Page 65 of Dangerous Games (Tempting SEALs 2)

"I wanted to make a difference, too," she said quietly. "I hated secretarial work. Waitressing sucked. Law enforcement was there. And it taught me how to beat up on big, muscley guys." She shot him a smile over her shoulder.

"Reno's not going to be happy when he finds out. If Raven had done something like that without telling me, I would have been madder than hell." Or would he? Somehow, he wasn't so certain.

"No. You would have been hurt," she said with a thread of regret. "And he might be hurt. But I couldn't take the chance that he would pull me out of it. Or that you would."

And he would have; there was no doubt.

"I think of you sometimes when we're on a mission," he said, his brain seemingly disconnected from his common sense. "I think of you safe and warm, your eyes bright because you're mad at me, or because you're wanting me. I wouldn't have pulled you out because I was pissed. I would have done it because the thought of you hurt... upsets me."

The thought of her hurt destroyed him.

Silence filled the bedroom for long moments. The lights were low, the food scattered around the heavy wooden tray they had placed it on at Morganna's side.

"I can't be a pretty little doll that you and Reno take down from the shelf to admire or pick at when you have time to come home," she said, though there was no heat, no ire, in her tone. "The house is dark and empty, and now that Raven's married and she and Reno are trying to start a family, her time is limited as well. I need a life, Clint."

"You could have married. Had babies." He had voiced the same argument once before, while they were fighting, while they were hurting.

"The man sleeping in my bed wouldn't have been you. The babies on my hip wouldn't have been yours." She shrugged easily. "You shouldn't marry and have children if you can't commit all of yourself to that family. I couldn't do that with another man."

She made his chest tight, made his throat sting with the lump of emotion threatening to strangle him.

"I never wanted to hurt you," he finally said. "That's why I stayed away, Morganna. That's why I was cruel, why I tried to make you hate me. I don't want you to cry over me."

"Eh, hell, Clint, it's too late for that." Her laughter was easy, if tinted with regret. "We take one day at a time, right? When you have to leave, I promise I won't cry."

She turned her head to stare back at him as he watched her in confusion.

"At least not while I'm looking?" he asked as he let his fingertips run down her cheek.

Her eyes sparkled with a glimmer of laughter. And how the hell she could be happy right now, he didn't know. But she was, and, he admitted, he was as well. Right here, with her in his arms.

"Yeah." She finally nodded. "Not while you're looking."

She turned back then, digging into her food with gusto as he lifted his beer from the bedside table and drank from it.

"Here. This is good." She lifted a spring roll dipped in duck sauce and leaned forward for a bite.

"I didn't really care much for the Academy," she said then. "I've enjoyed working with Joe, though. And I spent a few months in intelligence gathering here in Atlanta. Processing the information that came in from the agents and fitting it with reports from informants and so forth."

"So why did you take this assignment?" He couldn't believe he had placed so much distance between them that he hadn't even known what she was doing.

He had suspected for years she was up to something he wouldn't like, but to investigate, to delve into it, meant getting involved. Getting involved meant this. While they ate in his bed, Morganna curled against his chest, sinking further into his soul.

"Because I was the only one in place for what they needed. And it mattered," she whispered. "What they're doing to those women ... Women I socialized with, that I had laughed with. It was too much."

Morganna shook her head with a jerky movement.

Clint tightened his arms around her waist and rested his chin atop her head. "When we lost Nathan, that's how Reno and I felt. Like a part of us had been wounded. No more fake Irish brogues, or practical jokes. No more crowing over the woman that loved him or the life he was going home to." He closed his eyes against the memory.

"That's how I felt." She curled closer in his arms. "I needed to do something to make it better."

Yeah, that was his Morganna, always fighting someone else's battles.

"If something happened to you, a part of me would die," he admitted. "If you were gone, Morganna, what would I have to fight for?"

She stilled in his arms then.

"Raven. The children she'll have." She breathed out roughly. "I don't ask you to quit, Clint. I know you can't quit. It's not a part of you. You're a warrior, and I love all of you, especially the warrior. But I'm not a baby, and I won't stand by and watch you kill yourself alone, because you're too stubborn to love, or to accept love. When this is over, maybe we both have some hard decisions to make. Because I won't go full circle. If you walk away from me, from what we have, then I'll go on. And I won't wait any longer for a man who so obviously loves being miserable more than he loves me."

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