Connor left their shelter,looking for a break in the forest canopy. This was the trouble with trying to hide. Dense vegetation interfered with the satellite signal.
He found a spot about fifty meters away, where he could see stars overhead. “Hey, Tower. She’s fine. She’s asleep. We found some kind of ruin—part of a temple destroyed in the war. The sky was full of birds searching for us. We had to veer west to get around a small farming village. The rain made it slow going.”
“It looks like you put thirty-two miles behind you today. How are the food and water holding up?”
“Not ideal. We need to find another water source soon, and we’re splitting one MRE a day. We’ve got three more.”
“The sooner you get out of there, the better. We’re working with the Pentagon on some plans to speed this up, but the situation is volatile. Sunrise is at oh-five-twenty-two, so get some rest.”
“Copy that.”
Connor walked back to their shelter, wrapped himself in a space blanket, and leaned back against one of the columns with his rifle. He quickly fell into a doze, a part of him listening to the sounds around him for anything that could be a threat.
A rustling of leaves brought him awake. He raised the rifle, looked through the infrared scope, and saw what looked like a large, gangly house cat with spots. It saw him—and vanished.
Nearby, Shanti lay in the bivy sack, sound asleep.
Just the thought of her put a hitch in his chest, some nameless longing sliding through him. He wanted … what?
A lover? Someone waiting at home? Someone to share his life with?
He’d tried that, and he knew how that story ended.
Shanti is nothing like Mandy.
Shanti.
God, he wanted her. He wanted her to be safe. He wanted her to pardon him, to tell him that the boy’s death hadn’t been his fault.
What the hell is wrong with you?
He needed sleep. That’s all.
Or maybe it was the circumstances, being alone with a beautiful woman who was utterly dependent on him to stay alive. Survival situations had a way of making people bond—or so he’d heard. After years of fighting, the Unit had become his family. He was closer to those guys than he was to his brother.
And how many times did you sit in the dark watching your Unit buddies sleep?
That would be never.
He closed his eyes and dozed again, his mind filling with erotic dreams of Shanti, her breasts, her delicious ass, her mouth on his cock.
This time when he woke, his boner was to blame.
He ignored it, eventually drifting into a dreamless sleep.
The pitter-patter of little feet woke him.
For fuck’s sake.
An enormous tarantula walked by him, earning a free flight into the forest thanks to the butt of his rifle.
He checked on Shanti. She was still asleep, her breathing deep and even. Then he glanced at his watch.
Roughly an hour till dawn.
He’d gotten a solid three hours of sleep since his dick had woken him.
He raised the rifle, glanced around them, checking for other intruders. Seeing nothing—no movement, no unreasonably huge arachnids, nothing that might find them tasty—he closed his eyes again.