Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 9) (15 page)

But the crazed pounding had made
him
feel better.

“Audra, it’s me,” he called as he knocked a touch more reasonably and waited. And waited. Then swore. “Open the door! Please.”

He fished his phone out of his pocket and texted her: I’m at the front door.

Nothing.

He tried again: of your apartment.

She
was
in there, wasn’t she? It was—he checked his watch—eleven o’clock at night.

He’d have gotten here sooner, but Evan had called to give him the rundown on the incident at the marina while en route to bring Rachel home, which had taken forever. Probably neither of them had expected Charlie to be waiting at the dock so he could commandeer the boat for an immediate return trip to Freeport since Miles and Jace had the other boat, but there was no way in hell Charlie was letting another second go by without making sure that Audra was okay with his own two eyes. And then he’d had to gas up the boat. Also had taken forever.

He stabbed at her number on his phone screen again and listened to it ring until voice mail picked up.

She might be inside hurting. He cursed again. Evan had an ass kicking coming for leaving Audra alone and not dragging her to the hospital.

For that matter, would it have been so difficult to put her in the boat and bring her back to Duchess Island with him? He got that Audra had a head harder than a coconut and that she had insisted Evan and Rachel could go on home. But the woman didn’t weigh more than a sack of potatoes. Charlie had picked her up lots of times. Evan had no excuse for not bodily throwing the woman over his shoulder and—

“Charlie.”

He whirled. Audra stood behind him in short shorts and a T-shirt, arms crossed.
Behind
him.
Not
inside the safe apartment where she should be.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, and his opinion of her intelligence—which had previously been pretty high—took a nosedive. “It’s late.”

“What the hell do you think I’m doing here? And yeah, I’m aware of the time. Are you? Clearly not, if you’re wandering around a busy port town. Alone.”

He crossed his own arms in kind so he couldn’t pull her into his embrace. The things he had to say weren’t conducive to putting his hands on her right now.

Not given how his entire body buzzed as he drank in her red hair blowing in the slight ocean breeze and those amazing bare legs. When would the simple sight of her stop whacking him so hard?

“I’m fine. You didn’t have to come all the way to Freeport. You could have called.”

“I did.” He held up his phone, still clutched in his hand in case she texted him back. “You didn’t answer. Which took ten years off my life, by the way.”

A surprise ambush at an Iraqi checkpoint hadn’t managed to do that. Of course that was a situation he knew how to handle.
Survive, evade, resist, and escape
. Always.

Much like the strategy he’d employed with Audra. It wasn’t working. Obviously. He shouldn’t be here. Evasive mode had failed miserably, and resist only worked if they weren’t on the same island. The kiss in the ice machine alcove had proven that.

If she didn’t want sex, he had little idea what he was possibly capable of giving her, though he’d spent the last couple of days imagining a hundred scenarios designed to comply with her wishes.

All of them ended with her naked. So he’d stayed away until he could put some order to the chaos of his thoughts. Escape was the only avenue he could take when she wanted something with no definition around it. When his eyes were constantly on the ground scouting for the best place to step to avoid triggering something explosive, it was time to get the hell out of the minefield.

Only here he was. Full circle.

Guilt flashed through her expression. “I couldn’t sleep. My hip hurts.”

Instantly, everything but Audra drained away. She hurt. He needed to fix it.

“Open the door,” he commanded. “We need to get off the street.”

“This is not Baghdad.” She rolled her eyes. “I was the victim of a drunk driver, not an assassin. I guess it was too much to hope that Evan and Rachel would keep their promise not to mention the incident to you.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Evidence did point to that, but he was too worked up to start listing all the reasons the answer was yes. “If they had, they wouldn’t be people I trust with my life. Door. Now.”

With a slight shake of her head, she complied, pulling a key from her pocket and unlocking the door. He swept her aside and entered first, flicking on all the lights and prowling around until he was satisfied no one lurked in the closet with nefarious intent.

She stood in the center of the living room, arms crossed, wearing a scowl that could have melted the face off an ISIS general. “Satisfied?”

“Not in the slightest.” And he probably never would be when it came to the intense, gaping need for her that nothing eased. He eyed her hip. “Would you at least let me look at your injuries since I’m assuming you didn’t go to the emergency room?”

Her brows lifted. “Have you been to Freeport’s emergency room? It’s full of sick tourists. I’d rather take my chances.”

“Fair enough. I’ve probably got more triage training than the entire medical staff combined. Take off your clothes.”

“Well. Why didn’t you just say so?” At that, she smiled. “If this was all a thinly veiled ploy to get into my panties, you didn’t have go all lieutenant commander on me.”

“Some women think that’s sexy.” Figured she’d be in the small minority of one who didn’t like the idea of being taken care of. “Off.”

She didn’t move a muscle. “What if I’d rather let you undress me?”

The heavy-eyed once-over she dragged down the entire length of his body shifted the vibe in the room so fast he went a little lightheaded. Mostly because all the blood in his brain drained south. “Now we’re talking.”

If she wanted to play games, he could play. Since it got him closer to where he wanted to be, he swept her up in his arms and ignored her squeak of protest as he carried her bodily to the bedroom.

He laid her out on the bed and met her gaze as he unbuttoned her shorts. Then unzipped them. The no-sex moratorium put a good, solid layer of frustration to the motion. “Still think this is a good idea?”

After all, he wasn’t the one who had laid down that law. If it was up to him, they’d have had a wall banger of a time in that ice machine alcove back at the resort. And ten others at strategic intervals.

She didn’t answer but readily lifted her hips to allow him to slide off the tiny shorts that had covered her plain white panties. The white seared his vision worse than an explosion.

Caught in the paradox of his own making, he shut his eyes for a second, but it did nothing to subside his instant hard on. And it was a brutal one. Nothing to be done but deal with it.

