But so much more than that.
Or at least I’d thought it was more.
I’d shared. I’d opened up. And it was only later, after we’d come back to headquarters, when the job was starting up again and she’d gone back to being distant, that I’d realized what she hadn’t given.
I’d told her about growing up with apathetic parents, how that used to make me angry until I’d traveled around the world and seen so many other places. That was before I’d realized how much I’d had—a roof over my head, parents who didn’t have to choose between food and paying the electricity bill. Were they a little out of touch? Certainly. Did I have a closer relationship with my best friend’s mom rather than my own? Also, yes. Did I speak to my sister far more than either of them? Yes.
But I’d had a safe childhood.
And that was more than what most of the people we helped could say.
I also thought it was more than Ava must have had. Because the shadows in her eyes were reminiscent of those in so many of the people we saved.
But I couldn’t know for sure.
Because of what she didn’t give.
I knew nothing of her parents or how she’d grown up. I knew she appreciated good food, could eat a half-dozen peaches without getting sick, and could hold her whiskey but preferred it laced with lemonade.
I knew she giggled when she was buzzed, and I loved the sound, wanted to hear the quiet, unencumbered laughter all the time.
I knew that she was quiet but whip-smart and with a razor-sharp wit.
I knew she could take out a target at twelve hundred meters, that she could knock me to the mat as easily, that she would and had killed to protect.
I knew she was tough and a fighter and very skilled.
But I hadn’t even begun to know what made those shadows appear in her eyes at the gym a week before. She hadn’t let me in that deep during that week and had deliberately kept her distance afterward.
And the longing to know her, to understand her past, her future, her worries and fears and hopes and dreams had never gone away.
On that mat a week ago, with me fighting the urge to take her into my arms, Ava must have realized she’d given away something of what was beneath those walls—that she wasn’t merely the self-assured, confident yet distant agent she appeared to be to the rest of the team.
That she felt, and felt deep.
Except, I’d only caught a glimpse of those deep feelings before she’d shut down again, those pale brown eyes hardening . . . and then she’d taken me to my ass all over again.
Needless to say, I hadn’t been in any position to hand out hugs.
And the moment had passed.
We’d continued with our session—fighting hard enough and with enough intensity to be realistic practice, but not with the intention of wanting to hurt each other. Still, by the end, we’d been breathing rapidly, sweat sheeting our bodies, and each left with more than a few bruises.
I’d also been left with an ache.
To soothe her hurts—because I wasn’t a total asshole. But also to get inside the walls—because Ava was fascinating to me—and, fine, I might be a partial asshole—because I’d also been desperate to get in her pants again.
From the moment I had laid eyes on her, I’d been enthralled by the juxtaposition that was Ava.
Small, but mighty. Curvy, yet lithely muscled and graceful on her feet. Tiny, but able to take down targets twice her size. Glasses-wearing, yet the most talented sniper at KTS. Hard, so damned hard and impenetrable and unfeeling on the outside.
But I’d caught those glimpses of soft, of vulnerable.
Contradictions.
She was full of them.
Hence, my fascination.
And presently, the object of that fascination was propping up a wall opposite me.
Glaring at me.
As though she were thinking, how dare I have the audacity to get shot on her watch. I might have been affronted—it wasn’t like I’d been intending to get shot—except that Olive decided at that same moment to pull some Nurse Ratched bullshit with the exit wound on my back.
“Fuck,” I hissed, trying not to move even as it felt like she was digging her fingers into the injury.
“What’d you do?” Olive asked, not stopping, even when I squirmed. Her question was half-distracted, and I’d have given her my collection of dumbass yo-yos I’d started accruing in elementary school if she would only just stop.
“What do you mean?” I asked, sweat dripping down my temples.
A beat, her voice now completely distracted as she tugged hard on something. I bit back another curse, heard a plink as whatever she’d pulled from my back landed in the metal pan at her side. “It looks like you rolled around in gravel.”
“That’s . . . uh—” The edges of my vision went dark, and I blinked, rapidly, trying to clear it. “. . . basically what I—” I wavered, feeling my body lean forward, even as I could do nothing to stop it. “The floor was dirty and—”
A firm grip on my uninjured shoulder prevented me from faceplanting.
And finally, Olive stopped jabbing at me. “Too much?”
I opened my mouth to tell her I was fine, but Ava beat me to the punch. “Yes, Ollie. It’s too much.”
“I’m—” I began.
Olive didn’t argue with me or say anything further. Instead, I felt a prick, the slight sting of morphine hitting my system, and the pain immediately edged back.
“Thanks,” I murmured, giving in that I’d needed the relief, even as my eyes drifted to Ava’s.
She continued to hold on to me, fingers gripping my shoulder firmly. It was the most innocuous contact, and paired with a bone-deep ache across my chest and back, I knew I shouldn’t be so aware of it, shouldn’t be feeling it so intensely, as though those fingers were reaching into my soul and holding me in place.
And that was the morphine talking.
She shifted slightly, her fingers brushing along the bare skin of my arm. Her skin wasn’t silken, or at least not the skin on her hands. I’d felt silken skin in other places, but that covering her fingers and palm was calloused and work-worn, slightly rough against the back of my biceps.
Hers were the hands of action, of a woman who worked hard and put her life on the line at regular intervals.
I fucking loved her hands.
I wanted them to stay on my skin. No, I wanted her hand to drift lower. Or better, to gesture Laila and Olive out of the room and to let both of her hands do some investigating.
Further that, if I were making a list of all the things I was wanting, I wanted to not be wounded, to be back at my cabin in Georgia, for her to be touching me because she’d decided to let me into those walls and because she wanted me just as much as I wanted her.
That she wanted my body. No. That she wanted more. To see inside me. To allow me to help her carry every old hurt, every painful memory. Fuck, I’d take her just wanting my body, because at least I would have part of her again.
Even if it was a small part. Even if it was the only—
Another tug, another pulse of pain had me jumping.
“Sorry,” Olive said. “I’m almost done.”
My list of wants dissipated as I swallowed hard, my stomach churning, the black intruding on the edges of my vision again. Fuzziness intruded on my thoughts, my tongue feeling thick and furry, my fingertips tingling. I found it suddenly difficult to make my lips form words as a pleasant floating feeling descended through me.