Miranda had said today, that tonight was the night. The men were going to be home. But still nothing. Riya felt like she was going to climb out of her skin. She reached for her moisturizer then set it back down on the nightstand with a thump. Einstein raised his head and blinked.

“Deal with it,” she told the cat.

She didn’t like this. She wasn’t happy, not at all.

She took a deep breath, then another. Better. Not good, but better. At least her skin wasn’t itching. It had been eight days since Gray had left on his mission with his team. The longest eight days of her life. She flung back the covers and shoved out of bed. Einstein gave out a half-hearted meow. He was getting used to her scattered sleep pattern.

And here she’d thought that work issues were problematic. She hadn’t had a clue. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this.

Riya padded to the bathroom and ran cold water into the sink. She pushed back her tousled braid and bathed her face. She looked at herself in the mirror. Yep, she still had the bruises under her eyes. It was the days of worry and being scared about something that she had no power over.

“You can’t do anything about it, so being upset is useless,” she told her reflection.

Yeah, like repeating that again would help.

Einstein rubbed his head against her calf. She blinked fast, her eyes gritty at the thought that her cat was trying to give her comfort.

“You’re a good kitty.” She looked down at him and wished he was young again so she could pick him up and cuddle him. But he didn’t like that anymore.

She continued to stare at Einstein, anything to stop her from looking at herself in the mirror. She didn’t want to witness herself falling apart. Riya closed her eyes and rested her hip against the bathroom counter, letting images of Gray float behind her eyelids. Gray’s smile, his intense looks, his arms around her, his kisses, him holding her, his breath against her temple, the comfort he provided.

Gray Richard Tyler.

Just Gray.

Please God, let him be safe.

She opened her eyes and stretched her neck, anything to release her tension, trying to figure out how she could be overreacting so badly. She’d been working with Miranda for seventeen months and met Griff more than a few times. She’d watched the two of them play with their daughter. Riya really liked the man. Sure, she’d been concerned when he’d been deployed, but that’d been the extent of it. What’s more, Miranda had seemed fine. Surely, Miranda hadn’t gone through this kind of torment. Not the bone-wrenching, trouble eating, not sleeping, poison-ivy-itching fear.

Riya leaned forward and rested her head against the mirror. Her breath created fog and she leaned back and watched as her finger drew a heart on the mirror.

“Finish it.”

She wrote G.R.T. and R.N.P. inside the heart. Yep, she was over the moon for this man. She was so far past the point of in love…was there a term that was more encompassing than love?

She rubbed her chest and tried to shove back the fear and the tears. This needed to stop. She bit her lip.

Please let him be as good as Miranda said, as good as I think he is, because I need him to come home. To me.

Riya left the bathroom depleted. She found herself scratching her elbow and plucked the moisturizer off her nightstand as she tried to think of a distraction. The only solution was work. It had helped her out just a little bit the first four days that Gray had been on his mission. She walked past the destroyed bed, and went downstairs.

She snagged her bag pack and considered her computer tablet, but then pulled out the new composition notebook she’d begun writing in when she’d returned to San Diego. She fished out a pencil then went and sat cross-legged on the love seat. Einstein deigned to jump up and push up beside her and lick himself.

“Still worried about me, huh?” Einstein just blinked and yawned.

Riya opened up the notebook and looked over what she’d documented the last three days since she’d come home from Washington. She thought about the argument she’d had with the Lieutenant General in charge of the project at the Pentagon right before he’d ousted her from the project.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, Sir. Someone has developed an airborne toxin that has the ability to affect only the Y chromosome. Obviously they’re intending to take it to the next logical stage.”

Riya could see the steam pouring out of her temporary boss’s ears. “English, explain this to me in English,” he’d said.

“Think of the applications. They’ve figured out a way to isolate a poison so it just impacts a man, while totally bypassing a woman. I can only imagine they’re going to try to pinpoint this down to other criteria like ethnicities, maybe even specific gene pools.”

“Got it, men versus women,” he’d glowered. “Are you trying to say they might be able to target actual families?”

“Yes!  Can you imagine the application if it wasn’t an airborne poison, but an actual treatment for a disease? I’m sure we could do things like target those people who were carriers of the sickle cell anemia gene. This is amazing work. I need to talk to the person who developed this.”

The general crossed his arms. “That’s not possible,” he bit out.

She thrust her hands on her hips. “It has to be. The potential benefits are extraordinary. This is a critical breakthrough.”

