She turned to look at him, and held out her hands, wrists together. “Gonna cuff me, Youngblood? Throw me in the drunk tank?” There was mockery in her voice, but he knew it wasn’t aimed at him. He would have preferred it if it were.
“I’d hate to have to make another trip into town.” She wasn’t drunk, he noted. And although the seal on the bottle was cracked, it looked full, or nearly so. Which didn’t explain why she’d been sitting in the near dark staring at the bottle as if it held all the answers she sought.
Or the oblivion she craved.
“You should have told me. Today. At the cave.” She just stared at him, making it difficult to string together a logical sentence. “You didn’t have to go in there. I would never have expected you to if I’d known.”
She looked away. “Just a little claustrophobia. Nothing to tell, really.”
It burned, more than it should have, that she lied to him. He could understand the need to show strength rather than weakness to a man she had no reason to trust. But the horrific news stories he’d read on the Internet made the offhand manner she attempted a travesty. Buried alive for more than two days with seventy-one corpses. It was a wonder she’d still been coherent after running from the cave.
It was a wonder she’d gone in to begin with.
Silence stretched, long enough to have her glancing at him again. What she saw in his eyes had her swallowing hard. “Did a little research tonight, did you?”
“I didn’t think you would tell me.” Didn’t think he had a right to ask.
Pushing back from the table, she spread her arms wide. “Are you kidding me? My life’s an open book. Well, for a year or so there it was an open bottle, but…” Her mouth twisted. “Didn’t find that in the news stories, did you? Did the press leave out a few details? Do you have a couple more questions to round out your profile of me?”
Her tone was goading, but that wasn’t the reason for the sudden flare of temper igniting in his chest. “You shouldn’t have gone inside today. What was the point? You had nothing to prove, not to me.”
Her mouth twisted. “Maybe I had something to prove to myself, did you ever think of that?”
Comprehension slammed into him. No, he hadn’t thought of that, but he should have. He knew all about testing himself, forcing himself back into situations he’d prefer to avoid. At least professionally. In his personal life, once burned, he steered clear of matches. It was pretty clear to him that Delaney Carson was a blazing torch.
Once again he considered getting out of there. What did he hope to accomplish? If he’d learned anything in the last few months it was that sympathy, even well-meaning, just made things worse. But he couldn’t let her sit there, feeling as though she’d failed. Walking into that cave after what she’d been through in Baghdad had taken more sheer guts than he could even imagine.
“I’d say you proved it.”
“You’re kidding, right?” The laugh she tried failed miserably. “Unless your definition of success includes crumpling in a heap, sweating and shaking. Or being afraid to go to sleep because the flashbacks weave past and present so tightly it’s like suffocating, trying to break through them again.” The look she shot him then was bitter. “But you wouldn’t know about that, would you, Youngblood? You’ve never felt weak. I’ll bet you’ve never failed at anything in your life.”
He thought of the shambles his marriage had become, in large part because he’d been unable to find a way to make Heather happy. Or maybe, at the end, he’d been unwilling to try. And he thought of Jonny, and his fear that one day he’d have to choose between being close to his son or staying to dutifully care for the grandfather who had taught him what it meant to be born Navajo. “You’re wrong,” he said softly.
“I don’t think I am.” He recognized the mercurial change in her mood, as anger chased the self-loathing from her expression. “Why did you come here?” She shoved away from the table, closed the distance between them. “To see if I’d fallen apart completely? Or out of some kind of misguided pity? Because I have to tell you, I’ve never been much for pity.”
“I’ve never seen a woman less in need of it.” She was close, now. Too close. Her eyes weren’t clouded by alcohol. They were bright with anger, and other emotions he couldn’t identify. Didn’t want to identify.
“Or maybe you came here for this, hmm?” Her hands slid up his chest, then did a slow teasing descent. “Did the big, strong, stoic investigator think the little woman was in need of some comforting?” She ran the tip of one index finger along his stomach, where his T-shirt met the waistband of his jeans. Beneath the cloth, his stomach muscles jumped.
He grabbed her hand in his, his grasp tighter than he intended. “Don’t.”
“Why not? I don’t need soothing but I wouldn’t mind a distraction. You’d make a hell of a distraction, Youngblood.” She went on tiptoe, nipped at the lobe of his ear, before breathing into it, “Joe.”
That throaty whisper had his brain fogging, his entire system heating. She lined his jaw with a string of stinging kisses, each one scorching a path straight to his groin. He felt himself harden, and dropped her hand to take her by the waist, push her away. She stepped into his arms as if it were an embrace, her lips brushing his. And the contact had him freezing.
She traced his mouth with the tip of her tongue, before slicking it across his lips. She tasted foreign. Exotic. Forbidden. It hadn’t been so long for him that common sense could be overridden by any willing woman. He told himself that even as his fingers curled into her waist, kneading the curves lying beneath thin stretchy fabric.
His lack of participation didn’t discourage her. She sampled his mouth with hers, taking his bottom lip between her teeth, not quite gently. She tugged the shirt from the waistband of his jeans, and her cool smooth hands slid up his sides, across his chest, lower.
At his involuntary shudder he felt her lips curve against his, and his discomfort switched abruptly to anger. Maybe she thought she could drive him away by issuing an invitation neither of them had any intention of accepting. Or maybe she really wanted to use him to rid herself of her demons. Either way, he had no intention of obliging. But he would show her the danger of dancing too close to the fire.
Deliberately, he brought her closer, dropping his hands to her hips and pulling her hard against him. She stilled, her eyes widening, and he recognized the wariness that flickered in their depths as he closed the slight distance to her mouth.
He was capable of finesse, but he didn’t bother with it. He pressed her lips apart and his tongue swept in, a carnal invasion. It tangled with hers, before sliding along the slick surface of her teeth.
She seemed just a little stunned at his abrupt transition to aggressor, but she didn’t pull away. Her lips seemed to soften against his, before parting further in a way that could only be construed as an invitation.
Her hands tightened around his neck and her mouth twisted against his with an unmistakable response that served to fuel his own. A reckless sort of hunger leaped, and reason receded. For a long moment, he allowed himself to set aside responsibility and judgment to indulge in the unexpected riot of sensation.
He turned without releasing her and moved her backward until the wall was at her shoulders. His mouth feasted on hers, drawing out the pleasure to be had from a woman who gave freely, at least this much. Deliberately he pressed her knees apart, stepped between them to press against the inviting notch between her thighs. Dimly it occurred to him that the tiny fleece shorts and skimpy top she wore would be all too easy to dispense with.