When a Man Loves a Weapon (26 page)

Gut punch
. He planted the back of his head into the wall he leaned against as he realized she was now talking about MacGreggor, not Moreau.
Jesus Christ
. She’d been through hell and back in the last twelve hours, and that’s what he should be thinking about. She’d been nearly killed more than once.

He’d almost lost her today.

He was losing her.

How could he explain that to her? How could he tell her she was everything to him, without adding to the pressure she was under?

There were no words. His chest ached, his heart rending into pieces at the pain in her eyes.

Thirty seconds later, he had the shower on, and in the next thirty seconds, both of them unclothed. They stood under the hot spray, holding each other, him leaning against the cold tile, feeling the length of her, the warmth of her, skin to skin. There was so much they needed to talk about. Things he needed to tell her. Things he needed to ask her.

He had to get downstairs, to the conference room. He had to stop MacGreggor.

He felt selfish with aching, broken jagged edges somewhere deep inside as he kissed her, hard at first, hungry. He wanted to burn himself into her memory, imprint so completely, she’d never think about anyone else, she’d never be drawn away from him. He cupped her face, as he pulled her against him, rough kisses, anger surging as he trailed down the softness of her throat, biting, kissing, biting again. She opened to him, tilted her head to give him access, vulnerable, her breath hitching as she twined her fingers in his hair. It was that slight tremor in her breathing that undid him. She
was a woman ripped apart by compassion and love and the terror of what they’d been through.

He rested his forehead against hers for a moment. When he leaned back, he soothed the redness of the marks he’d made with his fingers, tracing the line of her throat up to her jaw, skimming her wet skin, silk against his palm, and she pressed against his hands, trembling. Her chest rose and fell in ragged breaths and he saw canyons in her eyes, a soul breaking apart. Breaking apart there in his arms, away from where anyone could see, worn down from the horrible things she’d seen, ground to a flat sheen by MacGreggor’s constant terror and Moreau’s constant pressure.

He’d warmed the tiles with his back, and he flipped her around, lifting her ’til her legs wrapped around his waist, needing to feel the pressure of his body on hers, knowing she needed to feel safe.

She closed her eyes.

He wanted to give her that safe place to turn to, be the safe haven for her, and ran his fingers along her side, tracing her curves, losing himself in her softness and angles.

The very compassion he loved her for could draw her away from him, could make her second-guess everything they had and destroy them. He tried to tell her with his heart, with the tenderness of his touch, how much he wanted her. He could not use the words.

She kissed him, frantic, drowning herself in sensation so she could forget, and he rode the swell with her, letting the sensation surround him, pushing them both with heat and ache and wanting, tasting her. He kissed his way to her breast with little bites, knowing he was marking her, knowing it was selfish, rasping the edge of a nipple with his teeth, and she arched and cried out his name.

She was what made him want to be a better man, she was light and toughness, laughter and goodness, and he could lose her. He kissed the other breast and she wriggled against his erection, begging, “Please, Trevor, now.”

“Look at me,” he said and her eyes flew open and held his as he thrust into her, the sadness in her eyes destroying them
both as the water from the shower cascaded, framing her face, drops lacing her eyelashes. “Look,” he said again, his voice rough with wanting, with longing, “at us.”

She gazed at him then, the storms in the sea green of her eyes closing off some part of her, clouding over, and he thrust into her, battering back the rage, the wind and rain of her, fighting to save them both from drowning. The world fell away, and it was only her, only
feeling,
only the landscape of her neck, the sanctuary of the taste of her, and he thrust, wanting, keeping, needing, and she pushed against him, and they came together, shattering with sudden release and cries.

Reality faded back in, and she clung to him, leveraged as she was against the wall where he’d turned her, her face resting in the crook of his neck. She felt limp and loose and she shook with tears. Tears for the day, tears for the pain, tears for the loss of their home, tears for the threat to them.

He held her for years there, the hot water pressing on them, washing over their joined bodies as she leaned against him and cried. They had lost nearly everything today, but they were alive. Even if they made it through MacGreggor’s gauntlet, they could lose each other if she didn’t choose. He knew it, though he wasn’t sure if she did, yet. He pressed a kiss to her temple, still holding her there, reluctant to let go, grateful for the spray of the shower so that she couldn’t see his own fear.

