Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“Gage, I’m finished in the bathroom, if you need to use it.
” Audra stepped into the cozy bedroom decorated in gunmetal grey with tangerine accents.
She’d spent too long in the bathroom, brushing her teeth and talking her nerves off the ledge so she could approach him with some semblance of confidence.
All the you-can-do-this speeches she’d given her reflection in the bathroom mirror these last several minutes evaporated as soon as she spotted him.
He stood in the middle of the room, wearing loose pajama bottoms that couldn’t hide his, um, assets, and a dark tee that clung to his muscles like the lover she wanted—but was afraid—to be.
Her mouth watered and panic shot up her spine.
She bit her lips because neither reaction made sense.
Not true. The desire that washed over her each time she saw Gage was completely understandable. Not helpful at this moment, but understandable. She’d desired him for years, knew the pleasure she could enjoy with him, and wanted that again. But not tonight. And she couldn’t tell him why.
Audra wrapped her arms around her chest as if she could ward off her body’s reaction to him by reminding it why it couldn’t have him. Why there was no future for them. Not with her breast cancer treatments. Not with the cancer she would suffer in the future thanks to her stupid body.
Gage made no move to use the bathroom she’d just vacated, instead glanced around the room as if looking for a sign to tell him what to do. What to say. Was he nervous, too?
How had they gotten to this point? Even when making small talk at the Pentagon, he’d exuded confidence, and she’d never stressed over what to say.
Yet here they stood like awkward teens shoved into a room together by friends with the expectation that something sexy would happen.
And neither knew where to even begin a conversation, let alone something sexy.
Assuming he wanted something sexy to happen with her.
Assuming she was ready to be intimate with a man.
“Audra, I don’t have to be here.” He was the first to break the uncomfortable silence of the room, his voice like a booming canon that made her flinch. “There are other rooms I could sleep in. Hell, I could sleep outside. Just because the others are paired off, doesn’t mean you and I have to.”
She tried to flash him a jaunty smile, but it didn’t feel very jaunty. She probably looked like she was about to be sick. The way her stomach churned with the conflict of desire and worry, she might very well vomit.
“That’s not it, Gage.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
She steeled her nerves and sat on the end of the bed.
“I… I want you to sleep wherever you feel comfortable. But I also don’t want to be alone.
I’ve spent too many nights alone in my life.
I’m tired of being alone. I’m tired of holding it all together.
I’m tired of…” She swallowed. “I’m just… tired.”
She rubbed her eyes, exhaustion and emotional turmoil making them dry and crunchy.
The mattress dipped next to her, tilting her against a warm, solid object.
Gage wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her even closer to his side.
“Then rest.” His low rumble of a voice in her ear was a masseuse, rolling across her fraught nerves like a balm.
“You’re with friends now. With your brother. With me… if you want.”
His chin rested atop her head. The heat of his body seeped into hers like a sauna. Her muscles relaxed, tension leaving them until they were jelly. A few spare moments in his proximity was a spa day for her body. Why had she been so nervous about being in the same room with him?
Her hand dropped to his thigh and his muscle jumped beneath her palm. Her fingers itched to explore the rest of him. She wanted to trail them along his abdomen, brush them against the weight of his testicles, wrap them around his—
Dammit, this was why she was so nervous about being in the same room with him. She couldn’t control her libido. He was sexy beyond imagining, and she only had skin bag boobs to offer him.
Audra stood and walked to a dresser, fussing with the clothing items in the top drawer and willing her desire to calm the fuck down.
Her teenage years were well behind her; she shouldn’t be struggling with that capricious sway of emotions and hormones.
Gage’s body pressed against her back, his arms braced against the dresser, caging her within his heat.
“Audra, talk to me.” He murmured into her hair. “Say the word, and I’ll leave. But you gotta talk to me. Help me understand what’s going on. What I can do. Otherwise, I can only guess, and I’m not very good at that game.”
She dropped her head on a sigh. “My body wants you. It wants to make love to you again.”
Before he could respond to that piece of information, she faced him. “I want that intimacy, but at the same time, I don’t. I can’t. And I can’t even explain why.”
“We’ve had sex before. And I enjoyed it very much” He shrugged and tucked an errant curl behind her ear. “But that doesn’t give me automatic consent from you for future intimacies.”
He tipped her chin up with two fingers. “Honestly, we went from practical strangers to lovers in one morning, and bypassed all the in-between fun. We never had our date. Never took the time to get to know each other. I never got a chance to romance you, seduce you. We might be stuck in this bunker for a long while. Let’s take this opportunity to grow close the old-fashioned way. ”
A long, leisurely courtship. Was that what he proposed?
Before she’d had her breast cancer diagnosis, she would have jumped at the offer.
Of course, she probably would have jumped him by the second date.
He was too delicious to resist and she wasn’t some young innocent maiden with no experience in the world. She knew what she wanted.
