Retribution (19 page)

A serious deep breath and another heartbeat later, she whispered, “Please, Dray, we need to get some things settled first. You do remember you have a girlfriend, right?”

Everything in him stilled. There was still so much she didn’t know and didn’t understand, and he was seriously regretting how he’d handled last night. Dawn’s words whispered through his mind, but he shook his head. She had no place here between him and Sasha.

Dray pushed himself up and off of her and stepped away, putting his back to her. He tried to control his thoughts. It wouldn’t do to open his big mouth and make shit worse before he made it better.

“And I want to know why you don’t want me around you.” Her voice was low and filled with pain.

Dray winced as he stared out her bedroom window. There was too much tension inside him, and he wondered if he’d be able to communicate effectively.
Tell her the truth
.

“There is a man from my past who will do anything and everything in his power to hurt you.”

Silence reigned for long moments and she sighed. “Why me?”

He looked at her, silently willing her to look nowhere but him. “Because of what you mean to me.”

Sasha snorted and cocked an eyebrow. “What I mean to you? How could someone know what I mean to you when I don’t even know?”

“Oh, come on. You honestly have no idea how I feel about you? I know I can be a hard man, and I know we haven’t had any time to be together, but you have to feel the connection we have.” He ran a hand through his hair before he leaned against her wall. “I thought I was hiding it relatively well from everyone but my team. Apparently Peter Dempsey knows me better than I anticipated. He can see what you yourself have been missing, and I think he’s been using you to get to me. I will not let that happen.” Dray kept his voice quiet but forceful.

She never looked away, keeping him prisoner in her golden gaze. She pricked a heart he’d not even known he had. He straightened to his full height and moved to her, cradling her face tenderly, fingers brushing the contours of her cheeks and lips as he continued.

“When I first saw you, my heart stopped. You were so broken, but even bloody and hurting, you took my breath away. Something inside me clicked, and at that moment I knew every step I’d taken in my life had led me to you. It’s insane and I don’t know how to explain it. My priority at that moment became you, not my job, not my team, not anything but you. I got you to safety, and you didn’t know this, but there hasn’t been a step you’ve taken over the past year and a half that I haven’t known about, with the exception of Afghanistan a few weeks ago.”

She gasped and her gaze searched his. “You were the one who left me lemon drops, weren’t you?” she asked.

He let a rueful smile curve his lips. “Yeah, I did. You always taste and smell like lemon drops, baby.” He leaned in and brushed a kiss across her brow. “When I came to see you at the rehab center after I’d taken care of el-Din, you acted like you didn’t know me. Maybe you weren’t ready for me. Hell, maybe you didn’t want any reminders of what you’d been through, so I left again, promising myself I’d give you a little more time to get yourself healed physically and emotionally.” He dropped his hand from her face and turned toward the window. “I knew I’d never be able to leave you alone completely. You had, still have, the tightest grip on me.”

The horror of watching her go through surgery after surgery rippled through him, jarring and violent. Still he continued.

“When I saw you in Afghanistan a few weeks ago with Hal, I about lost my mind. Seeing you in another deadly situation, Sasha, what the fuck were you thinking?” he demanded harshly as he turned to look at her.

Her chin rose. He’d been told she was a stubborn wench. “I’ve made promises, Dray. I’m as healthy as I’m going to be, and I couldn’t wait to do what I had to do. I had a life before Afghanistan, and I have a life now,” she countered.

The emotion that moved through him then was violent. Because her life right now didn’t include him. He clenched his fists.

That was about to change.

“Really? Promises that place you back in hell and into harm’s way? Why couldn’t you let somebody besides Hal know? Hell, why’d you take her with you?” He was all but growling and just could not stop.

She cocked her head as she held up a hand in front of her. “Okay, there are obviously some things you don’t know about me. Number one,” she held up one finger. “I don’t ask anybody for permission for anything except my parents, and them not so much anymore. I’m a grown-up now. A big girl, even. Number two.” She held up a second finger. “Why would I have thought you wanted anything to do with helping me? I thought I ran you off good and proper at the rehab center that day. I had no idea you continued to check on me, or that you cared one way or the other about me. And number three, the most important one of all—I made a promise to the woman lying dead beside me in el-Din’s compound that I would get her daughter out of Afghanistan and into a good, promising life. So, you want to know why I went back? There’s your reason, and now maybe you know me a little better.”

