She toed off her running shoes and pulled her shirt over her head. When she heard him inhale sharply, she hid a smile in the folds of the cotton. “A cheeseburger and fries would be great, with an unsweetened iced tea. I’m going to grab a shower while you’re out. And don’t forget to order a cot from the front desk. It’s too bad they were sold out of double-bed rooms. Those rickety rollaways are especially uncomfortable for men your size.”
The door closed behind him with more force than necessary.
Laughing softly, Layla propped one of the suitcases open on the luggage rack she pulled out of the closet. She paused in the act of digging a razor out, her gaze caught by a box of condoms and personal lubricant. She whistled.
She knew him. Knew how he worked.
Brian Simmons was arrogant and well aware that he was her weak spot, but getting her into bed wasn’t about getting laid. If sex was all he was after, he could pick up someone at the diner. If he set his mind to it, he could have a woman against a wall before his food got cold. He was hot as hell and radiated dark sex appeal, but what really drew the chicks like flies was the dangerous remoteness about him. Brian was a real-life American antihero and he was impossible to pin down, which only made women want to try harder. God knew she’d tried.
But the same couldn’t be said in reverse—Brian knew how to get to her. He knew how to strip her defenses until she was wide open to him, and that’s certainly what he’d been thinking about when he was picking up such optimistic items. The pleasure wasn’t the goal; it was a means to an end.
Her consolation was that when she was laid bare, he willingly opened himself to her in return. In bed, inside her, was the one place where he gave her all of himself. She wished he would take those risks with her in the real world. That’s all she’d ever wanted.
Tossing the condoms on the bed and the lube in the nightstand drawer, Layla headed into the bathroom and closed the door. With the click of the latch, her shoulders drooped, taking her by surprise. Her chest grew tight, the moment of privacy revealing how vulnerable she really was, something she’d suppressed all afternoon without realizing it. Grief and regret rushed over her like an avalanche. She stumbled into the shower stall, her head bowing beneath the hastily turned on water. Tears flowed. Her chest shook with sobs. Gripping her lower lip in her teeth, she stemmed the sounds that would have betrayed her fragility.
It would be so easy to turn to Brian, to fall apart on him and take the comfort he would give her without reproach or hesitation. But they both needed her to be strong now. She couldn’t distract him. He was one man transporting a witness who was supposed to have a half dozen of the Marshals Services’s top deputies keeping her safe. Shadow Stalkers they were called. Special ops deputies who most often hailed from military special forces like Brian did.
It was his acceptance into the Shadow Stalkers that had broken them apart. After losing her father and brother to military service, she’d been determined not to lose Brian, too. He’d led her to believe that leaving the Navy was a new road for him, but it hadn’t been a safer road; not after he volunteered to be a Shadow Stalker. She couldn’t forgive him for what she’d thought at the time was a monumental deception and callous disregard for her concerns.
When she returned to the bedroom, Brian was back. The room smelled like tasty greasy food and he was glaring at the turned off television with his hands on his hips. He’d ditched his shoes and his flannel, leaving him in jeans and a fitted T-shirt, with his holster strapped around his shoulders.
Layla paused midstep, her uplifted hands stilling in the act of scrubbing her hair dry with a towel.
It struck her abruptly: she felt safe.
He couldn’t know what that meant to her. Feeling safe was a comfort she’d thought she’d lost forever that night in Mexico. And yet the sight of him, so strong and confident, so determined, made her feel like nothing could get to her. Anyone who wanted her would have to get through Brian first and she couldn’t see that happening.
He gestured at the condoms in the middle of the mattress, his green eyes hard as jade. “Contrary to what you might think, I wasn’t planning on fucking you tonight.”
“I could tell.”
“Smart ass.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t want you sleeping alone tonight. You’ve had a rough day. The inspector you’ve been talking to for years died in front of you. I know you, sweetheart. You can’t just shrug that off. You’re hurting and you’re bottling it up.”
Her throat tightened and she shook her head, warning him away from a topic that would lead to more tears.
He stepped closer. “I want to hold you, keep you warm, make sure you feel safe. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Layla.”
She swallowed hard. “I know. Right now, that’s the only thing I know for sure.”
