Page 34 of Playing with Desire

The way he said those words made Summer’s heart squeeze tight in her chest.Don’t waste your love on someone like me... as if he didn’t believe himself worthy of the emotion. “I already did,” she said, tipping her head up a bit stubbornly. “Are you saying you don’t want it?”

He swore beneath his breath, frustration and something akin to longing swirling in his gaze. “Your love isn’t something I deserve. And I can’t, in good conscience, give it back to you.”

“Why not?” she said around the knot in her throat.

“Because it means you’ll wait for me, with all that love in your heart,” he said, his voice sounding as though it had been scraped raw. “And you’ll either get tired of waiting for me and move on or, worse, I won’t come back at all and it will fucking devastate you.”

She was going to be devastated if he left her anyway, but she refused to even entertain the thought or possibility of him never coming back. “If I know you love me, I’ll wait forever for you,” she said, meaning it.

Visibly angry and miserable at the same time, he jammed his hands on his hips, his gaze suddenly narrowing harshly. “Do you want kids?” he asked, his tone blunt.

His unexpected question startled her, but her reply was immediate. “Yes. Of course I want kids.” She also wanted a husband and family and knew this man in front of her could be all that and more.

“And what will you tell them when their father is killed in the line of duty?” he asked, his voice grim.

Tears burned her eyes and she did her best to blink them back. “You say that like it’s already been prophesied.”

“I’m being realistic, Summer,” he said, his voice gentling. “And I told you all this from the beginning. I can’t give you what you need. Not with me being overseas and embroiled in dangerous missions so that any contact with me would be sporadic. AndifI come home, all you’ll get of me is a few weeks a year. It’s not enough to sustain a relationship, and asking you to wait for me would just make me a selfish bastard.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to hold herself together. “Do you love me?” she asked, needing to know at least that much after everything they’d shared, emotionally and physically.

“What I feel doesn’t matter,” he replied, and there was no mistaking the sadness in his tone. “As much as it hurts you now, I have to let you go. It’s the right thing to do.”

There was no swaying him, she realized. She’d tried her best, had left her heart in his hands, and had failed to change his mind. Feeling her heart cracking wide open, she tossed the rest of her belongings into her suitcase and zipped it closed. Then she picked up her phone, opened an app, and arranged for a car to come and pick her up.

“I’ll take you home,” he said quietly.

“No.” She shook her head, hating the way her trembling voice betrayed her fraying emotions. “I already requested an Uber, which should be here in a few minutes.” She was on the verge of an emotional breakdown, and she couldn’t stand to draw out their goodbye any longer. “It’ll be easier on both of us this way.”

“I don’t want you leaving like this,” he said gruffly.

“Like what?” she asked, setting her bag on the floor so she could wheel it out to the curb when her car arrived.

A muscle in his jaw tensed. “Upset.”

“I’ll be fine,” she lied, and then she closed the distance between them and gave him a hug, because she needed to touch him one last time. Relief swept through her when he wrapped his arms around her and embraced her, too, holding on like he didn’t want to let her go. She believed that was true, even if his earlier words said otherwise.

Ending the hug, she stepped back and grabbed the handle of her suitcase, forcing herself to meet his tortured gaze. “Take care of yourself, Declan.”

With nothing left to say, and blinking back another hot rush of tears, she left before she broke down right there in front of him.

“I hope youknow what a fucking idiot you are.”

Declan turned his head from the passenger window, where he’d been brooding and staring out at the desert landscape, and glared at Rick, who was driving him to Fort Irwin. They were about an hour outside of San Diego, and Declan had pretty much shut down any attempt at casual conversation that Rick brought up. He wasn’t in the mood to chitchat, but this blunt, insulting statement from his stepbrother was like a hot poker to his current surly attitude.

“Yeah?” he drawled, his tone deliberately rude. “And why is that?”

“You know fucking why,” Rick replied, just as annoyed and clearly not bothered by Declan’s boorish demeanor. “Because Summer is the best thing to ever happen to you. The one woman I’ve seen you want for yourself since Julianne. And instead of giving Summer some kind of hope to cling to, you just pushed her out of your life. Fucking. Idiot.”

“That’s all it fucking is,” he shot back irritably. “Just hope. No guarantees. You know that as well as I do.”

Rick cast a quick glance at Declan before returning his gaze to the road. “I also know that Summer is the kind of woman who would wait for you.”

“I refuse to ask her to do that.” He glanced back out the window, hoping it was the end of their argument.

“So you’d rather lose the one woman who means something to you?” Rick pressed, clearly not taking Declan’s cue. “Possibly to another man?”

Declan gritted his molars and decided if Rick wasn’t driving, he would have tackled him to the ground and beat the crap out of him for that comment. “I can’t afford the goddamn distraction while I’m out in the field. Thinking about her. Worrying about her when there isn’t a damn thing I can do when I’m in another country, fighting terrorists and shit. I chose this life, and this is part of the sacrifice.”

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