19
Connor woke from a dreamless sleep, Shanti curled against him, her dark hair covering them both. The world outside the window was dark, the sound of chanting coming from somewhere below. Not wanting to wake her, he lay there, just watching her, overwhelmed by an unfamiliar sense of tenderness.
He ought to be angry with himself. He’d broken Cobra’s rules. He’d broken his own rules about unprotected sex. He’d gotten himself in over his head with a woman who deserved someone far better than him. Instead, he felt … peace.
Where had she come from? What was it about her that did this to him? He had kissed every inch of her, tasted her, drowned himself in her—and still it wasn’t enough.
You love her.
Adrenaline punched through him.
Oh, no. Hell, no. He didn’t do love. He did sex. Good sex. But just sex.
Keep telling yourself that.
He listed all the reasons he couldn’t love her, all the reasons he shouldn’t love her. She was out of his league, a beautiful Harvard-educated attorney from a wealthy family. He was a farm boy who’d gone into the military and now worked as hired muscle. They lived half a world apart. There were things about him she didn’t know, reasons for her to hate him. Hell, he struggled to hold it together in the real world.
He ran all of this through his mind, hoping it would clear his head, take away this emotion, set his head straight. But it didn’t.
He loved her.
Unable to resist, he kissed her awake. “Hey.”
“Hey.” She glanced around. “What time is it?”
“No idea.” He ducked down, kissed a dark nipple.
She smiled, stretched, raised her arms above her head, offering herself to him. “I’m all yours.”
God, he wanted her, but he couldn’t touch her again. If she knew what he’d done, she wouldn’t want his hands on her. She thought he was a hero. He wasn’t.
He sat up. “Shanti, I can’t. I…”
Great time to have a pang of conscience, idiot.
Fuck.
Was he truly going to tell her? She would hate him. It would drive a wedge between them. Then again, maybe that’s what they both needed.
She sat up, concern on her face, her dark hair covering her breasts. “What is it?”
He shook his head. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m not a hero. I’ve done things that you would…”
She rested a hand on his arm. “I’m listening.”
God, how was he going to do this? He’d only ever talked about this with his CO during the after-action review. The army had absolved him of any wrong-doing, so he’d tried to forget it. But the guilt had never gone away.
“I fought with 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, what you all call Delta Force.” He’d never told a woman which unit he’d served with, not even Mandy. “Before I joined Cobra, I spent a decade carrying out secret operations on behalf of Uncle Sam, moving in and out of war zones—Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria. I was good at it. I enjoyed it. Most of the time, anyway.”
“I’ve seen you in action. I have no trouble believing that.”
He drew a breath, tried to steel himself. “We did some work in Syria, took out some high-value ISIS targets, broke up their communications, took out their explosives and weapons caches. That sort of thing.”
Why the fuck was he doing this? The two of them could never be together, so why expose himself? Why not just enjoy the moment?
Too late to back out now.
“We hit a bombed-out village, blew up a cache of explosives. Intel said the village was deserted, apart from fighting-age males, probably all ISIS.” Connor’s stomach knotted. “We came under fire during our exfil and got pinned down—at least five fighters firing AKs at us from the cover of a bombed-out house on the edge of town. I …”