Surrendering To Her Sergeant (28 page)

After a few minutes, he took a chance
on letting his instincts gain voice again. “And…you thought it
would be different with Flynn,” he said softly.

She gave a ragged nod. “Sure
did.”

“Was it another IED?”

Of all the responses he
expected, her full-throated laugh wasn’t anywhere near the list. As
he arched a bewildered brow, she blurted, “It was one hell of an
explosion. You got
that
part right.”

“Officially lost here.”

A blush actually claimed her face. She
shook her head. “Flynn was just the mistake who taught me that boys
in this,” —she stabbed a finger into his uniformed chest— “are not
a great idea for this.” She swung the directional back at her
heart.

With that, the energy in the air
shifted. Her grief got clearly sidelined for antagonism. Once more,
silence seemed the wisest plan for response.

“I’d been weeping in my wine about
Colin for over a year,” she explained. “My friends finally decided
that getting me drunk and laid would help with that a little. Flynn
was just in the right place at the right time. He was a cute, smart
PFC who worked on helicopters with his big, rough hands…better than
chocolate to a girl who’d had none for a while.”

He still rendered little
else. The story about Colin had been easier to handle than
imagining her in a cute girls-night-out dress minus a few
inhibitions thanks to
Señor
Patrón
, then going home with some asshat
who only wanted one thing from her. For the moment, he ignored the
realization that in her mind, that was exactly how
he
appeared now,
too.

“I ended up giving him my number
afterwards.” She blushed hard again. “Stuffed it down his pants to
be exact, right after learning he’d never be shipped out due to a
nasty high school football injury. In my mind, the Universe was
telling me the grief dues were paid and I’d finally won the
jackpot. We got very serious, very fast. Well, what I thought was
serious.”

“Engineer Flynn wasn’t on the same
page?” The man must have been a damn idiot but Ethan wasn’t about
to voice that.

Her gaze drifted out the window.
“That’s one way of putting it.” She let out a raspy laugh. “The
signs were all there; I just didn’t want to see them. Flynn was
like Colin in all the big ways…the sex, the laughter…so like a
fool, I jumped straight to the next logical conclusion.”

“That you two were connected enough
for marriage.” After accepting her grimace as confirmation, he
ventured, “So you really are the cute house and swing set
girl.”

She swept to her feet in a furious
rush. “People break, Ethan, remember? And who wants broken
goods?”

Okay, no more Mr. Calm and
Understanding. He surged up as well, and advanced straight toward
her. “And that’s logical how? Just because Flynn the Fuckhead
didn’t want to walk down the aisle?”

She turned back before he got to her,
stopping him in his tracks. Every inch of her face was possessed by
raw defeat. “Because he didn’t want to walk down the aisle with me,
Ethan.”

He scowled. “What are you
saying?”

Another sad laugh spilled
from her. “He went to a training meeting in Reno sponsored by a
civilian contractor. On the second night, he called sobbing at
me—in happiness. Apparently, he and a girl from the base workshop
decided to come clean about a mutual attraction, and they’d just
tied the knot.
That
knot. He’d called to ask if I’d go to his apartment and clean
out my stuff, so his new wife wouldn’t have to.”

“Fuck.”

It wasn’t eloquent. He doubted it was
even comforting. But it was the only thing his fury could
coherently create. It turned him into a slab of awkward
uselessness, unsure whether to hug her, punch a wall for her, or
ask her for Flynn’s last name so he could hunt down the prick and
turn him into a soprano for her.

Ava was somehow able to read all that
across his face. “It’s all right,” she said with a shrug. “I should
probably thank the guy. After Zoe helped me get my head and heart
back together, I decided that after everything the Lewis-McChord
boys had put me through, the Hollywood jungle would be a breeze.
It’s when I moved down here and took a shot at styling the
big-timers.”

“And here you are.” He let her hear
the encouraging pride in his tone. It seemed to surprise her. Then
unnerve her.

“Right.” She flashed a smile more
falsely bright than her voice. “Here I am.”

“Successful, confident,
beautiful.”
And never imagining that the
corporal you kissed in the woods back home was going to be the
sergeant who brought all that shit screaming back to your front
door.
“I’m really proud of you.”

He dared lifting a hand to brush some
hair from her face. Somehow he had to make her see that he wasn’t
another Flynn, that everything from yesterday still meant something
to him today, probably more. But in doing so, the curtains from the
ruse with Bella had to stay up. He had to save face without
tempting her to claw the skin off it. Easy-peasy, yeah?

While he deliberated what the hell to
say and do now, she’d obviously been doing the same thing. From the
sad vacillation in her eyes and the little bites she dug into her
lips, he already knew he wouldn’t like her outcome.
“Ethan…”

“What?”

“You’re still officially on
duty, right? How do you guys say it? ‘The op’s in play’?” She asked
it in a rasp softer than the breeze on the windows.
Damn it
. He could deal
with her in pissed off whirlwind mode, but this permeating sadness
simply froze him in place.

“Yeah,” he growled.
“Right.”

Though she ran reverent
fingers along his lapels and name badge as she did, the motions
were more
good-bye, soldier
than
hello,
Sir
. “That means you’re ‘working’ with
Bella more.”

