TooHottoTouch (8 page)

The man jerked his face to look at her. “I want Diego,” he
said in a clipped, strained tone.

“Diego isn’t available. Can I take a message for him?”
Although the dishwasher was out back with Sean, something warned her to keep
him there.

“I know he’s here. I want to talk to him, now.” When Zoë
started to shake her head, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a gun.
“Now!”

Her heart stopped for half a beat as her brain processed
what was happening. She heard a shriek from the other end of the diner and both
she and the gunman whipped their heads in that direction. The patrons, a couple
of young women, had seen the gun. “Get down,” she ordered them and stepped out
from behind the counter at the same time. She wanted the lunatic’s attention on
her. He did as she hoped and swung back toward her, except now the lethal
weapon was pointing right at her chest. She put her hands up, palms facing him.

“Take it easy. You want money? I’ll take what’s in the cash
register and give it to you. No problem.”

“I don’t want your money,” he spat at her. “I want Diego.
Diego!” he shouted around her.

Her eyes closed briefly when she heard footsteps behind her.
Dear God, no, Diego needed to stay away. Except when she opened her eyes and
turned her head to look, it wasn’t Diego she saw. Sean walked slowly toward her
and the crazy man with the gun. His gaze was fixed on the danger. He didn’t
spare her a glance, and the look in his eye made her heart skip another beat.
He looked fierce. It was the only way she could describe it. She had never seen
him like that and wondered how the gunman didn’t drop into a puddle of goo with
that look focused on him.

She was proud of how bravely Sean walked into the danger.
And she was scared shitless. No matter how dangerous Sean appeared right now,
no one could stand up to a bullet. She willed him to stop, turn, run. But even
as she thought it, she knew he never would.

Sean stared at the gunman even though his brain screamed at
him to look at Zoë, to make sure she was okay, to grab her and pull her to
safety. He couldn’t afford to lose focus and she couldn’t afford him to lose it
either. The gun was still pointed at her and that situation needed to change.
Until she was out of the line of fire, he couldn’t make any moves to disarm
Diego’s asshole ex-boyfriend. He had to goad the guy into pointing his weapon
at him without pushing him so much he simply started firing.

Stopping at a point level with Zoë, he sneered, “I thought I
told you to get lost weeks ago.”

“I don’t take orders from you.” The hand with the gun shook
a little with anger or fear. Either way, it sent spikes of terror up Sean’s
spine. A shaky hand could easily cause the gun to fire and it was still pointed
at Zoë.

“The hell you don’t,” Sean barked back. “Diego kicked your
sorry, abusive ass out of his life. Take a hint and leave before you do
something really stupid.” The hand shook again and still didn’t shift toward
him. He fought down the anxiety and the urge to look at Zoë. His heart squeezed
painfully when he thought of how terrified she must be.

“What’s it to you, anyway? You fucking him?”

Sean shrugged casually. “So what if I am? He’s pretty and
way too good for trash like you.” He heard Zoë’s low gasp and willed her with
his mind to keep her mouth shut. The ploy worked. Finally, the gun swung in his
direction, the hand shaking even more. He felt the relief right down to his
toes. Now he had a chance to take out this guy. He inched forward almost
imperceptibly, hoping the guy was too hyped up to notice small movement.

“He’s mine! The little shit thinks he can ignore my calls
and my texts and stay locked inside his apartment until I get run off by the
super? Fuck that! I keep what’s mine. Diego, get your ass out here before I
blow your fuck buddy’s brains out.” The lunatic’s eyes were roving about,
trying to see past Sean and into the back where Diego hid with Joanne and the
cook. Sean had told them all to stay put no matter what. He prayed they’d
listen to him. While he was at it, he prayed most of all that Zoë would duck
out of the way when he made his move.

He launched himself at the gunman when his gaze was off
Sean. Sean had only a split second, but that’s all he needed. Reaching for the
gun hand, he brought the whole arm down over his raised knee. The sound of bone
snapping and the howl of pain made him grin with satisfaction. “Payback’s a
bitch,” he growled.

