be so hard on yourself. That was Cole’s voice, popping up in her head. Cole, who’d dropped everything to sneak inside Berzhaan when the terrorists struck. Who’d put up with her in the months since, just happy enough she was still alive. A rededicated marriage, and he’d meant it. And now a ghost of his voice said, If you were as bad as you think you are, you wouldn’t care so much.
Cole.
She glanced at the wire-covered clock, eyes bleary with sweat. Eleven o’clock. He’d be waiting. He’d had a meeting this evening—something to do with his security consulting job. It was a position he’d once called laughably easy, by which she knew he’d soon be bored. But he’d taken it so they could stay together—so for once they could both be at work in the same country. In the same city. Even in the same temporary housing. Talking about children and family life and not particularly getting anywhere with either.
Selena cursed and thudded her fist into the workout bag—this time without any force behind it, and she used the motion to push herself away and head for the locker room. She pulled on the sweat suit she had stored there, transferring her badge, her knife, and her ID to the kangaroo pockets of the hoodie. She slammed the locker closed on the remainder of her things, twisting the token lock in place. The students might ply their newly learned skills on the neat row of locks, but they knew better than to actually take anything. Another time, she might have left a booby trap for them. Something involving a paint ball.
But not this time. This time she hesitated at the barn’s big sliding door, squinting into precipitation now too hard to call mist. Moderate rain. Not enough to deter her.
She felt someone’s eyes on her and turned to discover a figure by the corner of the barn. He stood in the shelter from the rain, just close enough to identify as the male trainee from earlier in the evening—the one who’d been lucky, and come away intact. He stood hunched, his hands in his pockets, his posture straightening as he realized she’d seen him. But he hesitated, his mouth just barely open—on apology rather than accusation, Selena thought, but she was in a mood to hear neither.
She turned away and ran into the dark rain.
Cole Jones dropped for a few push-ups, just enough to get his blood moving. Then he returned to the paperwork spread over the kitchen counter and pondered whether this particular client needed the super-duper countersurveillance electronics, or the super-duper-whooper version.
He thought the super-duper would do. But these people had money and they seemed to like to spend it. He shook his head at the papers and contemplated letting a game of darts make the choice. The countersurveillance protection, he could provide. The security, he could provide. Dealing with the people? Another mind-set altogether. He found himself constantly fighting the urge to sell them some Florida swampland just to see if he could. Not that they were stupid people. By no means.
Just not possessed of much imagination.
Cole’s own imagination was getting lonely. Time for a Selena Sanity Fix.
He perked up at the sound of the key in the town-house door. A two-story town house, every bit as big as their own apartment in D.C.—bigger, even. But it had a closed-in feel; more rooms, but smaller ones. Not as airy. Didn’t feel like home at all.
On the other hand, it felt like they were getting away with something just being here together. Cole left his papers and headed for the door, hesitating at the kitchen entry just in time to find Selena standing in the entry hall. Dripping, bedraggled, cheeks flushed and breath still coming fast. He didn’t even have to ask. She’d tried to out-batter and outrun her demons again.
She hadn’t yet acknowledged that it didn’t really work. Like a drug, the effect wore off. Like a drug, it seemed to take more and more out of her each time.
He didn’t have to ask what had triggered her this time. He’d known since receiving her phone call from town that she’d have a hard night. He held out a hand. Wordlessly, she removed wet shoes, then stripped off her soaked sweats and gave them over to him. Given his own personal clothes management, he would have tossed them on the floor of the small laundry closet—but for Selena, he hung them in the bathroom. Passing the thermostat on the way back, he turned it up a degree or two.
He found her at the darkened living room’s picture window, staring out rain-smeared glass into the darkness. Still in her workout shorts and sports bra top, all long, lean muscle and more angles than most women. Unless, from this view, you looked at her ass.
Cole always looked at her ass.
He adjusted his jeans to allow for the predictable response, and went to join her. He knew enough to make noise as he entered the room, and to wait for the slight shift of her head that meant she’d heard him, lost in thought as she was. Cole had enough of his own nightmares to respect hers…and he’d seen her in action. He respected that, too.
He came up behind her, snaking an arm around her long waist to flatten his hand against her stomach. Hard abdominals met his touch, as tense as the rest of her. He kissed her bare shoulder next to the black strap and rested his chin there, as glad for her height as ever.
It made for a good fit.
She didn’t resist as he snugged her back against his chest. He said, “You’re not one of the bad guys. It wouldn’t upset you like this if you were.” And he didn’t know why she snorted softly in true amusement, but it didn’t really matter because she relaxed slightly under his hand, fitting in more securely against his chest and making him regret the old collared polo he had on. He kissed the side of her neck, lingering there.
She said, “If only I hadn’t—”
He snorted back, right against the soft skin of her neck, and then nipped that skin lightly in apology. But his voice held no sign of doubt. “And what if some guy on the street had grabbed you like that? Do you think he’d be in it for fun and games? You reacted just right, darlin’.”
“Then I should have stopped sooner. I should have known the guy was with the two I’d already exposed.”
He shrugged; he knew she’d feel it. “Lena, they train us. They send us out into the field, and they make us who we are. They want us because of who we are. Dobry is the one who put his trainees at risk. Dobry is the one who’s ripe for a lawsuit—from you as much as from that poor dumb kid.” Not so much younger than either of them, that trainee hadn’t been. Not physically. Emotionally…psychologically…just an infant.
Selena released a pent-up huff of air, amusement at the thought of bringing suit against Dobry. “Well, I am a lawyer.”
“See?” he said, speaking the words into the satin skin below her earlobe. “He’d never know what hit him. You always have that effect on me, too.” He slid his hand lower, over skintight spandex, and tugged her bottom back into his growing erection. He managed to lose half of her next words, his eyes closing, his breath catching.
“—miss it?”
“Um,” he said. “What?”
Not that she was immune to his touch; she tilted her head slightly so he could nuzzle aside her wet hair, tasting salt and rain. “Being in the field.”
Ah. Guilt of another sort, also on her shoulders. He’d been a contract operative for the CIA before the incident at the Berzhaan capital—before he’d been caught on film and tape and digital media, tangled up in crutches and an air cast and heading to meet his equally battered wife at the steps
