Leigh made a helpless sound and let her eyes drift shut. Exerting pressure on her jaw, he opened her mouth, then covered it in a wet, deep, searching kiss that drove every ounce of strength out of her body. Working his mouth hungrily against hers, drawing her hips even closer, sent her into a frenzy as the well of need for this man seemed endless.
He thrust against her, his erection straining the front of his briefs. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, all she could do was hang on and ride out the thousand sensations exploding in her. Hazard caught her by the hips and molded her flush against him, his mouth wide and hot as he ran his hand under the T-shirt, bunching it in his hands and dragging her closer.
He abruptly ended the kiss and looked down, his eyes flaring. “Is this…mine?”
“Yes,” she whispered, tenderness as well as a frightening vulnerability revealed in not only the act of wearing his shirt but the meaning behind it.
He closed his eyes, a deep, tortured groan rumbled up from his throat. “Goddamn, Leelee.” He let go of the fabric as he ran his hand up her back, emitting a low sound of approval when he encountered nothing but bare skin. Sliding his hand up her bare torso, he cupped her breast, stroking her with his thumb.
His touch drove the breath right out of her, and she made another helpless sound against his mouth, hardening her nipples even more, her breasts swelling. Hazard tightened his arm around her back and dragged his mouth away, his breathing labored. Her heart racing and her pulse thick and heavy, she turned her face against his neck, the warmth of his hand filling her with a heavy weakness.
“Geezus, babe, you feel so good,” he whispered raggedly, dragging his fingers against her hardened nipple. With one passionate move, he stripped the garment off her, captured her wrists, and drew her hands over her head. She had a dangerous flash of how she’d been restrained but told herself that Hazard was the only safe haven in the storm. He would never hurt her. Her breasts rose and fell with each quick breath, her nipples tightening into aching, throbbing points, as flushed as the rest of her half-naked body.
He stared at her, his eyes darkening, and she arched her back against the electric chemistry between them. He didn’t even have to physically touch her for her to hunger and her body react.
A small moan escaped her lips, a needy sound that Hazard absorbed. He clasped his hand around her breast, plumping the nipple, then his thumb zinged across the hard, aching knot, stroking and swirling around her aureoles, rasping across her tight, aching bud again—gentle at first, then harder, firmer, creating an unbearable agonizing sensation that spiraled straight down to the hot, wet center of her.
She groaned in surrender and anticipation of feeling his mouth on her. The wanting made her weak. When his hot mouth engulfed her nipple, sucking her deep, the pleasure was so immense, her entire body shuddered, and she cried out.
He took his time savoring her, driving her to a feverish pitch, until he abruptly changed to her other stinging, throbbing nipple, sucking and using his tongue with a thoroughness that went on and on. Dragging his mouth away, he shuddered and turned his head against hers, the muscles in his back bunching as he flexed his hips against her.
She reached down to touch him, slid her hand between cotton and hard, hot man, her fingers lingering over the broad, velvet head of his shaft. He sucked in a hissing breath, thrusting into her hand as she closed over all that thick, pulsing power. She wanted all of him, every inch. She rose up and pushed him back in a feverish move that caught him completely off guard. When his back hit the mattress, she had her hands in his boxer briefs so tightly, her fists were white. She pulled hard at the same time he lifted his hips, and it took her seconds to get rid of that barrier to her eyes.