“Yes. I had to put him in worse pain because I had to dig the bullet out. He screamed. God, I can still hear it and I couldn’t do anything but stuff a rag in his mouth because they were everywhere. I could hear them moving around, shouting at others to look for us. They actually came in at one point. I hid us under some garbage. I kept my hand over his mouth so he couldn’t cry out. I damn near suffocated him. Do you know what I felt like in that moment?”
Powerless. He would have been utterly out of control and praying to anyone who would listen to save him. How humbling must that have been for a man like Derek? She couldn’t help it. She was stupid. Utterly ridiculous. She knew it was dumb, but she softened toward him. Her heart was an ignorant thing. It just kept reaching out.
“How did you get out?”
There was a long moment where she worried she’d lost him. He would go back to his couch and she to her bed, both in their respective corners, and the fight would begin again in the morning like nothing had happened the night before.
“He bled out.” The words sounded hollow, utterly haunted. “I tried to tie the damage off. I tried to stay up so I could watch over him. But I fucking fell asleep and when I woke up he was dead. He was twenty-three years old. I’d promised to get him back to his family.”
“I’m going to open the door now.” She couldn’t just sit there when he obviously needed affection.
She heard him shuffling, moving even as she opened the door. And then he was there, his muscular body seeming to shrink in on itself.
“You can’t be around me when I’m like that, Karina. I could have hurt you.”
She followed her instincts now and walked right up to him. He didn’t move as she folded her arms around him, tucking her head under his chin. “I wasn’t going to let you hurt me, Derek. I had a plan.”
It took him a couple of seconds, but his arms wrapped around her, squeezing her tight. His big palm came over her head in a protective gesture that warmed her. “What was your plan?”
It felt so good to be in his arms. The man knew how to hug. He enveloped her, surrounded her. She couldn’t help but cuddle closer. “I kissed you because I figured the dream was from your Army days. I’d tried to talk you awake, but I figured you probably hadn’t kissed your Army buddy a whole lot.”
He chuckled and she felt it all along her spine. “No. I hadn’t even kissed Jones once. It was effective. You stayed calm, didn’t you? I didn’t really worry you at all.”
She would bet he’d freaked the hell out of other women. “It takes a lot to panic me, Brighton. I know you don’t like it, but I can handle myself. And I can handle you. You weren’t going to hurt me.”
“I almost killed Maia once. I thought I was trying to keep Jones quiet, but she was smaller than him. I covered her nose, too. She couldn’t breathe. She hit me, but I didn’t wake up. She finally managed to pick up a glass on the nightstand and broke it over my thick skull.”
So he had his reasons to be worried. “I’m not Maia. I’m bigger and stronger than she is. I bet she hasn’t had the same self-defense training I’ve had.”
His hands began to stroke her. One flowed over her hair, the other down her back. “Yeah, she wouldn’t have thought to kiss me. Do you think you might want to kiss me in some situation other than trying to save your own life?”
Such a drama queen. She lifted her head and found him staring down at her. Heart-stoppingly sexy. That’s what he was. With his sleepy eyes and that sexy beard of his, she couldn’t quite look away from him. And his lips. Oh, they were plump and sensual and she wondered what it would feel like to have those lips on her body, worshiping her skin, kissing and licking and sucking.
She had a choice. She could step back and go to her widow’s bed or she could make one small move and the night wouldn’t be spent alone. She would spend it in his arms and she would finally know what it felt like to be Derek Brighton’s woman—even if only for a little while.
With a shaky breath, she went on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
* * * *
Derek’s whole body reacted to her. His heart pounded, his skin tingled. Every available ounce of blood seemed to flow right to his dick. She was saying yes. She was offering herself, and he wasn’t about to turn her down.
The need to burn off the dream was riding him hard. When he’d finally woken up and found Karina’s body trapped under his, he’d damn near lost it. He could have hurt her, could have killed her. It was precisely why he didn’t sleep with women. He fucked and pleasured and found his comfort in their bodies, but he went to his own bed so he couldn’t hurt them.