The Night Is Mine

Chapter 29

29

He should be shot. Mark didn’t doubt it for a single second.

The jet engines blasted away loudly enough that he could sit in undisturbed contemplation. One i***t and eighty tons of food and medical supplies in the belly of a C-5 Galaxy. Nine hours until he switched planes at Aviano Air Base in Italy. Seven more back to the carrier.

And all he could think was that someone should take a gun to his head and put Major Mark Henderson out of his misery. If he could wipe the damn smile off his own face, it might help matters a bit. His cheeks were actually hurting.

He’d taken absolute, complete, and total advantage of a distressed woman strained far past rational consideration. It had been up to him to set the boundaries, boundaries he’d promised to uphold, and he’d blown right through every one.

Finagling, hell, demanding the three-day pass the moment he’d confirmed the news report. He’d called in a hundred favors to get him to DC in record time. And keeping his temper as he passed through the Secret Service, had been harder than he’d imagined, despite his uncle, General Arnson, clearing the way. He hadn’t expected such a barricade around the First Lady’s pilot and chef; it wasn’t that important a role.

And finally to sit and watch and wait with her through the long afternoon, evening, and night. A blond guy with a bandage on his head had held her hand briefly, though that might be more for his own comfort than hers. Mark had cataloged parents, six doctors, and a small phalanx of nurses—only one or two of the more observant nurses had noticed him seated back in the shadows. His dress uniform was so in place at Walter Reed that he’d blended into the background. They’d wisely let him be when visiting hours ended.

He didn’t know why he had come. The hours stretched and he had to face that he was no medic, no doctor. He wasn’t technically her commanding officer anymore. All he could do was wait, and she wouldn’t ever know that he’d sat there with her.

But he’d needed to be there. To sit with Emily Beale in silence if that was all he could offer her. The world as a place worth defending made less sense if there weren’t women like Emily Beale in it. Hell, a world without this one-and-only Emily Beale would suck! He knew no better word for it. Yet for all the hours of silence, he’d come no closer to understanding his own motives. He simply needed to be there. For her. For him.

The tears. He’d never had power against a woman’s tears. How many nights had he witnessed his own mother weeping? Weeping alone after providing the brave face for his dad, SEAL Commander Mac Henderson, as he left on no notice for yet another don’t-know-if-you’ll-ever-see-me-again mission. But Dad had survived. Against all odds, he’d survived the full twenty years to retirement. Now the happy couple had a horse ranch in Montana where her man led mountain tours and taught wilderness survival classes, and Mom no longer had to cry alone in the dark.

When Beale had wept, Mark had crossed to her bed against his own will. Stood for a handful of minutes feeling twice an i***t before taking her hand.

She had swarmed into his lap and held on like he’d saved the world. He had never felt so strong, so powerful as when she’d curled against his chest as her safe place to be. And he’d never been made to feel so important by any woman as the one in a sheer hospital gown who smelled like springtime and the ocean salt of tears. Every breath, every gasping moment building to the next shuddering sob, had run through his hands and arms, perversely making him stronger.

He rubbed his face and looked around the echoing cargo bay of the C-5. Thirty-six master pallets of food and bottled water hitting Aviano before turning south, off to some African disaster.

If only he could take back what he’d done next. Yet as his hand crossed over his face, he could feel his own traitorous smile.

When she had lain back in the shadows of the soft night light, her gown lying across her lap, he’d forgotten everything else. Forgotten the nurse who had watched him for a long minute as Beale had wept in his arms before moving quietly about her appointed rounds. Forgotten that Emily Beale was blind and in a fragile state of mind. Forgotten he was a superior officer who could destroy both their careers in an instant.

All he could see was that slender waist, those perfect breasts—how in the world had he ever imagined that he’d preferred well-endowed women? And those strong but lean shoulders that only a soldier could truly appreciate…could truly understand the thousands of hours of back-breaking work they represented.

He’d fallen on her. There was no other word for it. He’d taken. Ravished. Drunken deep to the point of madness. Okay, there were other words for it.

