Chapter 21

A pounding fist on the bedroom’s door jolted Gabe out of a dead sleep. He launched from the bed and reached for his firearm, only to realize he was buck ass naked. Evening spilled vibrant colors into the room and tortured his pounding skull as the sun sank over the peaceful slice of ocean outside the windows. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut.

The pounding started again, impatiently this time, and Audrey sat up with a gasp, her hair a wild cloud around her pale face.

“What’s that?”

Gabe scrubbed his face with both hands, trying to rub away the fog of sleepy disorientation, and found his jeans on the floor. “It’s okay. Probably a butler with the proper attire Mena mentioned.”

Sore and stiff from the beating he took that morning, followed by the fantastic way he’d spent the afternoon, he stuffed his legs into the jeans and crossed the room while buttoning the fly. He glanced back at Audrey to see her wiping her eyes like a drowsy child—but she sure as hell didn’t look childlike with her small breasts bare, pale peach nipples perky in the air-conditioned coolness of the room.

Yeah, he definitely didn’t want whoever was now pounding on the door to see her like that. “Cover up, Audrey.”

“Huh?” She yawned, then looked down at herself. “Oh!” She scrambled for the sheet and clenched it to her lovely breasts. He liked the flush that climbed up her chest into her cheeks. It reminded him of how she looked when turned on, when he was moving deep inside her.

Wouldn’t it be nice to crawl back into bed with her and forget everything again?

He sighed, turned the doorknob, and found Liam Miller with his fist raised in mid-pound.

“Liam,” Gabe said and leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, to block his view of the bedroom. “Still got a temper, I see.”

Liam’s upper lip curled. “Gabe Bristow. Imagine my surprise when my men dragged you unconscious from that poppy field. Lost your edge, I see.”

Gabe eyed the garment bags Liam carried. “And you, playing butler for the scum of the earth. I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“I go where the money is. As a mercenary now, it’s something you’ll learn fast.” He gave a bitter laugh and shoved the garments toward Gabe. “The infamous Commander Bristow, a mercenary. It still tickles my funny bone to say it. How the mighty do fall.”

“How the spineless do flee. Tell me something, have you pried that tail from between your legs yet?”

Liam’s teeth gnashed together. “I had to flee. I had no choice because of you, you self-righteous prick.”

“Hm. Hey, Liam.” Gabe made a brushing motion near his nose. “You got a little something…”

Liam raised a hand halfway to his nose before he caught himself. Eyes spitting fire, he said, “Back up.”

Unperturbed, Gabe pushed away from the doorframe and stepped back. Liam slammed the door, and the lock snapped into place again.

“Wow,” Audrey said on an exhale a few seconds after the door closed. “That’s some bad blood there. I take it you two know each other.”

Gabe nodded and laid out a plastic-wrapped dress on the end of the bed for her. He opened his own garment bag to study the contents. A freaking tux and dress shoes. And here he was hoping for cammies and combat boots.

“Let me guess,” Audrey said when he stayed silent. “Long story?”

“Yes and no.” He pulled out the crisp white dress shirt and slid into it but left it hanging open, unbuttoned. “If you want to know the bare bones, I got the bastard kicked out of the British Special Forces during an op a few years back, and he’s had it out for me ever since. It’s a mutual hate-hate relationship. Now get dressed, hon.”

She pushed aside the garment bag, ignoring the plum-colored gown inside. “Kicked out? What did he do?”

Gabe started to say, “That’s classified,” out of habit, but caught himself. Considering he’d spent the afternoon inside Audrey, making love to her, she deserved more than the rehearsed response he reserved for SEAL wannabes and frog-hogs. And, technically, Liam’s disgrace was public knowledge. He sat beside her on the bed and pulled her into the crook of his arm, savoring the softness of her skin under his hand.

“Liam Miller—which is not his real last name; he went by Collington back then—was one of the British SAS officers helping us to locate a CIA operative who…” He trailed off. Insurgents had held the CIA operative captive in a training camp near the Turkey border. By the time the SEALs located him, he’d been skinned alive. With no way of knowing how many classified secrets he spilled, orders came down from on high to neutralize the camp. Including the women and children.

But Audrey didn’t need to know the ugly details. And he didn’t much care to relive the experience.

Gabe cleared his throat. “That part’s not important. But during the mission, I caught Liam snorting coke. That put my team and his in danger, so I reported it to his superiors and they jettisoned his ass so fast he probably still has road rash.”

