“Talk to me, Laurie,” he said directly behind her as his strong hands gently covered her shoulders.
Startled, she flinched hard. He moved so silently, like a ghost. She sighed, turned, and he dropped his hands. The warmth of his touch lingered and flowed into her. She tilted her head, peered into his eyes. Desire blazed in those dark chocolate depths. An answering heat rose in her and she leaned back against the sink. He moved closer, crowding her. She flattened her hands on his hard chest in a tentative push.
“No, Damien,” she said as she moved aside. “We can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I shouldn’t have .…” Her voice trailed off. His steady probing stare held hers. Disconcerted, she averted her gaze over his shoulder.
He frowned. “What’s wrong? You did what you wanted to do.” He leaned a hip on the edge of the sink. Grasping her chin loosely, he urged her to look at him. “What do you want?”
You, she thought in automatic response and drowned in his eyes. She barely managed not to say it.
“I just want to get through the next few days with my sanity intact.” She looked at him in confusion. She was here. This was her life, but she did not recognize it. She sighed. “I feel like I’ve been dumped into the location of a Hollywood action movie without a script. Next I’m supposed to fall madly in love with my rescuer.”
To her surprise, he laughed. A spark of amusement lit his eyes. His hearty laughter boomed around the room and infected her so she grinned at him.
“Well, in all the movies, the heroine ends up in bed with the hero at some point.” He paused and the brief humor faded. “The terrorists are still moving. We haven’t located them yet.”
“So they could be anywhere, doing anything,” she surmised, gnawing on her lower lip.
“What are we going to do?”
“As long as we’re here, I’m going to teach you to defend yourself,” he said. His tone forbade argument. He scowled and his eyes were very dark and impenetrable.
Learn to fight, she thought skeptically then conceded the merits of the idea. It wouldn’t hurt to learn to defend herself and Stacy. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you to do it.” His uncompromising stare bored into her.
She nodded slowly, thoughtfully, as she crossed the room. She sank onto the mattress of the sofa bed. Damien straddled the chair at the end of the table, leaning his arms across the back.
He studied her intently, silently, as though trying to fathom her depths. Uncomfortable, she squirmed under his scrutiny. She stared at the floor and finally looked up at him again.
“What?” she snapped waspishly, disconcerted. “Did I grow another head or sprout wings?”
An absent smile curved his lips but she read nothing of his thoughts. He only looked at her. A soft light entered his eyes, turned them from dark to milk chocolate. Tension faded and a gentle smile softened the hard lines of his mouth. For the moment, the solider disappeared. He ALWAYS A WARRIOR Patricia Bruening
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was just a man. She almost imagined they were just two ordinary people on the verge of discovering each other. She shook her head determinedly. There was nothing ordinary about them or the situation.
“Something wrong?” His eyes narrowed slightly.
“No,” she replied curtly.
He frowned but said nothing. She watched, fascinated, as Damien once again became the professional soldier. His face hard, he tensed. Alert and wary, he stood up and shoved the chair under the table.
“I’ll be back,” he said and grabbed his jacket off the hook by the door. He turned with his hand on the doorknob. “Just going to walk around.”
Laurie nodded. “Be careful.”
He flashed a brief grin and patted the gun he wore constantly on his hip. “Always.” He opened the door and the night swallowed him.
Laurie wandered around the cabin, stopping at a row of low bookshelves in the corner under the loft. Scanning the titles, she discovered Damien’s varied taste in reading material. She found history, military adventure, science fiction, action adventure, and even a row of romances on the very bottom shelf. She pulled one out at random, wondering who had read it. She could not imagine Damien McAllister reading romance novels. Curled into the corner of the sofa bed, she opened the book. She only managed to finish one chapter before sleep stole over her.
* * * *
After an invigorating walk through the woods to check the area, Damien returned to the cabin. He hung his jacket on the hook, strode across the room—and stopped abruptly by the sofa bed. Laurie was curled in the corner, sound asleep, with a book on her chest. He smiled indulgently, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. He bit back a groan of desire. It was going to be a long week if he kept his hands to himself, as she expected. Scowling, he locked the door and turned off the main lights. She wanted him. She had been all over him just that afternoon, more eager than he. The memories burned him, aroused him.