Page 37 of Hazard

“Cockamamie idea? It’s not a stupid idea, Leigh,” he said, lifting his hand, his jaw suddenly so tight he could barely speak. “You’ve been through hell, and there’s no guarantee that they won’t come gunning for you again.”

She swung her gaze to his, and there was no mistaking the fatigue, wariness, and the healthy dose of fear he saw there. “You’re being emotional and protective, and I appreciate it?—”

“I am not being emotional!” he growled. “I am being practical and responsible.”

She shook her head, her eyes going bleak, her body trembling. “And you think I’ll be safe from the cartel in San Diego?” Her chest rose and fell more quickly. Her throat worked. Her cheeks drained of color, and she swallowed hard. Her words sank in for both of them.

Fuck him! He wasn’t thinking straight, and that was one other thing she had done to him. If she did go back to San Diego, he was going to be distracted regarding her safety. They would assign her bodyguards, but it was a less-than-optimum situation.

She wasn’t safe anywhere, except with him. That was the bottom line, and he was going to have to deal with what was between them. He wasn’t sure at this moment whether he’d wanted her to go back home because of the chemistry between them, the very fact that he couldn’t resist this woman, or if it was because he feared for her safety if she stayed in Colombia.

Maybe it was all of the above, but whatever it was he was feeling was moot now. The decision was made. She was staying, and he was going to keep her as close as he could, determined not to lose his focus.

But even as he stood here with her, he could feel the wild, pent-up passion between them, tempered by her fear. Never had a woman affected him on two primal levels, the one to bed her, and the one to protect her.

11

She tried to stay as quiet as possible so that she wouldn’t wake up Hazard. She stood in the doorway to his room, his body layered in soft shades of purple shadow and brilliant slices of moonlight. Her heart was still beating from that terror-filled memory of Conde taking away her ability to choose, and her relentless fight to get it back. It was weird how she hadn’t felt as violated as she’d felt powerless. Of course, she was sexually assaulted, there was no doubt about it. But it didn’t affect her the way she had thought it would.

It didn’t instill a fear of men in her—she’d seen who real men were in Hazard, his team, and her Marine guard. She shifted uneasily at the thought of him but didn’t know why. She shrugged it off as guilt at his death and returned to her previous thought. No, there was no mistaking the difference between Conde and the strong, decent men in her life.

And there was no guilt or blame she heaped on herself. She hadn’t gotten what she deserved for being reckless or unsafe. She had been attacked, held against her will, threatened, and beaten. This had all happened because she was pursuing justice by doing her job. She couldn’t fault herself for giving everything she had in that pursuit.

Most importantly, he hadn’t succeeded. He had been stopped by the man who supported her, pledged to keep her safe, and he had. He had come after her at great personal and physical cost, and danger after almost being killed himself. It was crazy that he didn’t see himself as the hero he was. He even tried to pass that honor onto his teammate, who in turn bounced it back to him. Yeah, these were quite the band of brothers.

Hazard had been…sweet, conciliatory, and careful around her, and it was getting on her nerves. Even three days afterward, he was still tiptoeing, and that made her feel even more fragile, too delicate, as if she was going to break at any moment. Maybe she was, would, could, but maybe that would also be a good thing. She wasn’t sure because she was in a transitory state of mind. She was re-thinking her whole life, the attack a catalyst to get her to see what she had been doing for so long. Isolation…in fear generated a kind of loneliness that felt familiar. Why? Oh, maybe because she’d been so goddamned lonely all through her childhood. And it pissed her off. She had never thought of herself as fearful. The whole thought process made her feel even more vulnerable. Once again, maybe a good thing.

She admitted to herself that she was still afraid, still experienced anxiety, but when she thought of Hazard, that thought always made her feel better. His presence made her able to calm some of her worries, which meant he had made inroads to breaching her armor, and that was a different source of anxiety altogether.

Her MO was to fight, every step of the way because not only did it feel good to stand up for herself, express herself, her opinions not tempered by expectations, but she just fucking loved the debate. Riling another person up often made them unpredictable, made them drop their guards some, and surprisingly, the truth came out of nowhere and God she loved that, too. Who wanted boring?

