Chapter Forty-One
Phoenix
“Drownproofing,” she whispered.
“Your brother?” I was going to kill him.
“No.” She sucked in a breath. Then the fear in her eyes turned to exhaustion, and her body went slack once again. “It was long ago. I learned to respect the ocean. I love to swim at midnight now. That’s all you need to know.”
It was far from what I needed to know, but I let her keep her privacy on the subject matter for now. “Who gave you the necklaces?” I fingered the long end of the chain that had a heart on it and thought about putting my own gold claim on her.
“That’s my lariat.” She touched the small heart.
“My mother gave it to me.” She fingered the medium-length chain.
“This one was hers, and this one?” She picked up the last one, the longest. “It was my brother’s.
” She glanced up at me. “And I used to have a gold barrette that accessorized perfectly.”
The multi-tool disguised as a barrette that I’d taken from her. The one I now carried in my pocket. I knew what she could do with it. The little intruse wasn’t getting it back.
Holding her around the waist, I reached to release the drain, then stood and took her with me. “You need to hydrate. After, you’re going to sleep.”
Either forgetting about the barrette or dropping the subject for now, she yawned. “Okay.” Leaning her forehead against my sternum, her arms hung loose at her sides like it was too much effort to lift them.
Satisfaction—deep-seated, unfamiliar—lodged in my chest as I wrapped her in a towel and picked her up.
Her cheek fell against my pec, and she lifted a lazy hand, fingering my dog tags. “These are blank.”
She’d given me trust tonight. I gave her some truth. “Reminds me who I am.” Who I wasn’t. She had her journal. I had blank dog tags.
As if the woman knew me, she whispered an apology she didn’t own. “I’m sorry.”
Changing the subject, I gave her the praise she deserved.
“You did well tonight, intruse.” Too damn well.
Carrying her into the bedroom, I laid her on the bed and touched my lips to her forehead.
“Get comfortable, but don’t fall asleep yet.
” I took the wet towel from her and wrapped it around my waist. “Wait.” Then I grabbed my cell and aimed for the door.
Her subspace voice hit my six. “You have a lot of scars.”
I glanced back.
Curled on her side, gaze on mine, naked except for those necklaces, she looked small and vulnerable with her wet hair like a tangled crown of laurels on the pillow. But it was her eyes that did me in.
Sorrow. Concern. Fear. The same fear I saw in another set of eyes.
“Old wounds,” I reassured.
The fear morphed but didn’t diminish as her gaze shifted. “You have a diamond earring.”
“I do.” I took pleasure in the jealousy she was showing, but not the insecurity attached to it. “The earring was my mother’s. My sister has the other one.”
“And the tattoo on your arm?”
This little intruse. “I’ll be right back.”
“Can you please tell me what it is?”
That voice, those eyes, they hit. Not broadside.
But a full-frontal assault. The stripped-down vulnerable version of this woman made me want to carve out my own psyche and offer it up if it’d erase that look in her eyes.
But it wouldn’t. It’d make it worse, and I didn’t talk about my ink or my past.
And she didn’t drop it, because she was my trespasser. “It’s a chemical compound?”
“Molecular structure.” Of several compounds. Their structural formula in a graphic representation of the explosives that’d ended my old life.
“What does it mean?”
Talisman, indirect identification if my body ever washed up somewhere, a choice made when I’d been stripped of others. “That I can’t die twice. Wait.” I hit the stairs and aimed for the kitchen as I dialed.
Tauk answered with his signature hazing. “Boss.”
A few years older than me, a lot more cynical, intolerant of most everyone and an absolute beast on the battlefield, Tauk wasn’t anyone’s subordinate. Not when he was on the Teams, not now. “Favor.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“If I give an order, you’ll ignore it.” I grabbed three bottles of water.
“Always knew you were smart. What’s the favor?”
“Grab a clean burner, program this number, then head in. I need you at the hotel suite until I get back tomorrow night.”
“Because?”
This wasn’t going to go over well. “Protection detail.”
Tauk let out a rare laugh. “Pass.”
“It’s important.”
“As important as Virginia?”
Fuck. I wasn’t surprised he’d put two and two together.
I’d been careful, more so than ever, but this was Tauk.
He’d been with me since I’d taken possession of the ship.
We’d seen a lot of nautical miles together.
Crewed the Paragon by ourselves. He’d stitched me up.
I’d ignored the times he’d broken every fucking dish in the galley on the one day a year he lost his shit.
Whether you wanted to or not, when you got in the trenches with someone, you got to know them.
I didn’t lie to my friend. “Not as important.” Nothing was.
But damn it, the little intruse had somehow gotten close, closer than anything else in ten years, and the complication—hell, the fucking fatuity of this—I didn’t have the latitude for it.
And yet, the woman had already entrenched herself, I’d allowed it, and now I was calling in Tauk.
“It’s Isla Sennan,” I admitted. Then I downloaded what I needed.
“Give me forty-five minutes. You want someone on the ship or full security measures enabled?”
“Full measures enabled.”
“Copy. Oscar Mike.” Tauk hung up.
I downed one of the waters, then headed back upstairs.
Unmoved from how I left her, she was fast asleep.
For a beat, I allowed myself the idiotic bêtise of a fantasy. A future. Then I shut it down and got in bed behind her.
The woman moaned.
My cock stirred, and I uncapped a water before sliding an arm under her head. “Come on, beautiful. You need to hydrate.” Lifting her up enough so she wouldn’t choke, I held the bottle to her lips.
“Sleep,” she protested, voice raspy, eyes closed.
“Drink,” I ordered.
“You broke me,” she whispered.
“You’re beautiful when you break.” So goddamn beautiful.
She opened her eyes and looked at me. Then she drank.
“Good, ma petite intruse.” Tipping the bottle more, watching her swallow, I wanted to fuck her again. “Bonne fille.”
Her eyes fluttered shut at the praise.
I wanted to shower her in more, but she was done.
Setting the water on the nightstand, I laid her back down and pulled the covers over us. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I dragged her in close.
Her small hands grabbed my forearm, and I got her subspace voice. “Please don’t leave.”
“You’re not getting rid of me yet, intruse. Sleep.”
“You left me before.” Her fingers shifted across my arm before she tightened her grip. “You locked me in a cabin and left me in that storm.”
I aligned the facts. “I had a ship to navigate through a subtropical cyclone. You were safest in the cabin, and you were withholding intel.” Same as now, I had my plan to execute. Nothing was going to compromise that.
“You know what I’m asking.” Her voice quieted and became so damn vulnerable. “Why did you leave when you did?”
I didn’t hold her accountable for my depravity any more than I did for my actions in response to her trespassing.
Neither did I tell her I’d wanted to punish her for the sexual response she’d elicited, for testing my control when I’d been nothing but control for ten years.
I deliberately gave an interpretable answer. “I needed time.”
“For?”
Letting her know the conversation was over, I put force behind my tone. “I need time, Isla.”
She sat with my response for a few seconds. Then she assumed she had a choice. “Okay.”
Not robbing her of her illusion, I glanced at the clock on the nightstand and issued an order, moderating my tone only marginally. “Sleep, ma petite intruse.”
With a deep breath, she settled in. Less than five minutes later, her grip on my arm slackened.
For half an hour, I held her.