Fire Burns Hot ((An FBI/ Romance Thriller~ (Book 5))) (47 page)

When Tori began to shake again, this time he needed to feel it for himself. Slipping into her, he moaned as her body welcomed him and
began constricting around him. Now he needed to wait, until she caught her breath, and he found control.

Tori watched him with smoky gray eyes, and
she fell more for the man. Despite the odds, she was finding herself never wanting to leave his side.

Julian
began sliding in and out of her body. They were desperately long strokes made to drive her crazy. They were having the same effect on him, as her body met his stroke for stroke.

When her nails ran lightly down his arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, he was in heaven. The women he loved was moving with him in such a perfect joining.

“I love the way you feel,” he muttered, trying to focus once more on the act of love. Lowering his mouth to hers, he kissed her gently and tenderly, trying to build a bridge between them.

Something permanent.

Something they could share until their dying days.

As the kiss deepened, Tori knew she was close, with one last stroke from Julian, she shattered again.

Tori’s body offered him release, and he took the opportunity to take it in that moment. He joined her, throwing himself into the pleasure.

She finally heard their joined breathing and it dragged her back to reality. Julian was
lying protectively over her body, still buried deep in her. Running her hands up and down his back, she enjoyed the scent of his flesh against hers. “Your hair is tickling me,” she said, her voice barely audible.

“Sorry sweetheart,” he offered, rolling off her and pulling a blanket over them, as their bodies chilled from the heated love making.

“I don’t mind,” she answered, curling against him and placing her leg over his. Really she didn’t. Beneath him Tori felt a sense of… security. Julian Littlemoon made her feel safe.

“We need to talk, Tori.” Julian preferred to not have this talk, but they needed to discuss it.

Her whole frame tensed, knowing what was coming next. “Okay, Julian.”

“Are you on birth control
, sweetheart?” If he thought getting her pregnant would keep her by his side, he’d begin praying to the fertility Gods.

It wasn’t what she was expecting. “Yeah, the shot,” she answered, and then started laughing.

“What?” he asked, looking down into her eyes.

“I thought you were going to ask about Quinn,” she answered. Then realized what she walked right into.

“Well since you brought it up, we might as well get it over with.”

Tori didn’t
know whether to laugh or cry, but she knew she could trust Julian with it, and it was time. She let herself go back and hoped Julian would be able to anchor to the present.

“What do you want to know, Julian?”

What he really wanted to know was if the woman was still in love with her dead fiancée, but he swallowed the question. “Tell me about the nightmare.”

She nodded and prepared to dive into her past. “In order to tell you about that day, I need to tell you about the man that saved my life.”

Julian held her close to his body. “I’m here, Tori.”

“When I started my first tour of duty in the Middle East, I was assigned with a unit that was on the front line. Our job was to patrol the streets of the city and search out any insurgents that were undermining our mission there. If we found them, we were to stop them.”

She let the word hang between them. Stop had only one meaning; kill.

“While assigned to that patrol, we were buddied up with another soldier for patrols. This was the person
you had to trust with your life.”

“Quinn was your partner?”

Tori nodded. “He was also my supervisor. I was ranked Sergeant, and he was Sergeant First Class,” she paused, remembering. “We spent hours together, then we began spending our down time together, and finally it just happened.”

“You had sex.”

“Yep, and broke about a zillion military rules. He slept with one of his direct charges, and I slept with my boss.”

“Did you get sent to a different unit?” he asked, softly. The visual of the woman he was in love with in bed with another man sent his blood pressure through the roof.

“No, because Quinn talked me into lying.”

That was so unlike her. Everything he’d learned about Tori in the time he’d known her screamed honest, honorable and brave. “You went along with it?”

“Unfortunately. Remember your discussion on fate and the path?”

He
nodded because Julian did remember it well.

“
Dishonesty ultimately did us both in. It set us on a path that wasn’t one that would have a very happy ending.”

Julian wanted to disagree. Fate led her right to
him; Tori just didn’t see it yet. Without fate, she wouldn’t have walked into his life and into his arms. As far as he was concerned, fate was awesome.

“What happened?”

“We survived the first tour, most of it under the lie. Once back home at the base, I tried to talk Quinn into transferring me out. I’d be fine and could protect myself. He absolutely refused, giving me the line about it was his duty to protect his woman and if he didn’t he wasn’t a man.”

Julian made a mental note to not play that card. The anger was clearly visible across her delicate features. Forcing Tori would end badly, and he’d seen part of that when he tricked her.

“I was pissed at him for being a macho ass, and then he took me out to dinner and proposed.”

Julian made another mental note of not proposing over dinner.

“I’d just lost my dad and brother. I was alone and scared in the world, and here was this man willing to protect me. I said yes without thinking it through.”

“I gathered that from the ring on your mantle.”

She nodded, not surprised he’d seen it.

“Quinn took me to meet his parents
, and it didn’t go over well at all. His mother was pretty much unhappy that he was going to marry a soldier. He was her only child.”

Julian kissed her on the tip of the nose.

“So we were making plans to get married before we deployed, but Quinn was worried about the little issue of us being a couple. He didn’t want to come clean, but if something happened, he wanted me to have the rightful death benefits,” Tori felt sick. “It was morbid then and it’s more morbid now.”

“I imagine he was just being protective.”

Tori’s temper flared. “I’m not some weeping flower. I can damn well protect myself,” she snapped, and then realized he didn’t deserve the anger. “I’m sorry, Julian. This is just really hard for me.”