Dray saw a shudder work through her, knew she was angry. He shook his head and ran a hand over his hair again as he stared at her hard. He was pretty fucking hot himself.

He got in her face. “From now on you come to me, do you understand? You will come to me, and I will do anything that you need done. You will not ever put yourself in danger again. Do we understand one another?”

She went preternaturally still. “What?”

Inside he grimaced. But he kept his face impassive. He almost wanted to applaud her ability to strike fear into an opponent. Almost. Not quite. What she didn’t know was that he was the top of this food chain. “What do you mean what?”

“I mean what as in what the hell right do you have to tell me what to do?” Her voice rose, and she crossed her arms over her chest.

He stared at said chest, leaned back, and crossed his own arms to keep from reaching for her. She flexed her arms tighter and growled a little, which had fire snaking around his balls. Shit, she was so everything he’d always wanted.

He pulled air in through his nostrils, trying to calm his raging lust. “Calm down, Sasha. I’m not here to fight with you. I’m like a wolf with its mate around you. I’m not trying to be controlling, I’m just trying to keep you safe. Which brings me to last night,” he said with a grimace.

He sat on the edge of her bed and patted the space beside him.

“Oh, no!” she said. “We’re going to finish talking before I come close to a bed with you, mister!”

He kept his gaze locked on hers, letting the promise in his soul communicate to her via their gaze. “I cannot explain the hell I went through last night watching you dance with another man. I know that if seeing me with Dawn hurt you as much as you dancing with that guy hurt me, I owe you the deepest of apologies. I thought the best way to keep you away from danger was to keep you away from me. When Post told me you’d demanded to see me, I didn’t know what to do.”

The flush riding her cheeks didn’t bode well for him. His gut cramped a bit, but he charged forward. “You don’t know what Dempsey is capable of, and you’re on his radar now, Sasha. So I recruited Dawn, who is an old friend of mine by the way, and tried to convince you that I was seeing someone else. I hoped that you’d give up on your wish to talk to me or see me, thus ensuring Dempsey would think you meant nothing to me.”

She laughed. And it wasn’t a pretty laugh.

“Well, you succeeded in making
me
think I meant nothing to you. But it seems like Dempsey is another matter. He’s either a freakin’ mind reader, he’s not listening, or he’s more stubborn than me.” Pain sliced through her tone followed by cooling disbelief. “So you’re telling me that in a lame-assed effort to draw Dempsey away from me, you
kissed
another woman?
Touched
another woman?”

He didn’t know what to say, so he stayed silent.

“You know what, Dray? You say we have this connection, but you don’t know me very well. The truth always wins out. I don’t like people who lie or hide the truth, and I gotta think that if you cared one iota for me, you’d have come to me and discussed this instead of taking the decision out of my hands and hurting me in the process.”

“I did take the decision from you. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Sasha. You’re right, though, I don’t know things like your favorite color, your favorite music, and if you snore. But I
know
who you are to me. You’re a part of me whether I like it or not and whether you accept it or not. Like I told you earlier, my priority from the moment I saw you was…you. It isn’t logical or, obviously, safe for you, but there it is.” Dray wanted to pound his chest and roar at her, to demand she accept the truth of them. “You are mine to protect.”

She shook her head. “I’m not a possession, Dray. You had no right to keep me in the dark about my own safety. Regardless of how you feel about my ability to protect myself, and it’s glaringly obvious you don’t think much, it is still
my
safety. You don’t have the right or permission to take that from me.” She was close to yelling and took a deep breath. “Now, you can answer a question for me. Why does Dempsey want to hurt you?”

Such a glut of emotion. He was weary all of a sudden. He was playing a dangerous game with Peter Dempsey, but the stakes had never been higher. He would not lose.

