Just that voice, that one lingering touch, and the nightmare retreated. Unfortunately, the present rushed in to remind him that the last time he’d landed in the grip of his past, he’d fought his way out physically and done damage to the woman who’d had the bad luck to wake him. The same woman he lay next to right now. The one with a sprained wrist. “I’m okay,” he echoed to reassure them both, then carefully settled back against the pillows before easing her head down to rest on his shoulder.
“Same dream again?” She put her arm across his chest, her splinted wrist over his heart.
“Yeah. Not as bad.” He kissed her hair. “Go back to sleep.”
“Hmm. You, too.”
Not likely, but he closed his eyes and listened to her breathing grow slow and steady. The nightmare really hadn’t been as bad this time, and the aftermath not nearly as destabilizing. He recognized the trigger easily enough. That dream tended to sneak up on him when his real-life situation felt out of control. Right now, that meant the op. Eden had done the job, gotten the commitment from Dobie to speak to his dealer, and now it was out of their hands. The guy would either agree to a meet or not, but he had no way to impact that decision. It was out of his control.
He matched his breathing to hers, because his nervous system wanted to rev. Not just over the uncertainty of the meet, he acknowledged, but over the lack of definition around “this not ending” between Eden and him. He knew what he wanted it to look like, but was she there, too? He didn’t know. It wasn’t exactly out of his control, because he could be a convincing son of a bitch when needed, but it wasn’t completely within his control, either. He could also be patient when needed, though it wasn’t necessarily his strong suit when it came to her.
A ding pierced the silence of the bedroom and made him realize he had started to drift.
Shit.
Eden shifted and murmured, “Wha?”
“Nothin’, choux.” Reaching over, he grabbed his phone from the nightstand and flicked the mute switch to silence notifications before the text alert sounded a second time and woke her completely.
He squinted at the screen. Four fucking thirty in the morning was too damn early, even for him. But not, apparently, for Malone, who’d just sent him the time and place for the evidence pickup—five thirty at the Hideaway motel, right there in town beside the Gas N Go. Knock on the door of room seven, meet the contact, take the files, and be on his way. Easy. And while he might bitch about the early hour, he had it easy there, too. The woman turning over the evidence implicating the county treasurer had worked from midnight until basically now gathering everything from her boss’s office. Malone warned him to be on time because she was stressed and anxious and might lose her nerve if the pickup didn’t go like clockwork.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. How could it not? Piece of cake.
Eden stirred beside him, shifting in her sleep so her bare leg brushed his, and got him wondering if he had ten minutes to spare. Too risky, he decided. Not when ten minutes with Eden had a habit of becoming twenty or thirty minutes, or as many minutes as he could coax from her. They had a nervous witness holed up in a hotel room, and he had one job—show up on time. Well, two jobs, actually, since Malone had stressed the need for discretion with respect to this errand. If he woke Eden, she’d wonder why he was leaving early. He didn’t want to lie to her. Not even a harmless fib to keep his commitment to Malone intact. So…
Moving carefully, he eased out of the bed. On his way to the door, clothes in hand, he turned to enjoy one last look at her, now facedown across their bed, beautifully naked and deeply oblivious. Had he not received the text, he might have phoned in sick to the day job and spent the morning hours waking her up slowly. And then fast.
Another morning. Because, at the very least, “this not ending” meant they’d have other mornings. If it looked the way he wanted it to look, they’d have lots of other mornings. Turning away, he strode down the hall to the bathroom. Under the pink-tinged fluorescent bulbs, he faced himself in the mirror. Yeah, that cooyon right there definitely had his preferred version of “not ending,” but just because they were currently cohabitating and engaged didn’t mean she’d be ready to flip a switch and make that their reality. She might want to back up a bit and try—what the hell—dating for a minute. Normal people dated, he conceded as he stepped into the tub, lifted the diverter, and started the shower straight off to avoid the noisy pipes. Flowers. Candlelight. Dinner out. Dinner in. She was entitled to all the steps of a proper romance. So was he, when it came down to it, but he’d flown right past the getting-to-know-you phase the minute he’d met her the first day at KDOCJ. He’d known her just by looking. Her direct gaze, her cool voice, her unshakable resolve, and the occasional flashes of temper she indulged in when someone did his level best to shake that resolve.
She’d known him, too, he admitted as he dried off and dressed. She’d known something about him didn’t fit, and she hadn’t liked it. Hadn’t liked him. Not because his skills didn’t measure up—he’d made sure they did—but because she sensed the slick, slippery side of his nature. A side of his nature he couldn’t deny and wouldn’t waste his breath trying. Instead, he owned it. His ability to size up a situation and turn it toward his purposes made him a good operative but maybe a not-so-good person, so he’d done her a favor and warned her off.
Thankfully, she hadn’t heeded his warning. Exiting the bathroom, he went to the kitchen and completed his morning routine—coffee, shoes, keys—on autopilot while he wrapped his head around that. She’d stuck. Against all the odds, he’d somehow started to win her trust.
Did he have more to win? Undoubtedly. He fired up the Bronco and backed out of the driveway through a soupy predawn fog. He had the time to do it. His mission with her came down to one simple directive.
Don’t fuck up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eden finished updating Buchanan on last night’s outcome and got up from the kitchen table to refill her coffee. Sun streamed in the window above the sink, bathing her in light nearly as bright as the glow of satisfaction inside her. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Buchanan was happy with their progress. The op would conclude soon, hopefully with a successful bust, and Swain and she could start their “real” lives. From the table, her phone pinged with an incoming text. Probably Swain, she thought, and her buoyant mood floated higher. Last night had been a little thin on concrete plans and logistics, but they’d agreed on the most important matters—staying together, embarking on a relationship that extended beyond the parameters of the assignment. They’d work out the details.
Anything you want, choux.
His words floated through her mind, and her heart soared. She wanted him, plain and simple. If someone had told her two weeks ago that she’d fall head over heels for smug, infuriating Marc Swain, she’d have called them all kinds of wrong. But she had fallen for him—fallen deep, fallen hard, and fallen irretrievably in love with him.
Should she have told him?
Maybe. Probably. And yes, she’d cop to chickening out. She wasn’t normally stingy with the sentiment. She loved her family and freely expressed it. She loved many friends and had no problem saying so. But having never given those three litt
le words to a man before in the romantic context, who could blame her for wanting to find the right moment?
Immediately after he says them to you?
Okay, fine. She wanted him to say it first. Not because of some outdated notion that the man should take the lead in all the milestones of a relationship—first date, first kiss, first “I love you.” No. Her reluctance to speak first, she was ashamed to admit, stemmed from a pathetic lack of confidence, because as unbelievable as it was that she’d fallen for Swain, it was doubly unbelievable that he’d fallen for her.
He was attracted to her, sure. He desired her. Also, he cared about her. That much she knew. But could a man who played with emotions so easily—his own and everyone else’s—really lose control of his heart? Was he equipped to? The man literally had nightmares about losing control. He’d had one just last night.
Despite the sunbeams slanting over her, she wrapped her arms around herself. She chose to think yes, but a leap of faith scared her. Cowardly or not, she wanted him to say it first.