The Night Is Mine

Chapter 27

27

Emily fretted through the night and the day. Or the day and the night. No real difference lying on a hospital bed wearing eye bandages. The hallways had grown quiet for a long time, then louder for a brief time, but not much. Nurses and food came and went. Then the silence had clamped down. The longest night of her life stretched out forever.

Daniel had come in briefly and done his best to be funny. But it was a quieter, more somber Daniel. After a particularly long and awkward silence, he finally whispered to her, “Never knew what being close to death meant.”

Emily knew. Had faced it for the first time as her pilot had bled out in her lap while they lay hidden in the godforsaken Thai jungle. She’d had to keep his mouth clamped shut against his groans of pain so he couldn’t say any last words as he died. The opium runners who’d shot them down crisscrossed less than five feet from where she’d hidden them. She’d faced death any number of times since, and every time was equally horrible. This had been no more than a bad scrape.

They sat together in awkward silence for a few more minutes, holding hands before Daniel complained that his concussion still pounded away at him with a roaring headache. With a final squeeze of her hand, he returned to his room.

Her parents had come. Worried. Fussed. Her mother had said several completely inappropriate things about how Emily had had such pretty eyes and wouldn’t it be a pity if she could never see again.

Emily felt touched that her mother was so upset that she’d forgotten her perfect manners and felt guilty but relieved when her father escorted her mother from the room.

Alone

Again.

In the silence.

At the darkest hour of her personal night, at the moment she longed to tear and shred the bandages, at the moment she knew for a fact she’d never see nor fly again, a hand took hers. The sudden comfort was such a relief that she cried out. And then she wept for the first time in a decade, holding the hand with all her strength between both of hers.

It was a man’s hand. Not Daniel’s nor Peter’s. Not soft.

Powerful. Protective. Well callused. She could hold a hand like that forever and know she’d be safe to the end of her days.

The hand pulled her. Pulled her until she curled in its owner’s lap.

She wept against his shoulder.

She wept while the sobs wracked her body, until the only thing keeping her from flying apart were the strong arms around her. Wept until she was wrung dry. Wept until the fear left her. Wept until she remembered that Night Stalkers Don’t Quit.

Emily simply curled against the man who held her, her head tucked safe beneath his chin.

Then he cupped her cheek with one of those wonderful hands and held her head ever so gently against his chest.

She knew that hand. Now that she could think, she’d known it from the first instant it had taken hers.

Major Mark Henderson. She’d wept on his shoulder like a scared little girl, not a woman playing tough in a man’s world. And she’d never felt so safe in her life.

Mark Henderson, the toughest commander she’d ever had in a long line of the Army’s best. A man who flew like a god. A man that she could respect. He had kissed her and made a memory she would always enjoy.

And he’d held her when she most needed it.

That created a space in her heart.

She slid a hand free and, discovering his beret, tipped it from his head, releasing that soft mass of hair. She curled her fingers into it at the back of his neck. Lifting her head, she pulled his down.

He resisted. Held back, asking without words if she was sure.

She didn’t think. Didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to analyze, understand, calculate, and estimate. She wanted to kiss him to know if it had been real.

She pulled him down the last half inch, and his lips met hers.

There.

The electric shock hadn’t been her imagination. Her memory of that fleeting moment on the aircraft carrier proved trustworthy. It rang like a great bell all the way down to her toes. He tasted of woodsmoke on winter’s air. Of rich, dark sunbaked garden earth heated by the sun. He tasted most definitely of man. Man with a capital “M” and maybe an exclamation point besides.

When he offered to retreat, she dug her fingers in harder, kept his mouth in place against hers.

With a low moan, that could have come from a wounded animal, he gave in all at once. He buried his face at her neck and held on. Held on like a man drowning.

Emily wanted to throw her head back and howl at the sky. This man, this warrior, would do anything she asked. For this moment, in this place, she controlled the beast. And as clearly as when flying, she knew exactly what she wanted.

Her fingers told her that Mark wore his dress-blue service uniform. The man was wearing dress blues in her hospital room. And she’d bet he looked damn good in them, too—all formal and broad shouldered. How he looked, though, wasn’t a big motivator at this moment. She undid the three brass buttons, shoving the jacket back off his shoulders, pinning his arms. As he struggled free of that, she pulled off the tie and unbuttoned his shirt. Finally, unable to get it clear, she yanked it off over his head.

Then she wallowed against that glorious chest. Her hands flew over the landscape until she knew each curve of every well-defined muscle. She could feel the ripple of his uncertainty as she discovered him, rubbing her cheek on his shoulder where she’d wept her heart out minutes before. His hands, he never knew what to do with his hands, were paralyzed on her shoulders, neither drawing her in nor pushing her away.

A nibble on his rib cage caused a sudden twitch.

She tried it again. Twitch and a squirm.

Major Mark “The Viper” Henderson was ticklish. Oh, this was too divine.

In moments they were a snarled-up mess of arms and legs struggling for purchase as he strove to protect himself.

Mark swore beneath his breath.

What was it with this woman?

He trapped her hands.

Didn’t she know she was injured?

With a twist, she tucked a leg up in a move so flexible it shouldn’t be possible and attacked his ribs with her toes.

Didn’t she know the nurse’s station stood only ten meters down the corridor? And the night light… No, she wouldn’t know about that.

He managed to fend off the leg but lost one of the hands.

Not going back for his ticklish spot, she slid her hand down over his pants. He’d felt guilty for being aroused when he held her while she wept. How could so much pain be trapped in so slight a body without flying apart? But holding her, he’d felt strong and, well, aroused.

And when her hand grabbed him through his slacks, his arousal snapped to full attention.

No! He wasn’t going to take advantage of her. Not in her current state. Through brute force, as much against his desire as against her actions, he managed to get them back to sitting upright on the hospital bed. Still in his lap, but with her legs wrapped somehow around either side of his waist. Not the strategically safe scenario he’d been aiming for.

Gently, all the wrestling violence of hand-to-hand combat gone in a moment, she reached one hand to his face. She ran gentle fingertips over his eyes as he closed them. So gentle, as if the slightest breeze had brushed over his eyelids. Then she ran a thumb over his lips and left it there. He took it lightly between his teeth, but she pulled it back until it rested on his closed lips once more. No need to tell him to be quiet. He considered looking to see if a nurse was coming, but he couldn’t turn away from her.

With the grace of a butterfly taking wing, she reached back over her shoulder and pulled the tie on the hospital gown. A shrug and it slipped free to pool in their laps, dangling from the one arm that reached to his face, but hiding nothing.

Not in his fantasies had she looked this good—and she’d looked damn incredible in his fantasies. Dressed only in dog tags, her body shone pale gold in the soft wash of the night light.

He wanted to tell her how magnificent she was. How much he wanted her.

Her thumb kept his lips closed but rubbed back and forth.

A smile lit her face, only then did he put together what she was doing. She was feeling his smile because she couldn’t see it.

Ever so slowly, in perfect, agonizing, movie slow-motion, she lay back into the shadows. Totally open to him.

He hadn’t brought any protection; would never have thought he’d need it. And he wasn’t about to go ask the nurse for any. That only left a few thousand options in his imagination. So, tonight would be about those…about her. He liked that. Completely about her. He kissed her right below the dog tags between those perfect breasts.