Hot & Bothered (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 8) (17 page)

“Want to hold it on my face?”

She folded her arms. “I think you can manage.”

He settled onto the floor and lay back on the bed he’d made. Then he put the pack over his eye and glanced at her with the other one. “Yep, guess so.”

She returned to her bed and sat down. She was still dressed, but the thought of shucking off her pants and bra and sleeping in nothing but a T-shirt with Ryan so near was paralyzing. Emily reached over and flipped off the lamp, then undressed quickly and got under the sheet. Her nipples tightened as Ryan shifted on the floor.

She thought about how it had felt just an hour ago when he’d kissed her and gently touched her nipples, and her pussy ached with need. If she were alone, maybe she’d do something about it. Instead, she would have to suffer and hope the feelings went away as the night wore on.

The silence between them was thick, tense. In the old days, she would have known what to say, even if she was secretly lusting for him and hoping he might want her too. She’d flirted with him so easily. Chatted with him as if he were her best friend in the world. There’d never been any awkwardness—until the night she’d thrown herself at him.

Everything since then might as well have been happening on a different planet. They weren’t the same as they’d been before. She didn’t think they ever would be again.

“You all right?”
 

“Yes,” she said automatically. “Why do you ask?”

She could almost feel him shrug. “You’re so quiet.”

“I’m trying to sleep.”

“No, you’re not. You’re thinking about this baby and how much your life is going to change.”

Close
. Not that she was telling him what she’d really been thinking about. No way.
 

Though, dammit, if she did, he’d be up here in two seconds, easing this ache and making her feel wanted, at least temporarily.
 

Tempting.

“You’re quiet too.”

“I was waiting for you to say something.”

“I’m not the only one with vocal chords, Ry.”

“No, you aren’t. But I’m not sure what to say to you anymore. Seems like no matter what I say, you get pissed.”

Emily sighed. “I get pissed because you’re trying to order me around like you’re the boss and I’m your subordinate.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“That’s sweet of you, but I’m fine.”

“Yeah, so fine you were going out in the city to meet a terrorist while throwing up and getting dizzy. That wasn’t bright, honey.”

Her skin grew hot. “Jared gave me antinausea meds. I feel much better. And I ate a whole plate of chicken and rice tonight.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being concerned.”

“You can be concerned all you like. Just don’t tell me what to do and we’ll be cool.”

“Can’t promise that.”

Emily rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “And I can promise you it will very likely have the opposite effect.”

“Meaning you’ll do something stupid because I told you not to?”

She wanted to growl. “No… Meaning I’ll lose my temper and we definitely will
not
be cool.”

“This may surprise you, Emily, but I don’t care if we’re cool so long as you’re safe. If you gotta be pissed at me for trying to protect you, I can deal with that.”

She turned on her side and looked at him. The light from outside wasn’t strong, but she could see the gleam of his skin whenever he moved.
 

“I don’t want to be pissed at you, Ry. You were my closest friend back in DC.”

She could see his arm come up, his hand slide over his head. “So close you left without a word.”

“I’m sorry for that. But if I’d told you, you’d have tried to stop me.”

“Damn straight. It’s dangerous for you to be here.”

“So you’ve said before. And I say it’s dangerous for us all.”

“Does this Mustafa know who you are?”

Her heart skipped a beat. She could lie, which would be easier, but after a while it got hard to keep lies straight. She’d learned that when she’d been an addict. All the lying and hiding had only made her feel worse.
 

“He knows.”

Ryan swore. “And you’ve been meeting with him alone this whole time. Goddammit, Emily, don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?”

Angry tears threatened, but she swallowed them down. “I’ve always had backup. Hassan Mustafa is interested in his bottom line. He’s there for the money, not for me.”

“Maybe so… but what if someone else in the Freedom Force finds out you’re here? What then?”

“We’ve never tried to hide it,” she said. “In fact, I was planning to go inside again.”
 

He sat up so fast she squeaked and scrambled back on the bed in surprise. Her heart raced and she gulped in a breath to calm herself.

“You were planning to infiltrate the Freedom Force? For what fucking purpose, Emily?”

“I was a part of them for three years. I get what’s going on in there. I could have helped bring them down from the inside.”

“I’m going to kill Black.”

She heard the unmistakable click of a weapon being checked, and then Ryan was on his feet. She sprang up and grabbed his arm, her heart ready to burst from her chest.
 

“Ryan, no! How is this helping anything?” His arm was like granite, hard, immoveable. “If you go after Ian, then you’re not protecting me or our baby. You’re doing something stupid because you’re pissed—just like you’ve accused me of doing.”

He didn’t say anything for a long minute. And then the muscles in his arm relaxed and she nearly sobbed in relief.

“I wouldn’t have really killed him,” he said softly, his voice sounding choked and furious at once. “But I damn sure would have made him wish I had.”

“Not helpful, Ry. If you want to protect me… you have to take care of you as well. If you get yourself thrown off this mission, or thrown into a brig back home, how is that helping any of us?”

He let out a breath. Then his hand came up and cupped her head, stroked over her hair. “It’s not. But Emily, he doesn’t fucking care about you. He’d throw you to the wolves if it suited his purposes.”

“I don’t believe that.” She tumbled on before he could interrupt. “But I do believe he has his own agenda. Absolutely. For your information, I asked him before you arrived what the delay was in sending me in. He said he couldn’t do it until he was certain I’d be safe.”

