Chapter Four
M ax stepped out of the shower and toweled dry, hissing as the abused muscles of his back burned with every movement. He glanced in the mirror over his bathroom sink and winced at the bruises on his shoulders. Ali hadn’t pulled her punches. She’d tossed him all over the place and every time she came at him he wanted to surrender, spread his arms wide.
She thought he was weak.
He’d chosen to be a doctor because he wanted to heal people and take away pain whenever he could. He’d joined the army to stop biological weapons. Human beings were very good at killing each other with weapons, from knives to artillery. Adding microscopic organisms that could easily spread outside the combat zone and kill off civilian populations was unacceptable.
Unfortunately, there were plenty of psychopaths out there with Akbar’s skills, backed by money from extremist groups. If the human race wasn’t very careful, biological weapons were going to wipe them out.
He pulled on a pair of briefs and crawled onto his bed. He didn’t bother with the sheet or blanket, just lay down on his stomach and stuffed the pillow halfway under his torso. No doubt Ali would have an entire day of painful training prepared for him tomorrow. The woman was relentless.
He didn’t want to fight her. Couldn’t fight her.
He respected her, respected her skills, but that didn’t change how his hindbrain reacted to her.
Fuck, he’d known this was going to be difficult, retaining his objectivity where she was concerned, but the reality was even harder than expected. She was tougher than any of the male instructors who’d attempted to teach him the basics of self-defense.
He liked how she interacted with his staff. He liked her —more than he should. The physical attraction was part of it. Her size, her shape, her soft gold skin. The force of her personality was tangible and she never agreed to something unless she was all in. She was highly intelligent and had a sarcastic sense of humor that made him laugh.
Not that he was laughing tonight. Too many bruises for that.
He was afraid, terribly afraid she’d see his attraction to her. Nothing could come of it anyway. He’d tried the marriage thing. It had been a disaster from the start.
* * *
C lick. Scratch. Scratch .
Max glanced at his clock. 0100. He hadn’t been asleep longer than an hour.
Someone was outside his door doing something illegal.
Another kidnapping attempt? Akbar had tried to get Dr. Perry a few months ago.
Click. Click.
The door opened a crack.
Oh no you don’t. Anger chased all other emotions from him. He wasn’t going to let these terrorists commit any more atrocities. Not against his people.
Max rose from the bed and silently lowered himself to the floor next to it.
A figure slipped through the doorway and slowly, quietly closed it again. The hallway had some lighting, but inside his room the darkness was almost absolute. The intruder would have to wait for his eyes to adjust before they moved again.
Max didn’t.
He pushed off the floor, coming in low and grabbing the front of the intruder’s shirt. The other man moved to block, but it was too late. Max was moving too fast.
He twisted his body as Ali had taught him, flipped the intruder and slammed the man down on his bed and put him in a choke hold. The intruder tried to suck in air, but Max’s grip was too tight.
“Keep struggling,” Max whispered in his ear, “and I’ll put you out.”
His captive went limp.
Could be a ruse to get Max to loosen up on his hold. Max waited for several seconds, then asked, “Who do you work for?”
A sensual voice said, “You.”
It took a moment for the word to register, it was so unexpected. When it did, he dropped his captive and sprang off the bed. He fumbled along the wall until he found the light switch, then flipped it.
Alicia Stone lay on his bed, her hand rubbing her throat, her gaze flamethrower hot.
His hands were shaking. Her neck was red and bruised.
What had he done?
It took him back thirty years. His hands around his father’s throat, the old man’s face turning red, someone screaming in the background, a blow to his head and then darkness.
This is what happened when he let his emotions rule him, let any of his anger determine his course of action.
Max blinked and focused on Ali. Her face was red all right, but not from lack of air. No, she looked ready to tear him apart with her bare hands.
He should let her.
Max took a step toward the bed, to apologize, to assure her that he would never touch her again, but she bared her teeth at him. “You’ve been holding out on me.” She got to her feet and glided toward him.
Not good.
“You’ve been fucking holding out on everyone,” she hissed.
He closed his eyes. She was going to kill him now. He knew it. He deserved it.
He’d help.
He opened his eyes as a whisper of breath caressed his collarbone. She stood in front of him, staring at him intently, with only a couple of inches between them. “Explain that.”
“I apologize for putting my hands on your...you,” he said, attempting to sound professional. “I thought you were an intruder. I will report this to General Stone first thing in the morning, resign my position and—”
“Shut the fuck up.” She glared at him for another second or two, then poked him very precisely in the center of his chest. “I came here to show you how easy it would be for someone to enter your room and subdue you. Explain to me where the klutz I beat up earlier went and where the deadly fucking warrior who damn near choked me came from.” By the time she got to the end of the sentence, her words were sharp enough to cut him into strips.
He winced. “I don’t know.”
Her face told him that was the wrong answer. “You owe me the truth.”
He did, even though it made plain that he was no better than any other man who gave in to his rage. “A strange noise woke me and I realized someone was trying to get into my room. All I could think was someone was trying to hurt my people, like they tried with Sophia. I didn’t think—I got angry and moved. It was instinct.”
The fury in her face didn’t leave, but it was tempered with other emotions now—flitting across her face too fast for him to name. She pointed at the bed. “Sit. We’re going to talk about this.”
Max sat. He didn’t want her inside his head, didn’t want to talk about things that still hurt as much today as they had thirty years ago.
She watched him for a few moments, then sat next to him, her leg touching his. “Someone did a real number on you.”
He couldn’t stop looking at the bruises on her neck. Bruises he’d put there. Nausea churned his gut.
“Yes, someone did.” That’s all he got out before his own body threatened to choke him. Fuck. This couldn’t be happening to him in front of her. He tried to cough, but that just made it worse. He opened and closed his fists and focused on getting his breath back.
