Revealing Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 4) (19 page)

As she held his hand, the murmuring started in earnest, punctuated by small cries that ripped through her stomach with jagged little teeth. Was he remembering the pain of being riddled with shrapnel? Some other aspect of his deployment in the Middle East that he’d kept to himself?

Jordan
. The name drifted from his lips, clear and heartbreaking, as if he’d called out to this person, but he was already gone. Good God. Had he been forced to watch a teammate die?

His anguish bled through his very pores and spilled over into her space, greedily looking for another outlet, which her vulnerable heart latched onto far too quickly. Empathy brought tears to her eyes, and before she could blink them back, one fell to the sheet.

He hurt. So she hurt. It was as perplexing as it was inescapable.

“Evan.” She cupped his jaw with both hands, stroking her thumbs over his cheeks in hopes of waking him, because surely he shouldn’t be allowed to keep sleeping though something horrific, even if it was only in his own head.

He didn’t open his eyes. But he settled a little, his face relaxing and his gorgeous lips finally coming together, the murmuring apparently over for now.

How so very intriguing that a man who spent a large portion of his day in silence talked in his sleep. And if the woman sleeping with him listened hard enough, she might learn some things of value.

Like what his own feelings were toward Rachel.

After all, a train wreck only happened when two trains were involved. Maybe she was speeding down a track that only had one train on it. And if so, that might actually be worse.
No
. It would be better because then she could pretend that falling for Evan wasn’t happening. But she was pretty sure the way her heart flopped when they made love wasn’t solely on her side.

Panic kept her company for an eternity as she lay there in the dark with her palm resting on Evan’s chest.

When she next regained consciousness, dawn filtered through the window. Evan wrapped her up in his arms, nuzzling her awake with his lips against her throat. His extremely aroused state made itself known as his length jutted up against her bottom.

“Don’t you have work?” she muttered.

Shut up.
What was the matter with her? Trying to distract a man from making love to her as his first priority of the day? That was just… wrong.

“Saturday,” he mouthed against her flesh, and then his hand slid down her stomach to say hello to her bare body.

So yeah. Apparently they
weren’t
going to do anything else besides have sex. What was there to complain about? It was exactly what she’d been after from the start, when Dex had introduced her to his silent, enigmatic roommate, and she’d vowed to have Evan Silva naked and under her before the next full moon. Still waters ran deep, and she’d had plans to put ripples in his.

Here they were. Naked. It was perfect.

Except it wasn’t. Because he was rippling her depths too, no doubt.

And the gush of emotion swirling through her body when Evan touched her, loved her, pierced her with those dark eyes—it was too much. And far too little. Because as they came together, it was impossible to pretend she was in the process of falling for him, when in truth, she was crazy in love.

After he’d thoroughly sated them both, she rolled over and glanced at him. His eyes were half closed, and he had a small smile on his face.

“What?” he murmured.

You’re so beautiful. Layered. Amazing. Mysterious.

“What are we doing here, Evan?” That had not been what she’d meant to say. “Is this what you’d envisioned when you said we should do this ‘right’?”

God, she should not have opened that can of worms. But he’d systematically stripped her of the ability to provide a calm, rational argument on a journey toward the truth. The squirrely feeling was still mixing it up in her chest, and it was hard to breathe all at once. She didn’t work well without facts. The brief that contained the elements of their relationship had far too little information in it.

His lashes blinked open. “Yeah.”

“Until when? You get bored?” She hadn’t meant to throw his own words back in his face.

Needy much? She shut her eyes because her glasses were still on the bedside table, and she had no clue how to navigate a conversation about all the confusion roiling underneath her breastbone. Dawn discoveries were not her specialty.

“Rachel.” His fingers threaded through her hair, cupping her neck. Soothing her, like she’d soothed him last night, though she was pretty sure he had no idea that he had nightmares. “Look at me.”

She didn’t. It wasn’t fair of him to demand that when every time she’d done that in the past, he’d yanked another secret from her depths, things she didn’t want him to know but couldn’t help blabbing to him in some sort of twisted extrasensory perception.

“What did
you
think doing it ‘right’ would be like?” he asked, bewilderment evident in his voice.

Therein lay the problem. He’d started talking to her regularly, and it diluted his nonverbal communication. She had no idea what he was thinking. Or maybe she’d stopped trying so hard to figure it out… for fear of learning something she wouldn’t like. Worse, she might learn something that would force her to articulate her own feelings. And that was a lot of truth that wasn’t supposed to be a part of all this.

His eyebrow quirked, and she had no problem interpreting it as,
hello, asked you a question
. So maybe she could still read him a little, just not when it counted.

“I don’t know!” she burst out.

Not this.
Okay, well yes—
this
. Naked in bed together, basking in the glow of an orgasm that she could still feel in her toes. But not this constant state of unrest, where she could barely look at him for fear of what he’d see.

There were no laws governing stuff like this. How was she supposed to know what to do? How was she supposed to trust in the promise of happily ever after when in her world that was a sure ticket to a courtroom appearance?

“Do you want me to take you on a real date? A really real one in, like, a building?” The amusement in his voice pissed her off even more.

Her eyelids sprang open and she scowled. As if being taken to dinner would solve everything. “I want you to tell me how you feel!”

He froze, growing so still she feared she’d crossed some sort of line.

“You mean about you?” he asked softly. “I thought you were an expert at reading my mind.”

Which wasn’t the same as Evan actually saying the words. Why was he being so cagey? A tense, shuddery feeling skated across her spine. “Instead of that, I was hoping for something a little more concrete.”