“You gave me the information I needed. It’s time you went back to your lab in San Diego.”

The next thing Riya knew, she was on a plane with all of her notes confiscated. Since she’d been working on a Pentagon computer and not allowed access to her personal computer, they’d figured she wouldn’t be able to retain the information. Were they nuts? She had a photographic memory for God’s sake. Couldn’t the idiots read her file?

Riya prayed that at least part of her brain could focus on work, and not on Gray. She bent over her notebook and began sketching out the sequencing she’d witnessed from the pathogen. There had to be a way to reverse engineer it.

“Dammit!”

Her pencil careened across the page, scratching over her writing. Then a huge grin broke over her face as the second bong of Gray’s distinctive text tone sounded. Riya untangled herself from the couch and made a mad dash upstairs to her phone.

Einstein yowled in protest and ran after her.

YOU UP?

Riya clutched her phone, and fumbled to answer Gray’s text.

YES.

CAN I COME OVER?

Her hands were so slippery that she had to retype the word, YES.

BE THERE IN LESS THAN THIRTY.

Riya looked at the time on the phone. It was three-thirty in the morning. Miranda had said that Griff had often come back in the middle of the night. Did this mean that Gray wasn’t even going home, he was coming straight to her?

She stumbled on the sheet that was hanging off the bed as she rushed to the bathroom. Einstein almost got caught under her feet.

“Any damage I do is going to be your fault,” she warned. Pinning her braid on top of her head, she jumped in the shower and screeched under the cold water. She powered through until it warmed up. Nothing was going to stop her from getting ready.

When she got out of the shower she took a long time smoothing on her jasmine and raspberry lotion that she knew Gray liked. She frowned when she saw all the scratch marks. Now she didn’t feel itchy at all.

You’re a mess.

Just went to prove that a genius was as prone to psychosomatic responses as the next person.

She pulled out the lace lavender bra and panty set that she had purchased when she’d taken her sister out shopping. She’d been petting the satin and lace at least once a day since she’d brought them home, imagining Gray’s reaction when he would see her in the lingerie. She shivered as she finally pulled it on.

She looked in her bedroom mirror and frowned when she noticed her hair. Riya yanked at the scrunchie holding her braid together, and dug her fingers through the long strands of her unwinding hair, trying to make it look nice.

Her doorbell rang.

For God’s sake, it had barely been twenty minutes. To hell with her hair. Who cared what she was wearing. She whirled away from her mirror and stubbed her toe on her dresser as she raced to her bedroom door.

“Fuck!”

Oops, she was only wearing underwear. She grabbed her discarded sleepshirt and started tugging it over her head as she headed toward her stairs.

Stop.

Get a grip.

At the rate she was going she’d end up with a broken leg at the bottom of the stairs.

Riya untangled her right arm and got it into the sleeve of her pink shirt, and pulled it down so it covered her booty. Grabbing the handrail, she pounced down the stairs. She could do that, she was holding the rail after all.

Be smart.

Go home.

Go to bed.

Be smart.

He should never have texted Riya. What was he thinking? He was exhausted. He needed sleep. Desperately. But he needed to see Riya. He needed to touch her. Feel her warm and vibrant skin beneath his fingers, feel her warm breath against his lips. To see her eyes filled with light and laughter. It wasn’t a want, it was a deep and compelling desire.

Gray relived those last few hours when he and his men were in Bahrain. As soon as they crossed the border, they’d been met by members of the Fifth Fleet. He and his men had watched as Chantelle Briggs and Emily Hoag were taken from their care and put on a helicopter. Then Gray and the rest of his team went back to NSA Bahrain, and were separated. Gray went to go meet with the commanding officer, while his men went to go get something to eat.

Captain Reese was a smart man who had received the video from Dex showing Acting Commander Harry Morris in action. Reese was also wise enough to realize that it was more than likely someone connected with Black Dawn had arranged for Acting Commander Dumbass to have papers transferring him to Libya.

“Morris is on his way back here,” Reese said with a steely glint in his eye. “I would have taken care of him on my own after receiving the video. I didn’t appreciate you sending him around the world.”

“Noted,” Gray agreed. There was no way he was going to throw Wyatt under the bus for having done this. Actually it showed some initiative on the kid’s part. But still Gray needed to teach him some discretion.

“Now that that’s out of the way, I want to tell you I’m impressed with you and your team. You knocked it out of the park. But who are we kidding, that doesn’t mean shit. You’ve impressed Baker, that’s who really matters. Plus, your plan didn’t kill him. Which I sincerely appreciate.”

