Page 93 of Peace Under Fire

She wasn’t feeling quite brave enough to strut out there in her current attire, so she changed into jeans and a thick cotton sweater, and then headed for the door, bravado shielding her like a tattered blanket.

CHAPTER 23

Squish backed away from Mandy’s bedroom door and headed for the kitchen. Brick’s woman had dropped off a steaming pasta dish and a basket of garlic bread. He wasn’t a fan of Italian food, but according to Alaska, the dish was Mandy’s favorite.

How did she even know that? They’d spent what…four or five hours together and they already knew each other’s favorite foods? Apparently, the power of a girl’s afternoon was condensing a lifetime of personal information during the span of a few hours. They soaked in each other’s likes and dislikes. They memorized favorite foods, books, movies, television shows, and God knew what else.

He tried to imagine a bunch of dudes sitting around oversharing and shook his head. Yeah, not a chance in hell of that ever happening.

At least hunger had tempted her out of her room. With luck, her favorite dish would keep her out here long enough for them to talk.

Prior to her showing up at the clinic, he’d have suspected that towel incident had been staged, that she’d been trying to tempt him into an afternoon of headboard banging. Except he knew her better now. A lot better. And she hadn’t staged that event, he was certain of it. She hadn’t even known he was there. How could she? He’d given her no reason to believe that he cared enough to check up on her.

Besides, if she’d really wanted to tempt him, she would have dropped that towel. Instead, she’d clutched it to her chest like her life depended on keeping herself covered. She’d been embarrassed, not seductive—or at least she hadn’t been trying to be seductive. Not that she had to try. She’d been hot as hell, all pink and dewy and smelling of strawberries. He’d wanted to pull that towel away and haul her off to bed for a long, leisurely taste and touch, followed by a long, hard rocking of the bed.

He'd heard a joke once that men were always thinking about sex, and if a woman walked out in nothing but a towel—and she wasn’t asking for sex—she better run. He’d scoffed at that. Sure, he enjoyed sex, but he wasn’t obsessed with it. He sure as hell wasn’t about to attack a woman just because she was almost naked. He had some goddamn control over his libido. In fact, no woman, even at his horniest, had cracked his control.

Until Mandy.

Not that she’d cracked it, either—but she’d come close. The closest of any woman he’d ever met. That’s what made her so dangerous. That’s why he’d tried to drive her away. Mandy was different. He’d recognized that instinctively. It was the same instinct that warned him when an op was about to go sour, or when a new contact was unreliable. Mandy was unchartered territory—a region he couldn’t afford to explore. Because if he inserted into that territory, he’d leave behind a desolate husk when he retreated.

Mandy was better off without him. Better off in her cheery, sunshiny world, instead of his murky, dangerous one. He frowned as it suddenly occurred to him that her world wasn’t nearly as sunshiny as he’d assumed. She’d been a prisoner in her childhood, followed by years of hiding. Her life was far from roses and sunshine. It was trauma and fear mixed with optimism.

Because only someone insanely optimistic would have ventured out of hiding to find him.

He liked the Mandy he’d discovered over the past four days. He liked the way her snarkiness didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. He liked her stubbornness and the way she stood up to him and Grumpy. He liked her ability to look past hurt feelings and focus on doing the right thing—like leaving him that voicemail or coming to him when she needed help. That couldn’t have been easy after the way he’d treated her, yet she’d done it anyway, first to protect him, and then to protect her sisters. She was one of the most loyal and courageous people he knew.

He liked everything about the woman, including her ass and tits and the surprisingly long legs beneath that damn towel. He wanted those legs wrapped around his hips as he emptied himself inside her.

Judging by her behavior, she was looking for a hookup, and if that was the case, he was determined to be front and center. Pipe and Tiny and any of the other “gorgeous” dudes that Alaska said lived at the Refuge would be no better for her than he was. Sure, they’d all left their individual branches of spec ops, but a soldier never completely purged those memories. That’s why so many operators went through PTSD or ate their gun when they left their teams and returned home. The horror of what they’d seen or done sank in and simmered, ready to boil over when they least expected it. If she was determined to hook up with someone with that kind of baggage, it was going to be him.

When he heard the bedroom door open, he relaxed. There’d been a chance she’d change her mind and remain in her room. He grabbed a couple of plates, along with utensils and napkins, and put them on the counter. He sensed her presence as he lifted the lid off the pasta, but he was careful not to look. Instead, he took his time unwrapping the steaming basket of garlic cheese bread. He breathed in deeply. Pasta might not be a favorite, but the bread smelled like heaven.

“Alaska said she’d check in on you tomorrow.” Squish kept his voice casual, like he wasn’t having flashbacks of her all pink and dewy in that damn towel. Maybe that joke wasn’t so far from the truth after all.

“Oh my God.” She brushed past him—her ponytail swaying against the back of her blue sweater—and leaned down to breathe in the pasta dish. She sounded like she was having an orgasm.

Which made him wonder all kinds of things. What would she sound like when she came? What would she look like? How soon could he find out for himself?

“She brought shrimp alfredo, but with angel hair pasta. And cheesy garlic bread. I can’t believe it. These are my favorites.” She sounded touched, almost weepy.

He frowned. Her eyes had even gotten damp. Why was she so moved by this? Had nobody ever catered to her before? She had sisters, right? Hadn’t one of them made her favorite meal? One of them must have, at least on her birthday or something…right?

Back at the condo complex, she’d constantly offered home-baked treats to the residents—cookies, cupcakes, cakes, pies. Had any of them returned the favor? He sure as hell hadn’t, and she’d even baked him a German chocolate cake for his birthday. How she’d known that was his favorite cake—fuck how she’d known it was his birthday at all—had puzzled him back then. Now he knew it was because of his dreams, because she’d been sharing them for years.

She must know everything about him by now, and he knew virtually nothing about her. He hadn’t even known this was her favorite meal.

“When’s your birthday?” he asked, as he handed her a ceramic plate.

He’d ask Alaska what Mandy’s favorite dessert was and then make it for her birthday. How hard could that be? Recipes were simply about following directions, right? He knew how to read. Piece of cake.

Her silence alerted him to his misstep. Had the question reminded her of her sisters? Of happier times? Was she missing her family?

But the look on her face didn’t suggest happy memories. It was too empty, too lost, like someone remembering the worst day of their life. Except, in her case, that probably encompassed her entire childhood. She’d said earlier they hadn’t had parents, they’d had caretakers. Would caretakers organize a birthday party? Would they give her a birthday cake? Gifts? Make her favorite meal? Would they make her feel special, at least for a day? From that hellish look on her face, he bet not.

Damn, he wished he’d never asked that question.

Usually, getting her to talk about her childhood was a no go. Not surprising, really. Even hardened operators hated talking about traumatic events in their lives or careers—like their time as a POW, or events leading up to the loss of a brother. Spending her entire childhood in captivity would be difficult to share through casual chit chat, too. He got that. He respected it. So it surprised him when she gave herself a little shake and started talking.

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