He scowled out the windshield. “Barely had dessert.”
“Have you ever known me to waste ice cream, Cortez?” She raised an eyebrow at him, hoping against hope that things wouldn’t become awkward. “Now, you game?”
“Means you’d have to take me back to my car later,” he gritted out.
The fact that he wasn’t demanding she take him there now seemed like an admission that he still wasn’t feeling quite right. Kristina shrugged. “Deal.”
His only answer was a single tight nod.
The car ride home was quiet and tense. The only sound was the brushing of Noah’s jeans against the center console as he bounced his foot. Kristina wasn’t sure what to say to make him feel better, so instead she played things normal by singing along to the radio. Rush hour traffic dragged out the trip, but soon they were home and climbing the steps to her second-floor apartment.
Noah still hadn’t said a word.
She let them in and dropped her purse to the kitchen counter, then turned to find Noah sagging back against the door. He crossed his arms, let his head fall backward, and closed his eyes.
The man looked so freaking weary that it broke her heart. She couldn’t help but go to him.
Kristina awkwardly hugged him, her hands going as far around him as she could with his arms folded across his chest. She rested her forehead against his sternum. For a long moment, they stood like that.
“Everything…everything is different now,” he finally said, voice tight and gravelly. “So much that I used to take for granted is just gone for me, and it…it just—”
The sound of him swallowing thickly reached her ears, but she stayed silent to let him finish. Because he’d never before talked to her about what he was feeling, and she didn’t want him to stop.
But he did. Kristina lifted her face to his—and found his dark brown eyes blazing down at her. “You’ll get through this, Noah. I’ll help you.”
“I’m no good right now, Kristina,” he said in a low voice.
She shook her head. “That’s not true. You’ve been through something horrible. And you’re still recovering. Still hurting. That’s all understandable—”
“I am fucked in the head. You saw it yourself. Twice,” he said, his voice suddenly loud, bitter. Under her hands, his muscles tensed.
“You are not fucked in the head,” she said, anger and determination gathering deep in her belly. Not anger at Noah, but irrational anger for him. She hated that things had happened to him that left him feeling this way. So out of control, so sad, so unlike himself. “Sure, you have things you’re dealing with. And you will get a handle on them—”
“No,” he said, shaking her off and pacing in the narrow space behind the door. “You don’t understand. I’m…” His hands squeezed into fists at his sides. “…so goddamned angry. All the time. It feels like I could tear the world to pieces. And I want to.” He whirled on her. “Because the perfection of everything around me makes me feel so much more wrecked inside that I can barely breathe.”
Oh, God.
Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. She wouldn’t let herself fall apart. Not now. Not in front of him. Not when Noah needed to lean on her so damn badly. “The world around you is not perfect, Noah. It’s an illusion. And you are not wrecked—”
“I am.” He got right up in her face.
Kristina held her ground. “You’re not—”
“I am!”
“Noah—”
He grabbed her by the arms, not so much that it hurt, but with enough force that it surprised her. “Here’s your proof. I want to fuck you, Kristina. I want to bury myself in you and stay there forever. Just lose myself in you until I don’t know who I am anymore. I’ve been fantasizing about it, dreaming about it, imagining it. Having you is all I can fucking think about. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Noah’s words unleashed a flash fire in Kristina’s blood. Her heart tripped into a sprint. Her breathing shallowed out. Heat roared across her skin. One heartbeat. Two. And Kristina knew what she had to do.
Acting on instinct, she pulled out of Noah’s grip and stepped backward. Away from his confession. Away from him.
Chapter Eleven
“That’s what I thought,” Noah said, a rock lodging in his gut. He’d really gone and done it now, hadn’t he? Opened his mouth and spewed his poison at one of the most important people in his life. And tonight was supposed to be all about making amends.
Goddamnit, the minute he came out of that flashback he should’ve gotten the hell away from her. He’d just been so shell-shocked by how realistic it had seemed. The anti-aircraft fire. The crashing Blackhawk. The screaming chaos.