Blowing out a hard breath, he rapped sharply on Elena’s door. The sun had just begun to rise over the horizon, and he wanted to reach the drilling site early. He’d arranged for a convoy of three armored vehicles, each with its own gunner, to travel to the construction site. He had no reason to expect an attack, but with Elena, he wasn’t taking any chances.
He waited a moment and when nobody answered his knock, he rapped again, a little louder. Still nothing. With a muttered curse, he tried the handle, stunned when it turned easily beneath his hand.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. The woman had absolutely no sense of self-preservation. A dozen different scenarios shot through his mind, each one more unpleasant than the last. Didn’t she realize she was on a base with a couple hundred horny, sex-deprived men? While he liked to think none of them would cross that particular line, he’d heard too many horror stories about sexual harassment and rape to think it couldn’t happen here.
Opening the door, he stepped quickly inside. A swift glance told him that both the living and sleeping areas were empty. Her bed was neatly made, her combat boots were on the floor and her helmet and flak jacket on a nearby chair. The room smelled of freshly brewed coffee, and he spied a small electric coffeepot on a nearby shelf, with a scant inch of the dark liquid remaining, next to a container of powdered creamer. On the lower shelf were a couple of paperbacks and a framed photo. Curious, he picked it up and studied the faces of Elena and two other women, obviously her sisters. They were almost identical in their dark, sultry beauty. But while one sister was laughing and the other copped a sexy pose for the camera, Elena stared unsmilingly at the lens, almost as if she were afraid to be caught enjoying herself. He placed the frame back on the shelf.
The door beyond the bedroom was closed, but he heard no telltale sound of running water or a flushing toilet. He was getting ready to call her name when the door suddenly opened and there she stood.
In nothing but a pair of black cargo pants and a lacy white bra, and the silver angel charm necklace nestled between her breasts. At the sight of her smooth, bare skin, Chase had to curl his hands at his side to keep from reaching for her.
She came to an abrupt stop when she saw him standing there, and in the instant before she composed her expression, he saw a myriad of emotions flit across her face—surprise, pleasure, apprehension and then embarrassment as she realized she wasn’t wearing a shirt. Her face was still damp from where she’d washed it, and now she used the hand towel she’d been holding to cover herself. As if that could keep Chase’s imagination from running rampant, recalling in perfect, Technicolor detail just how gorgeous she looked without her bra, her head back, eyes heavy-lidded and lips parted as he suckled her.
“Don’t you knock?” she asked sharply, pushing past him to snatch a folded jersey from the shelf beside her bed.
Chase kept his back turned as she thrust her arms through the sleeves and dragged it over head.
“You should lock your door,” he said over his shoulder. “Just because you’re on an American base doesn’t mean you’re safe.”
She snorted. “Obviously.”
He did turn around then, both relieved and disappointed to see she was decently covered. She sat on the edge of the bed and bent over to pull her boots on. Every inch of her bristled with resentment. He knew exactly why she was pissed off. Chase didn’t blame her for being angry with him, but he couldn’t feel bad about ending their encounter in the shower.
If anyone had come in…
He told himself again that he’d done them both a favor by pushing her away. She’d never know how difficult that had been for him.
“So you’re going out to the drilling site today.”
She glanced up at him, her hair spilling over her shoulder in sleek, dark waves. “That’s right, and don’t even think about trying to talk me out of it. I have a job to do, and visiting the project sites is part of it. I have a military escort, so I’ll be just fine.”
She stood up and he watched, mesmerized, as she swept her hair back and secured it with a ponytail holder she’d had around her wrist. The DPA uniform should have given her an androgynous appearance, but the tan, cotton T-shirt only emphasized the feminine swell of her breasts, and she filled out the seat of her cargo pants in a way that could never be mistaken for a man. Even without makeup and with her stony expression, she was prettier than she had a right to be.
“I know you’ll be fine,” he replied smoothly.
Pointedly ignoring him, Elena grabbed her DPA cap from a nearby hook and jammed it onto her head, dragging her ponytail through the opening at the back. Picking up her helmet and vest she finally turned to Chase.
“If you don’t mind, my ride leaves in a few minutes. I have to get going.”
Chase nodded, keeping his expression bland. “Absolutely. That’s why I’m here. Let’s go.” He indicated she should precede him out of the trailer, but she just stood there and stared at him. He knew the precise instant when she realized the truth.
“Oh, no,” she said, laughing in disbelief. “You are so not coming with me.”
Chase crossed his arms over his chest and gave her what he hoped was a bland smile. “Fine. Then you don’t go.”
“You don’t even like me,” she spluttered. “Why would you want to spend an entire morning with me?”
Didn’t like her? Was that really what she thought? Didn’t she realize that his problem had to do with liking her way too much? He wanted to peel her uniform from her body, lower her to the small cot and spend the entire day worshipping her with his hands and mouth. Since she’d shown up, he’d hardly slept, could barely focus on his own job and was swiftly becoming a joke among his own men. And she thought he didn’t
like
her?
“Look,” he said, striving for a reasonable tone, “I think we got off on a wrong foot somewhere.” Like when she’d wanted to go down on him and he had pushed her away. Yeah, way to convince her that you really like her.
She watched him warily, and he blew out a hard breath. “I know we jumped the gun back in Kuwait, and it might seem like there’s no place for our relationship to go from here, but…”
“But what?”