Ethan expelled a hard breath. He
wrapped her fingers in his, dragging the depths of his self-control
not to grip until he had her hauled against him. “What does that
have to do with us?”

The beginning of a new sob crunched
her face, though she beat it back by defiantly jerking up her chin.
“It has everything to do with us and you know it.” The tears
finally broke through, falling in thick, silent tracks down her
face. “It always did, from the second Bella saw you again
yesterday. I knew it and I ignored it…and I was stupid to do
so.”

His own teeth locked,
barring his snarl until he spoke. “
Ava
—”

“I just hoped—” she stammered. “I—I
just thought that maybe—”

When she couldn’t finish, he decided
to do it for her. Why the fuck not, when his gut-deep growl phrased
everything so perfectly? It resonated through him as he dragged her
against him. In a heady instant, her scent surrounded him. Oranges
and jasmine filled his nostrils as her sweet nearness ignited his
body. His skin blazed. His blood was liquid fire. His cock felt
like a goddamn signal flare. He tunneled his other hand into her
hair, positioning her face for his commanding kiss. In another
second, he’d prove that her hopes weren’t for nothing. That he
hoped, too. And wanted. And needed. And craved. And—

She’d be even more shattered than
before.

Fuck.
He couldn’t do this.
No matter how it
got choreographed, taking her in the horizontal mambo now would be
doomed to disaster. Even if he gave her a dozen screaming orgasms,
it wouldn’t redeem him from what had to happen when they returned
to real life. The Don Juan veneer with Bella had to continue until
he, Rhett, and Rebel cracked Lemare’s inner sanctum. Compounding
that by getting naked with Ava again would officially ink him onto
her
Flynn and Assorted Other
Assholes
list.

But if he took her into confidence and
revealed the true purpose of their on-set presence, he risked the
security of the entire team as well as her own. They had no idea
what the Aragons and their producer friend were actually up to.
Letting her bite that apple of knowledge would only replace her
fury with fear, exhuming Colin’s ghost when she was blatantly
reminded of how dangerous his work really was.

He stood in the middle of Hollywood,
California, but he might as well be on the road between Ramadi and
Fallujah. Screwed no matter which direction he chose.

He pressed his forehead to
hers as he sucked down air in hard heaves. Her chest pumped with
the same ferocity. Fuck.
Fuck
. Just another inch, a few
millimeters and he’d at least get to at least taste her once more.
Drink in the nectar of her sweet, hot mouth…

With tight chokes, they pulled away
from each other.

“M-maybe,” she whispered, “this all
happened for the best.”

The fuck it
did
. “Sure.”

“Don’t growl. I’m serious.”

Serious was a few miles
back, sunshine. I’m pretty much at miserable now.
“Uh-huh.”

“We—we have closure now, Ethan. Seven
months ago, we didn’t. We got it all out of our systems. Now we can
move on.”

She had the audacity to urge him into
a “friendly” hug. But as he enveloped her back in his arms,
breathed her back into his senses, let her warmth permeate him like
a bath in summer sun, only one blowback of thought blasted through
his mind, charring the edges of his soul.

“Out of my system?” That’s
one place you’ll never be again, Ava. Ever.

“I’m never going to complain about
surveillance on hostiles again.”

Kellan’s remark, mumbled between a
couple of swigs of energy drink, brought out a commiserating
chuckle from Tait. They’d been parked on this soundstage roof from
six in the morning until ten at night for four days now. Nearly
sixty-five hours of watching nothing but rolling costume racks,
trucks full of plants and props, carts full of electronics, and
golf carts full of arguing people roll by. If gathering intel in
the Mideast desert was tedious, spying on this rogue state of
creative combustion was a goddamn soul sucker.

“Crap on a stick!”

A starlet below, outfitted in a
formfitting gold toga for an episode of the superhero show that
taped down the way, stopped and exclaimed it to her friend, who was
outfitted in a turquoise blue version of the same
ensemble.

“Another broken nail?” Tait
mumbled.

“Pffft.” Kell peered through his hand
scope. “She’s looking the wrong direction. I’ll bet the
double-sided tit tape isn’t working on that slick fabric
again.”

“We can only hope.”

His friend hummed in surprise. “Not a
broken nail. A broken heel.”

“A
what
?”

“Shoe,” Kell explained. “Her left heel
snapped right off.”

“That’s new.”

“No shit. I wonder if Wardrobe checks
the costumes for issues like that.”

Tait shoved back and leaned against a
low wall that framed an industrial air conditioning unit. “And I
wonder if we’ll ever have a conversation about something that
really matters again.”

“Fuck.” It was Kell’s way of agreeing.
Not that he dropped the scope for a second.

They passed several more
minutes listening to the buxom blonde and her leggy friend go over
the options she had with the broken shoe, while continuing to keep
one eye apiece on the side door to the
Dress Blues
soundstage. While this
entrance got used less by the show’s cast and crew, they took an
educated stab at this being the best area to observe Lor’s comings
and goings, since his on-lot offices were closer to this door. But
so far, the only thing they’d seen the guy do was talk on his
phone, fix his hair, pace to his office, talk on his phone some
more, hit on gold toga
and
turquoise toga, then talk on his phone even
more.