"Okay. I deserve that." He pitched aside the light-weight blanket and sat on the edge of the bed. "But I think I also deserve a little slack because keeping you alive seemed more important at the time."
Her stormy face calmed, his T-shirt dangling from her hands. "What about later? After I learned the facts and wasn't operating in the dark. You could have given me the choice whether to stay or go. Except you didn't trust that I would make the right decision. You didn't trust that I can protect myself."
He grabbed the trailing hem of his T-shirt in her grip and dragged her forward until she stood between his knees. She'd demanded he open up to her and she could damn well reciprocate now that she'd unlocked the floodgates. He wasn't hanging out on top of this wave alone. "Why is being able to protect yourself so important? You still haven't told me."
"You know why." Her gaze never faltered, but her skin chilled against the embrace of his thighs. "You've read my file."
"That's not the same as you telling me." His hand grazed up to palm her neck. His thumb stroked her soft cheek. "You'll let me into your body, but you won't let me into your head."
She jerked as if slapped. Darcy hitched the sheet higher as if to shield herself.
Flinging his T-shirt in his lap, she backed away. "You want my guts spilled all over the floor? Fine. I was kidnapped when I was thirteen years old. An extremist terrorist group, who wanted the military base gone from the island, decided to make their statement in a big way."
Her words gathered force, rolling out of her in the hurricane he'd unleashed. "So they snatched me from a luau, right under all those damned flyers' noses.
They took me. They locked me up in an old World War II bunker and kept me there for a week."
The pain in her voice in spite of her composed face jolted through him with as much power as her words. Hearing, seeing what she'd been through shredded his insides. He'd witnessed scenarios like hers before firsthand while pulling someone out of a hell like the one she described. But this was Darcy.
Damn it, he righted these kinds of wrongs for a living. A totally illogical part of him wanted to have been there for her then. Resolved to be there for her now.
Boundaries be damned. He yanked her back into his arms and dropped her into his lap, her spine as straight and rigid as her unbroken will.
But she didn't pull away.
He stroked his hands up and down her back and let her talk. He'd asked for this, after all, and he would see it through for her.
She clutched that shield of a sheet in a white-knuckled fist. "If I made any noise, they threw bugs and rats in there to keep me company."
Max forced the red haze of fury away as he thought of what hell she must have endured the past weeks with all those "accidents."
He wanted to find the person responsible and kill him. Twice. Except her records indicated they were already dead, taken out during the raid to rescue her. "I'm so sorry, Darcy."
She laughed, a wobbly half effort that brought his arms tighter around her. "So, yeah, I have intimacy issues. I like my personal space. Big flipping deal. It doesn't stop me from getting up in the morning and doing my job. It doesn't stop me from living my life. And if I'm not living it the way you want me to, then tough. Just who do you think you are making me spill my guts like that?''
The answer burned in his gut, in his brain, words he'd never wanted to say again, much less feel. "I'm the guy who loves you, damn it."
Chapter 14
Darcy reeled from Max's words echoing in her head. Her intimacy issues were taking some serious boundary hits tonight.>Not yet.
He guided her against him, slower. Her other leg swung up and around his waist with the athletic fluidity that marked her every move.
Forget restraint. He secured her against the wall. Damned grateful for the support himself, as he thrust and lost himself in this woman. Knew he didn't ever want to walk away. Swore he would find some way to make this last as long as he could, as if that might somehow lengthen their time together before real life crashed down on them.
His eyes absorbed the vision of Darcy, surrounded by steam and him, water streaking down her face. A face so intense and focused on finding release even while prolonging it.
The need to finish twisted inside him, pounded through him in an urge to finally and completely claim her as his. Her breathing hitched, her full br**sts pressing against his chest faster with each deeper breath until—
Her cry cut through him, cut through his restraints. The strength of her release gripped him, sent him hurtling into completion right after her.
Water beaded down her head. Their bodies too close to let even a drop slide between, Max held Darcy backed against the shower wall while aftershocks ripped through them both.
This competent, incredible woman needed him, whether she wanted to admit it or not. She needed him. And for the first time in his loner life, Max understood what it meant to need someone, too. Totally.
And what it would mean to lose her.
She'd lost it. Totally lost it.