It was as if his father had his hands around Max’s throat again.
Choking him.
Killing him.
A small hand settled on the nape of his neck, then rubbed up and down his back. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Max,” she said in the gentlest tone he’d ever heard from her.
She put her head on his shoulder and kept massaging the tense muscles in his shoulders and neck. Her shampoo smelled light and citrusy with a hint of vanilla. She smelled like home. It dissolved the dam of anger, fear, and self-disgust clogging his throat, allowing him to breathe again.
His heart rate calmed and the heat of her body penetrated the miasma of caustic emotions cloaking him. Her head rested comfortably against his shoulder, impressing upon him just how small she was compared to him. Compared to most men.
Her personality was such a force of nature she seemed to take up more space than was possible. But now, sitting on his bed, her hands kneading his knotted muscles, need coiled low in his gut.
“You,” Ali said in a thoughtful tone, one he’d never heard from her before, “could defend yourself against a faceless enemy in the dark, but not one you can see in the light. Even if it’s a paper target.”
Her observation smacked him in the face. He’d never thought about it that way, but she was right. The dark had never bothered him. He could cloak himself in it and hide from all kinds of dangerous things, most of which lived in his memories.
The tightness sitting like a thousand-pound weight in the space between his collarbones shifted and shed more of its bulk. Her warm weight comforted him more than he wanted to admit. This fuzzy pajama-clad Ali was more dangerous to him than any woman in a long time. If he didn’t distract her soon, she was going to discover just how arousing he found her.
She lifted her head to look at him. “For most people it’s the opposite.” She sounded almost...excited.
Oh no.
“What are you planning, to teach me hand-to-hand combat while I wear a blindfold?” He was just as shocked as she was at his question.
He could breathe freely.
Her wicked grin made him even more uncomfortable. “That is an excellent idea.”
He rubbed his face with both hands. “That’s not going to work.”
“Why not?”
“I tried it. More than once. All I ended up with was bruises.” And nothing else.
She pursed her lips. “I’m not going to give up on this,” she said. “I promised my dad I’d have you able to defend yourself at least.”
“I promised him the same, so no giving up here. But what about just now? I hurt you.”
“You took me down, then let go as soon as I made my identity clear. No harm, no foul.”
“No harm?” How could she say that when she was sitting right next to him, her neck red everywhere he’d applied pressure. “I’m lucky I didn’t do any permanent damage to you.”
“Max,” she said, slanting him a look. “Small injuries happen. It’s an occupational hazard.”
He was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “No. This—” he waved his hand around to indicate their current situation “—can’t go unpunished.”
Whatever else he might have said was cut off when she took his face in both her hands and kissed him.
She might as well have stuck his finger in a light socket. The sensation of her lips wrecked any hope of keeping his attraction to himself. He pulled her close, the soft warmth of her pajama-clad body a pleasure he couldn’t resist.
Damn it, he needed to resist. They couldn’t do this. He didn’t want to lose the respect and friendship he was slowly developing with her.
There had to be fifty reasons why this was a lousy idea.
She pulled back. “Stop thinking so hard.” She kissed him again.
Shit.
He pulled away. “This is not a good idea.” If she’d stop touching him he might be able to think of a reason why.
One of her hands landed on his knee and trailed an invisible path from mid-thigh up to the edge of his briefs.
There was no missing his erection. His underwear barely contained it.
She stared at it, then looked at him through her lashes and said, “I disagree.”
He nearly came right then and there. “It would be completely inappropriate for us to...” He was terrified that if he named what he wanted to do with her he’d lose control again and start something they’d both regret.
He wanted no regrets between them.
If only she’d stop drawing little circles on his thigh. It was driving him crazy.
“Have sex?”
He met her gaze. “Yes.”
She leaned a little closer. “I’ve been hot for you for a long time, Max, and I think we both might need this.”
We? Why would she need him? “What about—”
She kissed him again. It was a quick slide of her lips across his, but he was already addicted to her taste. He wanted more. A lot more.
He took her shoulders in a firm grip and pulled away. “It’s been more than two years. I don’t think I can do slow or gentle.”
She grinned. “I don’t want slow or gentle. I want the ferocious man who didn’t hesitate to tackle me and take me to the floor.”
Heaven help him, he wanted that too.
Tomorrow was going to be a bitch.
Fuck it.
He yanked her close and kissed her hard, his tongue in her mouth, the softness of her lips under his.
She shifted, stood, then straddled him without breaking contact. Her heated skin scalded him as she wiggled closer until his cock was trapped between them, then rocked her hips.
Holy fuck, he was going to come in his shorts if she kept it up.
“Lift up your top. Show me your breasts,” he ordered.
She stared at him, her breathing becoming choppier as she complied.
Her breasts were the perfect handful. He nuzzled the sensitive skin below one nipple then took it between his teeth and nipped her.
She gasped, shuddered and held his head to her.
Ali liked it a little rough. Yes .
She rubbed herself over his cock and he thrust up against her. Then he treated her other breast to the same attention as the first.
She dropped her head back and groaned.
He sucked. Hard.
She bucked and made incoherent noises in the back of her throat. The strongest woman he knew was getting off on giving him control.
She was close and he was going to push her over.
Clamping her body close with one arm behind her back, he sent his other hand down the front of her soft sleep pants and inside her panties. He stroked one finger down the seam of her and flicked her clitoris, then shoved two fingers into her at the same time as he gave her breast another nip.
She exploded and hid her face against his neck to muffle her cries.
He stroked her through her orgasm, bringing her down gently even though he was still rock hard and shaking like an addict staring at his fix.
She opened her eyes and looked at him with such satisfaction that he got, impossibly, harder. “Your next order, sir?”