Page 34 of Stand Fast

At the sound of that familiar, deep voice behind her, she stopped and spun around. Zaid was striding toward her at a rapid pace, probably just having filed a report at the vehicle depot, detailing the sequence of events tonight, and the damage to the SUV.

“Hey.” Her pulse accelerated at the sight of him.

He rushed up to her, his tall form throwing a long shadow over the cold, frozen ground. “Are they questioning him now?”

“Yes. Meanwhile, our teams are being assembled in the briefing room. We’re trying to verify whether his story about Kandahar has any truth in it. If so, you guys are going to have to move fast.”

He nodded and ran an assessing gaze over her face for a moment, then glanced left and right before grasping her hand. “Come with me.” He tugged.

“Where are we going?” she blurted, trailing after him. They had an important meeting to get to.

He didn’t answer, just led her to a shadowy area between two small buildings and crowded her against the wall of one, moving in tight until his body was pressed to hers from chest to pelvis.

The breath backed up in her lungs, and any protest she might have made died in her throat. With him this close and her still revved up from earlier, she craved his touch and the feel of his mouth on hers. Reaffirming that he cared, proving that she was safe. She curved her hands around his thick shoulders and peered up at him in the dimness.

A tiny amount of illumination cast by an overhead light somewhere far to the left lit his profile and glinted off his dark beard, allowing her to see his taut expression and the intense gleam in his eyes. Hunger.

A surge of desire swept through her, sweet and hot, spreading out from where his hips pressed into her lower belly. The thick outline of his erection made her pulse thud and her mouth go dry.

He didn’t say a word and he didn’t need to—the look on his face mirrored everything she was thinking, feeling. They wanted each other, and all the reasons they shouldn’t get involved didn’t mean anything now. She didn’t dare speak for fear of shattering the spell and the heady rush of anticipation that made her skin prickle with a million goose bumps.

Staring into her eyes while the tension between them intensified, his body heat wrapping around her in a sensual cocoon, Zaid raised one big hand to cradle her cheek. The show of tenderness in the face of all that hunger undid her.

“Wait,” she blurted. She couldn’t kiss him again without telling him the truth. It would be wrong otherwise.

He froze and searched her eyes questioningly. “What?”

“It was me you met online. I used my middle name for my profile. Yasmine.”

He stared down at her in bewilderment. “You…?” He seemed at a loss for words, and she didn’t blame him. “Are you serious?”

She nodded and bit her lip, waiting for him to say something else. Praying he wouldn’t be too mad.

Confusion filled his expression, and the spark of anger that ignited in his eyes made her wince inside. “What thehell? Why didn’t you say something before?”

She groped frantically for a way to defuse this. “I didn’t know for sure until we talked this afternoon, and then I wasn’t sure what to say.”

“But you suspected? All this time and you never said anything?”

It sounded really bad, she had to admit. “Yes. And then I felt too awkward to tell you. I’m sorry.” The sorry was important, and she hoped he believed it was sincere.

His brows crashed together in a fierce scowl, her apology doing nothing to neutralize the situation. “Why? Why’d you bail on me like that? I thought we had something real happening.”

God, her reasoning sounded so stupid now. “We did. Then you wrote something and I…jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

“Huh?” He scowled harder. “What did I write?”

She blew out a breath. “That the man should wear the pants in the relationship.”

He stared at her in stunned silence for a moment, then exploded, “I wasjoking.”

She winced. “I know that now, but I didn’t then. I thought you were like the guys my dad kept trying to push on me. Controlling and conservative and…”

His jaw flexed, the angry gleam in his eye making her want to squirm. “A dick.”

She gave him a sheepish smile. “Yeah. But now I know you’re not like that.”

He shook his head and pulled in a deep breath, as though having trouble putting it all together. “So you’re saying I lost the chance of getting together with you months ago because of a misunderstanding over a goddamnjoke?”

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