“You want me to put superglue on
what
?” she asked, and from his grin, Bobbie Faye knew Trevor was enjoying a moment of fantasy. There had been toiletries in the bag (score) and underwear that fit (camouflage, someone had a sense of humor), and camo clothes (actually, a black t-shirt and camo cargo khakis, with enough pockets to store a sizeable Wal-Mart and still have plenty of room for the Von Trapp family), and black combat boots (she was sensing a theme here), but the one thing she was completely lost on was the tube of superglue.

“Your feet,” he said again as they dressed. He pulled his
own black shirt over his head and wow, she ran her hand along his abs before he tucked the shirt in, and he grinned and kissed her. “It’s an old field trick.”

“Oh, sure it is,” she said, holding up the tube, “because all of the instructions on here about not getting this on your skin should
totally
be ignored.”

“It keeps new boots from rubbing blisters.”

She eyed the tube, and frowned. “Is this one of those dumb things I’m gonna do because you talked me into it and then you’re still going to be mocking me for when I’m eighty?”

He picked her up and set her on the bathroom counter, and for a split second, they both remembered the first time he’d done that. They’d ended up naked, then.

She had a real affinity for bathroom counters.

Trevor grinned, and she was relieved to see him smile. Relieved to know he was safe, standing in front of her as he took the tube of glue. “I’d be mocking you more if you ignored me and ended up with blisters.” He bent a knee and she propped her bare foot there; he opened the tube, squirted the glue onto her foot, and then spread it (using the cap) onto her Achilles, the top sides of her feet—everywhere she’d have normally gotten a blister. He grimly avoided the small cuts from the glass.

She glanced over her shoulder at their reflection in the mirror and then turned back to him, grinning. Her first thought had been
thank God, I’m not going to die wearing a
BAMA
t-shirt,
but when he caught sight of the smile, he raised an eyebrow, and she decided to go with thought #2: “I look kinda ass-kickery in this.”

“Ass-kickery?”

“Yeah, kinda all
Xena: Warrior Princess
, you know, except if Xena were into camo instead of all that metal breastplate stuff.” Even the chicken foot bracelet had turned back to brown, which had to mean that the threat was over. Or manageable. Right? She pretended to pull an imaginary sword out of a nonexistent back scabbard.

“Well, if you’re not going to have the breastplate and the
clingy outfits and wear camo instead, then you’re totally doing Sarah Connor . . . . with . . . what
are
you doing?”

She waved the invisible sword in front of him. “It’s a sword, silly. We have really got to teach you how to do pretendsies.”

He snorted, and checked her feet, touching the superglue to make sure it was dry enough for her to put on her socks.

“We’ll get right on that.”

“I could so totally see you with a sword.”

He cut those blue eyes up at her, but a smile twitched at his lips and for that moment, everything was right with the world. She stopped mid-“sword” wave and placed it back in its imaginary scabbard.

He was too pretty, all cleaned up like this. The short hair still threw her; he looked so perfect, especially in the brand-new t-shirt and crisp khaki camo pants he wore. She missed him in his soft t-shirts and worn jeans, padding barefoot through the house.

“You were gone for seven days.” He glanced up at her and she bopped him on the arm. “
Seven
. As in way more than
two
. Your math skills
suck,
mister. And,” she said, taking the socks from the bag, “you left me with Riles, who completely manages to pull off the world-class feat of being in the dictionary under both
needs ass-kicking
and
total suckage jerkwad,
and probably a few others, and what in the
hell
were you thinking? I mean sure, I know you wanted him there for security . . .” and at the word
security,
Memory said
ding ding ding, we have a winner
! “And
oh, yeah,
what is all of this about security for my family? And Riles said you were paying for it? Just exactly
how
is that possible?”

“Riles told you about the security.” It was a half-question, half-statement, but what chilled her was that his tone had gone flat and deadly. Not that she didn’t want Riles’s ass to be kicked because seriously, she’d pay for the privilege of a front-row center seat to that event, but she wasn’t about to let Trevor veer off of the point.