“Sounds like he deserved it,” Audrey said.

“He did and then some. The drug use wasn’t the whole of it. A couple days after his replacement arrived, we discovered he’d been stealing and selling ordnance to terrorists for years.”

Her eyes widened. “And he was never arrested?”

“He bolted and found himself a comfy position as Mena’s right-hand man. As long as he stays here and Mena stays out of prison, he’s safe.”

Part of the draw of taking down Mena had been the opportunity to get Liam Collington-slash-Miller behind bars as well. It had been Gabe’s pet project right up until his career ended. Throughout the many tedious hours he’d spent in the hospital, he often wondered if the accident was more premeditated than accidental. The truck that had caused the crash was never located, and with Gabe out of the teams, the operation came to a dead halt. As far as he knew, nobody had revived it.

He gave Audrey a light squeeze. “Liam’s a dangerous man. He’s extremely well-trained and very unstable. Watch your back around him tonight, okay? He might try to hurt you.”

She flinched. “What? Why? I don’t know him. I had nothing to do with what happened between the two of you. Why would he want to hurt me?”

“Because you’re mine.”

Her eyes lifted to his, filled with a soft something that looked a lot like hope. “Am I?” she whispered. “Yours?”

Jesus Christ, he wanted her to be in the worst possible way. It wasn’t professional; it crossed every line of honor he’d ever drawn for himself, but there it was.

Still. Now was not the time to fight an emotional battle with himself. Now was the time to focus. She couldn’t be his if either of them wound up dead.

“Liam thinks you are, and that’s all that matters.” He knew the instant the words left his tongue that it was the wrong answer. The hope in her eyes faded to disappointment, though she looked away quickly to hide the reaction.

“I, um, should shower before dinner.” She pulled out of his embrace and scooted to the edge of the bed, trailing that pale gold sheet behind her to the bathroom.

Gabe let her go. Hurting her feelings hadn’t been his intention, but that was exactly what he’d done, and he felt powerless to fix it without admitting things he couldn’t afford to admit yet.

He hated feeling powerless.

Cursing, he pushed to his feet and strode toward the bathroom door but paused before barging inside. Muscling his way in when he knew damn good and well she wanted privacy would be rude. He could almost hear her scolding him for his lack of manners, so he dropped his hand away from the doorknob and raised it to knock instead.

“Audrey?”

The shower turned on, but she didn’t reply.

Gabe sighed and rapped his forehead lightly on the door, once, twice, which did nothing to help his headache or the blooming ache in his chest that made it hard to breathe.

“You are mine,” he muttered into the wood, although he knew it was a little too little, a little too late.

* * *

Am I? Yours?

Ugh. She might as well have spilled her heart out to him with those three words, and it went completely over his head.

Gabe was such a thick-skulled alpha male.

Okay, so that wasn’t entirely fair. He was focused on keeping them safe, getting them free, and finding Bryson. He had a lot more on his mind than their budding intimacy. Really, she should, too, but even thoughts of Bryson couldn’t keep her from reliving this afternoon in vivid detail as she soaped herself. She ached in all the most delicious places, her breasts plump and tender from Gabe’s affections, her thighs shaky, her core all but rubbed raw from the friction of his thrusts, and it felt wonderful.

She wanted more.

So much more.

She just had to convince Gabe he wanted the same.

Feeling better, Audrey shut off the water, reached for a towel, and noticed the dress she was supposed to wear hanging from a hook on the back of the bathroom door. She’d left it in the other room, so Gabe must have put it there sometime while she was showering. She never heard the door open, but knowing Gabe, she wouldn’t have. For a big man, he moved with eerily light feet.

The silk, plum-colored cocktail dress clung to her in all the right places, with a plunging V neckline that showed a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage. It wasn’t even close to her style, but how disturbing was it that Mena had so accurately guessed her size? She had to fight the urge to rip the awful thing off, shred it into expensive, itty-bitty scraps, and flush it down the toilet.

She left her hair down to air-dry and hoped the heavy mass covered some cleavage. In her everyday life, she liked wearing as few clothes as possible and had no problem with flashing a little skin—but not with men like Mena and Liam around. No thanks.

She opened the bathroom door and spotted Gabe staring out the balcony windows at the sunset. Or at least she thought it was the sunset he watched with such unwavering intensity. Either that, or he was scoping Mena’s security set-up.