“That doesn’t make me suddenly like him.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “No, I think I know that. But I think you’ll have to admit to yourself that he’s not quite as evil as you think.”

He snorted. They stood there in silence. Ryan kept stroking her hair, and she found herself leaning into his touch.

“I missed you,” she said past the sudden lump in her throat. His hand stilled and she wished she could bite her tongue and call the words back.

But then he stroked her hair again and she sighed.

“I missed your texts,” he said, and she knew he meant he missed her too. “And your calls.”

“Ha, I doubt you missed all of it. I was a mess half the time.”

“You’d been through a lot.”

“I wasn’t your responsibility, but you were always there…” She pulled in a breath. “I’ve always wanted to ask you something.”

“What?”

“Why? Why did you keep answering your phone when it was me? Why did you spend all that time talking to me and listening to me?”

He took her by the shoulders and guided her back toward the bed. She was confused at first, but he pulled the sheet back and held it for her. She got in, her heart pounding, wondering what he would do next.

But all he did was cover her. Then he holstered the gun and lay back down on the floor. She waited patiently, hoping he would answer but beginning to think he wouldn’t. Still, it was a question she’d had for so long, a question she’d been afraid to ask.

Now that she had, she very much wanted to know the answer.

“I told you my parents were divorced,” he said. “But I didn’t tell you that my mother was bipolar. She didn’t always take her meds the way she should. When she was on them, she was great. When she was off… Well, she was dangerous, unpredictable. She had an addictive personality, and she got into drugs.”

Emily’s heart pinched tight. She knew what it was like to rely on narcotics to make yourself feel better, and she knew what it was like to disappoint those who loved you.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t remind me of her, Emily, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re strong. She wasn’t. But I guess I always thought maybe if I’d been there for her, if I’d listened and tried to help, maybe I could have made a difference.” He sighed. “I know that’s not true, by the way. I was a child. Maybe if I’d been older… Anyway, when I met you, it was clear you needed someone to listen, someone who wouldn’t judge or tell you that you were wrong. I know Victoria loves you, but she was too emotionally invested to listen objectively. I figured I wasn’t, so I was perfect for what you needed.”

Hearing that he wasn’t emotionally invested wasn’t quite what she’d hoped to hear. In fact, it made her heart throb with pain.

“You were great, Ry. Probably too great, really. I took advantage of your willingness to listen.”

And fell in love with you
. Those were the words that hung unspoken between them. She wouldn’t say them. They were too hard, too fragile—and she didn’t know how she’d handle the inevitable rejection of those words.

Oh, he’d be kind about it. But he would crush her silly dreams at a time when she really couldn’t brush it off so easily.

“You didn’t take advantage,” he said. “I was glad I could be there for you.”

“Even if it meant I browbeat you into sleeping with me?” She tried to make it sound humorous, but she was afraid she sounded desperate for validation instead.

“Do you really think that’s what happened, Emily?”

“I, uh, well, I didn’t leave you much choice.”

“Sugar, I always had a choice. I chose the option I wanted the most.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SHE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING AND Ryan shifted on the floor. He was used to hard surfaces, used to deprivation and discomfort in the field. He wasn’t used to lying on a floor while the woman he wanted lay on a bed only inches away. His body throbbed with heat and need, the same as it had that night in his apartment.

There’d never been a question, not really, of what he would do when faced with Emily’s request that he kiss her and make love to her. He’d been half hoping for it for months, and while he’d told himself he wasn’t going to do it, that he would be noble and self-sacrificing when and if she ever asked, he’d been doomed to fail from the very beginning.

There was something about Emily. Something that drew him like a plant stretching toward the sun. He could no more walk away from her than he could stop breathing on command.

And that scared him. He wasn’t the sort of man to need anyone. He’d learned not to need when he’d been a motherless kid. His father was great, gave him everything a father should—and then some—because the man had the patience of Job. But the other kids had mothers, and he didn’t. He knew what a difference that made in their lives, and he’d wanted the same for himself.

Until one day he didn’t. Until he’d figured out how to stop needing what he didn’t have.
 

But Emily… Jesus, Emily. Did he need her? Or just want her so badly he couldn’t think beyond satisfying a craving?

He didn’t know, but he knew that lying here on her floor wasn’t good enough. At the same time, if it was all he could have, then it was perfect. Just being near her. Hearing her breathe. Knowing that her heart beat and that a tiny heart inside her body echoed it. A tiny heart that was half him.

“It’s sweet of you to say I didn’t coerce you,” she finally said, “but I think we both know the truth.”

He almost rolled his eyes. “Emily, honest to God, do you really think a little bitty thing like you could coerce me into doing anything I didn’t want to do? Seriously?”

“You’re a man. You’ll do anything for sex.”

He snorted. “Almost anything. But sugar, I
can
control myself when presented with a delectable female body. I’m not a slave to my dick.”

“I played on your feelings of responsibility. I told you I was afraid I’d never be able to be with anyone else.”

“Yeah, you did. Even then, I could have refused—I didn’t want to, Emily. I wanted you. I’d wanted you for months.”

He heard her suck in a breath. “I don’t understand why. I was a mess.”

“Not to me, you weren’t.”

To him, she’d been sweet and vulnerable and achingly, forbiddenly beautiful. He’d been fascinated. Drawn to her. Unable to walk away when he should. She’d been a flame, and he’d been the moth attracted to the flame even though he knew he could get burned.

“You don’t make any sense sometimes,” she said, her voice so quiet in the darkness.