And she had responded with moans, twists, lifting herself to him in fluid arches of muscle and flesh. And he had taken. Taken all she could give. And then taken more. Whenever he feared he’d been too rough, gone too far, she’d goaded him on.

And when she exploded, each time she unraveled in a flash of energy more powerful than any rocket flare, he could only watch and wonder at what he had achieved.

At long last, she’d curled back against him. Curled in his lap and gone to sleep with one hand tucked sweetly under her chin. And he’d run his hand up and down the smooth, naked curve of her back. Brushed her hair from across her face so it slipped behind her ear.

She’d barely murmured when he’d dressed her back in the gown and tucked her beneath the blanket to sleep with the sunrise. A kiss to her forehead and a hand brushed over her silken, sun-gold hair had elicited the softest sigh.

No question he should be shot.

She’d woken like a satisfied cat in full morning light. Yet another revelation. An unwinding, unfolding, smug motion he’d love to watch a thousand times more.

He’d wanted to greet her. Wanted to apologize for all the lines he’d crossed last night. But he’d been riveted in his seat by the languorous way she ran her hand down the body he had so enjoyed pushing past its limits.

He’d prepared again to cross to her, but the troops arrived. Nurses, doctors, and Secret Service who had acknowledged him again with the barest of nods but the intense scrutiny of military professionals assessing everyone and everything as a potential threat.

And then the President strode in, exuding confidence. That explained the hard time the Secret Service had given him about sitting in this room.

The man wasn’t a trained observer; Mark would wager that he himself had remained invisible to the Commander in Chief. He’d chosen a chair in a corner, partly masked by a plant, with the window, now bright with daylight, close to the side so that any observer’s eye would be attracted there and not to the man made invisible by his uniform, sitting still and out of the way.

The President. Coming to see the First Lady’s savior. It made sense, he’d supposed. But it was more than that. He and Beale had an ease together. An ease that was hard to discount. The President teased her, had a pet nickname, played with her toes, sat on her bed, held her hand through the tests. Was she sleeping with the President of the United States? Had been for a while by the looks of it. Was that why she’d transferred to the White House?

Then what had last night’s…exercise with him meant? Mark could feel the heat of rabid jealousy rise to his face all over again as he sat on the plane over the mid-Atlantic. Then he laughed quietly, thankful the sound became lost in the jet-engine roar. She’d used him exactly as a man would, for a quick bout of s****l relief. Done. Moving on.

She’d never said a word, not his name, nothing. Not as she lifted her hips hard against his greedy mouth, not as the aftershocks shuddered the length of her body, not as she’d curled back in his lap to sleep, the fingers of one hand hooked into the waistband of his dress slacks.

Did she know who had so ravaged her flesh? Did she care?

Mark considered that he’d been used. That he could live with. Considered that he would probably never cross her thoughts again. That was the problem.

Clearly she was in tight with the President and all safe with him behind that notorious Secret Service wall of no news in or out. Only presidents like JFK and Clinton had been so blatant about it that the Secret Service couldn’t wholly protect their reputations.

If only Mark could shear her away from her boyfriend. The Commander in Chief was a great guy and all, but he didn’t deserve Emily Beale. Okay, there were a few more problems than that. Making glorious…he shied from the word “love.” Having amazing s*x? Didn’t begin to cover it. Glorying in each other’s bodies? Well, he’d certainly gloried in hers and she clearly hadn’t minded.

How they could be together? That was still a huge problem, one he hadn’t solved in four days of thinking of little else. He was her commander.

What if he tried thinking like a pilot?

He had a clear target, never clearer, but it was way behind the lines in foreign territory.

Any number of obstacles impeded his path. Her attachment to the President would blow most people out of the game before they reached the starting line. But Mark had plenty to worry about before that.

First, Army Command Policy Regulation 600-20, especially Section 4-14, of which he’d enjoyed breaking every single subsection in the night.

Second, whether or not she’d want him.

And now third, the second problem was under serious jeopardy from the Commander in Chief himself.

That simply wouldn’t do. It aborted any plan of attack to solve the first two problems.

He needed to come up with something Jim would completely appreciate.

First, it had to be way, way, way below the radar.

Second, it was bound to be really stupid.