She thought about how warm and hard he was beneath that sheet and wondered at his reaction if she just climbed into bed with him, nonplussed because it wasn’t sexual at all. She just wanted to feel safe, and with him…would she? Could he take away this cold, empty, lost feeling, something she had long before she had been taken by men who wanted her dead, long before she’d met Jamie, in fact. A lifelong hollowness born out of…what?

She let out a hard rush of breath, telling herself that this was not stalking behavior, especially since he felt the same about her. She would never do to him what was done to her if she hadn’t been sure about his affection and sexual interest in her—something that also didn’t scare her. Should it? Would it when he put his weight on her? She didn’t think so.

It’s just that she couldn’t sleep, and when she did doze, there were so many horrors waiting for her in her mind. She wondered if he would understand that. If the whole of his team would understand her nightmares, suspecting they all had their own horrors to deal with.

She’d gotten up to relieve herself but feared going back to sleep. In the bathroom, she almost tripped over his discarded clothes. Reaching down, she snagged the edge of his navy T-shirt, and she brought the fabric to her nose, breathing deep. It smelled like him, all the male odors that made up that heavenly scent of him. She pulled off her nightgown, shivering slightly in her lace underwear, and slipped the shirt over her head and bare torso. She closed her eyes as the fabric fell over her skin, the tips of her nipples, and the surge of arousal it brought. Pulling at the cotton, she brought the collar to her nose again, and that’s when she’d drifted toward his room.

She bet he and his team would understand all about restless nights. Not for the first time since she’d been through the meat grinder of her kidnapping she tried to comprehend how they dealt with it day after day, in complete awe of their focused minds, their almost superhuman stamina, their strength.

Oh, who was she kidding? Her generalization was much too tame. It was all about the man who slept a few feet from her. It was all about Hazard’s mental toughness, his relentless physical power, his forceful personality all wrapped up in a hard, hot package.

She shifted her shoulders, the fabric rasping across her nipples again. Corporal…her Marine guard’s face haunted her along with that nagging feeling that she had forgotten something extremely important. He had given his life for hers, pure, stark, black-and-white reality, pure hero behavior. So what was it that was driving her crazy?

She watched the rise and fall of his impressive bare back, realizing that her breathing had just naturally synched with his. She absorbed the rhythm of his breathing for a moment, then unable to help herself, careful not to disturb him, she walked closer. Turning to the windows, she checked to make sure the one closest to him was locked. She eyed the other one, and unable to stop her feet, she drifted to it and reached for the release. Even knowing rationally that it was secure. Hazard wouldn’t have gone to bed without making sure. She felt a sick little knot of tension tighten up in her stomach, and she twisted the lock to make absolutely sure.

Then she turned back to the bed where she gazed down at his sleeping form, a strange kind of protectiveness unfolding in her. The sheet was pushed down to his waist, his exposed torso showing the delineations of thick, elongated muscles, lovingly defined by the brush of dark shadows, showcasing the hard ridges across his shoulders, and banding his sturdy and sexy collarbone, chest, and abs. Where the moonlight fell, his skin was a gleaming gold work of art, burnishing into different levels of hues with a patina’s corrugated shine.

The strong angle of his jaw was accentuated by a stubble of beard, harsh reality of running and gunning for hours, chasing her through the most dangerous plot of land in the world. Thick lashes, the color of a delicious caramel, rested against his cheeks, those lids covering compelling silver blue eyes, focused and intense with raw aggression when alert, soft and a bright luminous grayish blue when amused or calm. So many facets to such an intriguing man.

Careful not to wake him, she combed her fingers through the tawny thickness of his hair, gently drawing it from his forehead. It was so soft, and she loved the feel of the strands against her fingers.

If only he knew how much she needed him but was terrified of what that kind of need and thoughts would do to her independence. There were so many things about him that made her feel weak, but a million more that made her feel so damn strong. How did she reconcile all that?

She looked to the nightstand and there it was a black dangerous shape meshing with the darkness. She reached down and picked it up. The pistol’s grip felt solid in her hand. Of course, he would have a loaded weapon while he slept. He was in a dangerous business, every day, and she wondered again all over how he did what he did and remained sane.

His weapon felt good in her hand, powerful, the means to save a life or take a life, and she thought that if she’d had a gun, what would she have done when she’d been threatened? Could she have killed? He didn’t know that she knew how to use one of these, but she’d never fired it.

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