Private Maneuvers

Not yet.



He guided her against him, slower. Her other leg swung up and around his waist with the athletic fluidity that marked her every move.



Forget restraint. He secured her against the wall. Damned grateful for the support himself, as he thrust and lost himself in this woman. Knew he didn't ever want to walk away. Swore he would find some way to make this last as long as he could, as if that might somehow lengthen their time together before real life crashed down on them.



His eyes absorbed the vision of Darcy, surrounded by steam and him, water streaking down her face. A face so intense and focused on finding release even while prolonging it.



The need to finish twisted inside him, pounded through him in an urge to finally and completely claim her as his. Her breathing hitched, her full br**sts pressing against his chest faster with each deeper breath until—



Her cry cut through him, cut through his restraints. The strength of her release gripped him, sent him hurtling into completion right after her.



Water beaded down her head. Their bodies too close to let even a drop slide between, Max held Darcy backed against the shower wall while aftershocks ripped through them both.



This competent, incredible woman needed him, whether she wanted to admit it or not. She needed him. And for the first time in his loner life, Max understood what it meant to need someone, too. Totally.



And what it would mean to lose her.



She'd lost it. Totally lost it.



Darcy curled against Max's side in her bed and wondered where her will to fight had gone. She wanted to hide in this room and make love to Max until they both couldn't walk.



Of course, she wasn't sure she could manage more than a few steps at the moment after her bone-melting release in the shower. Max had carried her back to bed, so she still hadn't tested her legs yet and couldn't see herself rolling out of his arms. Not yet.



Too bad real-world worries and concerns didn't respect closed-door boundaries. She couldn't stop herself from asking, "What was she like?''



"Eva?" His eyes closed, he didn't even pretend to misunderstand as he stroked roughened fingers along her stomach. "Emotional."



Jealousy sucked. An overachiever all her life, Darcy couldn't swallow down the thought of coming in second. She needed to know the competition, the stakes suddenly too high. "I was looking for a little more from you than that, Max."



The backs of his fingers continued their lazy dance across her waist. "We never could figure out how we ended up together, both so damned different. But we spent so much time together working ops—"



"Working together?"



"She was CIA. I guess I never told you."



Shock pinched right along with the increasing sting of jealousy over a woman who'd shared so much more of Max than she ever would. "Nope, that wouldn't have come up in the past few weeks."



Since she'd barely known him then, either.



"Eva wanted out." Max's low voice rumbled in the cinder-block room. "Even before the baby, she'd been thinking about leaving the Agency."



His muscles contracted across his chest. She rested a palm against them until they relaxed under her touch, then traced up to explore the scar on his shoulder. "How did you feel about that?"



"It was her choice."



"And?" Her finger etched down the white line of scar tissue slashing through his dark tan. A knife wound. No question. How had he gotten that scar? Could he even tell her the circumstances if she asked? Given his job, there were things about his life, pieces of this man she could never know. Another obstacle to consider.



"Eva wanted me to get out, too." He opened his eyes and turned his head toward her. "I couldn't do it, Darcy. I couldn't buy into a scenario where we both taught Marine Biology 101 for the rest of our lives. I sure as hell tried. How damned ironic I ended up playing the professor to find her killer. Why the hell couldn't I have just made the change when she was alive?"



Her hand curved over his scarred shoulder. "The Dr. Keagan thing is a part of you, but it's not all of you. Not like being an agent is."



"So it would seem."



And how sad that the understanding should have brought them closer but only widened the gap. No way could she envision him following her around from base to base, swapping university appointments. Max wasn't a follow-around kind of guy. And she respected him for it, even as she wished they could both be different.



Max stroked Darcy's damp hair from her face and wondered how this woman had figured out so much about him in such a short time when he and Eva hadn't understood each other after years together.



"I didn't love her enough." Max ran his hands along Darcy's arm, stopped to cup her hip through the sheet. Would he be able to do any better by this woman?



"Maybe she didn't love you enough."



"Run that one by me again?"



Darcy tucked the sheet higher under her arms. "Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, or maybe I'm just being judgmental because I'm jealous as hell of her right now. But it seems to me you never asked her to change herself to be with you."



Her words rolled over him, seeping deeper. He would never reconcile not having been able to save Eva. Hell, it had been just a regular swim that day, since she'd already started her paperwork to leave the Agency—a swim that went all to hell after they'd made it through so many ops together unscathed.



No, he would always have to live with her death. But Darcy's words reached him. Yes, he and Eva had both tried like hell to make the relationship work. He may not have loved Eva enough, but he'd done the best he could then by her in life. Maybe with time he could accept that much.



Darcy winced. "Of course, now I'm realizing what a pain in the ass I must have been about my luau socialization invitation."



