The Captive's Return (Wingmen Warriors 10)

"By you," he corrected. "Blown away by you. Yeah." His jaw flexed. "I was."

She touched his beard-stubbled face. A simple stroke over his hard, high cheekbone, but his choppy admission flowed like poetry over her heart. They may not have a future together, but for what they'd shared in the past, she appreciated hearing those starkly spoken words.

His unshaven skin rasped along her oversensitive fingertips. He might act different, more distant than before, but he felt so very familiar.

Her hand crept up to the silver flecks that marked all the years they'd spent apart. "If we shouldn't have married then, where do we go from here?"

"I'll take care of you and Lucia."

Ah, a practical, honorable answer. He hadn't changed so much at all. She wanted to laugh and maybe cry a little, too.

Instead, her arm dropped to her side. "I may not be the silly twit I was then, but I still want more from life than to be taken care of. For that matter, I've been taken care of for the past five years."

He hitched slumping Lucia higher and brushed past Sara. "I'll help you until you get your feet under you then. But when it comes to Lucia, to hell with independence. The child won't go without."

The child? Our daughter, she wanted to retort.

She shook off the prickly sensation. "Of course. What about the fact that we're married?"

"What about it?" He fished into his survival vest and pulled out a water bottle, passing it to her.

She sipped to clear her throat more than to rehydrate her weary body. "Do you want to dissolve the marriage?"

"We may have slept together, but we never consummated the vows."

"Oh. Of course." She recapped the bottle, wondering why she was pushing this now when they had days, weeks, a lifetime to sort through the mess they'd made. "You only married me because you had to."

"I think you've got that backward."

She passed the bottle to him. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry for the way I played with your heart."

"I said you brought me to my knees, but I never said I had a heart for anyone to play with." Hooking an arm back under Lucia's bottom, he used his free hand to tip the bottle and drink, his throat moving. His mouth placed right where hers had been seemed somehow intimate, even though it surely had more to do with survival than sex.

"What a clean shot at my presumptuous ego, Lucas. I was young and silly, totally caught up in the romanticism of everything. I should have been more up-front with you about—"

"Sara." He swiped his wrist over his mouth to dry a trickling drop of water.

"What?"

He tapped her shoulder with the bottle they'd shared. "We were both so hot for each other, neither of us was particularly concerned with talking."

"We certainly were." She could see her desire echoed in his eyes, the urge to kiss, connect again. "We still are."

"You're right."

"But we shouldn't do anything about it."

"Right again."

"We have so much more to talk about." Was that her voice going all breathy? "Things to settle, become reacquainted. We moved too fast before."

Dios, had she just admitted that maybe, just maybe, she wanted to try again? Exhaustion must be running deeper than she'd thought for her to make such a foolish confession.

She straightened. "Thank you for the break. I'm ready to go."

So much for being a more levelheaded woman, because any further encouragement and she would throw herself at Lucas all over again.

Something was wrong with Sara.