Striking Distance

She needed it. For so long he’d been just a memory, a man with whom she’d spent one precious, luxurious, uninhibited weekend. And now he was here.

“Are you okay?” His eyebrows pressed down in a concerned frown. “Can I get you something to drink—that bubbly water Jack promised you?”

“No, I’m fine. I was just . . . surprised.” An understatement.

“Sorry to give you a shock. I had no idea there was any co

“Please don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.” She allowed herself to look at him, to really

look

at him. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

Oh, he was a beautiful man—dark, exotic, sensual. Some men were intelligent. Some were tall. Some were sexy. Some had thick hair or broad shoulders or natural athleticism. Some had lips that made women long to kiss them.

Javier had it all.

His short, dark hair had a bit of curl, his nose straight, his jaw strong. High cheekbones, full lips, and long lashes added a boyish touch to his otherwise masculine face. He was muscular without being bulky, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist.

She’d noticed him the moment she’d walked into the restaurant in Dubai. Wearing a dark T-shirt that stretched across the muscles of his chest and shoulders, he’d stood out in a room full of European businessmen in suits and Arabs wearing traditional

kanduras

and

gutras

. When he’d come to her table to rescue her from those drunk Russians, she’d known they would end up in bed. Despite what Derek Tower might think, she didn’t make a habit of sleeping with men she met in bars. Javier was the exception, and she hadn’t regretted it. He’d been the most giving lover she’d ever had—sensual, focused, attentive to the smallest details.

Something stirred inside her at the memory, something she hadn’t felt in a very long time—physical attraction.

And her sense of panic grew.

She’d thought about him for so long, wondered what it would be like to see him again. Now she knew. It was like being slapped in the face with the life she’d lost, with the life that Al-Nassar had stolen from her.

“Neither have you.”

She gave a little inadvertent laugh. “We both know that’s not true.”

“I’m so sorry about what happened. I saw the news broadcast when you were taken. I . . . I’ve never felt so damn helpless in my entire life.”

Laura didn’t know what to say. Most people avoided mentioning her abduction and what had followed.

He stood, walked to the fireplace, added wood to the blaze. “I followed your story. What you did took brains and guts. Speaking to them in their own language. Using their culture and beliefs to force them to see you as a human being. Yielding on the outside but fighting to stay strong on the inside.”

He spoke the words matter-of-factly, but when he turned back to face her, his gaze was soft with sympathy.

Laura looked away, his praise making her uncomfortable. She didn’t deserve it, any of it. “I’m just lucky I was able to speak Arabic and—”

“Luck had nothing to do with it.” His tone was adamant, brooking no challenge. “I have a world of respect for you, Laura.”

She looked up, willed herself to meet his gaze again. If those words had come from anyone else—her mother, her grandmother, her therapist—she would have dismissed them as nothing more than attempts to distract or console her. But coming from Javier, they seemed to slip inside her.

“I would have gotten in touch with you a long time ago, but I’ve been out of the country most of the past two years. And when I didn’t hear from you, I thought maybe you didn’t want contact.”

“We said no strings.” She changed the subject. She couldn’t go there. She just couldn’t. “How do you know Nate?”

“He and I served together in Afghanistan.”

“So you

are

military.” She found herself smiling. “I knew it.”

A dark eyebrow arched. “Oh, yeah? What gave it away?”

“You just have that look.”

The other brow arched. “What look?”

But there was something important she needed to say. “It’s good to see you again, Javier, but you should know that I . . . I’m not the same person I was in Dubai. Too much has happened since then.”

She hoped he understood what she was trying to tell him. This wasn’t going to be like last time. She wasn’t going to rip off her clothes and fall into bed with him. Even if she’d wanted a relationship, a lover, she couldn’t have one. She didn’t think she was capable of enjoying sex right now. Besides, her body had changed.

If they slept together, he would discover the stretch marks on her belly, and he would know she’d had a baby. She couldn’t share that secret with anyone—not yet, not until Klara was safely with her here in the U.S.

“I’m not going to make demands of you. I’ve got no expectations.” His lips curved in a lethal lopsided grin. “But it is good to see you, too,

bella

.”

Bella. Beauty.

That was what he’d called her in Dubai.

She looked away. “So . . . what branch of the military were you in?”

“The navy.” He seemed to hesitate for a moment. “I’m a SEAL.”

* * *

“YOU’RE A . . . A SEAL?”

“It’s not something I’m supposed to spread around.” Javier watched some of the tension leave Laura’s body and found himself feeling both pride at her reaction and a

“I’m sure you already know this, but a team of SEALs saved my life. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her motions revealing dark bruises around her wrist where that bastard Tower had grabbed her.

Someone needed to deal with him.

But before Javier could give any thought to that, he found himself in the awkward position of listening as she described her rescue. How she’d woken up to screams. How hearing American accents had made her panic. How the other women had held her back, the one Javier later killed threatening to cut out Laura’s tongue if she spoke. How she’d realized with a shock that she was American, too. How the sight of “the tall SEAL” walking toward the helicopter had pushed her into shouting out.

And Javier realized she was talking about

him

.

“I didn’t think he’d heard me, and I knew Zainab would kill me, but then he turned. He shouted at me to stop and get down, and I thought he was going to shoot me, but he shot her instead. He killed a woman. He didn’t even hesitate. He tore off my burka, and the next thing I knew, he was carrying me onto the helicopter.” Laura’s hands balled into fists and pressed together tightly in her lap, the only outward sign that talking about this was hard for her. “He punched Al-Nassar in the face when Al-Nassar threatened me again. He was my hero.”

How do you like that, Corbray? You’re upstaging yourself.

Javier cleared his throat. “I bet he remembers that night, too.”

Oh, he did. Yes, he did.

“He and his men were all so kind to me. I never got to thank them.”

Javier wanted to forget he’d ever heard of OPSEC and tell Laura that

he

was the tall SEAL, that

he

had carried her out and punched that bastard in the face. He wanted to tell her that no mission had ever meant as much to him as that one, that rescuing her had been the highlight of his career as an operator. God, he wanted to tell her. He knew she wouldn’t run to the press or write an article about it, but he’d been ordered not to discuss the mission with anyone who hadn’t been a part of it.