Anything, Anywhere, Anytime (11 page)

As soon as he looked at her again and reassured himself she was alive and not full of bullets.

Being a military spouse sure sucked sometimes—even when the marriage was a freaking farce. He'd sometimes wondered how Tina would have handled his combat missions. He'd never considered what it would feel like to be on the other end of the worry. Yeah, it
definitely
sucked, especially given he already understood how damned bad it cut being the one left behind by death.

One look and he would leave her alone.

A dumb-ass decision when his anger still crackled inside him, adding an extra blue tinge to the flame from his fear of losing her. Permanently.

Too many emotions fired, but then he'd never been one to play it safe. No question, the hungry look in her eyes when she'd stared up at him from their clinch on the floor had been anything but safe.

With two knuckles, he rapped twice. "It's me."

"Come on in." Monica's husky Texas drawl sucker punched him right through the shabby tin door. "It's unlocked."

Unlocked? He'd address that later when he wasn't mad and she wasn't in defensive mode. And when he could stop remembering the world of want in her eyes earlier.

He swung wide the door to the office converted into sleeping quarters. A desk, a couple of chairs and a shelf littered a corner by a door open to a tiny private toilet and shower stall. A thin cot stretched against the other wall with barely enough room for a restless night. But big enough if the two of them were absolutely in sync, the way he and Monica had always been in bed.

Eyes off the cot, pal.

Her military bag lay open on the desk to reveal neat stacks of clothes. Ziplocs sealed each toiletry from an accidental spill. Orderly. Clean. His germ-nut doctor-wife all but lived with antibacterial soap holstered to her hip.

The only time she got good and messy, sweaty and relaxed, was during a ball game. And sex.

Don't look at the bed.

Instead he studied the straight curve of her spine as she leaned against the windowpane. Silky caramel-brown hair fell free just past her at attention shoulders, a few waves crimping it after being contained in a French braid. More than air, he wanted to kiss his way up her spine, under her aloe-scented strands to her neck, coax her head to fall forward and that stiff posture of hers to go limp and languid.

Time to shut down those thoughts or soon he would be stiffer than her spine. "You should have that window blacked out so you can sleep during the day when you need to."

"Sure. Later." Monica traced a finger along the pane, drawing circles in the dirt. "I'm sorry for not explaining about Yasmine before."

At the ring of her honest regret, some of his anger deflated. Who was he to toss stones when he hadn't told her about Tina? "We all have our secrets."

He still wasn't sure why he hadn't told Monica, and now sure as hell wasn't the time to bring it up. Of course, he never talked about Tina, and it had been so damned long ago. Still, no question in his mind, wife number two would be pissed to learn there'd been a wife number one she never knew about. Another hole to dig himself out of.

Damn. They were one messed-up couple.

He sauntered across the room. Stopped at the other side of the window. Looked at her while she looked at the world where her mother once lived, where both her sisters lived now. He waited, since patience seemed to be his one trump card around her.

Monica's slim finger slowed on the glass. Without a word she ducked around him, riffled through her duffel bag and pulled out a pack of antibacterial wipes. He almost smiled at the predictability, but her need to tidy her world seemed somehow sad right now.

After she cleaned her fingers, she swiped the disposable cloth over the window for a clearer view, flatted her palm over the pane as if to reach through to something outside. "How can a mother abandon her children like that? Regardless of whether she loved us or not, she was responsible. Even a dog stays with her puppies until they can fend for themselves." Her hand fell from the smudged view of endless sand mottled by rippling heat. "Of course, I guess she figured it out in time for Yasmine."

Monica paused, crinkling her nose in self-disgust. "Eww. Sibling rivalry sounds so juvenile."

He'd learned early not to pick sides in his sisters' battles, and
they
loved each other. The animosity between Monica and Yasmine bore no resemblance to any family relationship he'd witnessed. "She doesn't make it easy for you."

"Thanks." A wry smile flickered as she pitched the dirty paper cloth into the trash. "Even if you're sucking up, I still enjoyed hearing that."

"I aim to please."

