He closed his eyes, willed himself to relax, images of her drifting through his mind. Sister María telling him to pull the trigger. Gabriela stepping out of Laura’s bedroom, all sweet curves in a T-shirt and jeans. Gabriela turning the men on that bridge inside out.
He fell asleep with a grin on his face.
* * *
Gabriela rolledover in her sleep, snuggled against something warm, a pleasing scent filling her head, rousing her from sleep and arousing her at the same time.
She opened her eyes, saw that she lay with her face pressed against Dylan’s side, her head tucked into his underarm. She scooted back, sat up, his scent still with her.
God, he smelled good—salt, skin, man.
He lay shirtless and still asleep, one arm stretched over his head, his face turned away from her, anatomy that had teased her through his T-shirt bared for her to appreciate. Pecs dusted with dark curls. Flat dark nipples. A furrow bisecting his six-pack. Obliques that disappeared beneath the waistband of his ACUs. A trail of curls that led straight to his zipper.
Damn.
It was like waking up next to a real, live Greek god. None of the other men she’d slept with had looked like this.
But there were scars, too. A deep groove in his left pec. A jagged line on one hip. A long surgical scar on the right side of his abdomen.
It was a record of combat, of battles fought and won, of survival.
“Like what you see?” His sleepy, deep voice startled her.
She did her best to cover her surprise—and embarrassment. “You’ve been hurt.”
“It’s part of the job description.”
“How did you get that?” She fought back the urge to touch him, pointed to the groove in his pec.
He glanced down at his chest as if he couldn’t quite remember what was there. “I was grazed by an AK round near Jalalabad.”
“And that?”
“That came from the tip of an old bayonet.” He spoke about it without swagger or machismo, just giving her the facts. “Some kid wanted to impress his daddy.”
Gabriela didn’t want to know what happened to the kid or his daddy. “And this?”
“I took a round to the gut a couple of years back on assignment in Mazar-e-Sharif. We were ambushed at the airport while trying to get a client out of Afghanistan. I came close to bleeding out on the tarmac. Army surgeons in Kabul fixed me up.”
“I’m sorry.” Without thinking, she reached out, ran her fingers over the scar on his belly, the heat of contact rushing through her.
His muscles jerked, and he sucked in a breath. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t pull the trigger.”
She drew her hand away and then wished she hadn’t. “I know your job comes with terrible risks. I’ve just never seen scars like these on a man’s body.”
He grinned, sat up. “I take it you don’t date military men.”
At least he no longer seemed angry with her.
She shouldn’t care about that, but she did. “I don’t date—full stop. I’ve been a nun for a year and a half, remember?”
God, did that sound like a plea for sex? Was it a plea for sex?
Maybe.
She couldn’t imagine a better way to end a year and a half of chastity than crawling between the sheets with Dylan. Just the thought made her belly flutter and left her hot in all the right places.
Just stop! You’re on the job.