Wait. Leave. Go after him. All stunk.
She should have stood her ground in the first place. So what if he stripped bare-ass na*ed in front of her? She'd seen him before. Often.
Her hand gravitated to his flight suit slung over the back of the chair. With one finger she traced the patch on his sleeve still warm from his body. Anything. Anywhere. Anytime. His squadron motto encompassed well a larger-than-life man when she was a down-to-earth woman.
Monica nudged his boots straight, correcting their haphazard landing on the carpet. She should have blocked the path into the bathroom and made him talk. Would have served him right to battle it out all vulnerable in the nude.
Except she'd wager Jack Korba had never been vulnerable for one second of his slow-walking life. Her hand fell away from his uniform. Even at times when anyone else would have looked like an idiot, he managed to laugh it off. Nothing rattled him.
Not even losing her.
And that hurt. Which chapped her hide even more.
Monica swiped the wrinkles out of her own flight suit. If he wanted to play the bravado game, then fine. Her boots weren't all that steady under her, but her resolve was strong enough to compensate.
Praying the bathroom door wasn't locked, Monica strode across the room. Wouldn't that take the oomph out of her game to be stuck rattling the knob? Ugh!
She twisted. Turned. The door gave way. So did a sigh. Up and out her mouth air went before she could snatch it back.
The tinted-glass doors muted her view but left a picture no less appealing as Jack worked soap across his chest. He whittled away her resistance on a good day and today her defenses ranked low. Her mouth dried, worse than peanut butter sticking to the roof of her mouth.
His scrubbing slowed with an awareness that she'd joined him, but he didn't speak. Finally he resumed his bathing. The dinky cubicle crackled with the knowledge that a few short months ago she would have held his washcloth. Hell, her body would have been his washcloth as she rubbed herself against him to work up a lather and more.
Monica closed the toilet lid and plopped her hormone-riddled self down on the John before she fell on her face. Or on him. "Just so you're clear, I'm not here about the divorce." Man, that last word bit on the way out. "I know about your mission to Rubistan, and no way in hell are you dodging this conversation even if you stay in there until you're a prune. The best you did with your shower stunt was buy yourself ten extra minutes, tops."
"I'm sorry I didn't know my bathroom was cleared for classified discussions."
Always quick with a comeback. Another sigh slipped, exasperated this time, but just as frequent as the turned-on sighs around Jack.
She shifted, fidgeted, stared at herself in the mirror as if her reflection above Jack's twisted tube of toothpaste might offer aid. She couldn't afford to misstep, and she wasn't giving up. Still, it hurt that he could be so unmoved by seeing her when she had a lump in her throat the size of a gauze roll.
Her reflection blinked back at her. She frowned. Cocked her head to the side...something niggling, not right about the mirror. She reached. Touched. Found.
No steam.
A smile creased her oh-so-clear reflection. He'd been in the shower for at least five minutes and the mirror was fog-free. Well, hell. He wasn't unaffected by her after all.
Jack was taking a cold shower.
The Rubistanian desert was cold at night, and Yasmine Halibiz hated being cold. Standing outside the temporary military installation, she wrapped an arm around her waist. Pitiful protection against the plunging temperatures.
For once she missed the stifling robes that had been mandatory garb for women in her country. Western clothing might be more flattering to the figure, but it definitely did not help fight a chilly breeze against the back.
Cooking rated low on her list of preferences, as well, but hacking up a beheaded goat carcass proved a small sacrifice in exchange for keeping herself alive.
Stars, sand and rock stretched for miles with a reminder she could not survive on her own. Yasmine scraped the blade of the butcher knife against the block, swiping entrails into a bin on the ground, then the remaining roasts into an industrial-size bucket. Hefting up the meat, she made her way back toward the kitchen door leading into the converted airport soon to be overflowing with American soldiers.
A small team had already arrived, military personnel sent in as—what did they call it?—an advance element. People to ready the cooking facilities. Set up security. All of which offered her time to ease into her role as a local girl hired as a mess hall cook, the perfect task to bring her into contact with the American contingent so she could select the best target.
Her arms straining, she shuffled up the cement steps toward the light slanting through an open door. The weight competed with the grit in her sandals to rub blisters and irritation. She did not doubt her ability to pick wisely. She had spent the first seventeen years of her life covered in public, often having to gauge other females as friend or foe by only their eyes.
The cultural customs might have loosened, but even six years later, her skills stayed honed. Good and evil scripted across the eyes if only a person looked. Not many looked, always too busy running or dreaming.
She had no dreams. Just a goal. Survival.
Her sandals slapped the tile floor inside, echoing with the mingled languages and bustle of activity in the cavernous kitchen. She stifled a rebellious smile over the pleasure of making noise with her shoes. Of course she could still move with stealth if she chose, a hard-learned legacy, especially during the past year.
Yasmine slung the goat roasts onto the counter beside a steaming pot of boiling water. One by one, she pitched the clammy meat hanks into the roiling cauldron. She had her orders from her uncle. She knew the price if she failed. She shivered even as the steam popped sweat along her brow.