“It’s not about what he wants to do to me. It’s about what he’s willing to do to you to accomplish that feat. Dempsey and I were in Rangers together when I first joined the service. He’s a sick motherfucker who has it in his mind that I caused him to lose his Ranger position. He has hung on to that for almost twelve years now and is willing to do whatever’s necessary to get back at me.” The words made acid churn in his stomach. “You have to understand that in no way, shape, or form will I allow him to get to you, Sasha. I regret that we’re dealing with this right now, but that’s how it’s going down, and you need to understand that I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe, even if it means taking away your power of control over the situation.” He shot her a hard look. “I don’t have your permission, I get that, but I’m taking the right because of what happened on that bed a few minutes ago.”

Giving him a look of disgust, she turned her back on him.
Way to go, Bonner.
Deep down he realized that what el-Din had done to her body was nothing compared to what he’d done to her psyche. She’d been in a hole for over a year, afraid of loud noises, afraid to make decisions that might place her in a dangerous situation. She had just been to the point of getting out, working at her dad’s office, spending time in public with her sisters. And now he wanted her to wall up that independence and trust him to care for her.

Sasha Bennoit wasn’t stupid, and she damn sure wasn’t going to hand herself over to a man who just last night had acted as if he couldn’t stomach the sight of her. A groan escaped him before he could call it back.

He’d dug himself a pretty deep hole.

“You know what the second thing I thought about you when I opened my eyes in the Kush?” she asked.

Dray shook his head.

“I thought, I bet he can be a real ass.” She clapped her hands. “Congratulations, you’ve proven me right. Now I want you to leave my room so I can dress and get downstairs. Since you’re apparently the king of evasion, this particular conversation is over.”

Evasion? What the hell was she talking about now?

She lowered her brows and glared at him, no doubt hoping she could get him to leave with a single look. He was in her face in less than a second.

Startled, she tried to step back, but he raised his arms, effectively trapping her between him and the dresser. He leaned down, pressing his nose lightly against her throat and working his way up toward her ear. A thrill shot through him when her head fell to the side and her breath came in shallow pants.

“So what was the first thing you thought, Sasha?” he whispered in her ear. He pressed feather light kisses to her neck and lobe, soft, licking touches that he blew on afterward. “Come on,
leanbh
, tell me,” he coaxed.

She reached up with both hands and tunneled her fingers into his hair, tugging and forcing his head to the side. He watched her through slitted eyes. Leaning over her as he was, she had to go on tiptoe to reach his neck. Returning each stroke he’d given her, she tasted him, and his body responded. A harsh groan sounded from deep in his chest, and she smiled before burrowing closer into his body. No way could he hide the evidence of his arousal. Hard and heavy against her stomach, it flexed and insisted on getting next to her.

Making her way to his ear, she pulled gently on the lobe. His eyes crossed, and his hands clenched on her ass.

Wait, when had his hands grabbed her ass? Did it matter? He squeezed again, and she laughed huskily.

“I thought, oh my great goodness,” she continued to kiss her way along his jaw and upper neck, torturing him with hot little licks and breathy moans as she made her way back to his lobe. “He has sexy ears.” And she bit down enough to make him wince.

She pushed away, face hard as she pointed toward her door. She gestured with a shooing motion for him to leave.

He stood there like a dumb ass.
Does not compute
. She didn’t budge. He sighed as disappointment arrowed through him and then turned toward the door.

“You’ll pay for that bite,” he promised with what he hope was a look of retribution.

He hoped it was a promise he got to keep.

Thirty minutes later Sasha had showered, put on clean clothes, and was walking down the stairs when déjà vu halted her steps. She almost panicked but managed to wrangle her shit together and walk into the living room. The men of Presidio Security stood there stoically, along with her sisters, reminding her of the previous evening when General Post had informed her Dray wasn’t coming.

As soon as the image from last night imprinted on her retinas, she spotted another man leaning against the mantle of the fireplace. It seemed she turned toward him in slow motion. Their gazes locked, and her stomach flip-flopped.