Targeted (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 2) (13 page)

Tuck’s gaze cooled. Hardened. And suddenly he was the experienced operator staring back at her. “If you keep ignoring what’s going on, yeah, maybe.”

Her stomach seized. “Zoe told you.” The betrayal sliced deep. A humiliated flush crept up her face, settled in her cheeks as she stared at him in accusation.

Tuck exhaled and leaned back, never taking his eyes off her. “About the nightmares? Yeah.”

Celida glanced toward the door, part of her wanting to storm out there, go after Zoe and tear into her for this. She folded her arms. “What else did she tell you?”

“She’s worried about you. And so am I.”

Her gaze snapped to his. “I’m fine.”

He kept looking at her in that calm, resolute way of his, making the ripples of panic in her gut stronger. “Do you have them when you’re awake too?”

She shot off the couch and re-crossed her arms. “I said I’m
fine
.”

He wouldn’t let it go. “How often?”

Celida forced herself to take a deep breath, knowing that if she got defensive he’d use it to his advantage. “Not often, and I’m handling it, okay? Just leave it alone.”

“PTSD isn’t something to screw around with or ignore. I’ve seen way too many guys destroyed that way. I don’t want to see it happen to you too.”

God, she
hated
that acronym. She held out a hand in warning, palm out. “Tuck,
leave
it.” Before she exploded and took the anger and hurt bubbling inside her out on him. She understood he thought he was trying to help, but all it was doing was making things worse.

He raised a dark golden eyebrow. “Are you still getting help?”

It was humiliating enough that he knew she’d been seeing a therapist after the attack. “I don’t need help anymore. It’s normal, the agency shrink told me to expect things like this when I came back to work. It’ll just take me a while to get back into my routine.”

“So this has just started since you went back?”

No.
She gave a humorless laugh. “This is so not how I pictured this night going when I saw your truck out front.” She’d been looking forward to going to bed all right, with Tuck, and not for sleeping. At least not until they were both sated and too exhausted to move. That definitely wasn’t happening now. At the moment she was way more likely to punch him than let him touch her.

A muscle in his jaw flexed. “I’m saying all this because I care.”

“And I appreciate that, really, but we need to change the subject now.” She kept her voice even, her tone civil despite the way her heart was pounding against her breastbone, but then that muscle in his jaw jumped again, the deep gold stubble catching the light streaming in from the kitchen.

“So that’s it?”

Something about his tone set off a warning buzz in the pit of her stomach.

She frowned at him, the headache gathering in power in her temples and the back of her skull as the exhaustion tugged at her, a relentless weight pulling her down. His earlier words hurt because they were true.

She
was
afraid to fall asleep. She was afraid of waking in the middle of another night terror, soaked with sweat and the sheets tangled around her, heart pounding so hard and fast it felt like she was on the verge of a heart attack. And she definitely didn’t want him to see any of that.

But that flat tone he’d just used bothered her. “What do you mean?”

He stood up and faced her, hands on hips, his aura of sheer masculine authority seeming to suck all the air out of the room. “You’re seriously going to shut me out, even after everything you’ve seen going on in my life?”

She drew her head back in shock, baffled why he’d think that. “What?”

He shook his head once, his frustration and yes, hurt, showing through that tough exterior. That she might have hurt him pierced her. “I let you in. You’ve seen me at my worst, at my weakest, in a way no one else has, and you’re still going to shut me out?” His voice rang with disbelief. And hurt.

The hurt bothered her, but didn’t take the edge off her temper. “I’m not shutting you out!” She didn’t even care that she was shouting at him. A mass of emotions roiled inside her: hurt, anxiety, anger, but mostly, fear. Fear that she was losing her grip on her sanity, and that he wouldn’t want her anymore if he saw her come unglued. That her career might be affected if word got out that she had to seek treatment just because she couldn’t get over the attack. She’d seen guys lose their security clearances over exactly this same issue, both in the military and the FBI.

“I’m not,” she insisted when he didn’t say anything, trying to make him understand.

