Chapter 34

They would need to leave for the airport soon, but Nyx didn't want to check out of the hotel. She knew she had to go back to LA. She knew she wasn't safe here and that her presence endangered others. But she also knew once she left Case, everything would change.

It would change anyway. He had an op to complete, and even if she could remain in Trujillo, he wouldn't be able to see her.

She took in the room. It was ordinary, just a regular hotel room with one king-size bed flanked by nightstands on either side, a small table near the window with two chairs, a long narrow built-in desk along the wall, and a flat screen television above it. It was one of the few places that she would never forget. The desk also had a vanity bench with a mirror. She sat in front of it, struggling to tame her hair.

She'd stuck it under a plastic cap when she showered, but now she had to deal with spending the night in a ponytail instead of the braid she normally slept in. Working a brush through the snarls was proving to be both painful and challenging.

And worth it.

Her lips curved. Case told her he liked her hair in its ponytail. Anything that got him all hot and bothered was a definite plus.

She heard the shower turn off. Case would be out in a few minutes and she wanted her hair issues solved before then. Nyx wore the khakis and white polo they bought yesterday. Her two flights today were relatively short, and she was saving the leggings for the flight from Lima to LAX. It was a nine-hour monster trek, and that was if there weren't any delays.

After working out the last knot, she put down her brush and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn't see anything unfamiliar, but Nyx felt as if everything had changed last night. Love. It wasn't on her to-do list for a couple more years, but the universe had other plans.

Case entered the room, dressed only in a pair of jeans and his pendant while he towel-dried his hair. Her breath caught in her throat. Not because of how gorgeous he was—although he was more than handsome—but because of how much she loved him. Nyx didn't think she was capable of falling as fast as she had, as hard as she had. A week ago, he'd saved her at the Huarona site. Today, she couldn't imagine her life without him.

He caught her staring and his smile was smug.

"I'm curious about your pendant." Lame dodge, but whatever. "It looks Norse."

Tossing his towel on the far end of the narrow desk, he came over and crouched in front of her, holding it out so she could see it. "It is Norse. It's a bind rune for protection." Some of his good cheer slipped. "I caught my mom at the right time to tell her I enlisted. She wasn't having withdrawals, and she wasn't high, so it registered with her. Before I left, she gave me this."

Her last gift to him since his mom died while he was in boot camp. "She loved you." Case began to close down and she quickly returned to the pendant. "What's a bind rune? Do you know?"

Nodding, he explained, "It's when two or more runes are laid on top of each other to create one character. This one has a rune to ward off unfriendly forces and a second rune to create inner strength."

He pulled it over his head, and before Nyx realized what he was doing, put it around her neck. "Case, what are you?—?"

"It's a protection rune. You need it more than I do right now."

"I do not. I'll be on a plane out of here in a few hours and you'll be staying. You need it. Besides, I can't take this. It means too much to you."

With one finger, he pulled her polo far enough away from her skin to drop the pendant behind it. "You can give it back to me when I come to LA."

" Are you coming to Los Angeles?"

"If you want me to."

"Oh, I definitely want," she said, resting her hands on his shoulders. "Waiting for you to cash in my V-card? That was the best decision I ever made. You were so worth the wait."

That was the closest she could manage to telling him she loved him. It was too soon to say the actual words, but she did love him and would love him for the rest of her life even if he didn't feel the same way about her. She kissed him, slowly, sweetly, with all the emotion she felt for him.

"Case?"

"What, Fireball?"

"Why'd you wear condoms every time we made love? You know I'm using birth control."

He straightened and moved to lean his hips against the desk, facing her. "Because you were worried about an unplanned pregnancy and no birth control is a hundred percent effective. I figured the odds of two simultaneous failures have to be minuscule, right?"

Nyx stared at him, and if she weren't already head-over-heels in love with him, what he just said would have done it. He listened to her. He knew she wanted to finish school. He knew, and he took care of her.

