Chapter Twelve
NATE
I didn’t mean to give into my desires for Ana, but my body just couldn’t hold back once she kissed me again. Having her body under mine felt more comfortable than I was used to. I wanted her, every last inch of her. Nothing in my head said that the moment was wrong at all; it was right. Even with me leaving in a few days, it didn’t matter. We both wanted each other and we were both adults.
“What’s that?” Ana asked as she looked at the stack of papers I had thrown on the coffee table.
When I first arrived back at the house, my first instinct was that someone had broken in. The feeling in my gut was horrible as I ran up the steps and into the living room. I tossed my papers onto the table and scared the raccoon that was pillaging through the garbage.
I still hadn’t been convinced that the raccoon had let himself in, though, and I screamed out for Ana. When she didn’t respond, I thought for sure she had been kidnapped again. But as I looked around and noticed that nothing else was out of place, I started to calm down. Except I still couldn’t find her. That feeling will forever be one of the worst I can remember: Ana missing.
We were friends and really nothing more, but for a split second, I felt so responsible for her. It was as if she was mine and I had left her behind to get kidnapped again. I hated the feeling of dread that had come over me and was so grateful that she had just been hiding in the closet.
Her touch was genuine and warm, and it made me forget about any promises I had made to myself to avoid her. I needed Ana. I couldn’t avoid her or try to turn her down. I needed her.
“It’s my research for my trip. Do you want to look it over with me?”
I was actually joking about having her look it over with me. We were both naked and curled up on the couch; it certainly wasn’t the best time to be looking over boring maps and blueprints. But Ana surprised me by sitting up and pulling the papers toward her. She looked intently at them as I slipped my own clothes back on and grabbed us some coffee.
“This all looks familiar to me, yet I’m not sure,” she said.
“That blueprint is for the Resolve Oil building and the street maps are a bit old, but those are the main streets in Damascus.”
Ana looked puzzled as she examined the blue print of the building. She looked so intently at it that I felt like she knew what she was looking for.
“I’ve been here. This is the building my father worked in. I know this place!” she said excitedly.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes. But when were these blueprints from? Some of this looks different. They had an addition on the back that was where the people lived. I don’t see that here.”
“I’m not sure. I can ask though.”
“Nate, you really shouldn’t go there. I have a horrible feeling about it,” Ana said as she sat next to me.
Ana was still naked and glowing from our lovemaking, yet she was genuinely worried about my trip. I felt guilty. Suddenly, I felt like a big schmuck and like I had taken advantage of her.
I knew I would be leaving on a job that might take me weeks, or even a couple of months to complete. There was no real telling how long I would be gone. When I did protection assignments, it was usually just taking a celebrity or executive to a location and then back home. I could do my intel and the job all in one week. But this was an extended assignment; this wasn’t what I normally did and I really had no idea just how long we would have to be in Syria.
“It will be all right,” I said as I handed her a blanket to cover up.
“I don’t need a blanket,” she teased as she sat there with a huge grin on her face.
Ana looked happy. Everything about her appeared soft, glowing. It was a good look for her. Her blonde hair sat messed up around her shoulders and her cheeks were flushed red. She was by far one of the most beautiful women I knew and my gut felt twisted in knots at the idea that I would be leaving in just a couple days and I might not come back.
I trusted my abilities when I was on jobs, but the truth was that every job had the potential of me getting hurt or killed. I had always accepted that without a worry before, but now I was apprehensive. Now I wanted to be alive. I wanted to see what was going on between Ana and I and the promise of being around her more was very alluring.
“You’re naked,” I said as I handed her the blanket again.
“Do naked people make you nervous?” She laughed.
“Um, no. Not at all. You can be naked all day every day if you’d like.”
“Well, I doubt Chase and Jordan would appreciate that when I’m staying with them.”
“I think they’d be fine with it.” We both laughed.
Ana climbed on top of me and straddled me again. My hands couldn’t help but reach around and grab her delicious ass. Her petite body felt like it was pretty damn comfortable on my lap and I wished I hadn’t rushed to put my own clothing back on.
“Maybe I should just go with you on your trip. I could help you navigate while over there. I did live right there for a whole year. I was a teenager; I’m sure everything will come right back to me.”
