“We don’t know she was after United Russia.”
“Why was Orlov there if the beautiful Miss Malin wasn’t after them?”
Inexplicably irritated with Onyx for calling Malin beautiful, Dutch changed the subject. “Brief me on how this will go after we land.”
“The plan was to chopper out of Reagan.”
“Roger that,” said Dutch, distracted when he thought he heard Malin groan.
“Sleeping Beauty must be coming to. I gotta get back to flying the plane.”
First beautiful, now Sleeping Beauty; Onyx’s words didn’t sit right with Dutch, not that he could say why, other than his feelings toward her were proprietary.
He’d saved her life. Wasn’t there some legend or voodoo thing that said he was supposed to protect her forever now?
He returned to sit next to her, reclined his seat, and pulled her close enough that her head rested on his chest. She was so damn exhausted, she didn’t wake up.
“Sweet girl,” he murmured, running his fingers through her hair.
As he rested his head against hers, he wondered again what in the hell he’d been thinking the night when Alegria called and he ran straight to her. Malin deserved so much more, then and now.
Before she fell asleep, Malin asked him to respect her as a woman and leave her alone. He did respect her—as a woman, a CIA agent, and as one of the finest human beings he’d ever known. Why did he need to leave her alone to prove that to her?
He was kidding himself if he thought groveling would make her accept his apologies and give him another chance, but if she’d let him hold her, even if only while she slept, he’d take it. Having her in his arms again f
elt so damn good.
First, though, it was up to him to find out what the mission really was that took her to Pakistan, by way of Germany, along with how Sergei Orlov had been involved.
In the meantime, his every instinct was screaming at him to protect her from the same government agency on whose behalf she undertook the mission, to begin with.
Malin, still soundly asleep, shifted her body and put her arm around his waist. He’d forgotten how easily their bodies molded together, even though he hadn’t appreciated it at the time. Then, he’d believed a different woman would fit him better than anyone else. As it turned out, they hadn’t fit at all.
Dutch closed his eyes. Part of him wished he could turn back time and undo what he’d done that night. Another part of him knew that if things hadn’t gone the way they had, he might have spent the rest of his life pining for a woman who turned out to be all wrong for him.
—:—
Hovering in the zone between awake and asleep, Malin struggled the way she always did. Should she keep her eyes closed, hoping the dream she was having about Dutch would continue, or should she wake all the way up, hoping that the pain of it only being a dream wouldn’t linger too long?
She ran her hand over his chest that felt all too real, and opened her eyes.
“Hi,” he murmured when she looked up at him.
She tried to move away, but he held her close.
“Go back to sleep. It’s a long flight, and I bet you haven’t slept well in weeks, if not months.”
“Dutch, I…”
“Go to sleep, baby,” he repeated, kissing her forehead.
Malin closed her eyes. Why not let herself rest in his arms for a few more hours? Would it really hurt anything? All too soon, she’d be forced to face the reality of the shitstorm her life had become and accept that, once they landed in the States, it might be months before she saw Dutch Miller again.
2
Why no go on Indian Springs? said the text he received from Doc when they landed at Reagan International Airport in Washington, DC.
Instead of responding with his own text, Dutch called him. “As I told Onyx, I’d prefer somewhere more remote,” he said when Doc picked up.