Page 28 of Dangerous Mission
She’s treading carefully when she speaks. “You fell asleep.”
I chose this inopportune time to look down at my fly to make sure my pants are zipped.
Thank god they are, and my dick is safely locked inside, because not only is it a serious mind fuck not to remember why or how she’s sleeping next to me, if I had sex with her and fell asleep in the middle of that, I need to be put out to pasture.
“I’m sorry… God. I feel like I’m saying that all the time with you. I brought the taser inside because those men could have had friends.” She holds my gaze even though she’s nervous. “I didn’t know if I could… shoot someone with your pistol because I’m not a very good shot. But I really hope you’re not mad that I got a change of clothes out of your truck and that I got a blanket for…us.”
That last word croaks out of her.
Us.
Right. There is no us. Never will be. No matter how beautiful I think the woman is.
Looking down at her hands, she mutters something too low for me to hear. Then she tries to move past me.
“This conversation is not over.” I move to block her path, by inserting my six-five frame in her path. “I’m not mad that you got yourself into dry clothes and got a blanket.The rest of this is what’s freaking me out. I don’t like unknowns, so I need for you to explain exactly what happened. How did we…”
When she looks up at me, the deep brown warmth of her eyes sucks me right in, snatches the air out of my chest.
Drowns me and buoys me at once.
This is not happening.
This can’t be happening.
I can’t…
I cannot be with a woman that would expect things from me.
It’s impossible.
I’m not that man. I’ll never be.
A bitter taste slides down my throat, scorching a path to the marrow in all my bones. Every damned one of them.
“I need to know,” I say in a rough voice. “Aria, you need to explain what the hell happened between usrightnow.”
Chapter Fourteen
Nothing. Nothing happened, but the crazy thing is, I wish it did. I wish he had curled up around me and chased my demons away.
Even if just for a single night.
But no. And now he’s furious. A very pissed off, very deadly looking SEAL.
Surely, he’s had more than a few crazy things happen to him. But the man looks so unhinged right now.
As if waking up—fully clothed—next to me is somehow the final straw that breaks his back, as if everything he's ever faced was manageable until now.
Me.
Little old me.
It hurts like I've been slapped to think I’m the reason for his extreme distress.
His eyes are filled with the chaos brewing inside of him, flicking between confusion and anger. I’m surprised the tension crackling in the air isn’t shooting off sparks.
“You collapsed,” I say carefully, with pain surfacing in my stinging eyes.