Wilde for Him (28 page)

CHRISTINE was roused from a deep sleep by the violent twitching of Ben's body next to hers, and the awful, guttural sounds coming from the back of his throat. Momentarily confused, she came up on her arm and stared down at him, and when he jerked again and cried out in his sleep, she knew he was in the throes of some kind of nightmare.

She touched his bare chest and found it damp with perspiration. Feeling his heart racing beneath her palm, she gave him a gentle shake. "Ben, wake up," she said, trying not to jostle him too badly.

He awoke with a start, anyway. Eyes wild with terror, he bolted upright in bed, his breathing ragged. His entire body was tense and his fists clenched at his sides, as if he was ready to confront some unknown evil.

She stroked a hand down his back in an attempt to soothe him. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked softly.

It took him a moment to realize where he was, and then he raked a hand through his tousled hair and exhaled a harsh stream of breath. "It was a bad dream. It happens sometimes." He shook his head, as if that gesture would dispel the internal demons still lingering in his mind.

He was trying to remain calm and casual about the entire situation, but she instinctively knew what the dream had been about—something that had happened in the wan most likely pertaining to his fiancée, Kim. And Christine was more than willing to listen if Ben needed to vent and get those bad memories out in the open, instead of keeping them bottled up inside where they could only fester and breed horrific nightmares.

It was nearly seven in the morning on Sunday, almost time for them to get up anyway. "Do you want to talk about it?"

His expression turned grim. "Trust me, those nightmares are something I have to live with, but the details of those dreams aren't something you want to hear about."

"How do you know that?" She wasn't a weak and fragile female who couldn't withstand to hear a few harrowing stones.

"Because the details are shocking, ugly, and vile," he said, an angry, bitter edge to his voice. "And worst of all, what I dream about is real and something I had to live through and will never, ever forget, no matter how hard I try. There's no sense dragging someone else into my own personal hell."

There was so much pain and heartache in his gaze, and it hurt her to see him hurting so much. He was doing his best to push her away emotionally, and she just wasn't going to let him shut her out that way. Hopefully, if he talked about those awful memories, maybe he could begin to heal inside and those nightmares would finally leave him alone.

"What happened to your fiancée. Ben?" she asked softly, persistently.

Sighing heavily, he lay back down on the pillow and draped his arm over his eyes. "Let it go, Christine."

He sounded tired and weary—no doubt tired of carrying so many painful burdens and weary from years of holding it all inside.

"I don't want to let it go." She recalled the picture she'd seen in his apartment of Ben and his fiancée—once very happy and in love. "Tell me about Kim, please?"

When he remained quiet, she tried to think of a way to draw him out, to get him to talk, and decided to start at the beginning. "How did the two of you meet?"

He moved his arm to let one dark brown eye glower at her. "You really aren't going to leave it alone, are you?" he asked gruffly.

She smiled at him, not the least put off by his scowl. She'd learned enough about this man to know that his growl was much worse than his bite. "I'm afraid not, so you might as well start talking."

A deep breath unraveled out of him, and then he spoke. "We met when we were both deployed to Iraq and were stationed at the same Marine base near Fallujah," he said, staring at the ceiling. "We started out as friends, and things progressed from there. We'd planned on getting married as soon as each of our tours in Iraq was over."

Knowing how that had turned out, Christine's heart twisted with anguish for Ben and what he'd endured. "So, she was a Marine, too?"

He nodded. "She was a first lieutenant, and was part of the female search force that was used to pat down the Iraqi women for contraband when they came through checkpoints." Turning his head on the pillow, he met her gaze. "It was a job that had to be handled with sensitivity, and since many Muslim women cover themselves from head to toe to avoid contact with males who aren't close relatives, male Marines aren't allowed to touch them, but they still had to be searched to make sure they weren't concealing any weapons beneath their loose garb."

A small smile touched the corner of his mouth as he remembered, and continued. "She was small compared to a lot of the other female Marines, but Kim was strong and tough when the situation warranted. She dealt with the Iraqi women politely, but firmly, and didn't put up with any shit from anybody."

Christine settled more comfortably beside him on the bed. "You included?" she teased.

"Yeah, me included. She definitely kept me in line, but she was also such a kind and caring person, and as soft as a marshmallow inside. She loved giving candy and school supplies to the Iraqi children we often came into contact with, and she taught the young girls to play hopscotch and recruited us guys to show them how to do double Dutch jump rope. That was not a pretty sight," he said wryly.

She laughed, imagining these big strapping Marines attempting to be light on their feet as they tried to stay in sync with the two turning ropes.

"Anyway, Kim and I came from small towns and shared the same values and similar family situations that bonded us on a deeper level. Her father was an alcoholic that abused her, and she joined the military right after graduating high school as a way to make a better life for herself. And for the time that she was in the military, she did just that."

Christine swallowed hard, trying hard not to think about how big the contrast was between Kim's background and lifestyle, and her own. It reminded her too much of the differences between herself and Ben. "She sounds like a wonderful woman," she said, a bit envious of what the two of them had shared.

"She was my best friend." Shadows of anguish etched his features right before he looked away again. "One night, we were in a convoy of Humvees carrying members of a female search team back to base when we were ambushed. A suicide car bomber drove his vehicle into the second Humvee right in front of ours, which was carrying Kim. The bomb ignited a huge blast that killed the driver and set the vehicle on fire. But that wasn't all. There were about a dozen Iraqi gunmen who joined in on the ambush, too."

His voice had grown thick with excess emotion and he paused, then cleared his throat before continuing. "Kim and the other women in the Humvee immediately jumped out to get away from the fiery explosion, but as she ran toward our vehicle to take cover while we returned fire, she was shot in the back."