Max looped her dog tags around his finger and tugged her closer, nose to nose. "There's a big difference between asking a guy to quit the CIA and pushing him to hang out at a party." He loosened his grip, grazing his fingers across her delicate collarbone. "You don't have anything to be jealous of."



Darcy tugged her chain free and sat up. "I wasn't angling for anything with that comment. No need to feel pressured into thinking I expect more from tonight than we had."



"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" He wanted more—and more again, even out of bed when they had their clothes on. He wanted more time with her.



"I understand about adrenaline letdown. We both almost died this week." She wrapped her arms around her knees and pleated the sheet between her fingers. "We're...friends...so the stress is doubled."



Shock sucker punched him. Max sat up and turned her to face him. "You're kicking me out of your bed."



"I'm telling you that you can leave."



"Maybe I don't want to leave."



"Geez, Max." Her fists punched the mattress, pulling the sheet too damned taut against her breasts. "I'm being straight with you. Don't play mind games with me."



"I'm not the one playing here, Darcy. You're the one who's running scared."



She jabbed a finger in his face. "Don't you ever, ever call me a coward."



"Then why the hell are you so damned scared to have a conversation with me?''



He stared into her unblinking eyes and couldn't stop the replay of those same eyes sliding closed with pleasure as water streaked down her face. Why was he pushing this? He should just flip her on her back and slide into her until they both couldn't think, much less talk.



Darcy looked away. She rolled from the bed and to her feet, taking the sheet with her. She scooped her boots off the floor and dropped them into the closet.



She knelt to tug his T-shirt from under the bed. "We are talking."



No they weren't. He was freaking losing his mind while she played Molly Maid. "We're not talking. You're asking questions. Poking and prodding at my past. You talk and talk but you never share one damned piece of yourself."



Darcy shot to her feet and nailed him with angry eyes. "I told you about my father, and look what you did with that information. You used it against me."



"Okay. I deserve that." He pitched aside the light-weight blanket and sat on the edge of the bed. "But I think I also deserve a little slack because keeping you alive seemed more important at the time."



Her stormy face calmed, his T-shirt dangling from her hands. "What about later? After I learned the facts and wasn't operating in the dark. You could have given me the choice whether to stay or go. Except you didn't trust that I would make the right decision. You didn't trust that I can protect myself."



He grabbed the trailing hem of his T-shirt in her grip and dragged her forward until she stood between his knees. She'd demanded he open up to her and she could damn well reciprocate now that she'd unlocked the floodgates. He wasn't hanging out on top of this wave alone. "Why is being able to protect yourself so important? You still haven't told me."



"You know why." Her gaze never faltered, but her skin chilled against the embrace of his thighs. "You've read my file."



"That's not the same as you telling me." His hand grazed up to palm her neck. His thumb stroked her soft cheek. "You'll let me into your body, but you won't let me into your head."



She jerked as if slapped. Darcy hitched the sheet higher as if to shield herself.



Flinging his T-shirt in his lap, she backed away. "You want my guts spilled all over the floor? Fine. I was kidnapped when I was thirteen years old. An extremist terrorist group, who wanted the military base gone from the island, decided to make their statement in a big way."



Her words gathered force, rolling out of her in the hurricane he'd unleashed. "So they snatched me from a luau, right under all those damned flyers' noses.



They took me. They locked me up in an old World War II bunker and kept me there for a week."



The pain in her voice in spite of her composed face jolted through him with as much power as her words. Hearing, seeing what she'd been through shredded his insides. He'd witnessed scenarios like hers before firsthand while pulling someone out of a hell like the one she described. But this was Darcy.



Damn it, he righted these kinds of wrongs for a living. A totally illogical part of him wanted to have been there for her then. Resolved to be there for her now.



Boundaries be damned. He yanked her back into his arms and dropped her into his lap, her spine as straight and rigid as her unbroken will.



But she didn't pull away.



He stroked his hands up and down her back and let her talk. He'd asked for this, after all, and he would see it through for her.



She clutched that shield of a sheet in a white-knuckled fist. "If I made any noise, they threw bugs and rats in there to keep me company."



Max forced the red haze of fury away as he thought of what hell she must have endured the past weeks with all those "accidents."



He wanted to find the person responsible and kill him. Twice. Except her records indicated they were already dead, taken out during the raid to rescue her. "I'm so sorry, Darcy."



She laughed, a wobbly half effort that brought his arms tighter around her. "So, yeah, I have intimacy issues. I like my personal space. Big flipping deal. It doesn't stop me from getting up in the morning and doing my job. It doesn't stop me from living my life. And if I'm not living it the way you want me to, then tough. Just who do you think you are making me spill my guts like that?''



The answer burned in his gut, in his brain, words he'd never wanted to say again, much less feel. "I'm the guy who loves you, damn it."



Chapter 14



Darcy reeled from Max's words echoing in her head. Her intimacy issues were taking some serious boundary hits tonight.