Chapter Nineteen

 

Colby woke with her face mashed into a cushion, her room as dark as sin. The blackness of it slithered around her neck like an evil snake, coiled and smelling of sand and blood, blowback and sweat. How many coils to that serpent she didn’t know, but in the end it’d hiss and then it would strike. And when it did, men always died…

Afraid to move but needing with all her heart to run—to live!—she exploded to her knees, and just as quickly pushed to her feet. Guys should be bellowing by now. There should be more noise. More panic than just hers.

Dizzy, with her fists cocked and her heart popping off adrenaline bursts designed to save or kill, her blood pressure spiked to a solid number ten migraine. She stood stock still, waiting for the click and hiss of an explosive beneath her feet. From out of nowhere, a deep male voice asked, “Lass, what’s wrong?”

“S-s-snake,” she threw at him, the fool. What was Ash doing here? Now she had to protect him and them and… Where’s my fucking knife? She crouched, frantic for her ankle holster. Another burst of adrenaline and acid filled her gut.

She stabbed stiff fingers into her hair, scared okay? Just gawddamned scared! You can’t kill what you can’t see!

Out of the rustling dark, warm hands descended softly to her shoulders. Fighting the need to scream, she allowed them to tug her up from the floor and into—Ash. Unable to hide her tremors, she barreled into that bare wall of muscle, clinging to him even as her hands tucked into his chest. That damned snake couldn’t get her now, not with the sheer mass of this guy’s body surrounding her. Shielding her. Whispering ‘there, there’ at the side of her out-of-control, bobbing head while he cradled her. All of her.

“I’ve got you,” he soothed, his breath warm in her ear, his body cocooning hers even as her bones and teeth rattled, her head bumping his chin. “’Tis just the rain.”

But Colby was never afraid of inclement weather. “Light,” she hissed. “Turn on the damned lights.”

Lifting her off the floor, he sank back to the couch. The lamp on the end table clicked on as Ash pressed her tough, lean fighting machine of a body into his, and she let him. “I’ve got you now,” he murmured, as gentle as she’d never heard him before. “What’s got your heart pounding so hard? Take a deep breath before you give yourself a stroke.”

She swallowed hard, ashamed and embarrassed, her Mean Bitch cover blown for good. But how to tell him about this kind of bone-numbing fear? She wasn’t truly afraid of snakes or the giant spiders she’d seen in the desert. It made no sense, but somehow her brain had transformed RPGs and IEDs into serpents of flying, slithering death, the kind of lethality that lay hidden under sand and dirt until good men with loving families back home stepped in the wrong place. Until bodies blew apart and entrails flew like—snakes.

“It’s nothing,” she lied, panting still. Nothing but my brain on crack.

She hadn’t realized how much she hated the dark until the lights went out one night in Cambodia. In heart-pumping frenzy, she’d beat feet to her neighbor’s apartment, a good thing since he ended up being an ex-Navy SEAL who didn’t ask questions. Just gave her a safe place—with lights—to crash for the night.

The next day she’d lied and told him her toilet was broke. He shrugged and offered his couch for however long she needed it. Like a gruff teddy bear, Smoke Montoya let her bully him into letting her stay, but she suspected he knew. Yeah, guys like him knew damned well how dark the night could be. Maybe that was why he’d always kept a light on too? Hmmmmm. She hadn’t thought of that until now.

When Ash pressed a kiss to the top of her head, she let the truth out. “I sleep with a nightlight,” she whispered, only going to say this once. She—a tougher than tough Army Ranger—was afraid of the dark. If the guys from her squad could see her now.

“Then from now on you’ll be sleeping with me,” Ash said with a crack in that big gruff, tender voice, his fingers still cupping the back of her head, holding her close.

He couldn’t have said anything better. The tension eased out of her even as her tired eyes brimmed with tears she’d never let fall.

Colby swallowed hard, needing to explain. “They kill them all,” she began quietly, wiping her face against her bicep in one stealthy move. “Women and babies. Little boys and girls. Men. Husbands and fathers and…” A shudder got the best of her. “…grandfathers. Grandmothers. For no better reason than because they’re assholes.”

Ash tipped forward and back, rocking as if she were a little girl. “Aye, terrorists,” he breathed. “They’re everywhere.”

Nodding she loosened her grip on his poor chest muscles. Another gulp and she licked her lips, her knees still curled against his belly. “You never know when the next hit will come. Just when you think you’re safe—”

“You’re not,” he finished for her. “I’m from Ireland, remember? We have our own home grown terrorists who’ve been killing good people for years.”

Oddly, that, along with every thing else she knew about Ash, helped. Deliberately, she drew in a deep breath and let it go through her nostrils. Another warm kiss melted into her hair. “’Tis safe here, love,” he purred. “Sleep now. I’ll take the first watch.”

Colby couldn’t place the song vibrating under her ear. It sounded sad and happy at the same time. She only knew that maybe, just maybe, she was safe for the first time in years. Not only safe, but wanted.