He toyed with her hair, and she had the distinct impression it was a ploy to keep his hands occupied. “Telling you I didn’t want to share you wasn’t a big enough clue?”

“No. It’s not.” She was in the middle of a crisis here. Couldn’t he see that? “I need the words.”

He frowned. “Words are your forte. Not mine.”

Obviously he’d turned blind as well as obtuse. “That’s why I need them.”

Frustrated, she buried her head in his shoulder because this was all her fault. She got that. But it didn’t change facts. The only way she could make sense of anything was if she could articulate it. Engage in a back and forth until they’d arbitrated the issue. It was how she worked.

He pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around her. Silently. Of course.

Panic rose up in her throat, and she pulled away to search his face for some clue that he was as freaked out as she was. He stared back with a quirked eyebrow, which nearly brought her to tears. And the threat of it was the only reason she blurted out, “I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you. I don’t know how to deal with that.”

Instantly a veil fell over his expression. “You can’t be.”

“I can so.” Rolling to a sitting position, she crossed her arms, finally giving in to the urge to cover herself because everything was sliding away and she had no idea how to stop it. “That’s what’s been happening all along. For both of us. And if you say it’s not, you’re a liar.”

“Rachel.” His voice rumbled in warning, but she ignored it, too worked up to stop.

“You begged me to let you love me when we were on Ilhota Rosa. And I did. That wasn’t just a euphemism for sex.” Something dark flashed through his expression, and she faltered all at once. “At least it wasn’t on my side.”

Oh God. It had never occurred to her that he might not have meant it that way. This whole time she’d thought they’d been moving toward something real. Something lasting. Something that he’d wanted, and she’d been letting him drag her along, kicking and screaming, until she accepted what was happening inside her was really, truly love.

And she’d been beating herself up for not believing it was possible, desperately searching for a way to trust him because she’d assumed the problem with commitment was hers.

“Is this all fun and games after all?” she whispered. “Is the joke on me, and you’re actually a stone-cold player, biding your time until you’re done screwing me?”

No. He wasn’t like that. He hadn’t had sex in over a year, or so he’d told her. But that was the problem with words—they were often lies.

Evan had yet to open his mouth, but raging thunderheads had gathered in his gaze, which was a bit frightening. What did
he
have to be upset about? She was the one spilling her heart into the ether without a net. The one who didn’t have a clue how to be in love with someone.

“So that’s it then.” She laughed bitterly. “You can ask me to give and give and give, but when it comes time for me to do the asking, you shut down.”

“I’ve given you plenty.” His voice was so low she could scarcely hear it, but his agitation cut through the tension well enough for her to get the gist.

“Sure, the orgasms were great. Thanks for a good time, Evan.”

That had come out far bitchier than she’d intended. He wasn’t a chatterbox. She’d known that coming in and had somehow twisted his strong, silent tendencies around until he was the villain, when in reality he’d been following a script she’d practically written. Love ’em and get the hell out had always been her motto.

Until it wasn’t. And she was ruining everything with her neurotic inability to get a grip.

“Don’t do that,” he warned. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I’m sorry.” She dropped her head on one bent-up knee. “I just… Somewhere in the middle of your nightmare last night, I realized how far over my head this all is. And I—”

“Nightmare?” That’s when he sat up, mirroring her pose as he zeroed in on her.

“Yeah. You were thrashing around and mumbling about someone named Jordan.”

Evan went so still she reached out, worried she’d triggered something really bad by mentioning his o-dark-thirty thrash fest. But then he vaulted from the bed and threw on clothes so fast her head nearly spun off her shoulders.

Bad subject obviously. But this was exactly her point. He evaded everything that might get them closer to what she’d have sworn they both wanted. His demons were in the way. And that needed to stop right now, otherwise, they could never move forward.

He needed her to take care of this. To draw out the poison so he could heal from the bites of his past.

“Evan. Who’s Jordan?”

He swallowed. And swallowed again. She didn’t think he was going to answer her, but then he stared straight into her eyes.

“Jordan is my daughter.”

And then he had the decency to leave the room while her entire world slid off its axis.

Evan didn’t have to wait for Rachel long. He’d only managed to pace the length of the living area a dozen times before she ventured out of the bedroom wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Dry-eyed, glasses in place.

But she looked fragile and hollow, as if she might collapse if he squeezed her too hard. So he didn’t try to touch her. He had no right to anyway. Never had but fooled himself into thinking these last few days of bliss wouldn’t cost her anything.

After all, she was the strong one, the one without all the fatal weaknesses. The one who had superficial flings down to a science. How was he supposed to predict she’d do the singular thing he’d been banking on never happening?

Rachel was not supposed to fall in love with him. Now he had to fix it. Before he made it worse with his selfishness and inability to be alone, though being alone was precisely what he should get for his crimes.

Rachel sat on the couch, perched on the edge as if she couldn’t bear to make herself comfortable. Every pore of her body bled with pain, and he absorbed it without flinching. Because it was his fault she hurt, and he’d earned whatever consequences came from that.

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

After an eternity of not looking at him, she finally asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you had a daughter?”

He shrugged. “I don’t. Not really. Biologically, yes. But she was a baby the last time I saw her. She wouldn’t know me.”

Another consequence that he’d been forced to live with and had done his best to accept. Obviously he wasn’t doing as well as he’d thought if he’d been calling out Jordan’s name in the middle of the night. How long had that been going on?