Page 54 of Trapped With the Secret Agent

He glanced at his watch. “About two more hours.”

“Ok.” She crossed her arms and sat down. “How much farther is it till we get to the base?”

Peter shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re angry with me,” he said, ignoring her question. “I practically jumped you.”

Georgia rolled her eyes. “And was I stopping you? No.”

His eyebrows crowded low over his eyes. “Well, why the hell not?”

“Because I liked it, you dolt. How many times do I have to say it?” She stood and quickly crossed the space between them to poke one finger repeatedly against his chest. “Did it ever occur to you that I might want you to kiss me, and yes, even touch me, too?” She spun away, raising her arms to include everything. “All this has been worse than any nightmare I could have imagined.” She stopped spinning to pin him in place with a look. “Except for you.”

They stared at each other for several seconds.

Awkward.

Her shoulders dropped and she sat back down. “I suppose you think I’m a nut?”

“No. I think you’re pretty damn incredible.” Peter walked over and sat next to her, carefully keeping a few inches of space between them. “And I understand the wanting. I definitely get that. But—” he rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced, “—it’s not something either of us should act on.”

In other words, he didn’t want her, not like she wanted him. Georgia stared at her dirty shoes. “Nope, you think I’m a nut.”

“No. No, I don’t. It’s just that, in a situation like this, what you’re feeling isn’t...entirely genuine.”

She flinched.What did that mean?

“It’s a product of the stress we’re under and the shit we’ve been through together.”

Georgia glanced up, then couldn’t look away. For a moment, need was etched harshly into his features. A need she understood all too well. She pried her gaze away, glanced down, and couldn’t miss the defined outline of his erection showing clearly through his pants.

Oh, my.

That certainly wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

Fine. If he wanted to ignore the elephant in the room—or the elephant’s trunk—fine, she could too. For all of five seconds.

“How long did you say until dark?” Georgia struggled to keep her hands to herself. She wanted to lean against him and touch him. Distraction. That’s what she needed. To do something, anything, to get her mind off sex and the man sitting next to her.

“An hour or two.”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He was sitting with his hands braced on his knees, his body relaxed. That needy look wiped from his face as if it had never been. How did he do it, settle down, when she was all charged up and ready to go.

Georgia reached down and grabbed the water bag, opened the lid and tipped it back to take a drink. “Water?” She offered it to him. He took the bag and drank as well. His head tilted back, throat working, and she had to suppress a groan. He set the bag on the floor, brushing her knee as he leaned down.

Georgia didn’t move away. She couldn’t. His accidental touch had her frozen in place. How she wished she could sit on his lap again. It was amazing how attractive the prospect of physical contact with the right man was. But she kept herself still and waited till he was sitting, relaxed again, before she allowed herself to move, even a little.

She was going to embarrass herself with all these lascivious thoughts involving Peter; he obviously didn’t want her. His body might react to hers, but she was the only female around.

“Have you ever been in a situation like this before?” she asked, hoping he would tell her the secret of how to get through this ordeal.

“Yeah, sort of.” He shifted on his crate, as if to get comfortable. “In Israel last year, there was a Palestinian gunman holed up in this little church in a small town just outside of Jerusalem. The Israelis surrounded the place with tanks and started firing at the church. I arrived in the area before the fighting erupted, to take pictures of some Palestinian families that claimed to have had members killed and homes destroyed by Israeli soldiers. I got pinned down with a man and his two children in a basement right next to the church. Shrapnel from an exploding shell hit one of the kids, but we couldn’t leave. The Israelis were shooting at anything that moved. We stayed in that basement for two days. That man held his son as the kid slowly bled to death, held him long after the boy died.”

“How terrible,” Georgia whispered, knowing that if it had been her, she too would have held her child till the end and beyond as well.

“Yeah.”

Georgia swallowed the tears lumped in her throat. She didn’t want to think about dying, if she did, she’d be paralyzed. The fear would make it impossible to move. A sob and some tears leaked out despite her best efforts.

“Hey,” Peter gathered her close, pulling her onto his lap once again. “Don’t worry. We’re doing ok. We’re going to make it, I know we are. Don’t cry.”

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