As she listened to his story, Christine's chest grew tight with sorrow and she ached deep inside for the pain and loss he'd endured. She knew he wasn't finished, so she remained quiet, waiting for him to go on.

"I saw it all happen, and as soon as she was shot and dropped to the ground, I went after her, right into open fire," he said hoarsely as he relived the harrowing past. "She was so vulnerable and defenseless out there, and I picked her up and ran with her in my arms until we were behind our Humvee while the rest of my unit fought off the gunmen."

He exhaled a shuddering breath and met her gaze again. "I kept telling her to hang on, that she was going to be okay, that I just needed her to hold on until I could get her to a medic. By the time the fight ended, two of the men from my unit, and three of the women, were dead. Including Kim."

The torment and haunting grief in his eyes was a tangible thing. "It should have been me. I should have died that day, not her! I was there in the convoy to protect her, and instead I failed her," he said angrily, then pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, his bitterness and resentment obviously causing him so much inner turmoil. "She didn't deserve to be murdered in cold blood like that and I would have done anything to give my life for hers."

Christine hated that he felt responsible for Kim's death, that four years after the fact he was still blaming himself for what had happened—for not protecting as he'd been trained to do. But she also knew that there was absolutely nothing she could say that would make him feel differently about the situation. It was his burden to bear, until he was ready to let it go on his own.

She blinked and felt a trickle of moisture roll down her cheek. A tear for the woman he'd loved with such devotion, and had lost in such a devastating way. And sadness for the jaded man he'd become deep inside.

He reached out and gently wiped away the wetness on her cheek, his touch lingering on her face. "Not a pretty story, is it?"

"War is never easy or pretty." she whispered, and even though she knew her next words weren't much in the way of easing his internal misery, they were genuine and she felt compelled to say them anyway. "I'm sorry, Ben. So sorry."

"Me, too." Sliding his fingers around to the nape of her neck, he drew her down so that her head was resting on his chest and she was lying next to his warm, hard body once again.

She could hear the heavy beating of his heart against her ear, and she closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around him, and held him close. It was the only thing she could do to offer him a little comfort, to ease his suffering. To let him know that she cared and was there for him.

And then she wondered who was going to soothe her heartache when he was gone.

Chapter Fifteen

THREE weeks with Christine had gone much faster than Ben had anticipated. Tomorrow, Tuesday, voters would decide who they wanted for a new governor—Nathan Delacroix or Charles Lambert—and depending on who won the election, Ben's job as Christine's bodyguard would possibly be over. If Nathan won, he was certain that his assignment would be extended a few extra weeks, just to ensure Christine's safety and to make sure there were no other threats issued against her or Nathan.

Ben shifted on the couch in the reception area of The Big Event as he continued his game of FreeCell while waiting for Christine to finish a phone call so they could leave for the night. He honestly wasn't sure how he felt about the possibility of spending more time with Christine beyond this next week, any more than he knew how he felt about leaving her tomorrow—if that's what happened.

Professionally, she was an assignment and an ESS client, and he'd protect her for as long as necessary because that was his job. But on a personal level, he was torn inside. In such a short span of time things had gotten so intense between them—sexually and emotionally. He'd not only crossed a physical line with this woman when that went against his code of mixing business with pleasure, but somewhere along the way his emotions had gotten all tangled up in the mess, too.

And that was something he never saw coming until it was too late—when he'd bared his soul to Christine, along with his deepest, darkest anguish, and the guilt and remorse that had consumed him since Kim's death. The night that he'd lost Kim was something he never talked about with anyone—the guys he worked with were well aware of what happened that fateful night, but they understood it was an off-limits topic for him—yet he'd trusted Christine with the nightmares that haunted him on a regular basis.

But that wasn't all. While he usually kept any kind of personal discussions with a client to a minimum, those kinds of revealing, intimate conversations with Christine had become a common source of pillow talk with them. They'd talked much too openly about their pasts, their family issues, and shared other painful secrets that had given him a glimpse into who Christine was deep inside—a woman with a huge, generous heart who was finally embracing the independent spirit her mother had spent too many years stifling.

God, he was in way over his head when it came to Christine, and Ben knew he had to take a huge step back emotionally, as well as physically. He'd promised Christine he'd go with her to Envy the night after the election to help her celebrate her twenty-seventh birthday, and he decided that would be it for the two of them. In fact, if she did need extended security, he was seriously considering having Kevin or Jon take over for the duration of the assignment in order to make a clean break, instead of drawing out the inevitable.

The sound of two female voices heading toward the reception area pulled Ben from his thoughts. Madison and Christine came into view as they discussed some details on an upcoming retirement party they'd been commissioned to organize and plan, and as soon as they finished their conversation, Christine set a file folder on the front desk and glanced over at him.

"Are you about ready to go?"

It was nearly five-thirty in the evening, and it wasn't like it would take him very long at all to pack up for the night. It was just a matter of shutting down his laptop, putting it in its case, and grabbing the novel he was nearly done with. "I'm ready when you are."

"I'm good," she said, and unlocked the cabinet where she and Madison kept their purses during the day. "How about you?" Christine asked her assistant.

"I have a few more things to finish up before I leave for the evening," Madison said.

Christine nodded in understanding. "Don't forget to vote before coming into work in the morning," she reminded her friend.

Madison laughed. "Don't worry, I won't. Your father is going to kick Charles Lambert's ass tomorrow."

Christine grinned. "God, I hope so! Someone has to stand up for the underdog, and it's clear that Lambert is chomping at the bit to tear down the neighborhoods on the lower west side so he can build to accommodate and appease a lot of the wealthier residents of Chicago." Her voice rang with disgust.

"They're already saying it's going to be a very close race," Ben chimed in as he stood, his computer case in hand. He had endless time during the day to read through news reports, and everyone was gearing up for the big race tomorrow and speculating on the outcome.