Playing Dirty (24 page)

“Much,” she said and closed her eyes. “Did you have Dad take a look at your back?” His wounds, in her opinion, needed medical attention.
 

“I’ll be fine.”

That wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. “Will you at least make an appointment at the base hospital?”

“I’m fine.”

She lifted her head and looked at him over her shoulder. “It doesn’t look fine to me.”

He dipped the sponge, then squeezed. Warm, lavender-scented water sluiced down her back. “I hardly notice it,” he said.

A smart woman would let it go. Would recognize the walls going up and back off the subject. But not her. Oh no, she kept pushing at full speed. She shrugged off his touch. “That’s not what you’d said this morning.”

He sat back, impatience evident in his gaze. “Is this what you really want to discuss? You’re naked and I could be in less than three seconds. I can think of a dozen other subjects we could tackle.”

What she wanted was for him to talk about his time in captivity. He’d shut her down earlier, but she needed answers. She needed to know why it had taken him five years to come back to her. “I want you to take care of yourself, not make jokes or hone your powers of evasion.” She stood abruptly, annoyed enough with him she didn’t much care that water splashed all over his shirt. “You don’t want to risk an infection.”

He gave her an impatient look as he brushed away droplets of water clinging to his shirt. “Nice,” he said, and reached for a towel. “I’ve seen the doctors, here, in Belgium, and at Bethesda when I was first brought stateside. They’ve all said something different. It’ll take time to heal. It’ll heal in no time. Aloe will help. Use coco-butter for the scarring. Use ointment, don’t use ointment. Keep it moist. Keep it dry. Everyone has a different opinion.”

“So frustrating.” She wasn’t referring to the parade of doctors with their varying degrees of advice, but his unique ability to avoid having a real discussion with her.
 

He tossed the towel in the clothes hamper, followed by his shirt. “You think?”

She flipped the knob to release the stopper on the tub, then quickly rinsed away the bubbles with the hand-held sprayer. “I think about a lot of things,” she said, wrapping a large, fluffy towel around her. She tucked in the end at her breasts before she stepped from the tub. “Like why in the hell it took you five years to come home.”

He frowned. “So, we’re back to that again.”

“We wouldn’t if you’d answer the damned question for a change,” she snapped irritably. That naked chest of his made her fingers itch to touch him and did little to help her rapidly souring mood. Dammit. She’d been relaxed and now she was all tense again. Tense and irritable.

He moved to the door, but instead of leaving like she thought he would, he turned and propped his shoulder against the doorjamb. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Honestly? I don’t know where to start.”

His answer took her by complete surprise. She’d expected more of an argument, more avoidance. Maybe he finally understood she’d reached her limit. Whatever it was, she wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip away. She caught his reflection in the mirror. “Pick a day,” she said. “Pick a random day and tell me about it.”

A full minute ticked by with him staring at the floor. With his bare foot, he toed the edge of the shaggy, yellow throw-rug, flicking the plush strands. Gathering his thoughts? Or choosing his words carefully, considering exactly how much he planned to tell her?
 

When he finally looked up, his gaze locked with hers in the mirror’s reflection. “I’d been held in a dusty camp somewhere in the desert. This was probably two, two and a half years in, and I couldn’t tell you if I was in Afghanistan or Iraq, or maybe even back in Syria. But, I’d just been traded for the second time to another group of insurgents,” he said. “A live American made for a great bargaining chip when bartering for several crates full of AK-47s or rocket launchers. Anyway, I’d been tossed into an underground bunker with five other captives.”

She had questions. Like how was it he’d managed to stay alive when the news coverage of the war was filled with beheadings and prisoners held in cages and set on fire by the enemy? But he was talking, really talking, for the first time since coming home. She wasn’t about to interrupt him now.

“There were three holding cells, each one not much bigger than a dog kennel,” he continued, “but they kept us together in a single cell, no doubt just to fuck with our heads. You’d think being underground it’d be cooler, but there was little air flow and six, stinking, filthy, sweaty men, made it even hotter.”

She turned to look at him as he spoke, horrified at the inhumane conditions he’d been forced to experience. She suspected he’d suffered far worse than he was telling her, but baby steps were enough for now. With her towel-covered backside resting against the edge of the counter, she wrapped her fingers around the cool marble and squeezed, easily imaging the harsh scenario his words painted.
 

“If they weren’t making our lives miserable, we were ignored. Days would pass before they’d bother with us. What food and water we had, we hoarded. Silas, an Israeli government official who’d originally been kidnapped by the Syrians, guarded our reserves and no one complained. At one point, we’d been left alone for close to a full week, but Silas made sure we all had something to eat, even if it was a stale crust of bread and a few sips of water.”

That certainly explained why Ford’s appetite had changed. Before he’d gone away, he’d been able to put down a sizeable meal. He’d always been active and kept in shape, but he was a big man with an appetite to match. Since he’d come home, he’d yet to finish off so much as a rib-eye steak in one sitting. For a man Texas born and bred, that was practically sacrilege.

“After a five day stretch with no sight of our jailors, one of the guys, Ahmed, a low-level intelligence officer for the Afghan forces, eventually cracked under the strain. When they eventually did show up, they always came in threes. Two guards to drag us to wherever they’d planned to interrogate us, and one to shoot if we tried to escape.

“There’d been a lot of chatter in the compound. We always knew when something was up because there’d be a lot of activity and we’d become an afterthought. When the guards finally came down into the bunker and opened the cage door, Ahmed went nuts. He’d only managed to knock one guard on his ass before the armed guard fired on him. He took one in the gut, and two in the shoulder.

“Silas and I dragged him back into the cage with us. As punishment for helping him, we were denied food and water for two more days. That also meant Ahmed would go without medical treatment for at least two days.”