“Then fucking talk to me!”

She blinked in shock. He’d never raised his voice at her before. Not once, not even in the two years when they’d been partnered together. She threw her hands up in frustration a weariness taking over. “What the hell do you want me to say?”

A taut, brittle silence filled the room as he stared at her, and the disappointment she read in his eyes made it feel like someone had punched a hand through her ribs and crushed her heart. “Nothing. Forget it.” His voice was cold, clipped, and then he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

She stayed where she was, locked there in indecision, part of her refusing to believe he was actually going to leave. But then the front door opened and shut and she heard his footsteps on the concrete path outside.

Panic flared, hot and acidic. She had a terrible, bone-deep certainty that if she let him walk away now she’d lose him. For good.

Despite all her self-preservation instincts screaming at her to stop, to hold her ground, she couldn’t. She ran to the door, flooded with the overwhelming fear that it was already too late. A hot knot of tears lodged hard in her throat. Flinging the door open, she cast a wild glance around outside but didn’t see him.

“Tuck!”

No answer. He was already gone.

Pain stabbed through her, stealing her breath. She lunged out the door, left it wide open behind her as she ran up the pathway, her bare feet slapping against the concrete.

Rounding the corner, she jerked to a halt when she saw him paused in the act of climbing into his truck. Her heart seized for a second, then settled slightly.

Tuck looked at her for a long moment, then stepped out of the truck’s cab, shut the door and walked back to her. Slowly.

He halted a step or two away, watching her with a guarded expression that tore her up inside. He was right, she hadn’t been fair. He’d let her in, let her see private, emotionally devastating things in his life and in return she’d shut him out. Consciously and unconsciously, but not for the reasons he probably thought. She
did
trust him, did want this to work, but it was so hard to let go of this awful, crawling feeling of vulnerability that scared her so much.

She was a goddamn hypocrite, expecting that of him and not giving it back.

Tuck didn’t say anything, simply stared at her as the endless seconds of silence stretched out. Celida swallowed, the lump in her throat so huge she was afraid to open her mouth and say anything because she was terrified a sob would come out instead. But the thought of losing him over this was so completely devastating that her walls crumbled.

Don’t leave.
She felt her face crumple, felt her mouth and eyes scrunch up as she stared up at him.

His expression instantly softened. He sighed and reached out for her, used both hands to brush the hair back from her forehead in a gesture so tender it broke her heart.

She hitched in an unsteady breath, blinked fast so she could see him through the blur of tears and locked a hand around one of his thick wrists. “I’m not okay,” she croaked, something shattering inside her at the admission. “I’m not.”

The look on her face damn near shredded him. She was totally laid bare before him, more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her, and her choked admission made his heart roll over in his chest.

Tuck sighed, all his anger draining away in the face of her devastation at the thought of him walking away. “C’mere.” He tugged her close and wrapped his arms around her tight. She shuddered and burrowed into him, her face pressed hard against his chest as though trying to hide as she gasped in deep, ragged breaths, clearly fighting back sobs.

“I’m not okay,” she repeated, her voice shaky, and he heard the edge of her fear there.

“I know you’re not right now, baby, but you’re gonna be.” He knew she’d come out the other side of this stronger than ever, and he’d do whatever he could to help. But she had to be willing to
let
him, or they would never work.

Celida shook in response, the tremors ripping through her and reverberating through his own body. “D-don’t go.”

Aw, fuck.
He’d hurt her by walking out. More than he’d realized or meant to. “Shh, I won’t. It’s okay.” He buried his face in her hair and held her close. Eyes closed, he focused on surrounding as much of her as he could with his body, driven to protect his woman, to comfort her.

He hadn’t been bluffing about leaving earlier. He’d had every intention of climbing into his truck and driving back to his place and rethinking this whole thing with Celida in the morning. He knew all about the way she conducted her personal life, and how she liked her flings to be short, and how she liked to be the one to break it off before things got messy emotionally.

