Mine to Keep (Mine 2)

Slowly, her feet slid from his hips and she—

Laughter escaped Skye. The water was still just as warm. Jetting down just as powerfully. And… “You left your shoes on.”

He smiled down at her. One of his real, rare smiles. The kind that made the dark, cold places inside of her feel a little bit warmer.

“I was afraid that if I stopped to take them off, you’d change your mind.”

His words, so gruff, had her pressing a fast kiss to his lips.

“You didn’t run when I confessed. You believed in me,” Trace rasped the words against her lips. “I had to have you.”

And she’d needed him the same way.

He turned off the spray of water. Tossed away his soaked clothes. Ditched the Italian shoes.

He’d been wearing his shoes!

Then he wrapped her in a towel. So carefully. They went into his bedroom. Their bedroom. The darkness surrounded them as they slid into the bed. She put her fingers over his heart, reassured by the steady beat. Then her fingers trailed to the right, just a few inches. To the thick, red scar that marked his chest.

Trace had been shot by the bastard who’d abducted her. Skye tried not to think about what could have happened if Mitch Loxley had been a better shot.

I can’t think about that. She bent and put her head over his heart, needing to hear that strong beat.

His fingers brushed back her wet hair. “You are the most important person in my life.” His words rumbled beneath her. “I will do anything it takes in order to keep you safe.”

She squeezed her eyes shut because that anything—it was what she feared most.

***

Skye was in the basement once again. Handcuffed to the pole that wouldn’t move. She’d screamed and she’d screamed, but no one had come to save her.

She knew that she was going to die in that pit.

“Trace!” His name was a desperate cry from her. He would be the last person that she thought of. The last man that she—

“Why do you call for him?” The voice drifted from the darkness. “He’s the reason you’re here.”

She shook her head and yanked harder on the cuffs.

“You’re hurting, you’re dying for him.”

“Let me go!” Skye begged. “Just let me—”

Then she saw the glinting flash of a blade. The knife slashed down toward her chest.

Skye screamed.

***

“It’s okay,” Trace said, his arms strong and warm around her. “I’ve got you.”

Her breath expelled in heaving pants. Her gaze flew around the room. Sunlight slipped through the curtains.

“The dreams will stop,” he said, as his fingers stroked reassuringly down her arm. “One day, the memories will fade.”

Only this hadn’t been her usual bad dream. A new, terrifying twist had slipped into her nightmare.

“Your memories haven’t faded any,” she told him, too aware of the drying tears on her cheeks. “How long has it been since you watched Anna Jean die?”

“Five years.”

She had that to look forward to? Years of nightmares and memories that haunted her? Great.

But at least I’m alive.

Yet that time period also gave her pause. She turned in his arms and stared up at him. “If Tucker really survived, then don’t you think he would’ve come after you by now?”

A dark growth of stubble lined his hard job. “Sharpe was right when he said that you were my weakness. The whole world knows how I feel about you.” He brought her hand to his lips. Lightly kissed her ring finger.

“Because you killed to keep me alive,” she whispered.

“I kept your picture with me back then, just like I told you. Tucker saw it. All of my teammates did. So did my enemies.” His fingers kept stroking her. “Once I fell behind enemy lines on a retrieval mission that went south, and I was tortured for hours.”

She hated the thought of him in such pain.

“They were good, I’ll give them that. Never left a sign on me. But then, that’s what water boarding is all about, right? Destruction on the inside.”

She’d never realized he was in such danger. He’d been in the military, she’d worried for him but—I never knew this.

Maybe she hadn’t let herself think the worst.

“I made a mistake by having your picture with me. My captors took it. Taunted me. Told me that they’d find you. Rape you. Kill you.” His voice was so wooden that he chilled her. “But they were the ones to die. Most of ‘em, anyway. A few slipped away. I got out, thanks to Noah and Tucker. And when I was free, Tucker gave your photo back to me.” His eyes blazed down at her. “He knew, even then, how much you meant.”

She hadn’t known.

“But when I came back to the U.S., I didn’t go to you.”

“You just sent guards instead.”

He nodded. “They’d threatened to hurt you. They knew what type of missions I’d completed. I’d attacked their allies before. The men who escaped could’ve come after you. They could’ve told others…I just couldn’t risk anything happening to you.”

Except he’d missed one huge basic step. She lifted her hand and cupped his jaw. She loved the slightly rough feel of his stubble against her palm. “Next time, tell me. We’re partners, so that means you can’t leave me in the dark.”

He nodded. “If I’d…if I’d come to you then, what would you have done?” But then he shook his head, as if he regretted the question. “You were with the choreographer then, so you wouldn’t—”

The choreographer. Her jaw dropped. “You knew exactly when I was sleeping with Robert?”