The Protector (43 page)

Eryn
felt the same way about Ike, and they had their entire lives still ahead of them.
 

Hearing her father begin to excuse himself from the table, she snapped herself out of her anguish and hurried back into the dining room to offer him dessert. But in an obvious ploy to leave her and Ike alone together, he claimed he had a belly ache and headed for the stairs.

Ike started clearing the table wordlessly.
Eryn
joined him, trailing him into the kitchen where they rinsed the plates and put away leftovers with familiarity that was nonetheless charged with underlying tension.
 

“How’s the chin?” he finally asked, reaching for a dishtowel.
  

“The
Lidocaine’s
wearing off,” she admitted. It had taken several stitches to close the cut made by the terrorist’s knife.

He expelled such a deep sigh that she wondered if her chin was the cause of his regret or whether they were finally going to discuss the future.
 

“You should rest,” he said, not bringing it up. “I’ll crash on the sofa.”

“Ike, we need to talk,” she said.

“Come on,
Eryn
. You’ve had a hell of a day already.”
 

His reply was anything but encouraging. “I’m fine,” she insisted, determined to get this discussion behind them. “I want you to know that I understand why you’re going back, Ike.” She went straight to the point. “I do. You feel like you abandoned your teammates, like you turned your back on them.” She swallowed hard, determined not to try and talk him out of his decision. “I get that. I just want you to know that I’m going to wait for you—”

“Don’t,” he said, cutting her off abruptly.

She blinked at the harsh word. Didn’t he want to see her again? How could he walk away from what they’d shared? “
Wh
-what do you mean, don’t?”

Fuck.
Ike tossed the dishtowel aside. The hurt in
Eryn’s
eyes was killing him because now he was the cause of it. Couldn’t she see he was letting her go for her own good? Why put herself through the torment of separation, not knowing if he’d come back in one piece, depriving herself of the kind of love she deserved. “I don’t want you to wait for me,” he growled, forcing the lie through his lips.

She made a sound that was part-laugh, part-sob.
“Why not?” she cried.

“Lots of reasons.”

“Name them.”

“First off, I might not make it back.”

“You will!” She seized the edges of his open jacket and shook him. “You will, Ike! Don’t you dare say
that!
” But her face was white with fear.

“Come on,
Eryn
.” He refused to go down the list. “I’m not what you need.” He went right to the main reason. “I’m just a sonofabitch with a crap-load of issues and really good aim. You know you can do better than me. Don’t go wasting your life on me.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” she snapped, showing her feisty side, which never failed to amuse him. “It’s my life. And I don’t consider you a waste!”

Her stubbornness, however misguided, filled him with gratification. Maybe he should ask for her to wait for him. Suddenly, he just had to kiss her, to hold her, to enjoy her passionate sweetness one more time.

He crushed his mouth to hers, and the room went into a slow spin. The friction between their dueling tongues sparked a desire fraught with desperation. He turned hard against her softness.
 

“Make love to me, Ike,” she begged between his soul-sucking kisses.
 

An act like that would cancel out his words. Yet the memory of her passion might just get him through the blistering heat, the cold winds, and the nerve-fraying danger to come.

He backed her blindly against the counter, lifting her onto the edge to put her at a better height. There she coiled her legs around him, and the hem of the dress she’d put on rode the tops of her thighs. A glimpse of peach lace fueled his heart into turbo drive.
   

As always, his surroundings seemed to dwindle as he lost himself in her taste, her texture. With his heart jumping like a piston, he sought the steamy cleft between her thighs.
Eryn
bucked, pressing eagerly against his touch as he delved beneath her panties to plumb her wetness.

With a burning need to claim her one last time, he released the buttons of his fly and freed his erection. Pulling her hips to the edge of the counter, he edged aside her panties and drove blindly into her heat, muffling her cry of encouragement with a searing kiss.

He thrust deeper, pulling her roughly to him.
Eryn’s
response was equally as fierce. Hands braced on the counter behind her, she clamped her legs around him and drove herself down his length. The only sounds in the kitchen were their ragged breaths, her muffled moans, and the moist friction between their straining bodies.

Under the hand that cupped her right breast, Ike could feel her heart hammering. Thumbing a stiff nipple, he spurred her toward her release, praying she’d get there before he did.

He was at the verge of incinerating in a flash of white heat, when he realized they were having unprotected sex.