The gun dropped to the floor without firing and Sean kicked
it far out of reach. A flurry of movement caught his eye and he realized Zoë
made a dive for it even as he twisted the broken arm behind the guy’s back.
With his other hand, he grabbed the back of the gunman’s neck and forced him
down. He pressed into the small of the man’s back with his knee, pushing him
flat on the floor and ignoring the agonized howls of pain and fury. It was over
in seconds, the outcome certain. Still, he jerked his head up to search for
Zoë.

She stood a few feet away, the gun in both hands, pointed
down at the floor. Her chest heaved fast breaths in and out, but otherwise she
looked okay. Knowing that, tension eased within him. Behind her, the others
came out of the back. Diego was crying in Joanne’s arms. The cook gave Sean a
thumbs-up.

“Everybody okay?” he asked, although his gaze was fixed on
Zoë.

She nodded, but she was clearly upset. Her eyes blinked
furiously as if she were holding back tears.

He wanted to reassure her yet the words wouldn’t come. He
wasn’t sure what he could say to ease her emotions anyway. She had every right
to cry. Her life had been threatened, her business overtaken by a crazy man
with a gun. The sound of sirens and the cops pulling up at least gave him
something to say.

“Zoë, honey, put the gun down on the counter so the police
don’t mistake you for the tango.” He shook his head. “I mean the perp, the bad
guy.” He was babbling, although it didn’t matter. She understood what he meant
and did as he suggested. Seconds later, the cops pulled him off the gunman and
took over control.

His arms free, he wanted badly to go to her and wrap them
around her body. It wasn’t only to comfort her, he needed the contact too. With
the crisis over, realization of how dangerous the situation had been seeped
into his consciousness. The woman he loved had been mere feet away from a crazy
abuser with a gun. She could have been shot; she could have been killed. He
took a step toward her. She took a step back, her expression unreadable, except
he saw what looked like fear. Had it been there all along because of the
situation or was it fresh fear of—what, him? He had subdued the gunman
ruthlessly, his training taking control automatically. He could have and would
have killed the guy with his bare hands had it been necessary. Maybe Zoë saw
that and maybe she finally saw Sean as a killer.

He began to shake. Fine tremors ran through his body in what
he knew only too well were the aftereffects of an adrenaline rush. It was more
than that though. This was the beginning of a panic attack, the kind that had
started to cripple him even before he got out of the army. He lurched forward
to grab the edge of the counter, his fingers biting into the hard surface to
keep his body steady. Damn if he was going to lose his shit here and now in
front of all these people, especially Zoë. He jerked in surprise when delicate
arms encircled his waist. They gently angled his body so that Zoë could press
hers flush against his front, her head tucked against his shoulder.

“Shhh,” she whispered. “It’s okay. I have you. You’re okay,
we’re all okay, thanks to you.”

Prying his fingers away from the counter with sheer
willpower, he wrapped his arms instead around the soft body that pressed so
lovingly against his. He crushed her to him and closed his eyes. He pictured
her naked in her bed, smiling in invitation as she had done so many times. Her
arms stretched out to him, welcoming him into her embrace. The diner
disappeared, the other people faded away and it was just the two of them. He
took a deep breath, held it and let it out slowly before taking another.

“That’s it.” He heard Zoë’s encouraging words. “I have you,”
she repeated over and over. “You’re fine,” she assured him, her hands making
slow circles against his lower back. Finally, as the panic receded, he heard
her say, “I won’t let you go.”

He wished to hell she meant it.

