Hard to Hold Page 19

  She pushed past him, muttered, “I’ll just bet you do.”

  She didn’t expect the grab, didn’t understand how his method of restraining her was so firm and still so gentle. His gaze locked on hers, his body so close.

  “I wasn’t with another woman.”

  “What makes you think I care?”

  “I know you care. Smell me if you don’t believe me,” he said. “Women can always smell another woman’s perfume, and all that other shit they wear, from nine miles off.”

  “You probably showered.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  She leaned into his neck and inhaled, her eyes closed. Her hands fisted his T-shirt, his breath warm against her ear, and no, he hadn’t been with another woman tonight. He’d definitely been out at a bar, based on the combination of smoke and mint and if she tipped her head up and brushed her lips to his she might taste whiskey or beer behind the mint.

  “Satisfied?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” she lied.

  “Sure it does. You don’t want there to be someone else.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You’re smelling me like a jealous wife.”

  “I’m doing what you asked. Now I’m going to bed.”

  “Going to dream about me?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  “Maybe I am, but what does that change?”

  That stopped him short for a second. “Nothing. It changes nothing.”

  “We haven’t talked about last night and you’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I had things to do.”

  “Fine. But I didn’t think you were into playing games.”

  “Games? You think this is a game to me?” he asked, his voice a notch below a growl. “You’re using me to feel better, to heal. How do I know you’re not using me for everything else?”

  “You were the one who used the term game.”

  “Don’t you get it? In my line of work, my life depends on the rules of the game—it’s not a joke to me.”

  “I’m not … using you.” She bit her bottom lip. “I do feel better being with you—I’ve already told you that. But that’s not the reason I want to be around you.”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure. My self-preservation instincts are kicking in pretty hard.”

  “Screw you, Jake,” she told him, because she didn’t know what else to say. Because it felt good to lash out, even if it was misdirected. Because he’d already told her that she never needed to apologize to him for anything.

  “That’s it, keep trying to push me away. It just proves my point. What happens when you decide you want to be alone again? You told me yourself that you like it that way. Prefer it, even.”

  “Stop it.”

  “You’re spinning,” he said quietly, but she caught the power behind his words. “You don’t know what end is up and you’re grasping at anything—anyone—to make you feel better. To make you you again. But you’re not that same person anymore. You never will be. And that’s what you’re going to have to deal with.”

  “I’m tired of letting him derail me.”

  “He’s not the one doing that. Not anymore.”

  “I want you, Jake. If last night didn’t show you that … I wanted you. I wanted you in my bed. I want you to let me in.”

  “I’ve done that—as much as I can.”

  “And what, now we’ve hit the wall and that’s as close as we’ll get? Are things getting too rough for you?”

  “No, things are getting too rough for you,” he told her.

  “It’s not easy—you know that.”

  “I also know that you don’t want easy, or you sure as hell wouldn’t have tried to make a go of something with me. But I’m not going to be the one who pushes you. Not like that. I’ve probably pushed it too far already and I’m not letting myself out on the brink of control again. You can’t put me in that position.”

  “You’re the only one who can handle it,” she said, feeling the tears rise, sharp and biting. God, he was going to walk away from her if she didn’t stop him. “Push me, Jake. Go ahead, I can take it. Give me your best shot.”

  He stared at her for a few long moments, his eyes steely in the soft light. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. “I saw, Isabelle. The night of the rescue, I saw what he’d done to you.”

  And she knew exactly what he was talking about, saw the pain in his eyes from that night in Africa that reflected hers. Finding her naked, bound, wounded on the dirt floor. Seeing how Rafe had hurt her, the way he’d forced himself inside of her, over and over, until she’d cried, bled. Jake had seen the way Rafe had taken sex and twisted it into something dark and ugly that made her doubt a man’s touch.

  Jake saw past what she’d told him to the truth she’d been denying from herself.

  For a second she thought about walking away from him, from all of this. But her feet remained rooted to the floor, because she’d asked for this. And it was hurting him as much as it tore at her.

  “You saw nothing,” she whispered finally, a last defense. “You’re a liar.”

  “I saw everything. I rescued you. I put you into my jacket. I wrapped my T-shirt around you. I saw the blood.”

  Her breath caught, rasped between her teeth, and he grabbed her arm to keep her from leaving. From denying.

  “You’ve got to start admitting it.”

  “Why are you doing this to me? Are you trying to break me?”

  “No, you won’t break. You’ll bend, but you won’t break. Because until you admit it, it’ll never really go away,” he said. “You might’ve taken control, but that man took something from you he shouldn’t have. And that’s not your fault—whether or not you gave in is irrelevant. Come to terms with it now, Isabelle, before it’s too late.”

  His voice was ragged when he finished, his breathing fast, his hands fisted at his sides. She held her hands up as if in silent surrender and let him go, away from her and back to his room.

  When she passed his floor ten minutes later, his door was closed.

  She went to her own room, her thoughts swirling, threatening to quickly overwhelm her, and it was only when she crawled under the covers that she allowed herself to think on that time.