"No STDs, I promise." He frowned. "Although you should have quizzed me about that last night before anything happened."

Slowly, Nyx stood and moved to stand between his legs. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she kissed his chin. "You're one of the most honorable men I know. If you had anything I needed to worry about, you would have told me. Thank you for caring about me."

"You can't rely on a man's honor?—"

"I wasn't relying on just any man's honor. I was relying on your honor. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you wouldn't have detailed anything I needed to be concerned about before you took me to bed."

Case scowled and Nyx knew it was because he couldn't disagree with her. He would have told her. He kissed her lips, lingered, but it was a sweet kiss, not a prelude to more.

She rested her forehead against his. "I wish I didn't have to go. I wish we could both stay here in this room and pretend the rest of the world didn't exist."

"Yeah, at least for a few days," he agreed. "Although you're already sore from last night."

"Achy, not sore."

"Bullshit. I was there with you, remember?" Case gave her another quick kiss. "Let me finish getting dressed. We have another hour or so before we need to head to the airport."

Case put the breakfast cart into the hall, locked the door, and double-checked to make sure it was secure. As secure as he could make it, at least. Nyx sat at the table near the window, finishing her coffee and he took the seat opposite hers.

She reached to return her empty mug to the table, and he caught sight of his chain around her neck. He liked seeing that. He liked that she wanted him to visit her in Los Angeles when he was finished down here. Case wondered how long her invitation would last. The op had barely gotten started, and his team could easily be down here for another six or eight months or longer.

If he could explain who he was, and what he really did, she'd get it. Her dad had been Special Forces. She knew the drill. But he had to let her keep thinking he was a mercenary and a gunrunner. The danger to the op, the danger to his teammates was too great to take any chances. Torres killed people for a lot less than this.

Yeah. It was only a matter of time before she began to wonder if money and thrills were more important to him than she was.

But maybe he'd be lucky. She understood how much the necklace meant to him. Would she grasp that his giving it to her was a promise? A way to tell her he loved her without scaring the shit out of her?

Part of him didn't want her to leave. Everything would change once they were apart. She'd be back home. Maybe Nyx would decide what they had wasn't real, that she didn't want anything more to do with him. That it was circumstances and not something monumental between them. Case pushed the doubts aside.

"Do you have everything ready to go?" he asked, even though he knew she did. He'd watched her check the room to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything and the messenger bag rested against her duffle bag.

"I'm ready. When are we leaving?"

He checked the time. "We have a few more minutes." But not many.

"Case?"

"What?"

"What's your full name? Can you tell me?"

He shouldn't. "Can you keep it to yourself?"

Nyx gave him her are-you-kidding-me look and Case grinned. He'd never been much of a smiler, not even as a kid, but this woman made him happy.

"That's right," he said. "You were aware of the importance of keeping secrets from the time you were small." Case debated, but he wanted her to know who he was. He still couldn't tell her he was Army Special Forces on a covert op. He wouldn't risk his team, not even for her. But he could give her his real name. "It's Case Lundquist."

"I like that better than Charlie Case. It's a more fitting name for a Viking warrior."

She had him fighting off the urge to grin again, and he really wasn't a smiler. But maybe he could get used to being one. With Nyx. "You're getting mouthy again."

"What's mouthy about saying you're a Viking warrior? You're Swedish and you are a warrior. I saw you and your friends at work in that camp yesterday." Nyx shrugged. "But we're not being held hostage by assholes, so I can let my sass flag fly. It'll grow on you."

"It already has." But her mentioning what happened yesterday raised another question. "You're taking the battle in stride."

"What am I supposed to do? Mourn the deaths of men who would have raped and killed me if you hadn't come back? Fuck them. They're in hell where they deserve to be."

Case nodded. "Exactly."

He couldn't take his eyes off her, drinking her in. They hadn't had enough time together. Not nearly enough.

"Case?"