Before she knew it, she was in his arms, held tight against him. Burying her face in the soft cotton jersey of his shirt, Layla breathed him in—the warm, clean scent of virile male. Brian wasn’t a cologne kind of guy; just soap, antiperspirant, and natural pheromones, which did a number on her every time. Her reaction to him was instinctual and primal, as if she’d been hardwired to seek out this one man, the only one who made her feel as if she was right where she was supposed to be.
Layla dropped the towel in her hand. Her hands fisted at his waist, gripping both his shirt and belt loops. As always, she felt like she was hanging on to him with a death grip, trying to stave off the inevitable separation. Even when he’d been hers, she’d never really felt like she had all of him. His job owned him first and foremost, and eventually she’d realized that if she made him leave it behind, the loss would alter him in a fundamental way. She couldn’t ask that of him. He had to make that decision for himself.
And he had.
The job won.
Exhaling in a rush, she released him and stepped back. His arms fell away reluctantly, loosening the towel she’d secured around her torso with a tuck between her breasts. She barely caught it before it parted and fell. Brian sucked in a sharp breath and turned away, displaying a restraint she wouldn’t have expected from the Brian of old.
“You need to eat.” He dug into a large bag and pulled out a foam container. He peeked inside it, then grabbed a napkin and some plastic utensils.
Layla watched as he set a rudimentary place setting for her at a small round table by the window. The blackout drapes were drawn tightly together, shielding them from view of any passersby. She grabbed a fresh change of clothes and donned them in the steamy bathroom before sitting down to eat.
“What did you get?” she asked.
“Burger. Same as you.”
She chewed a fry thoughtfully, her gaze moving to the bed and the condom box.
“They were near the razors,” he muttered. “I didn’t go out of my way looking for them.”
Layla managed to repress the smile wanting to escape. His surly moods always brought her amusement. He was the type of guy for whom most everything just rolled off his back. The only thing capable of knocking him off his game was her. “God bless stores with convenient layouts.”
He growled and ripped off a bite from a burger that was easily twice the size of the one she had. Brian wasn’t a fan of breakfast, but he more than made up for it with the amount of food he ate the rest of the day.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” she asked sweetly.
His gaze narrowed suspiciously, but he snatched up his food and came over, pulling out the chair opposite her and sinking into it with movements that were inherently graceful. She’d always loved to watch him in motion, loved to watch the way his muscles bunched and lengthened with sleek fluidity.
“You look great, Bri.” Her voice was low and warm, prompting her to take a quick drink of her soda to cover the slip. Letting him know she still loved him would be a mistake. They had even less of a future now than they’d had before.
He stilled midchew. Swallowing, he said, “Thanks. So do you.”
She offered a shy smile and resumed eating.
“So . . .” he began. “What have you been doing the last few years? Have you been in Maryland the whole time?”
“Pretty much.”
“Do you like it?”
She shrugged. “It’s all right. Nothing like SoCal.”
“No,” he agreed. “Are you still studying interior design?”
She shook her head. She hesitated, then took a deep breath before elaborating. “Criminal justice.”
His brows rose and he studied her over the lip of his cup. She knew he was thinking of how big a change that was. He might even be wondering if it might tie into his and Jacob’s former plans to start their own private security firm. Their dream wasn’t one she had shared beyond her anticipation of having the guys home more often, but she’d grown to love it since joining WITSEC. In a way, it kept her connected to Brian and her brother.
“Are you happy, Layla?” he asked softly.
“I’m not unhappy.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
Layla washed her food down with a leisurely draw on her straw. “Shouldn’t you have asked that before you bought the condoms?”
“Damn it.” Brian dropped his half-eaten burger onto his fries. “You’re not going to let it go, are you?”
“Sure. I’ll drop it.”
“Thank you.” He shoved three fries into a pile of ketchup, then pushed them into his mouth.
“But about the lube—” She blinked innocently when he erupted into coughing. “You gotta admit, that’s pretty personal. And ambitious. It’s one thing to rekindle a little fun in the sack, but anal sex, Bri? I’m sure you’ve known women who serve that on the main menu, but that’s a chef ’s table item for me.”
“Layla.” He pushed back and stood.
“You really should eat,” she admonished. “You’ve got to keep up your strength. We’re on the run after all, and you’ve got some serious mattress gymnastics planned.”