  The MSF group had been fractured by the time she’d gotten there. Normally, the dynamic was much better—closer—but there had been a major dissension among the ranks, thanks to a broken love affair that had splintered the group, caused the divide right down the middle.

  It was a larger group this time around—a clinic, erected two years earlier. She’d been used to working with a small, more intimate grouping, but this clinic boasted an MSF staff of over fifty people. Including Rafe.

  A typical day at the clinic began with Irma greeting Isabelle at the main sickroom door. Rafe would be outside already, fixing a car or a machine or transmitting messages over the ancient radio in a hunt for more supplies. He was an expert at that, always getting the clinic exactly what they needed.

  Some of the Africans had taken to calling him the miracle worker.

  She’d had a feeling that while the actual MSF employees didn’t know who Rafe was, many of the Africans working at the clinic did.

  Some of them would whisper kivuli when he’d walk out of a room.

  “What does that mean?” she’d asked Sarah, who’d told her that they called him a shadow.

  But Isabelle could attest to the fact that he was real, flesh and blood, and he haunted her now worse than any spirit ever could.

  Those first eight weeks, Rafe had been good to her. She’d been lonely. Once in a very long time, instead of embracing her normal solitude, she’d sought refuge from it. Still confused about her engagement, which was bearing down on her like a lead weight, and caught between the disapproval of her fiancé and her mother at her career choices, she’d been drowning.

  Rafe seemed to appreciate the work she’d been doing. He was strong and capab
le—she’d felt safe with him. That was his job, to protect her.

  She’d only been in Djibouti for a week the first time something happened.

  The heat had been unbearable, even as the sun went down, and she’d poured water over her head while she was fully clothed. She’d been wearing a thin white T-shirt, and the water had soaked her to the skin, so her bra was visible, transparent, through her shirt. She knew she’d dry fully within ten minutes, and she’d stepped out the back of her tent to try to catch some kind of a breeze.

  She’d run smack into Rafe. He stood just a few feet away from her, staring at her—at her face, her breasts. For a minute, she’d considered turning and going back into her tent, but she hadn’t. And when he’d walked toward her with that hungry look in his eyes, she’d stripped her shirt off completely and invited him inside her tent.

  After that night, he’d moved from sleeping outside her tent to inside of it. On her cot, although he slept less than she did, always seemed to be on guard. He told her about his days in the military, the deeds he’d done in the name of the government.

  Sometimes she’d catch him looking at her, surprise and anger on his normally unreadable face.

  “I’m a dangerous man doing dangerous jobs in a dangerous place,” he’d tell her. “But right now, you pose the biggest threat to me.”

  He’d taken her hand and held it over his heart.

  He was getting too serious and she’d already been struggling with betraying Daniel. More than anything, her affair with Rafe had forced her hand—she planned to tell Daniel things were over between them as soon as she hit Washington.

  Rafe hadn’t been happy when she’d broken things off. You don’t understand … you changed me for the better and I don’t want to go back to being who I was. You’re my savior.

  She’d been so uncomfortable at the thought of being someone’s personal savior on any level that she began to avoid him completely.

  Three weeks later, after many attempts to get her into bed again, he’d taken her away from the camps. He’d admitted that he’d fallen in love with her during one of the long hours that stretched into the three days she remained hidden with him until he hurt her. Until the rescue.

  Until Jake.

  She shook her head as if that would clear the memories, the guilt of her betrayal of Daniel, what she’d actually consented to with Rafe, from her mind.

  Being with Jake would be consensual—that was one thing she fully understood. The rest of what had happened with Rafe had become one big jumble in her mind, because admitting she’d lost her power in that situation was too much to bear.

  The sob caught in her throat before she could swallow it, echoing in the silent room. She turned and buried her face in the pillow, as if that would block any further thoughts from her mind.

  The yells echoed through the house. They were deep, primal. From the soul.

  And they weren’t stopping.

  At first, Isabelle thought she was caught between dreams, where she’d thought she’d woken up but really she was still asleep.

  But no, she was awake, fully eyes-wide-open, and the yells turned to loud whimpers that wrenched through her.

  Within seconds, she was down the stairs; she’d left her door open and so had Jake, and yes, that’s where the chaos was coming from.

  She entered his room hesitantly. The sounds had softened, but he was still whimpering a little. She knew better than to try to wake someone from a nightmare. No, better to let them shift slowly into consciousness and then deal with the fallout.

  Her eyes adjusted to the dark while she stayed close to the door. She heard the shift of covers and saw Jake sit up. Wrapped in the sheet, he curled in a tight ball, his face pressed to his knees. The only sound in the room was his breathing—fast. Hitched.

  In the deepest throes of the nightmare, he’d been yelling No and Stop repeatedly.

  All she wanted to do was walk to the bed and comfort him. Self-preservation told her that was the worst thing she could possibly do, nightmare or not.

  Jake knew he was partway out of the nightmare, in that space where he wasn’t sure he wanted to wake and deal with it.

