Her eyebrows shot up.
He raised a hand. “Before you get riled, I’m not suggesting we sleep together, and if you insist, I’ll find another place to bunk. But I gotta confess the past couple of days really screwed with my head. I need to know you’re okay, or I’m not going to be able to close my eyes.”
“So you’re saying this isn’t just about making sure I sleep? It’s about helping you too?” A smile tugged at her mouth as well as her heart. “That I need to stay stapled to your side like a teddy bear in order for you to get any rest.”
“Yep…” He nodded. “I guess that pretty much covers it.”
Not too long ago, she would have done anything to be with him. And now? She didn’t know where they stood, and she was too tired to breathe, much less sort through her personal or professional tangles. Which made her answer a helluva lot easier to justify.
“I’m honest to God too exhausted to argue with you. Let’s watch out for each other, and we’ll deal with everything else later.”
She started climbing the steps to do the one thing she’d never expected ever to do again.
Sleep with Jose.
***
Jose sat in the uncomfortable-as-hell armchair and watched Stella sleep as the clock ticked away the hours into the middle of the night.
Once they’d stepped into the small barracks room, she’d washed up while he ate, then eaten while he showered. By the time he’d joined her, she’d been passed out asleep in the double bed tucked in a corner. He should stay in this chair.
Should.
But what the fuck?
He’d slept with her before, and it wasn’t like they were going to have sex again. Even though that kiss earlier had damn near sent him to his knees.
He shoved up out of the chair, his body groaning from the past twenty-four hours of surviving. He needed to recharge too if he expected to be one hundred percent for Stella. Settling onto the bed, he eased his legs up, careful not to jostle her. His head sank back into the piled pillows—he’d bought extra when he got her some clothes since he knew how she loved fat, fluffy pillows under her head and to hug. He tucked his hand behind his bed and stared at the ceiling, keeping a couple of inches between him and the woman of his dreams sleeping next to him.
Life was a bitch sometimes.
But at least Stella was safe. He would worry about the possible doomsday message woven into that cloth later. For now, he had solid military-issue walls surrounding her.
With concrete walls and industrial bedding, it wasn’t much in the way of accommodations, but the mattress was decent. The halfway-functioning air conditioner unit in the window gushed air that was cooler than anything outside. He’d stayed in worse. Still he wished he could offer her better.
But he had to accept he’d done all he could for her here. Sleep would do the rest, a deep slumber. Her catnap last night out in the wilds had been far from restful. Now she slept hard. Her red hair fanned out on the pillow, dry and carrying the scent of him since apparently she’d used his shampoo. Her eyelids twitched with deep REMs. A lightweight robe covered her whole body but clung to damp curves.
Sighing, she rolled over and looped her arm over his stomach. His abs contracted at the warmth of her, her slim, toned arm so damn familiar. As if the shower fresh scent of her wasn’t already driving him nuts. Damn good thing he wore camo pants and a T-shirt. Although full-out body armor wouldn’t be enough of a barrier between them.
His arm rested along the dip of her waist. Her curves fit to his side, the give of her soft br**sts searing him, making him ache to cradle the weight in his hands. He knew every inch of her body. They’d been good together, beyond good, better than anything he’d had with any other woman. Hell, when he was with her he couldn’t think of anyone but her. Still couldn’t even though they were no longer a couple.
Would she be in his system like this for the rest of his life?
He eyed the scratch along her neck from the guard’s blade. A blade that had come too close to taking her life. Even a bit more pressure, a second’s hesitation on either of their parts would have left her dead. He willed his heart to stay steady. Careful not to wake her, he thumbed just beside the cut, along the place he’d discovered when he’d first kissed her at Queen Elizabeth National Park. Right over the freckle on her neck where he’d kissed dozens of times during the five months they’d dated.
Every protective urge inside him flamed to life. No matter how many times his brain insisted it was over between them, his body argued otherwise. She was his. And maybe that wasn’t cool or PC, but damn it, that’s just how it was for him. On some primal level, a connection linked them that he didn’t begin to understand. That he didn’t have a clue how to sever.
Sometimes he wondered if they’d met on a regular day in an ordinary kind of place if things might have been different. They’d played out their affair in a remote corner of the earth, in places with deep-rooted history. They’d made love for the first time with the sound of the flowing Nile waters echoing through their window.
Every minute of his time with her was branded in his brain. Not just having sex, but their whole weekend in Egypt, one of the handful of times they’d been able to sneak more than a few hours together. He’d been determined to make the most of a whole weekend with Stella, to sweep the incredibly practical woman off her feet with the most luxurious, impractical getaway he could plan.
So he’d taken her to Aswan with tropical palm trees and the Tombs of Nobles cut in the high west bank of the Nile. They’d gone on a camel ride to the Monastery of St. Simeon. She had an adventurous spirit, but that day he’d discovered a romantic heart underneath. He’d seen it when she heard the story of the Mausoleum of Aga Khan and how his wife laid a rose on his tomb every day, a tradition still carried on by the village even after her death.
Jose had made a mental note to cover Stella’s bed in roses one day. He’d never had the chance to fulfill that vow. Damn, regrets were a bite in the ass.
Holding her against him, he let the sound of the whooshing air conditioner echo in his ears like the sound of the Nile during that date five months ago…
***