Don't Dare a Diamond (Must Love Diamonds 5)

He could only squeeze her hand in affirmation.

“What about your team?”

A lump formed in his throat from both her asking about the others, and what had happened. “Neider—the guy who tripped the wire—didn’t make it.”

Her palm pressed over his heart. “I’m so sorry.”

Reyes tightened his arm on her shoulder for a brief moment in acknowledgment of the husky emotion in her voice. “Hughes and Dice rode transport to Germany with me. They were both medically discharged because of their injuries.”

“You weren’t?”

He made a negative sound. “Once my vision came back, my injuries were all surface.”

She shifted until he felt her rest her chin on the back of the hand she’d flattened against his chest. “Still, I don’t think it’s right they made you go back.”

“I insisted on going back,” he corrected.

“Why?”

He smiled slightly at the astonishment in her voice. “My team was still there. No way was I going to go home when I was still physically able to serve with them.”

“And mentally?”

“Believe it or not, it was better there. After I came home is when things got worse.”

“After you were away from your team?”

“Yeah.”

A change in pressure on his chest told him she’d tilted her head. “Have you talked to anyone?”

“Dev. The horses. You.”

The lamp on his nightstand clicked on.

Reyes blinked at the unexpected light and found himself staring right into Raine’s hazel eyes. The hum of the refrigerator and other appliances seemed unusually loud in the suddenly awkward silence as their gazes held. He read sympathy in her eyes, not pity, and another raw, warm emotion that kick-started his pulse.

“Hi,” she murmured softly.

His lips twitched. “Hi.”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and in the space of one heartbeat, desire hit with a dizzying rush. The sudden hitch of her breath told him she felt it, too.

He lifted his hand to tuck her damp hair back and couldn’t seem to help but let his touch linger on the soft, delicate shell of her ear. Of their own accord, his fingers slipped into her hair, burying deep for an anchor in his losing battle against rising desire.

She held his gaze steady as she pushed up and swung a leg over to straddle his thighs. He drew in a ragged breath, his body throbbing with need as he wished she’d settled a few inches higher.

Clenching his fingers ever so slightly in her hair, he drew her forward, his gaze zeroed in on her lips. Even with the move, he made one last token effort at doing the right thing.

“You know there are all kinds of reasons why this is a bad idea.”

“Maybe.” Hands braced on his shoulders, she leaned in until her lips were less than an inch from his. “But in this exact moment, there isn’t a single one I give a damn about. You?”

Reyes couldn’t even remember them, much less give a damn about them.

He answered with a little tug to close the distance between them and melded his mouth with hers. When her lips parted on a sigh, he angled her head and deepened the kiss with a bold stroke of his tongue. Her soft moan only drove him deeper, until they were both desperate for air. He sucked in a lungful while trailing his lips down along her throat.

He reached for the buttons on her shirt—his shirt—his heart thudding hard at the anticipation of revealing what lie underneath. Raine eased back, her hands lightly trailing over his forearms as he worked his way down. He caught her swift glance at the bedside lamp at the same time he realized earlier she’d removed her jeans and her bra.