Tuck wouldn’t allow that. Not with her. It was why he’d never made a move before now.

And there was no way he could be in a relationship where he was emotionally wide open and she wasn’t. That’s not how it worked. Part of him had known when he’d told her that he wanted all or nothing that she hadn’t really believed him, or maybe hadn’t understood.

He was going to make that crystal clear tonight.

“Come on, let’s go back inside,” he murmured against her hair. She took a deep breath, drew back and kept her face averted as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and walked back up the path to her front door. She’d left it wide open in her haste to get to him.

In the kitchen she moved away from him and rubbed a hand over the nape of her neck, closing her eyes as she rolled her head around.

“Headache?” he asked quietly.

She nodded, still refusing to look at him, and went to the cupboard next to the sink to grab some pain relievers. Tuck filled a glass with water and handed it to her. Her hand was steady as she took the meds but he knew exactly how shaken she was. That uncharacteristic show of emotion from her earlier told him just how much she trusted and wanted him. He was both humbled and relieved by that.

When she set the glass in the sink but still wouldn’t look at him, Tuck eased a hand around her nape and squeezed. She winced a bit but stood still and let him knead the tense muscles at the back of her neck. “Wanna go sit down?” he murmured.

Again she shook her head, then turned and leaned into him, her forehead resting in the hollow of his shoulder. She felt so perfect in his embrace, those hourglass curves molding into him. While he massaged her neck with one hand he smoothed the other up and down her spine. It was so rare that she let anyone help her with anything; he was grateful she was letting him.

He didn’t know how long they stayed that way, but after a long while she slid her hands up to the back of his neck and trailed her fingers through the back of his hair. She nuzzled his pec, the move making every muscle in his whole body tighten. Her warm breath seeped through the cotton of his shirt as she began pressing a string of kisses along his chest to the base of his throat.

The feel of her parted lips against his skin sent a bolt of heat through him. His blood pumped hard and hot through his veins, making his cock swell. Her fingers clenched in his hair as she skimmed her open mouth up his throat, pausing to nip his earlobe before she drew it between her lips and sucked.

A burst of heat exploded inside him at the unexpected move.

Jesus
.

He cupped the back of her head and pulled her tight to him just as she turned her head to drop little biting kisses across his jaw to the corner of his mouth. His hand contracted in her hair, tipping her head back to meet that full, lush mouth. A low moan shivered through her and she opened for him, sliding her tongue along his, the firm press of her breasts against his chest a sweet torture.

But there was something off. He’d always known they’d burn hot and fast together, but he could feel the desperation in her kisses, the frantic energy thrumming through her.

He drew back just far enough to give him room to speak. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, darlin’.”

She didn’t seem to hear the words, or if she did they didn’t calm her because she grabbed him and kept on kissing the hell out of him, apparently determined to drive him out of his fucking skull. Both her hands clenched in his hair and she pushed up on tiptoe to explore his mouth with her tongue. Wild, needy kisses, rubbing that delectable body against him.

But the desperation set off a warning buzz at the back of his brain. He didn’t want her to worry that he’d stop and walk out, leaving her to deal with this emotional aftermath alone.

Tuck tore his mouth free and held her head steady, resisting when she whined and tried to come back for more so he could look into her eyes. He read the desperation, the plea there, but there were also the things he needed to see. They were dark, glazed with need and a longing he would kill to satisfy.

There was no way in hell he could just put her to bed and hold her like he’d originally intended.

Any reservations he’d had went up in smoke. “Okay,” he muttered, decision made. He shocked a gasp out of her by grabbing her by the hips and spinning her around so her back was facing the wall, backing her up against the closest counter.

Holding her there with his pelvis pressed against her, he watched the flare of lust burn hotter as she felt every inch of his erection digging into her abdomen. Before she could drag him down into another kiss he hoisted her up onto the granite countertop, shoved her skirt up her thighs and pushed them apart to make room for his hips. He rolled his hips and kissed her, swallowing her moan at the feel of his covered cock rubbing against her.