“Losing feeling?”
A nod.
Shit.
“Rest for a minute,” I said. “I’ll sort out a splint.”
Another nod.
I took off my boot, yanked the bandage out of the tongue, ripped out the insole. I’d use the insert of Ava’s, along with her lace to wrap her ankle. But the idea of causing her pain made my skin itch.
I knew she needed it secure, that it was dangerous now if she was losing feeling.
That didn’t make what I was about to do any easier.
“Do you remember when we were outside, and out of nowhere it started pouring?” she asked.
My pulse picked up. There was only one time when we’d been together and unprepared for the sudden change in weather. At my cabin in Georgia. The buzz of the insects growing louder, the humidity in the air increasing, until it had suddenly gotten dark.
And the skies had opened up.
We should have run for the house, avoiding most of the soaking rain.
But Ava had sprawled back onto the blanket and smiled like it was the best day of her life.
“I’d never felt rain like that,” she murmured. “Never been trapped in a storm when it was so warm out, its cool kiss a relief.”
She’d stripped off her shirt, her pants, and eventually her underwear, laughing as the drops had continued to fall, and I’d been mesmerized by her damp skin, the droplets coalescing in her curves and flooding open. She glanced over at me, where I’d jumped up and began gathering our things to run into the house, and crooked a finger.
Suddenly, I hadn’t cared about the book I’d been reading or the fact that our lunch was soaked through.
I’d dropped everything and spent the next hour drinking those tiny puddles from her body as I’d kissed my way across every inch of her body.
“I remember,” I said, shoving my boot back on and tying it securely.
“I’d never seen rain fall like that before,” she murmured. “Clear skies to an absolute downpour in seconds.” Her eyes opened. “I think about that week a lot.”
“Me, too,” I said, moving toward her. “Sometimes it’s hard to think about anything else when I’m in the room with you.”
A soft laugh. “We were supposed to be done.”
“I think that was just the beginning,” I said, gently unlacing her boot, gritting my teeth and setting myself about the task, even when she winced. It had to be done. I’d be careful, get it over with as quickly as possible. “I wasn’t supposed to be on Laila’s team at all, did you know that?”
“No,” she whispered.
“I had my own team, was happy with the work we were doing.”
“What happened?”
“I saw you.”
Her jaw dropped open. “That’s insane.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But you and Laila were coming back from a mission. I’d just returned from one with my own team. I’d finally had everything I thought I’d wanted, had been working toward, and yet . . .”
“What?”
“I was empty.” I carefully began tugging the boot off. “I saw you and thought you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And then I talked to you, saw how capable you were—hell, you remember that mission in Paris when both our teams were deployed to cover the ambassador? Our entire cover was almost blown, and then you came in and saved all our asses by pretending to be lost.”
She shrugged. “Powerful men like that tend to underestimate women like me.”
“A woman like you?”
“Short, average-sized women with average faces.”
I touched her cheek. “Or he was struck by a beautiful woman with kind eyes and a good soul.” My lips tipped up. “Like I was.” She snorted as I brushed a finger over her lips. “Though, I can’t lie and say that I wasn’t fully aware of the fucking gorgeous curves hidden beneath your uniform, and I swear, I’d be able to pick your ass out of a lineup without issue, I’ve stared at it so many times.”
“You’re a pig.” A beat. “Also, I think your ass is perfectly squeezable.”
I grinned, stifling a laugh. Because seriously, we were trapped in a cell in the creepy-ass dungeon of an Italian mob boss, and I was laughing. “Big words from a woman who is in possession of a perfect specimen herself.”
“Such bad game,” she said dryly.
“I don’t need game,” I said, continuing to gently coax the boot from her foot.
“Wh-why’s that?” she asked, through a hissed-out breath.
I stopped pulling. “Because what I feel about you isn’t a game or some passing attraction. I certainly thought you were gorgeous and liked you before that week in my cabin. Obviously, I respected your abilities and how smart you were. And you know I thought you were a hell of a shot, after all the times I begged you to come with me to the range.” She chuckled. “But after that week we spent together, and in the years since, even though our relationship wasn’t all I wanted, I still got to know you.” Another gentle tug. Another wince that tugged at my heart strings. “And the you I know is pretty fucking fabulous.”
Ava made a scoffing noise.
“You are.” I cupped her cheek with one hand. “Why can you see the good in everyone else around you but automatically discount that there’s any in you?”
“I—” She shook her head. “It’s not that easy.”
I began to protest, but she cut off the words with a shake of her head.
“I’ll think about what you said, okay?” she whispered. “But . . . I’ve spent so long thinking I was protecting the world from this evil living inside me, just waiting to emerge. I can’t just let that go after a couple of nice words in the dark.”
“Why not?”
“Why? I—”
“Yes, why not?” I pressed. “I’ve seen you make split-second decisions on a mission plenty of times—even changing course mid-stride when things go awry,” I added when it seemed like she was going to be the one protesting this time around. “You get new information, you assess, you move on.”
“Dan.”
“It’s true, and you know it is.”
Her expression hardened. “Enough. Stop pushing. You’re not my father—”
“Thank God for that.”
Now that expression turned hurt, and I realized what I’d implied. “Shit, Ava. I didn’t mean it like that, like there’s something wrong with you because there’s clearly a whole multitude wrong with him.” I mentally smacked myself. “You’re different.”
Silence.
Then, “How do you know?”
“I know it like I know without having to think exactly where you’re going to be on a mission, that I don’t have to worry about covering my back when you have it. I know you’re different because you’re devoted and strong and smart as hell, because you always carry a piece of candy in your pocket, just in case we come across a kid who’s scared or sad or just deserves a piece of candy.”
“Those are just little things.”
I sighed and sat back. “Those are all the things, sweetheart.”