Page 90 of Missile Strike

“As much as I wanted you. As heartbroken as I was when you left, a part of me understood that it wasn’t me you were running from.” Her chin lifted, those beautiful golden eyes daring him to look away. “But we’re not teenagers anymore, and what we do now has nothing to do with who we were back then.”

Damn. His chest swelled. He wasn’t sure he deserved her forgiveness. Or even her trust. But he would take it and protect it like the precious gift that it was.

He ran his hand down her back, over the curve of her ass. She shivered, and his cock stirred again.

“Bella.” Her name was a prayer on his lips. He traced the line of her jaw, then the curve of her mouth. “I know the timing sucks, and I’m not sure I know how to stay in one place for long. But I want to try. For you.”

The emotion he felt for her was unfamiliar, and scarier than being in a firefight surrounded by Taliban and running out of ammo.

“Really?” Her smile was like tendrils of the sun peeking out from behind a mountain at dawn. Tentative, but filled with promise.

“Really.”

She burrowed into his chest, and after a few minutes, the slow rise and fall of her chest told him she’d fallen asleep.

He stared at the ceiling, adrenaline ticking up his pulse as Bella lay in his arms.

He’d never been afraid because he’d never had much to lose.

Now? Bella wasn’t just a job.

She was everything.

Chapter Twenty-One

Isabella woke slowly the next morning, deliciously achy, her nightshirt brushing her skin like an echo of Danny’s touch.

Trip lay snoozing on the floor next to the bed. Danny had taken pity on him in the middle of the night and opened the bedroom door.

The dip in the mattress and slow, steady breath at her back told her that Danny had stayed. Happiness streamed in like the golden morning sun peeking through the slats of her blinds, illuminating parts of her she’d muted for years. She rolled over, taking care not to jostle the bed, until she faced him.

He lay on his stomach, utterly out of place among the pink sheets, floral duvet, and delicate twinkle lights strung across her white headboard. His right hand lay tucked beneath his pillow, hair falling in a messy tangle around his face. Sleep softened his hard edges, giving him a youthful appearance despite the shadow of blond stubble around his mouth and jaw.

A rosy flush warmed her cheeks. That stubble had scraped against her inner thighs more than once last night.

He was unfairly attractive, in a masculine, dangerous way. She had a sinking feeling he’d captured more than her body last night when they’d made love.

Then there’d been his confession afterwards—one she had a feeling he’d never made to anyone else. To think he’d carried guilt all these years because a part of him had been relieved when Jaynie died.

Her fingers inched toward him, desperate to feel the smooth skin of his shoulder beneath their tips. She hadn’t realized how much of his life had been spent in the background because all the attention was on Jaynie and her cancer. The popular, athletic boy who’d gotten along with everyone had carried a pain he’d allowed no one to see.

Until the night of Jaynie’s funeral. And Isabella had been too young—too naïve—to understand that pain.

He was still the easygoing, fun-loving Danny, but how much of that was real, and how much was the mask he’d perfected? She was learning how to distinguish between Danny’s genuine smiles and the grin he’d trot out to deflect.

His real smiles made her weak. She wanted to hoard every one of them, tucking them away in her heart like precious treasures.

She knew the boy he’d been.

The man beside her was still full of mysteries.

Because despite what he’d said last night about trying to stay in one place, she wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t eventually grow restless and move on.

Men like Danny thrived on danger. On the next mission.

Eventually, this city—and her—would feel too small.

“Morning.” Danny’s voice was a sexy, sleep-roughened rumble that made her limbs heavy and her core ache. His eyes opened, blue as a Carolina sky. “Whatever’s going on behind those beautiful eyes, it’s too early.”