The ride back to Zoë’s house was a silent one. Sean sat
beside her, his head pressed back against his seat, his gaze fixed to his
right. It was late and they were both exhausted. The cops had kept them at the
diner for two hours going over what had happened and she hadn’t been able to
leave even after giving her statement because she had to wait for everyone
else. Diego, not surprisingly, was a wreck. He had kept apologizing over and
over again as if he were responsible for his ex-boyfriend’s psychotic behavior.
Zoë hadn’t been happy to learn he had kept to himself how much he’d been
harassed by the other man, but there had been little point in chiding him for
it. Joanne had taken him home with her and the older woman would mother him for
the night and for however long he needed it.

No, she wasn’t going to worry about Diego. It was Sean who
weighed on her mind at the moment. Stealing a glance in his direction, she saw
he wore the same blank expression he had since the cops had separated them to
take their statements. He wasn’t shaking anymore and that was a blessing, but
he was so quiet, so unemotional. That couldn’t be good either. Fortunately he
hadn’t put up any resistance when the diner had finally cleared out and she had
insisted he come home with her. He had simply nodded and followed her out to
the car. She couldn’t gauge his mood, but she had decided he shouldn’t be
alone. Frankly, it wasn’t merely what he needed. She needed him tonight. In the
way of many humans, she had achieved clarity of thought in the extreme circumstances
of their facing possible death.

Unless he had changed his mind about being with her, she
wasn’t going to let him go. She loved him. The truth of it was so plain to her
now, she felt stupid when she thought of how she had tried to push him away. So
she wasn’t likely to give birth again, didn’t even want to try. He said he
didn’t care about having kids. She would accept he knew his own mind for now
and if he ever changed it, they’d try to find a solution together. In the
meantime, she’d take the joy of having him.

She pulled into her driveway and turned off the car. Sean
didn’t move a muscle and that worried her. Grabbing her purse, she hopped out
and went around to his side, thinking she might have to open the door for him.
He surprised her by doing it himself and getting out. When he didn’t head for
the door, she took his hand in hers and led him up the front stoop. He twined
his fingers with hers in a sure grip. It let her know he was not buried deep
inside his head and that was a relief. When they stepped inside her apartment,
she nudged him toward the couch and went into the kitchen.

She brought him some iced tea and sat beside him with her
own glass. Sipping at her drink, she watched him down the whole of his with one
long gulp. His throat was stretched taut with the effort and she tamped down
the urge to latch her lips on to it. It would be too easy for them to smother
their feelings in sex. Before giving in to her desire, she had to see if she
could get Sean to talk. She had no doubt he needed to. Wrestling with Diego’s
ex had to have resonated with Sean’s combat experience. His shaking body in the
immediate aftermath had testified to it.

Sean put his empty glass down on her coffee table and looked
at her for the first time since they had left the diner. “Thanks, I hadn’t
realized how thirsty I was.” Zoë held out her half-full drink as an offering,
but he shook his head and looked down at his hands clasped between his knees.
“If you asked me back here because you’re worried I’ll do something stupid, you
needn’t. Worry,” he clarified. “I’m okay. I can catch a cab to my folks’.”

Putting her glass down, she slid closer to him and put her
own hand on top of his. She waited until he looked at her before saying, “I
brought you back here because I love you and I didn’t want to spend another
night without you.”

The muscles in his throat worked furiously as he swallowed
several times. “You don’t have to say that,” he replied in a hoarse voice.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “What, do you think I said
that because I feel sorry for you, to be nice to you?” She ran fingers through
his hair and shook her head. “Telling you I love you is the most selfish thing
I’ve ever done. I don’t want to give you up even though my head tells me I
should for your sake.”

Now his head shook. “No, please. I love you too, Zoë. Being
with you is exactly what I want.”

Leaning in, she kissed him lightly on the lips. When he
tried to pull her in for another, she resisted. “Hold on,” she chided gently.
“I think we should talk about what happened before we jump into bed.”

His expression closed off again and he broke eye contact.
“What’s there to talk about?”

She lifted her hand and shifted so she faced him, her arm
over the back of the couch, one leg bent between them. She wanted to give him
space in order to hopefully speak honestly about how he felt. “I want to know
how you’re feeling. You were pretty shaken after your struggle with Diego’s ex
and I figure it must have triggered your PTSD.”