“The fact that there actually was security to tell me about in the first place? Hello? Fiancée?” She pointed to herself.
“Think maybe I should know some of this stuff? Like the fact that you had to use your savings, and I hope to God you didn’t use up everything, did you?” He scowled, shaking his head, and she continued, “Which—and don’t get me wrong, I am super grateful that everyone was safe—but seriously, I should be paying for this. Somehow.” And the enormity of what it must’ve cost to hire that many men to watch everyone suddenly hit her, and she swallowed hard. “And I’m going to,” she said. She’d been offered a couple of spokes-model-type things, but they were sort of ridiculous and embarrassing (she was pretty certain the offer from the septic tank company was a new level of bad—then again, her standards for humiliation were now so low, a gnat couldn’t limbo under that bar). “Riles was right about the prenup suggestion—we need to protect you and—” She halted at his expression. Holy
crap,
he’d gone from grim to murderous in a nanosecond. “Trevor?”

“Riles . . . suggested . . .” he repeated, and for the very first time, she sort of felt sorry for Riles, the way Trevor’s eyes had gone from blue to the steel of a blade in a heartbeat. It was all she could do to keep from running out to find Riles and mock him with the ten-year-old singsong, “Ooooooooh, you are in trouble! You are in trouble!” Before she could follow up on the real point, the hotel room phone jangled, and she jumped, startled.

He crossed over to it, snatched it up. “Cormier.” Whatever the other person said made him go completely rigid with fury and then he said, “
Fuck
no,” slammed down the receiver, and backfisted the wall, punching a hole in the Sheetrock.

She gaped at him.

“Bomb threat,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Sean?”

“Yes.”

“A threat? Not exploded yet?”

“Not yet.”

His reluctance to speak as they slammed on their boots scared the living hell out of her. Trevor grabbed his guns
and they hurried out, blowing past the armed guard ASAC Brennan had stationed just outside their hotel door.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked as they got to the elevator, an armed guard tagging along.

“He’s threatened several bombs. Unless he gets what he wants.”

He couldn’t even look at her. His fists were white-knuckled and he was reining the rage in so tightly she thought he might spontaneously combust.

“What does he want?” she asked past the lump in her throat, crossing her arms, knowing it was going to be bad.

“You.”

Riles met them at the door to the hotel conference room. “LT, you don’t want to go in there, yet.”

Trevor pulled up slightly, hyper aware of every move in the hallway, from the armed guards, to the agents on the other end of the hall carrying file boxes toward him, to the way Bobbie Faye barely breathed from the tension. Riles—who should never have said a single fucking word to Bobbie Faye about the security—and they would deal with that later—was wrong. He fucking wanted in that room. He wanted to see what the hell MacGreggor had sent over, what had ASAC Brennan practically climbing through the phone in alarm.

Moreau yanked open the door just as Bobbie Faye pushed inward and she fell . . . would have fallen directly into his arms, had Trevor not stepped into her path as soon as the door whisked open and caught her himself.

“ ’Bout fucking time,” Moreau said, grabbing her hand and dragging her into the room. If Trevor didn’t have a roomful of agents and cops as witnesses for the murder trial, he’d have slammed the asshole against the wall.

For all of Moreau’s fears for Bobbie Faye, and for everything they’d all been through together, Trevor had never seen the man like this. Utter apprehension vibrated off the cop.

“Moreau.” The cop’s hands were now intimately bracketed on Bobbie Faye’s shoulders. She hadn’t said anything to
brush her ex away as she gazed past him. Moreau scowled, but wisely backed off, removing his hands from Bobbie Faye. She stood still, shock playing across her face as she reached for Trevor subconsciously. Moreau nodded toward the big flat-screen TV at the other end of the room and time slowed as Trevor registered a part of the image he could see that wasn’t blocked by ASAC Brennan.

And then ASAC Brennan moved, giving Trevor an unobstructed view of the screen and Bobbie Faye, next to him, said, “Oh my God,
no
.”