then oblivion. His jaw clenched. He could do this. He could sleep with her without having sex with her. It was a hell of a fight not to act on his craving, but he corralled his lust.
“Go to sleep,” he told her tightly.
By inches over the next few minutes, she gradually relaxed against him, which added a whole new set of temptations to his misery.
Get a grip, dude. He’d slept in war zones with mortars flying over his head and the deafening reports of shelling exploding around him. He’d slept with enemy forces closing in on him, and when completely surrounded by hostiles. He could bloody well sleep in a dark, quiet motel room in his hometown.
But he followed Tessa into sleep with great difficulty, ultimately having to resort to his sniper training to force his breathing to slow and deepen, to will himself to slide toward unconsciousness. She felt like a slice of heaven in his arms, soft and warm and relaxed. All the things his life was not.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with a woman—actually slept with one. Most of his interactions involved horny, half-drunk sex and him leaving the woman’s bed immediately after, before anything more could begin to develop. No attachments, no feelings. Just physical release. That was his mantra.
But Tessa Wilkes had already busted through that boundary in a big way. Even if they were mostly negative, he had definite feelings about being here with her.
Torsten owed him huge.
He eventually surprised himself by drifting off to sleep. Maybe it was the companionship, or maybe it was how damned delicious Tessa felt in his arms.
He did wake up a couple of times during the night, tensing in anticipation of flashbacks from the night he should have died—the mission he’d been lucky to be medevaced away from with a destroyed leg and no future on the teams.
Nightmares were standard issue to men in his line of work. The shrinks said dreams were how guys like him worked out their emotional crap over killing people for a living. Whatever. He didn’t run around spilling tears for his victims. They were bad people in need of killing.
But tonight the nightmares never came calling.
Nothing came to him except the sweet smell and quiet breathing of the woman snuggled up against him, filling the darkness with soft curves and comfort that lulled him back to sleep.
Too bad this was a onetime good deal. In the morning, he was going to unleash holy hell on her, and that would be the end of cuddles in the dark with Tessa Wilkes, wannabe Medusa and soon-to-be former trainee.
Tessa arched her body in a cat stretch, moaning a little in the back of her throat as a confident male hand cupped her breast, thumb stroking lazily across her straining nipple. An arm was heavy across her waist, pinning her in place, and another heavily muscled arm acted as a pillow under her left ear. The smell and feel of man and muscle surrounded her, cocooning her completely in security.
Protection. A completely foreign concept to her, especially coming from a man. Slaps and fists were her childhood fare from most men. Her whole life, she’d been responsible for taking care of herself. Seeing to her own safety. If she didn’t do it, no one else would. And yet, here was Beau, doing it unconsciously. As naturally as breathing.
Or maybe he was just copping a freebie feel.
Either way, she had never spent a full night with a man before, and certainly not in a man’s arms. It was shockingly...nice. The intimacy of it was staggering. It was something she could definitely get used to. Maybe not with this guy, and definitely not at this time in her life. But someday.
Her decision to pursue the Special Forces had pretty much precluded her having long-term relationships, given the time demands of her constant training. She was confident that, as long as she was on the teams, she would have to dedicate every waking minute to it.
The first new Medusa. Her. Who’d have thunk?
Deep satisfaction settled into her gut, along with a big dose of fist-pumping exultation. She’d climbed the impossible mountain and made it to the unattainable peak.
Although truth be told, she hadn’t climbed the real mountain yet. She had no illusions about how hard her upcoming training was going to be. If the past few months had been a taste of things to come, the main meal was going to be a bona fide bitch. Particularly since her teacher didn’t seem the least bit thrilled at the idea of her actually becoming a Medusa.
And as hard as it was going to be, she simply didn’t have time for a personal life, no matter how nice it felt to snuggle with a hot guy. Correction: a smoking-hot guy who clearly was as turned on by her as she was by him. And yes, that made it worse. Eyes on the prize, girlfriend. Eyes on the prize.
Still. A pang of regret coursed through her. She really didn’t need to have glimpsed this other existence she might have had.
Of course, she could have a life like this if she wanted it. A man to sleep with every night and wake up to every morning. All she had to do was quit. Walk away from Beau and the Medusas. She had no doubt his orders were to do everything in his power to make her give up; he wouldn’t stop her if she decided she wanted this more than being a trained killer.
Thing was, she’d made it her life’s work to become exactly what he was. To be stronger, badder and bolder than any jerkwad man she could ever possibly encounter. It was really no choice at all. She had to go for the chance to become a Medusa.
Her gut warned her, however, that she wasn’t likely to feel this safe and protected again until she left the Medusas for good—either by choice or in a body bag.
Was a life of constant danger really what she wanted? It was all she had ever known growing up. But Beau had unwittingly—or maybe wittingly, knowing him—given her a glimpse of another world. Another way of life.
She lay there, caught between sleep and wakefulness, contemplating the choice. All the while, the big, strong warrior claimed his woman—
Whoa. Wait. What? She jolted the rest of the way to full consciousness with a mental lurch. She was nobody’s woman! No matter that Beau was draped all over her and she was practically purring and rubbing herself against him like a cat in heat.
Apparently, their subconscious minds had no qualms about crawling all over each other. No matter that this man was about to be her trainer in a supersecret and superintense program that didn’t officially exist. And no matter that she emphatically didn’t want a long-term relationship with any guy. Ever. Not in this lifetime.
Obviously, there would be no rules during her training out here in the middle of nowhere. No oversight. No limits on what they could and would do. Did that mean there were no sexual boundaries, either?
She knew there would be mind games galore as part of her training. They were part of any special operator’s training. Was this semiseduction part of it?
Would Beau take this further?
More important, would she let him?
Belatedly, reason kicked in. This was Beau Lambert she was talking about. He