“But you know first aid,” she said. He wasn’t a medic, not officially, but he’d been trained as one, as had most of the SEAL team members. They could perform field dressings, set broken bones or adjust dislocated joints, even stitch one another up, if necessary. Emergency patch and repair, Ford had once called the rudimentary medical training.

“He needed a doctor. Or at least a medic with the proper tools. Instead, he had three prisoners hold him down so I could dig out the goddamned bullets.”

She gasped. “What did you use?”

The look in his eyes turned glacial. He held up his hands. The brutality of what he wasn’t saying turned her stomach. She could only stare at him because she was incapable of forming words.
 

“Luckily for Ahmed,” he continued, “he passed out from the pain fairly quickly, but not fast enough. On the dirt floor of our prison, he screamed in agony as I dug that first bullet out of his shoulder with my bare hands.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered.
 

He reached for the forgotten scotch and drained his glass. “He needed meds. Clean bandages. Something for the pain and for the infection, but our requests weren’t denied so much as they were ignored. After three days, I couldn’t stand to see Ahmed suffer any longer, so I made the guard an offer. I offered to trade my wedding ring if they’d help him.”

“I was wondering what happened to your ring,” she said. “I figured you’d just lost it.”

“It was a miracle I still had it. I’d hidden it in the waistband of my fatigues, and since it was the only currency I had to barter, I handed over the gold. The bastards dragged Ahmed from the cell only to put a bullet in his brain.” He twirled the empty glass between his fingers. “He could’ve made it, you know. Even the gut wound wasn’t fatal. No major organs were hit. With antibiotics for the infection, a doctor to clean up the crude bullet removal, he could have survived. Instead they executed him and left his body to rot right in front of us. For days we watched his rotting corpse decompose. I don’t know what was worse, the god-awful stench, or the sight of it all.”

“Oh Ford,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

He lifted his gaze to hers, and she flinched at the absolute coldness that encompassed his very presence. His eyes glittered and his square jaw turned granite-hard. This was not the same man who’d made love to her that morning. She faced a dark and angry warrior.

“Sorry for what?” he bit out. “That you even asked?”

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What else do you want to know?” he asked, his tone filled with bitterness and resentment. “Because I’ve got a lot of stories. You want to hear how after ten days with no food we had to resort to killing rats in order to survive? Or what about the day we had to choose who was going to die? I drew the short straw, but at the last minute, the guards pulled Silas from our cell and beheaded him right in front of us. Apparently, I had more value than a low level Afghan official.”

“Stop it.” She didn’t want to hear any more. “Just stop.”

“Stop, what?” His tone turned belligerent. “Telling you the truth? That’s what you want, isn’t it? The truth?”

“I’m not talking to you when you’re like this.” She pushed off the counter and attempted to brush by him to open the door, but he blocked her. “You’re being an ass.”

His hand manacled her wrist. “No, Matt,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “I’m being honest.”

She tugged, but he refused to let her go. “I’m going to bed.”

His grip tightened. “Your bed or mine?”

Since he’d come home there’d been an edge to him, a quality she hadn’t been able to accurately define. But it was there, lurking beneath the surface, hiding under the too-polite façade. She saw it very clearly now. Witnessed the part of him that had never left enemy territory. He was trying to intimidate her, and it was working. But he was also pissing her off, big time. She narrowed her eyes when she looked at him. “Knock it off, Ford.”

He said nothing. They stood there in the bathroom, locked in a silent battle. She’d be damned if she’d back down. There was no way in hell she’d allow him to bully her. “Let me go,” she demanded. “Now.”

“You’re the one who opened Pandora’s Box.” He loosened his grip, but didn’t release her. “You wanted me to talk about what happened. Well, you got what you wanted. Now deal with it.”

The coldness surrounding him infuriated her. There’d always been an adjustment period when he’d returned from a mission, the transition from fierce warrior to civilized husband, but nothing close to what they were embroiled in at the moment. Maybe she should be afraid of him. What he’d been through had changed him. Hardened him, and after what he’d just told her, she couldn’t blame him. But she’d never feared him and she wasn’t about to start now, because the day she was afraid of her own husband was the day she filed for divorce.

“I don’t know who you think you’re talking to,” she said, keeping her voice low, “but it sure as hell isn’t me.”

With one quick tug, he hauled her up against him. “I’m talking to my wife.”

Her breath left her in a whoosh of air at the unexpected contact with his bared chest. His arm banded her waist, holding her against him. Even through his jeans she could feel his erection straining against the denim fabric.

“Have you lost your mind?” Conscious of the fact she wore only a towel, she attempted to wiggle free. “What are you going to do, Ford? Take me here on bathroom floor?”

The muscle in his jaw twitched as he stared down at her. His glittering gaze darkened. He Shoved his free hand through her hair, then kissed her.
 

The kiss was punishing and hard and held no affection. More possession than passion. She pushed at his shoulders, but he ignored her feeble attempts and kissed her more deeply.

Without warning, he ended the kiss, but the arm around her waist tightened. “I want you,” he said roughly. “God help me, Mattie, I want to fuck you so bad it hurts.”

Whatever argument she’d tried to form evaporated when he spun her around and lifted her, setting her on the vanity. With a flick of his wrist, her towel was history and his hands were sliding up her legs, an intensity burning in his eyes as he held her gaze.
 

He grabbed her ass and hauled her to the edge. “Ford,” she said, her throat tight from the passion pulling at her, making her sex wet in anticipation. He snagged her foot and set it on the marble counter, opening her legs wide, exposing her, making her vulnerable. He dropped to his knees, and desire pulled within her. Her head spun when his mouth covered her folds and he tongued her core, going deep.