He hugged her. “It’s okay
, sweetheart.”

“So we decide to wait until post deployment. It’s only nine months, and in the meantime we get to spend it together. He called it a vacation at the beach.”

Yeah, if the beach you went to had snipers, bombers and suicidal nuts hell bent on jihad.

“We land
ed back in the sandbox, and we had daily patrols. Now it’s second nature. Going out at night doesn’t faze me, or him for that matter. The only thing is I have a bad feeling this one night. The streets were extra quiet. No dogs barking and no sounds that you’d normally notice there. I can only hear the barely audible clinking on my tags, and then Quinn’s breathing. We’re wearing earpieces to connect the entire team, and no one’s talking. We’ve got complete silence.”

Julian could see her eyes going blank and she was slipping back into the night.

“We’re supposed to patrol the west vector and Quinn decides to take an alley. I’m the back partner, scanning anything we pass that may come up behind us. I follow him into the alley, and I turn around, giving the wall my back. My finger is on the trigger and my whole body is ready. Something is there, and I can just feel the fear in that shitty dark alley.”

“It’s okay honey.” But she wasn’t listening. Tori was reliving the moment
in real time. Already, her tone had changed and breathing seemed more labored.

“Something moves off to our left and Quinn steps in front of me to block my body. I hear rapid shots, then instinct kicked in and I returned fire. More shooting, and then the COM is alive, me calling for help, Quinn sliding down the wall to the ground. I’m crouched in front of him protecting his body with my own. When I
finally see that it’s clear, I check on him. Quinn took two to the body armor and it held.”

Tori tried to pull out of that alley, but once again she was trapped
in the past. “Then I feel the wet. His thigh is oddly sticky, and I can smell the blood. I put my hand over it and try to apply pressure, but I can see the puddle forming under him. His femoral artery is hit. I call for a medic and soon our back up arrives. There’s more gunfire. I guess there were more insurgents in that alley. They’d watched us for days, and knew we went right past their hiding spot. Never once did we go in, and they thought they found a safe zone.”

“Until that night.”

“I’m pleading with Quinn to stay with me. To not leave me, and he tells me if anything happens to him to get out of the military and find Gabe Rothschild. He’s head of Quantico.”

“I’m sorry, Tori.”

“Had he just let me take the shot, I wouldn’t have died. I was smaller and the bullets would have hit body armor. But he had to be bossy, arrogant, and play knight in shining armor. All it got him was dead and in a flag lined casket.”

The tears came then.

“Word got out that he was my fiancé. Other soldiers were there when he was telling me he loved me. I was yanked from duty, and my ass was ripped three new ones. I was sent home at the end of my enlistment. At the time I was glad, because after Quinn’s funeral and burial, the military lost its luster in my eyes. I guess burying the man you were going to marry can do that to you.”

Julian didn’t like
the last part of the conversation at all.

“I'm there for the funeral, and they hand me the flag and I’m sobbing. His mother comes over to me, and instead of telling me
it’s going to be okay, she blames me. Tells me if he found a ‘normal girl’ he’d be alive. He died protecting me and his blood is on my hands. She stormed away and never spoke to me again. Quinn’s flag on my mantle is to remind me that my lies cost a man his life.”

He saw red. “He was your partner
, and that was his job. Don’t let her words damage you, Tori.”

“I’m already damaged,” she whispered. “I have nightmares, I forget things
, and I get angry at times. The war destroyed me. I came home alive, but only on the outside. I’m just a shell and I’ll never be anything more.”

He didn’t believe that in the least. “I disagree. You saw the horses and you had a smile that reached your eyes. Tonight you relaxed and were happy.”

Yeah, because of him. When this was all over then what?

“I'm never going to be the woman I once was inside. I’ve seen too much, I’ve killed too many. I’ve sold my soul in the name of my country, Julian. All that’s left for me is to cross the days off the calendar until the end.”

“That’s not true! You’re so much more than just an empty person, Tori. You’re alive and you matter!”

She
laughed. “I’m a dead woman walking, Julian.”

Julian held onto her
, unable to get the words out.

“At least when I’m gone, no one will be forced to watch them fold my flag. No one will have to see it sit on a shelf and think about how it was all a waste of life.
How I was a waste of life.”

The words she spoke ripped at his soul.
He’d mourn her for the rest of his life. Julian knew right then he’d weep bitter tears, especially if he couldn’t get through to her.

“Can we sleep? I told you everything and there’s nothing left.”
The last thing that she needed now was to think about the past and relive it awake. There was enough of that while sleeping.

Julian’s heart ached. “Sure Tori. We can go to
bed.” There was so much he wanted to say, but he knew she wasn’t going to listen to any of it. He pulled her closer to his body and listened to the slow easy breathing. When Julian was sure she was asleep, he stroked her cheek with his fingertips.

“If you were to die,
Victoria. I’d mourn you, because I’m in love with you.”

Julian closed his eyes and followed her into sleep, wondering what fate had planned for them both.

Tori was back on the streets of that vile town patrolling with a dead man. Instead of the handsome man he’d once been, he was now a skeleton with patches of flesh grotesquely hanging from his body. As they walked side by side, he spoke to her and warned her what was to come.

“Come visit me, Tori,” he said
in Quinn’s voice. “You can come to my grave and hang out with me. I think there’s space beside me still.”

“I don’t want to die, Q
uinn. I want to live,” she said honestly, as she scanned the area.