He shook his head. She was full of questions. "What, Fireball?"

"How did you get your handle? Lurch doesn't seem appropriate, not as athletic as you are."

He laughed. He couldn't help it. She was incredible, everything he didn't believe existed. "You haven't seen me dance. That's how I earned the handle."

"You're that bad, huh?" She was smiling, too.

"About ten times worse than you're imagining."

"I guess that explains the expression that crosses your face whenever I've called you Lurch."

No, it didn't, but he wasn't ready to discuss that it had everything to do with her being special to him and the handle being used by everyone.

"And you don't like hon, honey, and honey bear," Nyx continued. "What do you think of love bug?"

There was amusement dancing in her eyes despite her serious demeanor and Case enjoyed her teasing him. "That's another no from me," he said.

"I'll have to keep trying."

The exchange got him thinking. He called her Fireball and never asked what she thought of it. What if she hated it, but was just ignoring it instead of telling him? "Since we're discussing nicknames, are you okay with Fireball?"

Her lips curved. "I like Fireball. It's much, much better than the other nickname I have."

Other nickname? He suddenly felt territorial. "What other nickname?"

"The one my brother uses. Damn, I hate it. If I tell him that, though, he'll double down and never use anything else."

Her brother. Case could breathe again. "What does your brother call you?" She hesitated. "I promise, I will never use it. I'll always call you Fireball."

Nyx grimaced. "My brother calls me Pickle."

"Pickle?" He felt like a cement truck had just hit him. Pickle wasn't exactly a common nickname, but?—

"Pickle. When I was little, I couldn't say Dylan, and I called him Dill. He started calling me Pickle in response." She grinned. "As he likes to tell me, payback is a bitch."

"Dylan? His handle wouldn't be D-Ro, would it?"

She nodded, sobering. It was enough to make realization dawn.

"How long have you known?" he asked, and it was a struggle to keep the anger out of his voice. To her credit, she didn't pretend to misunderstand the question.

"I recognized you in the suite at Vargas's hacienda when you told me your nickname. Dylan showed me a picture once. He and three friends in front of some sort of light armored vehicle—Ollie, Mick, and his best buddy, Lurch."

He knew which picture that was. The four of them had been assigned to the same Special Forces unit until Case had moved over to covert ops. Ollie, Mick, and D-Ro were still on that team. She'd known who he was. She fucking knew he was in Special Forces.

And she hadn't said a damned word.

That was when her attitude had changed, he realized. In the bathroom in Vargas's suite. Before that, she'd trusted him to a point, but not completely. After that conversation, she'd followed his orders, run things by him, and looked to him to lead.

Because she fucking knew who he was.

Pickle. He'd heard a million anecdotes about her. He hadn't believed half of what D-Ro said, but now that he knew Nyx, he realized his buddy hadn't been exaggerating. She was a handful.

How many stories had she heard about him?

He was an idiot, thinking they had a connection. Believing that she trusted him because of who he was. It had nothing to do with him. She trusted him because he was her brother's friend. Because he was Special Forces.

He was an even bigger fool for believing Nyx was different. That she wouldn't lie to him, not even by omission. He never learned.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me who you were?"

The apology on her face turned to anger. "Maybe because we were being held hostage, and you told me you couldn't be sure you got all the microphones." She stood and faced off with him. "What the fuck was I supposed to do? If you missed a bug and I say something, then your cover is destroyed, you're in danger, your team is in danger, and the op is blown to hell. So you tell me, should I have gushed, oh, thank God, you're Dylan's bestie, save me Special Forces Sergeant Lurch?"

"You could have said, hey, I'm Pickle. Did you think of that?"

"No. How was I supposed to know Dylan talked about me?"

He shook his head. "There were opportunities to share the truth."

"Really? When? We were either in a dangerous situation or we were busy with other things." She glanced toward the bed. "So you tell me, when should I have told you I was Dylan's little sister?"