You are such a fucking idiot, McBride! Why did you buy the thing? Haven’t you been tortured enough lately?
Oh, but this was a completely different kind of torture, as sweet as it was unbearable—and much more likely to break him.
Through a testosterone fog, he realized she was watching him.
“Thank you.” Her cheeks glowed a delectable shade of pink. “It’s beautiful.”
He wanted to tell her that the gown was only beautiful because she was wearing it, but he was too caught up defending himself from the part of him that wanted to kick his own ass. “I was half-asleep when I grabbed it. I think it was all they had.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed crimson, and she turned away from him, her hands suddenly busy drawing down the covers and plumping pillows.
The sight of her hips and sweet ass swathed in silk shorted out his brain, so it took him a moment to realize that he’d hurt her. Well, it had been years since he’d spent any real time with a woman. Obviously, he’d forgotten everything he’d learned about dealing with females—which probably hadn’t been much in the first place.
Son of a bitch!
Sexually frustrated, irritated with himself, he went back to what he’d been doing. But there’d been a change of plans. Rather than setting the Glock on the nightstand, he carried it to the table together with the duffel bag of weapons and ammo. He drew one of the chairs into the corner beneath the AC and leaned an AK against the wall beside the chair. He told himself this position would enable him to look out the window and keep an eye on the parking lot. But the truth was that it would keep him from lying in bed beside Natalie.
You handled it last night, and she was only wearing a towel.
Yes, but last night he’d been half-dead. Tonight, he was half-hard.
He turned to face her, found her crawling beneath the covers. He grabbed one of the Glocks, and set it on the nightstand next to her. “At the first sign of trouble, run into the bathroom and lie down in the tub. And take this with you. Understand?”
“Yes.” Her face expressionless, she looked up at him, then glanced over at the chair. “Are you sleeping there? It doesn’t look very comfortable.”
“I want to keep an eye on the parking lot.”
She propped herself up on an elbow, raised a graceful brow. “While you sleep?”
“I’ll catnap.” He took off his shirt, tossed it onto the table, then clicked off the light, neon from outside flickering red through white curtains. “Get some rest.”
He went and sat in the chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and kicked his feet up onto the table, settling in for the night. Overhead, the AC rattled.
It was going to be one long damned night.
CHAPTER 13
GRITTING HIS TEETH against agony, Zach switched his M4 into full auto mode and fired, spraying the hillside, trying to take out as many damned Taliban as he could before they could reach his element. He hoped the men would hear his shots and recognize the sharper retort of his M4 over the AK fire echoing through the canyon. Hopefully, they’d turn and see the fighters coming up behind them. If they didn’t . . .
Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat! Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat! Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat!
Sweat stinging his eyes, he emptied his magazine, the recoil making the pain in his back that much more unbearable. But he didn’t give a damn about pain, not when his team was depending on him for their survival. Across on the opposite hillside, bodies dropped, wounded men crying out, others running for cover as the Taliban fighters realized they were under fire. One walked in mindless circles, clutching the stump of his arm, as if looking for the rest of it.
Zach needed more ammo, but the spare ammunition was in his pack a good three feet away. He dragged himself inch by inch across the ground, the pain in his back tearing through him. He reached with bloody fingers, grabbed a full magazine and a fistful of stripper clips, then shoved the magazine into place and raised the weapon. But by then most of the Taliban fighters had already disappeared down the side of the hill, out of his sight. He opened fire again, taking down a handful of stragglers, including the man whose arm he’d shot off.
Then from down in the valley he heard it—the frenzy of metallic AK-47 fire as the Taliban who’d made it down the hill—the ones he hadn’t gotten—started shooting. Beneath it, he could just hear the steady fire of three M4s and Jimmy’s HK MP5.
And then . . .
The explosion of an IED and a cry.
Brian?
Fuck! Fuck, no!
His element, his team, his friends—they were dying.
Zach tried to crawl to the edge of the cliff, inching his way forward, but he’d lost too much blood, black spots swimming before his eyes. He looked skyward, hoping to hear the sound of a Blackhawk. “Come on, goddamn it!”