“I noticed. But what makes you think whatever you have to say will hurt? I’m leaving tomorrow, if you haven’t noticed.” What was he doing? Why did he want to know this? Why was he pretending it wouldn’t hurt?
Emilio gave him an assessing look. Then he shrugged again. “OK, maybe I’m wrong about you, maybe you’re just one of those men who go through life with a scoring list. If you insist, she chose you because you share one of the things she chose Lorenzo for—she feels nothing for you, anything personal, that is. But your specific advantage is that you’re leaving tomorrow, never to be seen again. You did notice how she pounced on you the moment you said you were leaving. It instantly made you safe.”
It also made him feel sick. With rage and regret.
He shouldn’t have asked. He should have left well enough alone. And he’d been worried she’d offered herself in desperation because he was leaving, then would later try to talk him into staying. He wouldn’t stay, he couldn’t, but he’d still wanted her to want him to, to feel something for him. As much as he felt for her.
He didn’t want her to want him because he was a guaranteed one-night stand!
But he was going to be.
And knowing she wanted him to be should make leaving her in the morning easier. Should…
Emilio passed Gulnar on his way back and her face became that tense, apologetic mask. Dante almost resented Emilio again. The guy should disappear from her world, never to return. He had no right to be burdening her with his emotions.
As soon as Emilio had passed Gulnar, she ran to him and his heart expanded so hard his chest almost burst with it. She threw herself in his arms and consumed his will and reason.
No. He would walk away. There was no changing that. And she didn’t want him to stay. That would keep him on target—on time. No lingering, no regrets.
He almost laughed at this, harsh and shearing. No lingering maybe. No regrets, no way. Nothing but regrets would remain.
He swayed into her, huddled around her as she burrowed into his side and whispered into his chest, “C’mon—let’s get out of here. I need you all to myself for the rest of the night.”
The rest of the night. He had to cram a lifetime into it.
“Welcome to my humble abode.”
Gulnar’s bright invitation thumped in Dante’s chest. His eyes roved around the dank, dark room. It was just one room, couldn’t be more than ten by ten feet, with just one splintered door opening into what had to be the bathroom. An oppressive shade of green, rendered even more so by the accumulated dirt of probably decades without a paintbrush, enveloped them. Occupying the wall with the prison-cell-like grid window was a battered loveseat. He’d seen far better-looking couches in junkyards. Three outfits, all trousers and shirts of unmatching colors, like the stuff he’d seen her in all through the last two weeks, hung from nails on the cracked wall. A narrow, unmade bed leaned against the other wall, rickety, another piece of junk. The wooden floor was decayed and caved in.
Was this what GAO gave their volunteers? The people who risked their lives for others every day? Below nominal pay and subhuman accommodation? Was this what she called home?
She turned at his silence, followed his stare. “Sorry about the mess. I don’t really have time to clean.”
Clean what, for heaven’s sake? This place’s only hope for any semblance of restoration was to be torn down brick by brick and rebuilt from scratch. “Is this where you live?” He was angry. Enraged.
“Oh, no. It’s just temporary.” That was better. If not by much. Just the thought that GAO was letting her stay in a place like this, no matter for how short a time—his blood boiled again. “I came to Srajna on a very short assignment, mostly to give a course in mass casualty triage in Srajna’s General Hospital. I made use of being here and searched out an old acquaintance of mine, a woman who used to work with GAO, providing food supplies to us. She asked me to meet her where she worked—and the rest, as they say, is history.”
So that was what she’d been doing with the Azernian hostages. He’d never even asked. He’d forgotten to ask. Forgotten everything else, too. Whenever he laid eyes on her, everything ceased to matter, to exist. But not now. This was about her, something she was suffering. And it was intolerable. “Short assignment or not, they shouldn’t have made you stay in a place like this, in a neighborhood like this.”
She snapped the elastic band out of her hair, shook out the fiery waterfall. He heard a roaring like an on-coming train in a tunnel. What were they standing around here talking for? Her answer reminded him. “Oh, it’s very safe. As far as anything can be safe in a world of booby-trapped cars and rigged municipal buildings, that is! And this isn’t far below our usual accommodation level really. GAO has been falling on harder and harder times financially. Every available cent goes for all the stuff that keeps our operations running, and accommodation ends up getting the short end of the stick. But I’m used to it. I think I’d feel lost in anything more luxurious.”
Would his head blow up with frustration? “A refugee camp is more luxurious!”
She chuckled at his words. “Believe me, it isn’t, and I should know. I lived in one for five years. Here I at least have four walls and a door. And a bathroom!”
Something searing and viscous burst in his chest. Had his heart ruptured with impotence and oppression? It might have. Gulnar, his unique, indomitable beauty. Terrorized, degraded, destitute. Used to it and taking it in her stride—no, almost as her due, what life owed her. Expecting nothing better, as if it was no worse than she deserved. Oh, God.
“If you’d rather go to a hotel…” Her gaze anxiously scanned his face. She must have misunderstood his chaos for she stopped, squeezed her eyes and swung away to make a silent yet eloquently furious self-berating gesture. “Of course you would. I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing you here. I guess I didn’t want to lose time searching for a hotel, checking into one…”
Wet heat detonated behind his eyes, corroded twin paths down his cheeks. He lunged after her, caught her around the waist from the back, his arms crushing her into him. Trembling, gasping, he carried her to the bed, pushed her down and covered her. He wanted to shield her, contain her, squash her into him, hide her inside his body.
She squirmed beneath him, panted, “Dante, if you don’t want to leave, then let me loose—let me, please…”
He opened his mouth on her pulse, seeking every confirmation of her existence and life and something bitter mingled with her sweat in his mouth. His tears. Or hers? “Next time, tesoro. Next time.”
He wanted to tear her clothes off, but couldn’t. She didn’t have much to replace them with. He could give her all she needed. Oh, how he wanted to lavish everything he was and had on her…
His dexterous fingers were useless with emotion, snarling over undoing her shirt buttons. She was trapped beneath him yet going a better job than him. He pulled back, freed her from that memorized khaki shirt. She’d aroused him with it during the hostage situation, beyond his comprehension. He remembered his confusion about her keeping it on in the deadly heat. And now he’d seen her without it, he knew why she’d kept it on. Her semi-naked body would have driven the militants to extremes, would have driven them beyond caution, beyond survival even to get their hands on her body, to spend their sick lust…