“This is a two-stage mission,” he explained. “Rescuing you is stage one. Neutralizing the enemy is stage two. If we’re pulled out, it could compromise the team’s efforts. Added to that, it’s nighttime. It’s safer to wait until light to head out again.”
Alexia’s jaw dropped.
“What?” he asked, pausing in the act of taking off his own jacket and hanging it with hers on a hook.
“You, well... You answered my question.” She realized how stupid it sounded when she said the words. But she’d never gotten answers as a kid. Had been told time and again that good little soldiers followed orders without question—that questioning was a sign of disrespect, of showing doubt toward one’s superior.
“You didn’t ask for classified information,” Blake said, dismissing what she thought of as a miracle with a laugh. “I’ll answer whatever I can. You have the right to know what’s going on.”
It was as if he’d twisted a spigot. Before she realized it was happening, Alexia’s cheeks were wet with tears. Her breath came in hiccupping gasps as she fell apart.
He looked at her as if she’d just turned into an alien giraffe with four heads and an Uzi pointed at his man parts. Horrified, shocked and desperate to make it stop.
“I’m sorry,” she wailed, trying to control her sobs.
“What...” He shook his head, clearly realizing that this wasn’t the time for a reasonable discussion. Then he crossed the tent and pulled her into his arms.
She didn’t care that she’d spent months being angry with him, or that she’d imagined countless scenarios in which he saw her again and, miserable and unable to get his party on sexually without her, he’d begged her to let him into her life again.
In her imagination, she’d always turned him away.
In real life, she grabbed on as if he was the only oxygen in the room. As soon as she did, her tears slowed. Her heart stopped aching. She felt like a scared little girl and he was her security blanket. Now she wanted to wrap him all around her.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she said, her words as shaky as her breath. “I’m safe, right? I’m away from that lunatic and his insane demands. He can’t hurt me. His henchman can’t touch me, right?”
Blake’s arms stiffened around her, his fingers digging into her spine as he pulled her closer, tighter. As if he could wrap himself around her as a shield, keeping her safe. Protected.
“You’re safe with me,” he vowed.
She never wanted to be anywhere else.
Realizing she’d plummeted into dangerous thinking, Alexia drew in a little more of his calm, got her thoughts and her breathing under control, then slowly pulled back.
“Thank you,” she said, wrinkling her nose in embarrassment. “I’m sorry to cry all over you. I guess SEALs really are trained to handle any emergency.”
His eyes narrowed, as if he knew she’d tossed his job out to put a wedge between them. He didn’t call her on it, though. Maybe he liked the wedge? Alexia frowned, then rubbed her damp cheeks dry.
“I don’t suppose you have a hairbrush, or something I can use to wash my face,” she asked. “Or, you know, a hairdresser and manicurist stashed in one of those packs.”
“There,” he said, pointing to the bunk on the left. On it were two packs, one smaller, one larger. “Clothes, toiletries, whatnot. Over there is a makeshift bathroom. No bathing facilities, but you can change.”
Alexia followed his gestures, then looked back at him and wet her lips. Get naked, with just a flimsy piece of fabric separating them? Her body trembled at the idea, wanting desperately to beg him to get naked with her. But that wasn’t going to happen, she warned her body. He was off-limits. Totally wrong for her, and she wasn’t stupid enough to make the same mistake twice.
“Thank you,” she murmured, lifting the pack and digging in to find not only a hairbrush and toothbrush, but ponytail holders, thick wool leggings, thermal underwear and a sweater. She wanted to ask who his personal shopper was, but figured the less said to bring attention to the fact that she was about to get naked, the better.
“I’ll get dinner ready while you change,” he told her.
Alexia narrowed her eyes. He didn’t sound as if he cared that she was going to strip down. Not excited, not intrigued. Nothing.
Fine. It wasn’t as though she wanted him to want to see her naked. She’d ended that part between them and for a damn good reason.
When Alexia realized that it was taking all her control not to add so there and stick out her tongue, she sighed. Clearly, the ordeal was messing with her way too much.
It might have been residual irritation, or probably nerves that she’d give in to her body’s urgings and call out for him, but Alexia changed in record time. She didn’t want to touch the nasty, five-days-worn clothes once she’d stripped them off, but it wasn’t as if the tent came with maid service. So she bundled them up and, noticing a couple of small plastic bags tied to a rope, stuffed them into one. There. Trash.
She used the canteen water to brush her teeth and wash her face, then spent a luxuriously long time running the brush through her tangled mass of hair.
Once it was pulled into a tidy French braid and she felt clean and warm and real again, she pulled back the curtain and rejoined Blake.
Why, oh why did she have to have values? He looked so deliciously sexy standing there in winter camo fatigues tucked into his boots and a long-sleeved white T-shirt. She tried reminding herself that the silver chain she could see along the back of his neck belonged to his dog tags. Making him a soldier boy. Off-limits, Alexia, she wanted to yell. But her body didn’t care. All it could see was how great he looked.
“Hungry?” he said, giving her a friendly-yet-distant look over his shoulder.
Clearly, he had no problem forgetting about the two days of constant, mind-blowing sex they’d shared. She sniffed. Either that or they hadn’t blown his mind enough for him to see her as anything but a mission objective.
And that kiss. She forced herself not to sigh and melt at the memory, since she now knew it was probably just his way of reassuring her. Keeping her from getting hysterical. Or, who knew, maybe luck, as she’d first said.
Before she could pout too much, her stomach—the only part of her body not craving Blake’s touch—growled.
“Hungry it is,” he said, grinning and setting two plates, steam rising temptingly, on the table.
Alexia placed the pack on her designated cot and joined him.
“Field rations?” she guessed with a grimace. “My father used to insist we have them for dinner once a month. It was supposed to make us appreciate what soldiers had to deal with while protecting our way of life.”
“Did it?”
“No,” she remembered, wrinkling her nose. “But it did solidify my determination not to serve in the military.”
Blake’s grin warmed her more than all the space heaters combined. That feeling—and starvation—got her through the first few bites. Then the flavor hit her taste buds.
She poked into the open food box he’d set between them until she found salt. It took two packets before she could get through the other half of her meal. She glanced at Blake, who was spooning up his as if it was covered in chocolate.
“You don’t actually like this—” she was hesitant