She snorted. "Still angling for that spanking, are you?"

"Monica."

"Yeah?"

"We don't have to laugh right now."

Her head fell forward, hair sliding to shield her face and emotions. "Thank you."

He'd seen her. She was okay. He should go. He needed sleep. His boots wouldn't move.

With a toss of her hair, she looked up again. "I don't want to be one of those people who blames their parents for everything. I'm an adult. I make my own decisions."

"Yes, ma'am, you do."

"Then why can't I let this go?"

Finally she'd given him an opening and he sure as hell didn't want to screw it up. Not just because he wanted more from her, but because it was tearing him up to see her indomitable spirit bent.

He scrounged for what his brother would say and came up dry. Hell, he'd just have to go with his gut and pray. "When I was a kid, we always spent summer days with Grandma Korba. Me, my brother Tony and our sisters. Our parents both had to work to keep the dry-cleaning business in the black. Child care was too expensive, and of course Grandma Korba... well, she said she'd watch us and nobody argued with her."

Monica smiled that gorgeous grin that made her perfect high cheekbones all the more prominent, exotic. "I think I would like her."

She would. If they ever met.

He left the statement unspoken. "Every summer, Grandma allots five days for her pilgrimage."

"Pilgrimage?"

"To Graceland."

Monica poked him in the gut with one finger. "You're making this up."

Jack raised his hands in surrender. "Believe me, no way would I make up anything this out-there. She would stuff all four of us in her green Pinto and leave Chicago behind for Tennessee. Now in order to afford the nights in a motel, she packed her own food. A jug of Kool-Aid, loaf of bread, peanut butter, jelly, and cereal for breakfast."

He smiled at the warmth of the memory and at the pleasure of sucking Monica in until she wasn't looking out the window anymore. "Frosted Flakes were messy if you ate 'em dry, so we saved those for the motel and cracked open the Froot Loops first. We'd pass that box around and around. By the time we hit the Tennessee state line, we were fighting over the prize at the bottom of the box."

She laughed, smiled, lighter. "I thought you said we weren't going to laugh?"

"Well, what can I say? I'm me." He hooked his hands on his hips to keep from touching her. "And I still love Froot Loops and the King, thanks to those summers. But I don't like small cars. Or even small planes, for that matter, after being wedged between Tony and one of my sisters for five hundred miles."

Distance be damned. He let himself slide a hand behind her neck, cup it with firm insistence as he made his point. "Childhood affects us. Good and bad, nobody's fault. There's just no way around it."

She flicked his zipper tab with one finger. "Since my childhood's a walking advertisement against marriage, you're shooting yourself in the foot here with this argument."

Maybe. Maybe not. "Yeah, I know. But I learned something in Vegas a few months ago."

"Never drink tequila with a girl from Red Branch, Texas, unless you're prepared to say 'I do'?"

He definitely didn't feel like laughing over that one. "Not funny, Mon."

She released his zipper and let her hand rest on his chest. "Then what, Jack?"

"I only want you if you want me, too." A truth he'd only just realized himself and it definitely scared the laugh right out of him.

Her fingers fisted against his heart, green eyes full of weakness he could exploit. "It's not that I don't want you."

"Stop." He tapped her mouth closed. "We don't have to do this now. As a matter of fact, I'm mighty damn sure we shouldn't."

"Why did you come in here, then? I can tell you're still pissed with me over the Yasmine thing."

He shrugged, walked over to her neat-as-a-pin duffel. His fingers played with a Ziploc full of cotton balls beside another bag sealing up facial cleanser. While his anger might have deflated, it hadn't disappeared, even with fault on both sides.

Damn. He was tired. Tired of measuring his words around her. Tired of holding back and wondering and waiting—a helluva statement on his frustrated state of mind given he considered himself one of the most patient men on the planet.

As much as he ached to have Monica, some days he wasn't sure he wanted to be with a woman he had to fight every step of the way. Love had been so damned easy with Tina. Simply there. Uncomplicated.

Still, here he was, unable to walk away.

