Jeanie London - Her Last Protector

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

Her heart throbbed so hard it hurt, trapped with the breath in her chest, a weight crushing everything inside her, pressure so great she would die because she couldn’t breathe.

But there was no death here. No!

One word finally penetrated her awareness, and the vision faded, bleaching the memory to dusty shades of gunmetal and smoke. The way she felt inside.

There was no impending eruption, just the pounding of blood in her ears.

And a long-ago nightmare.

Mirie drew a shuddering breath that dispelled the pressure the tiniest bit. She remembered.

Bunică. Men with guns. The dead priest.

And Drei. She felt his strong body tight around her, his arms holding her securely, the cloying warmth of heat and skin.

The pounding of another heartbeat beneath her cheek. Only his heart beat solid and steady, as if wanting to set the example for her own, reminding her not to panic.

But calm seemed beyond grasp, even though she was so much warmer now. There was no gunfire in the crackling quiet. Nothing to fear in Drei’s arms.

His face rested on the top of her head, so heavy her neck arched beneath the weight. Given the pace of his breathing, she thought he might be dozing.

She would do nothing to disturb him or this moment. Not until she had regained control of herself. The nightmares were no stranger. But she had not had one in a long time. She shouldn’t be surprised to have one now, back in this place of so many memories. A place where she had once had a life.

A life Mirie had once dreamed of, simple, intimate, but filled with so much love.

She should feel something for the loss, shouldn’t she?

She was wrapped nearly naked in a man’s arms. Such an occurrence hadn’t happened since her high-school boyfriend. She remembered the strong warmth of a man’s arms, the intimacy of skin against skin.

Shouldn’t she feel something?

Gratitude. Embarrassment. Awkwardness. Something.

Nothing.

A twig snapped, sending sparks raining over the flames, a swelling of light that made the surrounding darkness darker. Two people in a cave buried beneath a mountain of snow. They could be the only two people alive in the world. They could die here and who would find them before they withered to ash and bone?

Thanks to the media, many would notice her passing, but none would really care. Mirie didn’t even know if Drei would be missed. She had seen no evidence of a life in all these years they’d been together. She was his work, and his life it seemed.

Her heartbeat wouldn’t slow down. Her thoughts raced with what-might-have-beens and what-could-never-bes. Mirie had no patience for self-indulgence. Maybe the adrenaline that had fueled the nightmare had sparked this overwhelming loneliness, or maybe it was simply because Drei held her in his arms.

A man and woman mimicking intimacy.

She willed herself to calm down, but couldn’t grasp the edges of this panic. She was a woman who could lie in a man’s arms, surrounded in the warm cocoon of his hard body, smooth and settled with years of muscle, so unlike the boy in her memory. She remembered.

Drei held her like a man comfortable with a woman in his arms. Not too eager. Not overly impressed. Just easy.

But she only felt alone.

She didn’t want to be this woman, to pass from her life as Bunică had, only with many more years ahead, trudging through day after day, enduring, existing, knowing only duty, and obligation, and emptiness, feeling dead inside.

Until death claimed her for real.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

The fire sputtered, and Mirie stiffened at the sound. Drei exhaled heavily, a man who didn’t want to be disturbed, but who was attuned to her slightest motion, even in sleep.

Definitely asleep.

His breath fluttered against her ear, a slight burst of warmth she may not have noticed except for the way it caressed such sensitive skin. A velvet touch that reached down deep inside and drew the faintest reply.

A tingle low in her belly.

An echo of something she had forgotten.

She leaned into Drei, not wanting to disturb him yet desperate to know if the sensation was real or her imagination.

That one tiny feeling accomplished what she hadn’t been able to do on her own. Her breathing finally slowed, her pulse stilled, as if every fiber of her focused.

Drei’s breaths came soft and even, as solid as the man himself. But she felt nothing, heard only the crackling fire. Mirie held her breath and leaned in a bit more....

There it was again. A tingle that made her insides hum, a fragile tremor as if someplace deep inside her yawned, shrugging off a long sleep.

More like a coma, actually, but not death.

Not death.

CHAPTER FOUR

DREW WASN’T SURE what awoke him, but he damned sure shouldn’t have been sleeping. The struggle to control his physical reaction to the feel of Mirie pressed against him had worn him out more than battling the snow.

He had wanted to stop time with the feel of her in his arms. But something was off with her. He sensed it, knew it was probably what had awoken him. He didn’t think she was asleep. Her body was too tense, too aware.

Scanning the shadows for any sign of a threat, he found the cave as he had left it, trusted his years of training to alert him to an intrusion. The fire was holding up, so he hadn’t been out for long.

Shifting against the wall, he glanced down at her, dark lashes forming half circles on her pale cheeks, her mouth parted around shallow breaths.

“Are you all right?” he asked automatically.

His voice intruded on the quiet, but her only reply was to nod. She surprised him by sliding her arms around his chest. Repositioning herself, she relaxed a little, but her breath hitched in her throat, an unexpected sound.

Frowning into her hair, Drew resisted the need to interrogate her. She was warm, so any threat of hypothermia was gone. She’d had a tough day, but she would deal with her losses, wouldn’t let him see her fear. That much he knew. If hanging on to him made her feel better right now, then he would find some way to cope.

Not by sleeping.

No, he had to remain stone-cold sober to this assault on his senses. The heat melded their skin together. Her hair tickled his nose with every breath. Her sleek curves unfolded against him so he could feel the length of her soft thighs, the way she fitted into the curve of his body.

She exhaled a sigh, and her mouth shuddered against his skin, soft and yielding. His pulse began to race, rebelling wildly against his best intentions. And they were the very best. Just useless against the feel of her in his arms. A familiar burning started inside, a reaction that was going toe to toe with his discipline.

Drew was having a tough day, too.

He would take armed assassins over facing down this humiliating lack of self-control.

Mirie had no idea she was playing with fire—and not the blaze making this icy cavern habitable, either. And he didn’t want to deal with the consequences of her realizing just how fragile his restraint was around her. He couldn’t afford any change that might jeopardize their relationship. He was her close-protection guard and a U.S. sleeper operative.

Not a man.

So with his jaw clenched tight, he forced himself to focus on making out the cave entrance beyond the firelight, the gray light from the storm beyond. He deliberated how to fashion a makeshift pan to melt snow. They would need water soon, and frozen snow was no option to quench thirst.

But how could he concentrate on anything but the way her breasts molded to his chest, the swelling softness pressed full against him? The skimpy fabric of her bra was no protection.

When she stretched against him, his pulse galvanized. He wanted to thrust off the cloak binding them together. Heightened awareness was making him read so much more into the moment than was possible.