Chapter 8
As they got into the car to leave that night, Penny hugged Tesla. “Thank you for a lovely afternoon and evening.”
Tesla beamed. “I’m really loving these barbecues with everyone. Sometimes it seems like a lot of work, and then everybody comes with some dish I haven’t tasted before, and I realize how great it is to be together, sharing a meal.”
“It was lovely.” Penny got into the car with Warrick and realized Tanner already sat in a vehicle off to the side. She frowned. “Why is Tanner still on guard duty?”
“Why not?” Warrick asked.
“He’s got to get rest sometime.”
“And he’ll take it when he needs it,” Warrick said. “Don’t worry about Tanner. He’s an old hand at this.”
“An old hand at what?”
“Tracking people.”
“Yeah, but he’s tracking us, and we’re not exactly hard to find,” she said in exasperation. “Surely he should be tracking George.”
Warrick turned to look at her and smiled. “He already is.”
“What do you mean? Has he located him?”
“He’s got a line to tug. We’re just waiting for a couple other men to show up to give us a hand.”
She glared at him. “Give us a hand. What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, we don’t want Tanner heading off on his own, do we?”
She frowned. “No, he might get hurt that way.”
“And I can’t leave you. So we need somebody to back up Tanner.”
She sighed. “When did life get so complicated?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he said. “This is what we have right now. Don’t worry about the what-ifs or make any decision about anything else.”
She shrugged. “Easy for you to say. Who are you waiting for to go with Tanner?”
“Corey. He’s been out all day with Angela, his new partner. But her sister and husband have just arrived, so he’s coming out for the evening to give us a hand.”
“You really want to go after George yourself, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, but I’m not doing anything that puts you in danger.”
“But we don’t think anybody will find me at your friend’s place, so why don’t you drop me off there, then go help him?”
He smiled. “Not happening. I have no intention of leaving you alone.”
The trouble was, she didn’t want to put anybody else in danger either. “It’s really an uncomfortable situation to be in,” she said.
“Yeah, it is, but you’re doing really well with it.”
She laughed. “Hardly.”
They approached the base’s security gates again. She watched as Warrick handled the man with the ease of long practice, and before long they headed back to his friend’s apartment.
“I’m under really good security here,” she said. “Why can’t I stay here alone, and you can go off with Tanner?”
“Oh, break my heart with all that gratitude,” he said.
She gazed at him in exasperation. “What is it that you want me to say? Of course I’m appreciative of you looking after me.”
He shook his head. “Not an issue.”
“You see? That’s part of the problem. It’s as if you would do it for anybody.”
“And maybe I would,” he said. “I would certainly help anybody in need. I mean, if a situation wasn’t of your choosing, and it descended on you, obviously I’ll do what I can to help.”
And with that she had to be happy. But, at the same time, something about his response pissed her right off. As she sat and steamed all the way back to the apartment, she realized how intensely angry this whole thing made her. She hopped out of the vehicle before he could come around to her side and slammed the door harder than necessary. His eyebrows went up, but she stormed past him into the front doors of the apartment building. “I’ll take the stairs and meet you up there.”
But he drew her inexorably toward the elevator.
She tapped her foot on the floor with her arms crossed over her chest as they waited for the elevator to show up. When it did, several people got off. They got in, and now it was just the two of them. In close quarters again.
He punched in their floor number, and she never said a word.
She felt his gaze on her but ignored him. She knew being angry was unreasonable. The man was just helping her out. And she didn’t fully understand her reaction either, except for the unrelenting presence of her pent-up anger rushing through her.
“We’re almost at the apartment.”
She shot him a look. “I can tell what floor we’re on.”
He didn’t say anything further.
When the door opened, she got out and marched toward the apartment. Then, being ahead of him, she had to wait for him to catch up. He unlocked the door, and she went in. She dumped her stuff in the bedroom, pulled out her laptop, walked to the kitchen, laid it down on the table, plugged it in and tried to bury herself in her emails. She looked up to see him heading toward the bedroom and on into the en suite bath. And she realized how late it was.
But she was still so pissed off that she didn’t figure she’d get to sleep anytime soon. And yet, at the same time, she also knew she was being childish. She stood, went in the bedroom and checked her bag, and, sure enough, she had a pair of baby doll pajamas in there. With relief, she headed to the hall bathroom and got changed.
He still wasn’t out by the time she returned, and she thought she heard the shower going. Now a shower would be nice, but no way could she handle that right now.
It had been a very long day after a very short night. Her toiletry bag was in the overnight bag as well. She went back to the other bathroom and brushed her teeth. As she walked past her laptop, she closed the lid so it would go to sleep. On her way back to the bedroom, she realized Warrick still wasn’t there.
Finally she got into bed on her side and thought maybe she’d find a way to calm down before he came out and she blasted him. She knew it wasn’t fair, and she knew she needed to shut her mouth and just accept the situation. Trouble was, that wasn’t exactly her way. She turned out the light on her side and tucked under the covers. She should be tired.
