He definitely didn't feel like laughing over that one. "Not funny, Mon."
She released his zipper and let her hand rest on his chest. "Then what, Jack?"
"I only want you if you want me, too." A truth he'd only just realized himself and it definitely scared the laugh right out of him.
Her fingers fisted against his heart, green eyes full of weakness he could exploit. "It's not that I don't want you."
"Stop." He tapped her mouth closed. "We don't have to do this now. As a matter of fact, I'm mighty damn sure we shouldn't."
"Why did you come in here, then? I can tell you're still pissed with me over the Yasmine thing."
He shrugged, walked over to her neat-as-a-pin duffel. His fingers played with a Ziploc full of cotton balls beside another bag sealing up facial cleanser. While his anger might have deflated, it hadn't disappeared, even with fault on both sides.
Damn. He was tired. Tired of measuring his words around her. Tired of holding back and wondering and waiting—a helluva statement on his frustrated state of mind given he considered himself one of the most patient men on the planet.
As much as he ached to have Monica, some days he wasn't sure he wanted to be with a woman he had to fight every step of the way. Love had been so damned easy with Tina. Simply there. Uncomplicated.
Still, here he was, unable to walk away.
The part of him that had been gut punched over the image of Monica with a bullet in her belly wanted to shake her up, make her just as out of control as he felt. A damned selfish wish when he'd just spent the past ten minutes calming her down.
He needed to get the hell out of her room before he lost precious ground by thinking with his Johnson instead of his brain. Keep strategy in place and remember this woman did not respond well to being chased. He wanted more than just sex from her this time—or nothing at all.
He dropped the sack of cotton balls. "Enough talking for one day. You need sleep and so do I. I'm outta here."
Jack started for the door. Monica's hand shot out, gripped his arm, stopping him. He pivoted, his brain only giving him a one-second warning that Monica intended to kiss him.
Yasmine clicked the door closed to her "closet room." No footsteps retreated. Her military escort stayed outside, as ordered. A guard should make her feel more secure. Being in the compound should make her feel safer.
It didn't. Nothing would as long as Ammar stayed alive.
She whipped the scarf from her head, folded it into her bag with the others she always kept with her. Her splashes of color in a dark world.
All of two steps took her to her cot. She unrolled the sleeping bag, wafting free a scent she was quickly coming to identify as musty military. If only Monica had not been deployed here. She'd scoured the rosters Ammar had pilfered from his embassy mole and nowhere had she seen Monica's name. At least she would have stood a chance appealing to Sydney, not that she'd heard from her in a year.
Monica wouldn't have landed herself in this mess. But then if Monica's glances at the scary-faced, hairy Major were anything to judge by, Monica wasn't getting everything she wanted these days, either.
Yasmine flopped back onto the bed—nothing like her luxurious room growing up, but a fair sight better than her recent accommodations. Persistence sometimes beat brains. Monica might be smarter, but Yasmine knew she had grown stronger, more determined.
Reaching the States would help. Ammar feared entering the U.S. since his capture during his last trip there. His escape had not been easy.
If only it had been fatal.
Ruminating accomplished nothing, however. She was stuck with the here and now—and getting out of Rubistan before anyone discovered her distant relation to a known terrorist.
They were right to distrust her. She was not overly certain she could withstand the pressure Ammar might exert on her to obtain his will. She had almost forgotten what it felt like not to be afraid— until that brief moment when she'd stared into sky-blue eyes and fear faded.
Only the eyes, the man, remained.
Rising to sit on the edge, she pulled the pins from her twisted bun, one at a time placing them in her lap until her hair slithered halfway down her back. Air brushed through the strands, over her head in a sensuous glide heightened by the fact that no one had touched her with even familial affection in so long.
Except when the Colonel had touched her. And the sensation rivaled the glorious freedom of fresh air against her uncovered scalp.
A day ago she would have been content with the closet. Now she did not want to stay here. She did not want to be shuffled off to security personnel with eyes she could not trust. She wanted Colonel Cullen's protection.
And he wanted her. Her knowledge of male-female relationships had been limited, but she knew enough so that one brush against him told her he desired her.
Yet he confused her, too. Most men would have exploited the attraction. He seemed repelled by it because of the silly age factor, unlucky for her when she had been given to believe all American males coveted a—what was it called?—trophy wife. Not that she was looking to be a wife. She had her own plans for a career and life in the States, not as lofty as her doctor-soldier sister. But solid plans.