  Especially because he wasn’t alone, and fuck, it wasn’t Nick or Chris in here with him. No, he’d left his door open purposely, but he’d made sure hers was closed and Chris was on watch downstairs.

  Her door was heavy, soundproofed—she never would have heard him. Unless she opened her own door in order to feel safer. She must’ve run right down to his rooms before Chris could get up to him.

  Fuck.

  “I’m all right,” he said finally.

  “I’m sorry—I didn’t think you knew I’d come in,” she said quickly. “Can I help?”

  “No. Go back to bed.”

  “Maybe you’re sick.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You could have an infection. Sometimes those bring on night sweats and pain and nightmares. Even hallucinations.”

  She hadn’t turned on the light, which was good. The darkness between them was one of the only shields he had left. That and the sheet he’d yanked around him, still damp from his sweat, and he was never, ever sleeping again unless Nick was sitting in the same room.

  He could count on Nick. Nick never slept. Nick woke him up before the nightmare started, never cared that Jake sometimes punched or kicked him.

  But Isabelle—she’d watched the whole thing.

  She’d come farther into the room, moved around to the front of the bed, but left a wide berth between herself and the mattress. “Let me check your stitches. You wouldn’t let me yesterday.”

  “I saw the doctor yesterday. I’m fine,” he ground out.

  “Oh. Well, sometimes these things can happen quickly.”

  “Not now, Isabelle.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re angry with me. But I heard you and I was worried.”

  He didn’t want her to be nice to him, didn’t want to have to be nice to her. He wanted to tell her to get the hell out of his room, his life, his memory.

  At the same time, he wanted her to run her hand across his forehead to check for fever, to press her lips to his, to cover his body until they were both slick with sweat.

  Letting her in would mean letting her in all the way. No holds barred. Revealing everything.

  She already knows a big part of it.

  “I was a prick to you tonight. That’s not your problem, it’s mine,” he said.

  “You were honest. And I asked for that.” She sounded strong, sure—in control. “Was it … was the nightmare because of me?”

  He wanted to say yes, because in a way it was. Triggered by her, but not about her. “Not really. No.”

  “I never had them. The doctor they had me see said that nightmares were common. And I waited. Wanted them, actually.”

  “Why?”

  “Then I wouldn’t have to deal with it during the day.” She paused. “When you’re captured and rescued, can you talk about it with anyone?”

  “With your team. But you don’t, because you don’t want to add any more guilt or fear to the situation.”

  “What about a therapist?”

  “We’re required to see one to be cleared for active duty.”

  “You don’t say much to the therapist, I’ll bet.”

  “I didn’t realize we were talking about me.” He shot the words at her.

  “Mine wanted me to talk about it. Every detail. She said that would give me power over it.”

  “You kept your power, Isabelle. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  “Did I?” She gave a choked laugh. “I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do … and I knew what he was going to do. I saw it in his eyes.” She swallowed hard. “I tried to convince him not to hurt me. He laughed, asked if I thought I could convince him that I wanted him. He’d already ripped off my clothes, and I put my arms around him and kissed him and I let him have me on the dirt floor and pretended he wasn’t hurting me. I made
myself believe that. All to save my life. And in the end, he tied me up and kicked me until I nearly passed out.”

  “And you stayed alive,” he whispered fiercely in the darkness. “What you did probably saved you from much worse. You have to believe that.”

  “Do you believe it?” she asked.

  He raised his head so his chin jutted stubbornly in the air the same way hers had so many times over the past days. “Not when it first happened. Not for a long time after either.”

  “What changed?”

  “When I first enlisted, my nightmares were so bad I was afraid to sleep at all inside the barracks. I’d drag my blankets out to the beach and sleep there and sneak back in before reveille. My old CO finally figured out what I was doing—I mean, he knew my background. He told me that what I’d done was nothing more than the rules of engagement, and he said it over and over to me every time he found me outside. He didn’t stop until he was sure that I believed it.”

  “Do you believe it now?”

  No. Not all the time. But admitting that wasn’t going to help her. “Yes. It doesn’t always stop the nightmares, though. But you can’t go forward unless you acknowledge the past.”

  “How do you do that—talk about it openly?”

  Openly? He was hiding under a fucking sheet. “You’ve got this picture of me in your mind, like I’m some kind of fucking hero, some kind of saint. And you’re one hundred percent wrong about that. You don’t know me at all.”

  “I feel like I do. And I certainly don’t see you as a saint. Not even close.” Her voice softened. “There’s still so much more I want to know, like where you went after I changed planes to come home.”

  “You went straight home even though you should’ve been cleared at the closest U.S. base to Africa. Your mom has a lot of pull,” he said finally.

  “And you didn’t come straight home?”

  Oh, they’d come straight home, all right, yanked into a debriefing with Washington types before he’d had a chance to wipe the greasepaint off his face or change out of the dusty clothes that smelled like smoke and blood, and they’d forced him to relive every single minute of what had happened.

  Relive it, but not tell everything. And then, last month his team had gotten the order to shut their mouths and shred any reference of the rescue in their paperwork for the mission. As if that night with Isabelle had never existed.