The nasty bruise on her left hip spilled across her skin like a purple ink stain, disappearing beneath the line of her underwear. Gently, he peeled back the fabric and did not like how much will it took to stop peeling even after the whole bruise had been revealed.

It would take nothing more than a simple tug to have her bared completely. The proximity of his fingers to her sex burned through him even as he tried to focus on the bruise. She’d been hurt, and all he could think about was touching her, sliding his fingers into her soaking core.
Jackass
.

“See anything you like?” she commented wryly.

“Not especially. What I see is something that never should have happened.”

Whoever had done this to her had no clue what real pain was. And Charlie had many, many methods for introducing him to the concept. Unfortunately, there was less than no chance the authorities could figure out who had been responsible, if she’d even bothered to report it.

He glanced at her face as he ran his fingertips over the bruise. She flinched, and that pissed him off too.

Righteous anger made it easier to cover her back up without letting his fingers stray a few inches toward the paradise between her thighs. He pulled a blanket off the end of the bed and covered her with it. “Stay here. Be right back.”

In the kitchen, he found a box of sandwich bags and shoveled ice into one, sealed it and rummaged through her drawers until he came up with a dishtowel. As ordered, she lay huddled on the bed, but faint lines marred the pale skin of her face and fatigue pulled at her mouth. It snapped something inside.

Even though it would probably kill him, he stretched out next to her and rolled her spoon-style against his body, holding her tight while being careful not to hit her hip. That’s when he realized she was shaking.

His lungs hitched as he processed her misery.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” One hand drifted to her hair automatically, as he’d done so many times in the past, but never to comfort. It was… nice. And made what he had to do worse.

He cupped the back of her head and feathered a thumb across her cheek in apology, then slid an arm under the blanket to wedge the pack of ice against her hip.

She hissed, jerking against his iron hold across her chest. “That was dirty.”

No. Dirty would be the proper name for the images running through his head of what he’d like to be doing while stretched out on a bed with a half-naked Audra. But instead, he was icing her bruise and trying to talk down his erection.

“It’ll help with the swelling.” If only the same applied to him.

She sucked in a breath and squirmed, which did not help matters down below. “It’s cold.”

“It’s supposed to be,” he informed her mildly. “We’ll do this in a couple of rounds and then let it rest.”

“You’re gonna stick a bag of ice on my bare skin
again
?” She whacked his chest with the back of her head since he still had her arms pinned. “I can think of a lot of other things that I’d like you to put on my skin, but ice cubes wasn’t on the list.”

“Mine either,” he murmured and breathed in her scent. “But today’s your lucky day. I’ve got nowhere to be and strong arms. I can do this all night.”

For emphasis, he reached out and snapped off the light, plunging the room in darkness. Only sheer will staved off the chaos that normally accompanied his senses registering darkness. It was one of his worst triggers, but Audra needed him. She didn’t have to know that being here with her was costing him one sweat-laden spec of sanity for every second he stayed.

She sighed, but it was a breathy little number that stirred against his arm, and awareness leeched through his body until every nerve ending stood at red alert. He should have qualified that statement with
but I’ll be certifiable at the end of it
.

She fell quiet, and he thought he’d lulled her to sleep until she said, “Charlie?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“You weren’t going to call me. Were you?”

In the dark, the significance of the question took on weight, and he didn’t even consider lying. “No. But not because I didn’t want to.”

That’s where he hesitated, because how did he explain the seething froth under his skin that he scarcely wanted to experience himself, let alone expose her to? Funny how she’d gotten him exactly where he didn’t want to be—in the middle of an all-night conversation with no sex on the menu.

At least if they were having sex, he could blast away everything else for a few minutes and just feel good. For once.

“Because of… all the other stuff?”

Jared Anderson.
The blank wasn’t hard to fill. But it was hard to dial back the spurt of anger at the mere thought of his name. Yeah. That was part of the equation. But not all. It was so much easier to let her believe the only thing holding them apart was her sins. Which was definitely not the right thing to do.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” he finally said. “I know how to pleasure you. What you like, where to touch you, how you like to be kissed. Sex is easy. But I… have a hard time knowing how to talk to you when we have so many subjects we have to avoid.”

“My fault,” she interjected quietly. “I can put the blame where it’s due. I’m sorry I hurt you by dating Jared.”

Two drops splashed on his bare arm where her cheek lay. Because she was crying. It loosened the bands around his chest. Wordlessly, he pulled her tighter into his embrace and kissed her temple as he processed the apology.

She had hurt him. More than he’d been willing to acknowledge, but hearing her admission unspooled all of it until he could hardly stand to be in his own head. This time, he didn’t let go of her though. Darkness covered a lot of sins, and he was willing to take her regret at face value. Maybe forgiveness didn’t have to be so hard if he understood what had happened.

“Why?” he whispered. “Of all people. He was my friend. Was being the operative word, once his real character reared its ugly head. I don’t understand what you could possibly see in him.”

That was one of the things that hurt the most. The man had spent months trying to destroy him, and Audra had been sleeping with the ruthless, cunning ass.

She didn’t answer. Of course not. Because he was pushing her for a reason, an excuse—
something
. But she wouldn’t give up a shred of intel that she didn’t want to share. Secrets represented far too much intimacy. More intimacy than she’d wanted with Charlie anyway.

He could not take this any longer.

But just as he was about to untangle himself so he could vault from the bed, she laced her fingers with his.

“Isaac…” She gulped. “Isaac died, Charlie.”

The long, lone sob that followed her brutal statement echoed in his suddenly hollow chest. The images in his black box spilled out. Death, blood, carnage—all of it superimposed over the face of her brother, and the silent scream inside that was always a breath away from being unleashed boiled to the surface.