“After this is over, can we have a date? A real date?”
He stepped even closer. “Like with dinner, and flowers and all that stuff?”
“You can skip the flowers. I’m not a flowers girl.” Her heart had begun to hammer until she couldn’t quite get enough air. She felt emotionally naked, so exposed that any wound now would run deep and last long. She was terrified in a way she had seldom felt before. Having a gun pointed right at her hadn’t been this scary. “Actually, I’m the kind of girl who’d probably give you the flowers.”
His smile widened. “What brought this on?”
“When I looked at you just now, I forgot everything else. You make the obsessions go away, Cade. I’d like to explore that.”
He reached her and slid his arms around her loosely. “Best reason for a date I’ve ever heard,” he said huskily, then kissed her.
It wasn’t a demanding kiss. In fact, it was almost comforting, but it invited her to lean into him, to lay her burdens down and just be in the moment. When he broke the kiss, she let herself do something she had never done before: she snuggled into his embrace and rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. His arms tightened, feeling like a bulwark but not a prison.
“I don’t know what we’ve got here,” he said a little while later. One of his hands began to run up and down the curve of her back, soothing her. “I don’t know if it’ll mean anything when we’re done. But I’d sure like to find out. So yes, we’ll date. More than once unless you discover you can’t stand me. We’ll find out where this might go.”
“Probably all to hell,” she said almost sadly. “My other relationships have.”
“So have mine. I guess neither of us is a good bet. But I’m willing to see.”
She tipped her head a little but could only see the underside of his strong jaw. “It’s scary,” she admitted. That left her even more exposed.
“I think anything that really matters is scary,” he said slowly. “I also think that you have even more experience than I do of staring fear down.”
“I don’t know, but I’ve had to do it more than once.” He was right about that. Giving in to fear, that one time in her life, had cost her a lot. She’d vowed never to do it again.
“After the rape,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“I was young, but maybe that’s no excuse. I allowed myself to be ruled by fear. Fear of what the command structure would do to me if I didn’t shut up. Play by the boys’ rules, if you follow me. I was a coward, and I’ve never forgotten it.”
“Grab your coffee and let’s go sit on the couch. I want to hear about this.”
They settled together, his arm still around her. “Tell me.”
“I think I already have. I could have fought them. I could have become such a pain in the butt that...”
“They’d have found a way to get rid of you. Like they did after your last case.”
“Frankly, while I wanted a career in the army, I was more afraid of getting myself killed.” It hurt to admit it, that fear she hadn’t wanted to face even inside herself. Now she was laying it bare. “Accidents happen. They happen in training, and they happen at other times, like when you get shipped to Iraq or Afghanistan. Or any other troubled place. I don’t think my NCO or CO would have done anything like that, but there was the guy I accused and his friends.”