He shrugged. “Lots of things trigger it, less now than a
year ago.” Glancing at her, he added, “You helped, you know. Being there for
me, holding me, you helped me push back the panic attack that was coming on.
Thanks for that.”

“You don’t have to thank me for being there for you. I’m
glad I helped, but I think it would be better for you if you talk about what’s
going on inside your head. You’ve been awfully quiet and I’m worried about how
you hold everything inside. It’s just going to come out in a nightmare.”

He shuddered and nodded. “You’re right.” He stood up. “I
shouldn’t be with you tonight. I’ll probably have a rough night and I don’t
want to take the risk of hurting you.”

She groaned in frustration. “Sit down, Sean. Sit!” He
hesitated a few seconds before doing as she said. “I didn’t bring up the nightmares
because I’m worried about me. I said it because I’m worried about you. Talk to
me, Sean. Tell me what terrorizes you in your sleep. Please,” she added in a
soft voice because if he didn’t open up to her, let her in, she wasn’t sure
they had much of a future together.

He shook his head and took a deep, shuddering breath before
he began to speak. “Okay. I don’t want to talk to you about all this crap
lurking in the back of my head, but I want you and I trust you to know what’s
best, so…” He cleared his throat. “A lot of the time I just relive bits and
pieces of my tours. Dust, heat, smells, the sight of bombed-out buildings,
bodies. It’s weird and sickening how you can get used to something like seeing
dead kids. The insurgents are everywhere. They hide behind buildings, on top of
buildings, inside buildings, inside their own fucking families.

“It didn’t take long before I really dreaded raids we
conducted on houses, especially at night when everyone was home. We’d get intel
that so-and-so was at some house and we’d go after them, but we knew there’d be
innocent people too. Women, kids—babies, for Christ’s sake—were often between
us and the guys we needed to get. My worst fear was killing somebody innocent
in one of those raids.”

When he fell silent, his gaze focused on the floor, she
prodded him. “Did you?” she asked as gently as she could, letting him know she
wasn’t going to judge what he’d been forced to do in circumstances she couldn’t
even imagine.

“No. But there was this one night, the worst night, the
night I can’t get out of my head and out of my dreams.” He grabbed her
neglected drink and gulped it down before continuing. “We were after some guy.
I don’t know what he had done exactly. Word was he was dangerous and living in
this big family compound. They do that a lot, you know, live in extended
families.” He shot her a quick grin. “Kind of like you Greeks.”

She grinned back and nodded, getting what he meant. After a
few seconds, he picked up with his story. “Anyway, we went in at night, kicking
in doors, the translators barking for everyone to get out, hands in the air. No
one popped out right away, so we moved farther into the house, checking rooms.
I pushed open a door, calling out that I was a U.S. soldier. I picked up some
of the language, you have to, so I know I announced myself properly. It was a
bedroom and the first thing I see is a guy with a gun pointed at me.

“I didn’t hesitate, Zoë, you can’t or you die. I fired and
he went down. There was a woman in the room too, his wife. She shrieks and
screams at me, saying things I can’t understand, but I know what she means. I
just killed her husband and bad guy or not, she hates me for it. It’s not
enough for her though, to yell at me. Before I realize it, she lunges for her
dead husband’s gun and points it at me.”

His breath hitched and he stopped speaking, his eyes
blinking furiously as if holding back tears. She slid over and put her arms
around him. She could feel the fine tremors in his body. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

His hand clasped her arm and he squeezed once before
continuing. “I yelled at her as she fumbled with the gun. I told her to drop
it. I begged her to drop it and she wouldn’t. I had to take her out too.” His
voice quavered. “I can still hear the sound of her scream as the rounds hit
her.”

She tightened her grip as his body began to tremble in
earnest. “You had to do it. She wasn’t an innocent when she picked up that gun.
You know that, right?”

