Or, as Eliza liked to call it, theirred tape and dossier-averse work. Because the only authority the Knights reported to was the commander in chief and the only mission reports they put together went straight to the top, stamped with the directive:burn after reading.
“I know.” She nodded slowly, her expression hidden from him by a curtain of dark, damp hair. “He just has a terrible way of showing it.”
There was a note of misery in her voice. It was nearly hidden beneath the more glaring note of longing.
He knew what it was to seek the approval of a parent incapable of giving that very thing. Unlike her, though, he’d stopped searching at a very young age.
Easy to do when your dad is none other than the notorious Nash Wakefield.
He wanted to tuck her hair behind her ear so he could see her face. But he knew better than to tempt fate. It was one thing forherto instigate physicality between them. But another thing entirely forhimto do it.
Ifhedid it, he’d want to do it again. And again. Andagainuntil all he was doing was touching her every chance he got.
Then he thought…fuck it.
Careful of her injuries, he gently brushed her hair over her shoulder and anchored the front strands behind the delicate shell of her ear.
Like the rest of her, her ear was pale and perfect. His fingers lingered longer than he’d intended, his thumb and forefinger following the curve of cartilage and then lightly squeezing her earlobe.
Soft.
What other parts of her are this soft?he wondered before quickly dropping his hand and calling himself every dirty name in the book.
She didn’t need his desire; she needed his support. She didn’t need his passion; she needed his friendship.
Or did she?
When she turned to look at him, her heavy-lidded eyes—those bedroom eyes of hers that were seductive without meaning to be—showed more than simple sadness. More than pain or grief or even vulnerability. They showed…hunger?
He’d been with enough women to recognize when one wanted him. Except…
That can’t be right.
She’d spent four years batting away his every advance and rolling her eyes at his every offer of getting her naked and horizontal. And surely, tonight of all nights, she wouldn’t suddenly decide to change her mind on the matter.
The lamps on her bedside tables had those old-fashioned Edison bulbs screwed into them. They gave off a golden glow that bathed her in sepia-toned warmth and apparently had his eyes playing tricks on him.
That’s it. It’s those damn fancy bulbs that have me seein’ things that aren’t there.
Even so, his tongue felt tacky. Like it couldn’t unstick itself from the roof of his mouth. His blood ran hot, rising to the surface of his skin to warm him all over. Then there was the dull ache low in his belly, the one that told him?—
That’s my cue to leave.
“Welp.” He slapped his knees. “Reckon I better adios myself next door.”
“Wait.” When her cool hand curled around his wrist, his heated brain conjured up an image of how good it would look, how good it wouldfeel, curled around something else entirely. “Don’t go. I?—”
She swallowed and shook her head. It caused her hair to fall over her shoulder again and conjured up a quick, feverish fantasy of what it would feel like to have that long, dark hair brushing over his chest. His belly.
“You need sleep.” He’d trained his heart to remain steady even when bullets were buzzing and bombs were bursting. But all it took was feeling her hand on him and it beat forcefully against his ribs, making them ache.
“I don’t want to be alone, Fish.” Her pretty mouth thinned. Her unpainted lips were usually a soft pink. But now they were so pale they faded into the skin over her face. “When I’m alone, I can’t stop the memories.”
She wasn’t asking for Britt or Graham or any of the others. She was askinghimto stay, to be the one to help keep her demons at bay.
The feeling that rose up inside him felt like happiness. But he’d experienced so little of the emotion, he couldn’t be sure.
“Probably not a very good idea,” he managed through a throat that had gone as dry as the Sakhir Desert that time he and the Knights had been tasked with doing business in Bahrain.