She’d only gotten a few hours’ sleep the previous night, and today she’d been a bundle of nerves. It was bad enough to think George was out there looking for her, with at least two more guys thinking she could lead them to George.
By the time Warrick opened the bathroom door and came into the bedroom, she had herself pretty calmed down.
And then he did it. “Still pissed off at me?”
She stiffened in bed as he sat down on the edge, but he didn’t lie down. She had no idea if he was planning to sleep here beside her or on the couch. In her mind she was quite prepared to let him stay here like she had last night. But being waspish as she was, she wanted to snap at him and tell him, if he was a gentleman, he’d sleep in the other room. So she refused to answer him, knowing if she spoke now, she would end up feeling foolish later when she finally calmed down. Numerous times she’d let her mouth run off in the wrong direction, and she’d regretted it majorly afterward.
“Quite a little temper you’ve got in there, don’t you?”
She bit her lips together, refusing to let him get her all riled up. Trouble was, she was already there.
“What’s the matter? You didn’t like me saying I’d help anyone?” He slipped under the covers, stretched out beside her. “Of course I would. It’s what I do.”
And then he rolled over, presented her with his back, turned out his light, and it seemed like he relaxed. But the longer he relaxed, the less she did. Finally she straightened up and looked over at him. “But you didn’t have to make it sound like I was just anybody on the street.”
She studied him for a long moment because no answer came. “He can’t be asleep can he?” she whispered to the room. And then she realized the bed was moving. His shoulders were moving; in fact, his whole damn body was moving. He was laughing at her.
She bounced to her knees, reached for the pillow and whacked him over the head and body. She didn’t know how long he had been silently laughing at her, but it seemed like he’d been laughing out loud at her forever. She hit him and hit him and hit him, and he let her.
Finally she expended all her energy and tried to catch her breath, him lying on the floor, still laughing uproariously at her. She stared at him. “When the hell did you get on the floor?” she asked in bewilderment.
“A few minutes ago. You were so busy wailing on me that you didn’t even notice.”
She groaned. “I do have a bit of a temper. And you seem to be really good at making me mad.”
He bounced back onto the bed, retook his spot where she’d been hitting him and said, “Of course your situation is very different than me helping anybody around the world.”
She shook her head. “It’s no different at all. I wanted to be special. I wanted it to be maybe the sign we were getting along okay, and you wanted to help me because you were helping me, not just because you were helping someone in need.” She flung her pillow on him and stretched out, almost falling flat on her face on the bed.
He was chuckling so hard, and, at this point, she felt very sad. Since when did she become such a complainer? But she really liked him. Even if he did spark her temper more than he should.
“It doesn’t matter if I would help everybody else in the world,” he said, “because the one person I am helping right now is you.”
“That’s not helping,” she announced.
He whispered against her ear. “I know. What you really want to hear is that I’m doing this because I want to help you, because I want to keep you safe. And I am doing it to keep you safe.”
She shook her head. “Oh, no, that’s too little, too late.”
He rolled her onto her back and glared down at her. “Oh, it is, is it?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. If you wanted to make me feel better, you could have done that a while ago. Not now.”
“I have no intention of trying to make you feel better,” he said.
Her heart lurched as she sat upright. “Why not?” Her temper spiked again. Her argument even sounded foolish to her as she realized she was going on the attack again.
“Why not what?” he asked.
And then she caught the glint of laughter in his eyes. “Why aren’t you wanting to make me feel better?” She glared at him. “You know you’re making me nuts, right?”
He shook his head. “Sweetie, you’re already nuts.” And he leaned over and kissed her.
*
It was all Warrick could do to not cry out as she pulled from his embrace. His body had hit the flashpoint, and he knew sex with her would be incredible. Hot, fast, furious. And his body was already screaming as she withdrew from him. He reached out and held her once more.
She shook her head. “No way you’ll woo me into having sex with you,” she declared.
He could see the resistance in her. But he wasn’t sure if it was resistance of her, of the situation or of him. “Isn’t there?” he asked, his body responding to the term sex. Just like any teenage boy, his body was more than ready to take the next step.
She glared at him. “And none of those hot slumbering gazes my way either, please.”
He chuckled. “Well, I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. It’s an interesting concept though.”
She shook her head. “No, no, no. Not the time, not the place and probably not the right person.”
That surprised him. As far as he was concerned, they were moving toward this point very rapidly. He frowned. “And here I thought we were becoming much more than friends.”
“I don’t know if we are or not. But remember your vow of celibacy?”
He stared at her. He dared not laugh. But it was hard to contain the twitch of his lips. “I said I was trying out celibacy. I certainly never made a vow of celibacy.”
She shook her head. “No. No way you’ll let something like this stop a much deeper path.”