“How is he?” Gray asked. He’d only gotten the one report that the former SEAL was fine after the crash that had sent him over the bridge.

“He ended up with a couple of broken ribs. Of course he reported for duty the next day.”

Any SEAL would have done the same thing.

“Any word on the women?” Gray asked.

“They were only airlifted to the hospital two hours ago, Lieutenant,” Captain Reese sighed. “I asked my assistant to interrupt us with any news about their status. They were taken to the same hospital used by the Prince of Bahrain. It has the best facilities in the country.”

“Are their families going to meet them?”

“Emily Hoag’s mother is coming in from Oman, the Ambassador can’t make it. It’s my understanding that Ms. Brigg’s estranged from most of her family, but a cousin is coming from Canada. The doctors have some concerns about both the women, for different reasons.”

Gray knew exactly what he was talking about. “I want to be kept informed, even when I return to the states.”

Reese gave him a considering look, then nodded. “You and your men did a damn good job. I hate the fact that one of mine got in our way.”

Gray really didn’t need to know why Harry Morris had been put in an acting commander position. It wasn’t his business. But what was his business, is that he not be in a position to harm anyone in the future. He put men’s lives at risk.

“Captain, with all due respect—” Gray began.

Reese cut him off. “I’m not going to go into a long drawn-out explanation,” Reese said. “What I will tell you, is that Morris will never be in a position to put another man or team in harm’s way. You have my word on that.” Reese got up from behind his desk and held out his hand. Gray shook it.

“Your transport is already fueled up. Hopefully, we’ll have an update on both women before you leave.”

Gray caught up with his men as they were walking to the plane. Reese’s sandy-haired assistant came running across the tarmac to talk to them.

“What’s the news?” Gray demanded as all of his team gathered around the young man.

“Ms. Hoag isn’t speaking to anyone. The doctors say that she’ll be good to travel home to California in a couple of weeks with her mother.”

“What about the Ambassador?” Griff crossed his arms staring down the smaller man.

The petty officer didn’t flinch. “I was told that the Ambassador couldn’t leave his post at this time, and it would just be Emily and her mother leaving to go stateside.”

Gray could feel every one of his team making judgements about Emily’s father, none of them good.

“I’m going to be keeping tabs on her,” Dex said. “Just because she arrives back in the States, doesn’t mean she’s off our watch.”

Gray’s men nodded.

“And Chantelle Briggs?” Aiden asked. “How is she doing?”

“She’s still in surgery.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “The doctor wanted me to tell you something verbatim. ‘Whoever worked on Ms. Briggs in the field did an excellent job.’” The young man looked up and grinned.

“You still didn’t answer my question,” Aiden glared at him. “What kind of surgery is Chantelle having?”

“Oh, one of her broken ribs ended up perforating a lung, and they had to go in and repair that. They don’t expect any problems.” Gray watched as Aiden relaxed the slightest little bit.

Dex turned to Aiden. “Don’t worry, man. Wyatt and I will be keeping tabs on Ms. Briggs as well.”

“Your ass would have been in a sling if you hadn’t,” Aiden glowered.

“Okay men, get moving,” Gray waved to the plane. “The sooner we board, the sooner we’re home.”

That was the only good news that the members of Black Dawn had before they loaded up on the plane. For the first half hour of the trip home, Gray replayed the mission, beating himself up. Was there any way that they could have gotten to the women when they were still at the resort? If they had, could they have saved Emily from the atrocities visited on her by Faizon and his son?

He allowed himself exactly thirty minutes of worthless thinking before shutting that shit down. He and his team would do a post-mortem of the mission when they got home, they would determine what went right and what went wrong. But analytically, Gray knew that with Harry Morris in their way, they got to Saudi Arabia as quickly as they could. Aiden and Dex had worked wonders figuring out the Golden Tulip, and they’d had no choice but to wait until the middle of the night to raid the boat.

It was a subdued group that landed in San Diego. Wyatt wasn’t at the base, and all the men left to go home to their women. Gray had intended to go home, there was no way he was planning on subjecting his dark mood on Riya. But here he was at her door, waiting for her to open it.

He heard the click of the alarm being unarmed, and then she unbolted the door, and there she was. He could breathe again.

“Gray?”

He realized he had been standing there without speaking.

“I’ve missed you.” His voice was rough.

She grasped his hand and tugged. “Come in.”