The part of him that had been gut punched over the image of Monica with a bullet in her belly wanted to shake her up, make her just as out of control as he felt. A damned selfish wish when he'd just spent the past ten minutes calming her down.

He needed to get the hell out of her room before he lost precious ground by thinking with his Johnson instead of his brain. Keep strategy in place and remember this woman did not respond well to being chased.

He wanted more than just sex from her this time—or nothing at all.

He dropped the sack of cotton balls. "Enough talking for one day. You need sleep and so do I. I'm outta here."

Jack started for the door. Monica's hand shot out, gripped his arm, stopping him. He pivoted, his brain only giving him a one-second warning that Monica intended to kiss him.

Yasmine clicked the door closed to her "closet room." No footsteps retreated. Her military escort stayed outside, as ordered. A guard should make her feel more secure. Being in the compound should make her feel safer.

It didn't. Nothing would as long as Ammar stayed alive.

She whipped the scarf from her head, folded it into her bag with the others she always kept with her. Her splashes of color in a dark world.

All of two steps took her to her cot. She unrolled the sleeping bag, wafting free a scent she was quickly coming to identify as musty military. If only Monica had not been deployed here. She'd scoured the rosters Ammar had pilfered from his embassy mole and nowhere had she seen Monica's name. At least she would have stood a chance appealing to Sydney, not that she'd heard from her in a year.

Monica wouldn't have landed herself in this mess. But then if Monica's glances at the scary-faced, hairy Major were anything to judge by, Monica wasn't getting everything she wanted these days, either.

Yasmine flopped back onto the bed—nothing like her luxurious room growing up, but a fair sight better than her recent accommodations. Persistence sometimes beat brains. Monica might be smarter, but Yasmine knew she had grown stronger, more determined.

Reaching the States would help. Ammar feared entering the U.S. since his capture during his last trip there.

His escape had not been easy.

If only it had been fatal.

Ruminating accomplished nothing, however. She was stuck with the here and now—and getting out of Rubistan before anyone discovered her distant relation to a known terrorist.

They were right to distrust her. She was not overly certain she could withstand the pressure Ammar might exert on her to obtain his will. She had almost forgotten what it felt like not to be afraid— until that brief moment when she'd stared into sky-blue eyes and fear faded.

Only the eyes, the man, remained.

Rising to sit on the edge, she pulled the pins from her twisted bun, one at a time placing them in her lap until her hair slithered halfway down her back. Air brushed through the strands, over her head in a sensuous glide heightened by the fact that no one had touched her with even familial affection in so long.

Except when the Colonel had touched her. And the sensation rivaled the glorious freedom of fresh air against her uncovered scalp.

A day ago she would have been content with the closet. Now she did not want to stay here. She did not want to be shuffled off to security personnel with eyes she could not trust. She wanted Colonel Cullen's protection.

And he wanted her. Her knowledge of male-female relationships had been limited, but she knew enough so that one brush against him told her he desired her.

Yet he confused her, too. Most men would have exploited the attraction. He seemed repelled by it because of the silly age factor, unlucky for her when she had been given to believe all American males coveted a—

what was it called?—trophy wife. Not that she was looking to be a wife. She had her own plans for a career and life in the States, not as lofty as her doctor-soldier sister. But solid plans.

Once she got the hell out of Rubistan.

What should have been a help—the Colonel's attraction—would actually be a hindrance. Having been reminded what it felt like to be free of fear, she couldn't let him slip away just yet. Simple enough to circumvent his concerns, because she did not intend to be shuffled aside. Ditching a few military security personnel would be simple enough after a year of evading Ammar's spies.

If Ammar came hunting for her, she fully intended to have Colonel Cullen at her side. And to achieve that, she needed to plaster herself to
his
side.

Monica froze. What the hell was she thinking, plastering her mouth to Jack's?

But, oh my, it felt so good. So right. Even just a simple thank-you kiss thickened her blood to syrup in her veins. Their attraction had never been in question and this quick lip-lock proved it. A lip-lock getting longer by the moment.

He gripped her shoulders.
Yes.
More. Have him take control, then she wouldn't need to think or choose.