I busted out laughing without a second thought. There was absolutely no way that I would be letting Ana come with me to Syria, one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The thought was absurd. To even imagine beautiful, delicate Ana running around such a hellish place was not even possible.
Even if she had once known Damascus, things were different now. The country was in an all out war and everything was more dangerous than when she was there. The rebels didn’t care about the rules of war. They took women and children and tortured them. The rebels made men kill their own families before they were shot themselves. Damascus, Syria was no place for anyone to be traveling to, and certainly not Ana who had just been through so much trauma.
“No.”
“That’s it? No discussion about what I have to offer? You know, I might be of actual help to you.”
“I’m sure I could use your skills there,” I teased her as my hands slid up and down her ass. “But there is no way I would put you into any kind of danger like that.”
“Okay, okay, I guess I’ll just go be a baby nurse at Jordan’s house.”
I loved the side of Ana I was seeing at that moment. She looked so confident and ready to take on the world. I wished I could stick around and continue to watch her evolve and change. She had overcome so much in the two weeks she had been at my house and in the six months at the treatment facility. It was amazing to see her progress.
“Do you think you could walk me through the street map and some of the possible routes to the airport?” I asked, totally willing to use her expertise while we were able to work together.
“Sure, let me see those maps.”
Ana leaned back and grabbed the maps before she started to go over them. She looked at them so intently that she ended up climbing off of me and putting them back on the table so she could kneel down and follow the roads.
“How’s it look? About how far is it from the housing area where the families will be?”
She turned and looked at me with a very bleak expression. Something was troubling her and I could see it all over her face. There was something wrong.
“You won’t be able to use this map, Nate. They demolished many of these roads even when I was there ten years ago. This map is from the 1950s. You need a better one first. Also, it’s ten miles to the airport, so how many families are you trying to get out? You’ll need a few vehicles to make it happen.”
“Sure, I’ll get an updated map. It is sounding like we have six employees left there and their families. We will have a couple vehicles, so we should be all right. It will only take us a few minutes to get to the airport then, depending on the rebels.”
“Nate, these people aren’t going to just let you drive to the airport. What kind of RPGs or missiles will you have? Grenades? Machine guns? What are you guys bringing?”
Ana sounded like one of the guys as she discussed the weapons she thought we should bring with us. It was quiet adorable because I couldn’t imagine her really knowing or understanding what any of those things were.
“We will all have our hand guns with us and a couple guys have some sniper guns.”
Ana jumped up and put her hands on her hips. She had a look of absolute disgust on her face as she looked at me.
“No. You absolutely cannot go in there like that. You need tanks, machine guns, bombs—you need it all.”
“Calm down, Ana; we travel through war zones all the time, it will be all right.”
I tried to calm her concerns, but they were the same ones I had had many times over while traveling through war zones. We were never properly prepared and our equipment was out of date. Ana was right to be outraged, but I couldn’t tell her that.
This was my last job with my company. I would just have to do the best I could with what we were given and then learn from the experience before starting my own company. With my own business, I would make sure everyone had high-powered guns and bulletproof vests. I’d ensure whenever possible that our vehicles were also bulletproof. High-end clients were willing to pay high-end prices for the security they needed and I was determined to be that person who provided it to them.
“You’ve got a death wish, don’t you? You’re the kind of guy who constantly does dangerous stuff and you don’t care if you die or not.”
“No, I’m a skilled soldier. I know what I’m doing over there and I don’t need some twenty-something girl without war experience telling me what I need and don’t need while I do my job.”
The words came out of my mouth swiftly, and I regretted them instantaneously. If I could have paused time and rewound that moment to stop myself from talking I would have done it, but I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do, the words had already entered the stratosphere, and I watched in horror as Ana reacted to them.
“So, that’s the kind of man you are,” she said as she turned her naked body around and walked straight to her bedroom.
The slam of her door echoed throughout the house as I put my head into my hands in despair. I was the kind of guy who always ruined a good thing when I had it. Anytime a woman got close to me, I did whatever necessary to force her away from me. That was the type of guy I was and I hated it.