That wasn’t why she needed to keep him at arm’s length. The real reason was far more devastating. But she couldn’t tell him.
Instead, she braced her hands on his chest and smiled. “That sounds like a lovely idea and I accept. But I still don’t want to be alone.”
“So I’ll… sleep on the floor.”
Of course he would suggest that. He’d been nothing but a gentleman with her, even when he’d been ordered to hunt her down. “I’d rather sleep in your arms.”
He blinked in shock before a smile bloomed on his face. Audra put her fingertips against his lips as if that would stop his enthusiasm. “But sleep is all I want to do. No… touching.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Audra, you have my word I won’t do anything sexual to you without your consent. But I can’t guarantee my hands won’t land on a part of you while we’re asleep.”
She hesitated. What if he palmed one of her breasts in his sleep and woke up enough to realize it was smaller than before and deformed? What if he asked her about it?
“Audra? Is that such a deal breaker?”
Yes, but not in the way he thought. Her cancer was the deal breaker.
What man would want to stand by, love, and ultimately lose a woman to such an insidious disease?
Expecting him to court her was cruel. He was destined to lose her in one of the most devastating ways.
Her cancer cells would keep coming back.
Her treatments would continue. More and more of her body would be eaten away by both, until she was a husk of the woman he’d made love to on a conference table.
She couldn’t put him through that.
“Hey there, beautiful. I lost you for a moment. What’s got ya so forlorn?” He pressed a thumb to the crease between her brows, as if he could wipe away her worries. Then he palmed her cheeks to gaze into her eyes. “Is there something I need to know?”
“I have cancer.”
There. Her admission. Not pretty or well-timed.
And blurted before she’d even consciously decided to tell him.
But now he knew. Now he could make the decision to walk away without regret.
She closed her eyes against the tears that pooled and overflowed.
She didn’t want to watch him pull away in horror; knowing it would happen was bad enough.
Two warm lips pressed against her forehead. This was it. The farewell kiss. But the warmth of his presence never eased and the hands on her cheeks never left. “I know, beautiful. I’ve known since before I left D.C.”
Her eyes shot open. “You know?” Audra winced against the volume of her voice. She hadn’t meant to shout. “How much do you know?”
Gage smiled. “I know you were diagnosed with breast cancer and had treatment. I know from my research the procedures you endured to treat those cancer cells. And I know what that means for your future cancer probability.” He wiped at the tears on her cheeks.
This sweet man had dried her eyes more than he’d kissed her.
If she wasn’t already falling in love with him, his gentle treatment of her when he should be running away would have clinched it.
“But what I don’t know is what you suffered through it all.
How it’s impacted your self-image. The emotional upheaval you’ve endured. ”
“Don’t you, Gage?” Audra choked out a harsh laugh and waved toward his lower half.
“You lost a leg in the line of duty. You had reconstructive surgery with a cybernetic replacement and have to look at yourself in the mirror, knowing that your right leg is something you weren’t born with.
You have to suffer the pain when it doesn’t work the way your original leg did. ”
Gage laughed and wrapped her in a hug, tugging her to his chest. “I guess we can argue over who has it worse. But I’d rather talk about other things. Or better yet, take you to bed.”
“Bed sounds good.” She mumbled against his chest. It was all the invitation he needed.
He swooped her up into his arms and carried her across the room, turning the lights off as he went, then gently laid her on the soft mattress.
He followed her down, stretching out beside her, then flicked the sheets over them and tucked her close.
She was wrapped in a cocoon of warmth against his body, his arms banded around her, hands nowhere near anything that might offend her.
Like before, all the tension in her body dissolved and she matched her breathing to his.
She was more relaxed than she’d been in months.
Yet she was wide awake. Alert as if waiting for something earth-shattering.
Or maybe she was waiting for something to rock her world.
This was stupid.
In the deafening silence of the room, she whispered. “Gage? Are you asleep?”
“Not in the least.” His arms tightened around her.
She turned in his arms to look at him, even though the room was too dark to allow. “I know I said all I want to do is sleep. But I lied.”
His deep chuckle vibrated through her body. “So, you mean… we can touch?”
Once again, she felt like an awkward teen with her first boyfriend. “Um, yeah. We can touch. But not… not my breasts. I’m not ready for that.”
“You forget, beautiful.” He murmured against her neck, and shivers tingled along her skin. “I’m an ass man.”
As if to prove his words, He palmed her backside and squeezed, pulling her hips against his. Against his erection.
Desperate need exploded in her body. Everything between her legs throbbed, her tongue needed to dance with his, her legs wanted to wrap around his waist while he was so deep inside her she could taste him.
Speaking of tasting him, she wanted him in her mouth.
Fuck it, she just wanted all of him. It had only been a few weeks since the conference room morning, but tonight’s intensity was a hundredfold greater.
“Gage.” She panted against his mouth. “Forget everything I said. I need you. Please fuck me.”