He hesitated. He desperately wanted to get to know Elena better. Hell, he wanted nothing more than to make love to her, right here and now. He wanted two uninterrupted weeks with her in this room. But he also knew Afghanistan was no place for a budding romance, and that he had no business encouraging her to have feelings for him. Soon enough, she’d return to the States while he’d still be here. And how difficult would that be? Not just for him, but for her, too.
He’d been thirteen when his father had left for the first Gulf War, and he’d seen the toll that his absence had taken on his mother. She’d tried to be strong for Chase and his sisters, but she hadn’t fooled him. She’d gone through hell, not knowing if her husband was safe. Chase didn’t want to put a woman through that uncertainty. Did he want to settle down and have kids? Sure. But not now. Not when he spent more time deployed than he did at home. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want a relationship with Elena. Maybe, when his deployment was up…if she was still interested…
“Look, I’d like to get to know you, and I want you to get to know me, too.” He laughed softly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t blame you if you’re not interested, because I’ve been kinda hard on you, but you have to believe that I meant it in the best possible way.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, one hand on her hip. “What is it,
exactly,
that you want from me, Chase? You’ve been giving me mixed signals since I showed up, and I’d really like to know. Do you want to pick up where we left off? Or would you rather just pretend I don’t exist? Because either way, I really don’t care. It’s your call. Just let me know so I don’t end up making an idiot of myself, okay?”
Either way, I really don’t care.
He knew she was lying, giving him a show of bravado to hide the fact that she did care. Every fiber of his being wanted to shout,
Yes, let’s pick up exactly where we left off, with you getting ready to make me go blind with pleasure
. Instead, he forced himself to smile at her in what he hoped was a platonic way.
“I think we could be friends,” he finally said, knowing he was lying through his teeth and hating himself for it. The way he felt about Elena went way past friendship. A true friend wouldn’t think about licking every inch of her skin, or about how she looked straddling his thighs as he thrust into her.
He watched as her mouth opened and then snapped shut. She stared at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted a third eye in the middle of his forehead.
“Friends.” She repeated the word in disbelief, but her hazel eyes began to shimmer hotly. “You want to be
friends?
”
“Yeah.”
“I see.”
But he knew that she didn’t.
She thought that he didn’t want her, that he wasn’t interested in her that way. The truth was, he wanted to possess her, to claim her as his own so that she would know it, and so would everyone else on the base. But he also knew that going public with their relationship would be a huge mistake. It was tough enough to be a female in a military environment without the added label of being an easy screw, and warranted or not, he knew that’s how the soldiers would view her. He was doing her a huge favor by keeping their relationship platonic. And if that pissed her off, too bad. At least the other guys wouldn’t bother her.
“Fine,” she muttered, giving him a tight little smile. “Let’s be
friends
.”
“Great.” He forced a smile. “Now put on your helmet and vest.”
“But we’re not even off the base yet,” she protested.
“Just put them on,” he commanded, and watched as she struggled into the heavy gear.
“So what did you do to end up having to accompany me out to the drilling site?” she asked, glancing sideways at him and then away. “Forget it. I can see by your face that there was never going to be anyone but you.”
And there never will be.
Whoa! Chase had no idea where that thought had come from. He had no room in his life for a permanent relationship, and he certainly didn’t intend to tie himself down to a prickly, argumentative woman like Elena de la Vega. The woman was too hot-blooded. Too hot, period.
They made their way to the motor pool as the sun began to rise over the distant mountains. The air was still cool, but Chase knew that in a matter of hours the temperatures would climb back into the nineties and higher. He could hear the throaty, diesel rumbling of the engines before they actually reached the three heavily armored trucks, called MRAPs, that were lined up, ready to go. Chase nodded to the gunners who sat in round turrets on top of each vehicle, manning a 50-caliber machine gun. Small groups of soldiers stood talking, each dressed in full combat gear.
Elena stopped and Chase could see she looked a little stunned. “I thought we’d simply go in a single Humvee,” she said, staring at the convoy of armored trucks. “Do we really need all these men?”
“We’re in a war environment,” Chase reminded her. “Each time we leave the base we need to be prepared for an attack. These vehicles are specifically designed to withstand that.”
When she turned to look at him, he could see her face had paled and her eyes were huge in her face. She swallowed hard. Any second now, she’d change her mind and cancel the trip. He could see her weighing the options and calculating the risks. He knew exactly what she was thinking. So many men, so many resources being dedicated to her, just so that she could visit a construction site and verify that work was progressing to her satisfaction.
He knew that only a few of her predecessors had ever gone out to visit the project sites. Not even the chicken-shit Lieutenant Commander Carrington made any effort to visit the construction sites, preferring to remain within the perimeter of the base. Like most of the contract administrators who’d been here before him, he simply took the contractors’ word that the projects were being done in accordance with the terms of the contracts and paid them accordingly. Which was partially why the government was losing its financial shirt to dishonest contractors, and paying for work that was either shoddy, incomplete or unnecessary.
She drew a deep breath. “Which vehicle do I ride in?”
He shouldn’t be surprised that she was going to go through with it. Elena struck him as a woman who, once she made up her mind about something, followed through on it.
“The second one,” he answered, and indicated she should climb inside. He followed close behind her. There was no way he was letting her out of his sight.