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The blood rushed through him. No one had ever had him as on edge as this one woman.
‘Matz.’
She snapped her head up, her cheeks reddening slightly, which only fired him up all the more. Did that stain creep below her shirt? Over her perfect breasts? If he walked over there and hauled her into his arms, how long would it be before he could find out?
Because he wanted to. He wanted his hands all over her, closely followed by his mouth. From the elegant curve of her neck to the creamy swell of her breasts. And from the smooth expanse of her abdomen to the honeyed sweetness between her legs.
Lord, how he wanted to taste her again.
Realisation punched him in the gut—and lower—and he swung sharply away before his traitorous body betrayed him.
Being here alone with Mattie and in the middle of nowhere was a bad idea. Because out here there was no one to keep them in check. It felt like the brakes were off and he was already slipping down the hill. Slowly at first, but it wouldn’t be long until he was careening out of control.
The last time he’d allowed himself to be out of control had been around twenty years ago, when he’d been stupid enough to let his brothers use him. When he’d been stupid enough to cover for them after he’d realised what they had done.
When he’d joined the army—when it had been that or face some kind of prosecution—he’d grabbed the opportunity to reinvent himself, to build a new life for himself with both hands. He’d sworn there and then that he would never do anything to jeopardise that, and he never had. Not in fourteen years.
But every time he was with Mathilda Brigham, all that went out the window whilst his common sense convoy became a runaway train.
And a crash was inevitable.
* * *
Mattie glowered into the fire and felt edgy. Restless. Unruly. No one had ever made her feel as wanton as Kane did. As he always had done.
She’d been fighting this pull ever since he’d walked into her field hospital, but she knew she’d been gradually losing the battle. And now they were here, alone, in the middle of nowhere, with no one around. It wasn’t as though anyone was going to sneak up on them in a tank or a chopper.
It was just Kane and her.
And the darkness that had settled over them like a blanket, an inky blue, snuggly fleece, flecked with stars that shimmered and winked in the unending sky, seemed to add to the sense of intimacy. Out here there was no pollution. No light. No noise. Only the moonlight, slicing through the broken tiles in the roof above them and bathing the room in an almost romantic light.
Almost magic. Just as the air around them was thick with everything they weren’t saying. Everything they weren’t doing. And even though Mattie knew that they shouldn’t, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to stop.
Or, worse, to care about stopping.
Her pulse beat, wild and fast, at her throat. His eyes flickered to it, clearly able to see how he affected her as he swallowed. It appeared that her body wasn’t alone in fighting a thousand desires that tumbled through her.
She had to resist him. She was an acting colonel, for pity’s sake.
‘I can’t believe we’ve both been in for over a decade,’ Mattie muttered. ‘We must have been in the same theatres of war, surely? Yet we’ve never run into each other before.’
‘Why would we? Infantry are front line, medical aren’t.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘And I’ve been in camps with ten, twenty, thirty thousand soldiers. Would it really be that surprising? Besides, what if we had crossed paths? What would that change?’
She tipped her head to one side thoughtfully as there was something in his tone she couldn’t quite pinpoint.
‘Perhaps not. But surely we would have at least heard the other’s name mentioned. Realised.’
‘I already knew you were in,’ he pointed out. ‘That was never an unknown for me. You, Hayd and your father.’
She paused sadly for a moment.
‘Not my father. Not recently, anyway.’
‘His Alzheimer’s is really that bad?’
She could feel the hot prickling behind her eyes. Hating herself for the weakness, but it had come out of nowhere, almost blindsiding her. A rational corner of her brain was trying to say something, possibly that it was the tension of the last few days of suppressing this insane chemistry between herself and Kane that had really got to her.
Warning her that engaging in personal conversation with him was the last thing she should be doing if she wanted to avoid crossing the line with him again, the way they had back in her office that first day.