It took a moment to figure out what she was talking about, and then he said, “Are you trying to say you don’t want a flash-in-the-pan sexual encounter to derail my celibacy attempt?”
She gave a clipped nod. “Exactly.”
Once again he was hard-pressed to hold back the humor. The last thing he wanted to do was insult her. Again. “I tried out celibacy,” he said gently. “But since meeting a firepot whose kisses I can’t seem to get enough of—neither can I stop touching whatever part of her body she’ll let me touch—therefore, celibacy has been the last thing on my mind. I made a decision to try it, and now I’m making a decision to not have celibacy in my life.” He stroked a finger across her cheeks, around the edge of her chin and then down the nape of her neck. “But that’s my decision. Not yours.”
“I don’t want to be responsible for taking you off a moral path.”
At that, he had to chuckle out loud. When he calmed down enough, he whispered, “I was looking for more than a one-night stand. I wanted sex that would make me feel fulfilled. A relationship with a woman I can hold in my arms past that initial night. I wanted to wake up in the morning to see the person beside me and smile. What I didn’t want was that emptiness. Finally I figured out that a lot of that emptiness was inside me—my selection process, my take on what is a relationship. I wasn’t choosing to have deeper, more meaningful relationships. I think having a lot of relationships, if that’s what both parties want, is fine. But, at some point, I wanted something else. And I needed to do some work. On myself.” He made sure there was no confusion here. “And now I’ve met somebody who not only am I attracted to, as is obvious”—he rotated his hips, leaving her no doubt about how he felt about their current position—“but she’s also somebody I admire and respect. I also seem to have a penchant for freckled redheads who have tempers.”
“No stereotyping me please.” Her voice was softer.
He could see her resistance already easing back. And that worried him. “I didn’t choose celibacy as a vow against sex. I chose celibacy as an option to find out what I really wanted in a relationship.”
She gave a happy sigh and sank down against his chest, her arms crossed over his back muscles. “Not many men would talk like that.”
“I’m not many men,” he said.
“Most men are turned off by my temper,” she admitted.
“Of course they are. Makes them feel threatened. There’s a time for every emotion. The worst thing we can do is keep it all stored up inside. Much better to have a healthy outlet than to keep it bottled up where it’ll cause disease over time.”
“My mother was like me. But she was very Italian. She and my father fought all the time. But they always made up just as nicely.”
He grinned. “And I bet many times your father pricked your mother’s temper just so the makeup sex would be fantastic.”
She stared at him for a moment, and then he could see the memories filtering in, and she chuckled. “I can so see that happening. Never thought about it before, but my dad was one cagey guy.”
“And I bet they had a very physical loving relationship.”
“They were always hugging, holding hands. They never went shopping without touching all the time.” She smiled. “It’s the first time I’ve felt good about that whole family thing in a long time.”
“Due to the loss of your brother probably.” He stroked her hair off her forehead, letting his finger run through her scalp. “Loss is one of the biggest, probably the biggest, heartache any of us can go through.”
She nodded, and a heavy sigh reached up from deep inside, as she lay on his chest.
He held her close, wondering what she must have gone through.
“It was,” she admitted. “When I graduated, I took a job as many miles away as I could because I didn’t feel like I had a home anymore. The relationship between my mom and dad, although still close, was no longer the relationship I remembered. And, of course, my brother was no longer there, and he’s the only sibling I had.”
He could see how painful this was for her, and it was an interesting look into her family history. She lay limp against his chest. He slowly brushed her hair back, stroking her scalp, gently massaging it, easing away the tension and the worry. Everybody had a different perception of an event. Her mother could very well have decided she had lost her daughter at the same time too and would have taken on the guilt from that relationship breakup.
“I feel like I should call her.”
“I’m sure she would love that,” he said quietly. “There’s nothing like making peace with your past to let you see the future in a whole different light.”
“I wanted what they had, but I can’t trust it anymore,” she said, “because they broke up.”
“For their own reasons. You can’t judge them for it, if it’s what they needed to do.”
She stayed quiet for a long moment, resting against him quietly.
He wished she’d fall asleep, but he could see the wheels in her mind were turning.
She shrugged finally and said, “Maybe tomorrow.”
He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her gently. “Go to sleep. When you wake up in the morning, maybe you’ll have the right answer for you then.”
He watched as her eyes drifted closed again. He kept massaging the back her neck, then let his fingers drift up and down her scalp. Finally her breathing eased into a deep heavy alpha sleep. With any luck she’d slip into a beta sleep and completely relax.
She hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, and she’d suffered one shock after another. But there was nothing like facing your own mortality to have you take a look at the relationships you either had or lost.
More than a few instances in his own life found him staring down a gun barrel and wondering if he would make to it the next day. He had a kid sister who he hadn’t called in a couple weeks. He had told her about his leg but hadn’t followed up. And, just like Penny, he thought maybe he should give her a call the next morning. With that thought uppermost in his mind, he drifted off to sleep himself.