Sadly, that was more likely.

All Gabriel Bristow saw when he looked at a sunset was a tactical advantage or disadvantage. He wasn’t the type to take a minute to admire the world’s natural beauty, to soak in a pretty moment. She’d have to change that.

Gabe made such a striking picture standing there in the dying sunlight, dressed in a tux with his bowtie undone around his neck and a fatigued expression of pure concentration on his face, that she wished for her paints. She let her eyes roam over his hard body, committing every detail to memory so she could transfer it to canvas as soon as she got back to work. His military-erect posture, feet braced apart, hands folded behind his back. The way the sunlight set sparks of gold and red off his dark hair. The play of light and shadow over his features. His caged intensity, pitiless focus. She’d capture him in acrylic with stark lines and dramatic contrasts and call it The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday.

God, he was beautiful.

A modern avenging angel.

As if sensing her gaze, he turned away from the window slowly, gold eyes focusing all that intensity on her. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think that jerk of his shoulders was his breath catching. Maybe the dress wasn’t that awful after all if it elicited such a reaction.

Goading him a bit, she did a little turn and prompted, “So?”

“You look…” He seemed at a loss for words and rubbed a hand around the back of his neck. “Beautiful.”

The sincerity in his voice stopped her mid-twirl, and pleasure warmed her blood like a shot of good Southern whiskey. He might not be ready to admit they had something more than sex, but the emotion behind that one simple compliment came close.

“Thank you.” She picked up the diamond necklace that had come with the dress and held it out to him. “Can you help me with this?”

Moving toward her, he gently took the necklace from her outstretched hand. His fingers brushed against hers, a fleeting touch that sent shivers down her spine. The connection between them was undeniable, as hot as an electric current traveling between two points. He moved to stand behind her, his reflection appearing in the long mirror she was facing.

His muscular figure towered over her slender one, and when her eyes met his in the mirror, the heat between them sizzled and popped in the silence. His hands, strong and capable, brushed her wavy hair over one shoulder, his knuckles lingering at the nape of her neck, causing a shiver of anticipation to course through her body. Even after spending the afternoon lost in each other, every touch, every moment their skin connected was still charged with raw desire.

She’d never felt anything like this before, and she was certain she would never feel anything like it again. It scared her. Scared her in the most exhilarating, reckless way.

Slowly, very slowly, Gabe leaned in, and the cool metal of the necklace draped against her collarbone. He fastened the clasp at the back of her neck, but he didn’t pull away. He traced the curve of her shoulder, down her arm, and finally entangled his fingers with hers. His touch was feather-light, but it set her nerves on fire, her skin tingling in response. Her breath caught in her throat as their eyes locked in the mirror again.

Gabe Bristow was a man unlike any other, and the way he looked at her—the way he touched her—it felt like a promise. A silent vow that he would protect her until the bitter end. Nobody had ever looked at her like she mattered, like she was worth fighting for. And it shook her to her core.

“Thank you,” she whispered and hoped he knew she was thanking him for more than the help with the necklace. Because she couldn’t voice how grateful she was for everything he’d done, everything he was—a reluctant hero, a protector, a man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He stood behind her, silent as a ghost, his fingers still tangled with hers, his stare so intense she could barely stand it.

She cleared her throat and stepped away from him, breaking the contact. She needed distance, a moment to regain control of the emotions spiraling out of control inside her. “Do you need help with that bowtie?”

He shook his head and asked softly, “Are you still angry with me?”

How one man could be capable of the cold ferocity she witnessed at the guerrilla camp and also such childlike sweetness, she couldn’t begin to fathom. But, Lord, was it endearing to know her SEAL was not always one hundred percent sure of himself.

“Oh, Gabe.” She soothed her palms over the lapels of his jacket. “I was frustrated, not angry, and it was over nothing you did. It’s the situation.”

“It is a sucky situation,” he agreed.

“It is, but the shower helped relax me.” And so did the look on his face when he saw her in the purple prom bomb of a dress. If she could have captured that on canvas, she’d call it Lovestruck. Silly man just didn’t realize he was a goner yet.

She knotted his bowtie and then stood on her toes to kiss him as the door popped open. No semi-polite knocking this time. Liam Miller stood there with a scowl fit to kill. “Out.”

Gabe tucked her in close to his side, and together, they left the tenuous safety of the bedroom to dine with the devil himself.