He nodded and barked out a rueful laugh. “Yeah, I know. I do
know, but that wasn’t the end of it. There was more screaming and crying and
behind me there were four kids. They’re standing in the doorway staring at
their dead parents and they’re wailing away as if they were being tortured. And
I guess when someone kills your mom and dad, you are. The oldest was a boy of
maybe ten and I saw him eyeing the gun that had slipped out of his mother’s
hands. He looks up at me and I know, I just know he’s going to make a play for
it.”

He was rocking now in her embrace, tears leaking out of his
eyes. “Jesus, I couldn’t believe it. I was going to have to kill that kid if he
reached the weapon. I yelled at him and lunged, pushing him down. He hit the
others and they all went down like ten pins which just made them cry and scream
all the louder. But I managed to kick the gun away from them and my guys
finally arrived to back me up. They hustled the kids away to another room and
to some family members.”

He swiped at the tears. “Anyway, the guy I killed was the
guy we were after. He was a bad guy and I can’t feel sorry about killing him.
Maybe his wife was a bad guy too. Who knows? She probably had no choice about
marrying him and when someone bursts into your bedroom and kills your husband,
maybe you just react. All I do know for sure is that in a few years, that
little boy is probably going to be just like his father. If he wasn’t going to
grow up to be a terrorist before, seeing me kill his parents for sure tipped
him into that camp.”

“You can’t hold yourself responsible for that. His father
bears the blame for all of it. You had every right to defend yourself. I’m not
going to get into the politics of whether you should have been in that position
to begin with, but once you were, you did the right thing.”

Clasping his face with her hands, she turned it to her. “Look
at me,” she ordered. His eyes swam in unshed tears as he obeyed. “You are a
good man, Sean. You are not a killer.”

His mouth opened and if he intended to say something, it was
drowned out by a choked sob. The tears came in earnest and, leaning into her,
he buried his face in the crook of her neck. He wrapped his arms around her and
held her tight as the damn burst within him.

* * * * *

Sean forced his eyes open. They were gritty from crying and
he blinked against the light of the room. He lay on the couch, Zoë on top of
him in an awkward embrace. They had both kind of just passed out with
exhaustion after his crying jag. He grimaced at the memory because what guy
didn’t relish weeping all over his girlfriend? Christ, he’d be lucky if she
ever wanted to fuck him again after his little boy lost routine. Except, shit,
maybe she didn’t see it as the monumental embarrassment he did. She had pushed
him into sharing the horror rattling around in his brain, so she shouldn’t be
surprised it left him soaking her blouse with his tears. Besides, didn’t women
profess to like it when men showed their sensitive side?

Crap!

With his eyes half-opened, he squinted at the clock on the
wall and saw they’d been sleeping for almost two hours. Even though they didn’t
have the early shift, it would be better for both of them to move to the
greater comfort of the bed. He hated to wake Zoë though. Maybe if he was gentle
enough, he could carry her into it without waking her. He realized the
foolishness of the hope when her eyes flew open at the first muscle he moved.

“What’s up?” she asked, eyes blinking as if she were an owl.

“I was trying to move us to the bed. Sorry, I didn’t mean to
wake you.”

She smiled and pushed herself up to a kneeling position
between his legs. “How do you feel?” The soft concern in her voice nearly had
him crying again.

Clearing his throat, he said, “Kind of stupid for bawling
all over you.”

She rolled her eyes. “You needed the release and I’m glad
you trusted me enough to share it with me.”

He picked her hand up and ran his thumb across her knuckles.
“You insisted and I want to make you happy.” He gave her a rueful grin.
“Besides, I do feel better. It helped to get it out.” He paused, afraid to say
what continued to weigh on his mind yet desperate to ask the question anyway.
“Does it change the way you feel about me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. I meant it when I said
you’re a good man, Sean.”

“Yeah, but are you afraid of me?”

“I keep telling you I’m not. Why don’t you believe me?”