Ah, shit!
But he couldn’t stop.
Eryn’s
grip had tightened. He could feel her tensing with rapture. If he didn’t cover her mouth right now, her father would certainly overhear.
 

She cried out into his mouth, her tight walls contracting around him so sweetly that he succumbed,
his
knees nearly buckling at the white hot pleasure that exploded through him. He expended himself deep inside her.
  

His first thought, when he could think again was,
You
selfish dog.
How was she supposed to get on with her life if he left her pregnant?

Disengaging, he lunged for the paper towels beside the sink, yanking off a handful and thrusting it at her. “Sorry,” he muttered, watching her slip off the counter and adjust her dress, her face bright pink.
 

Feeling like the lowest form of scum, Ike put himself back together. He’d just misled her into thinking there was hope for them. He had to do something to open
Eryn’s
eyes to reality.
But what?

Just then
Eryn
closed the space between them. Slipping her arms around him, she
lay
her cheek against his chest, filling him with bottomless yearning. “Do you love me, Ike?” she whispered, gazing up. Her eyes were exquisitely blue, her lips swollen from his kisses.

Shit.
He couldn’t look her in the eye and tell an outright lie. But neither would he condemn her to months, even years of waiting for a man who would put his life on the line every day for a year.
  

“I want to take you somewhere tomorrow,” he said, inspired by a sudden idea.
  

“Where’s that?” Her voice reflected hurt that he’d ignored her question.
 

“Walter Reed Hospital.”

She frowned. “You know someone there?”
 

“Your father says my spotter, Spellman, is there.”

“The one who hid with you in a hollow log,” she recalled, proving how closely she’d listened.
  

“Yeah.
He stepped on a mine after I left.”
  

The freckles across her nose grew more pronounced.

“Will you come with me to visit him?” he persisted.
 

“Okay,” she said. She released him, reluctantly, every line in her body reflecting the pain of his rejection.

It was all he could do not to pull her back and say,
We
can try, baby. I’ll give it my best.
But then he pictured her waiting for him, lying alone in bed at night, praying for his safety, watching the news in fear, and his resolve hardened. Hell, no. She’d suffered enough this past month. He didn’t want her thinking about the War on Terror ever again. That was his job.

“I’ll leave a blanket and pillow on the couch,” she mumbled, turning toward the hall.

“Thanks.” But between the agony of leaving
Eryn
and his fears for the future, he doubted he would sleep.
 

“See you in the morning,” she added on a stubborn note.
 

She wasn’t going to give up on him that easily, he realized both heartened and dismayed. But once she saw Spellman and realized what could happen to him, she would change her mind. He was counting on it.

**

Walter Reed Army Medical Center was a behemoth of a hospital, tastefully appointed with wide, sparkling hallways and modern artwork. But it still smelled like a hospital, reminding
Eryn
of a frightening time in her life.
I’m tougher now,
she reminded herself.
 

Still, when she and Ike knocked at Spellman’s door, she couldn’t quell her apprehension. Glancing at Ike, she saw no fear, only firmness of purpose on his face.
 

“Come in,” called a robust voice.

Ike pushed into an apartment designed for patients needing long-term rehab. He’d warned her that Spellman had lost several limbs; still,
Eryn
wasn’t prepared for what she saw: a young man so terribly maimed, it was just appalling. Reconstruction and plastic surgery had given him a face but it wasn’t symmetrical.

“LT!” he exclaimed with a lisp indicating damage to his palate. “Holy shit, is that you?” He laid aside the controls to the game he was playing on the TV.
   

“Yeah, it’s me.” If Ike was as shocked as
Eryn
, he didn’t show it. “What the hell happened to you?” he demanded.
 

To
Eryn’s
relief, Spellman chuckled at Ike’s candor. Better to address the elephant in the room than to ignore it, right?

“Had my head up my ass, that’s what.
Wasn’t watching where I was going.” Spellman waved them closer. “Get over here!”
 

Ike clasped the extended hand then bent to embrace his former teammate. The emotion that contorted Spellman’s features even further put a lump in
Eryn’s
throat.

Ike finally straightened. “I want you to meet
Eryn
, General McClellan’s daughter.
Eryn
, this is Anthony, the Eagle Eye.”

“Not anymore, LT.” Spellman held his only hand out to her. “Saw you in the news,” he said, his grip that of a strong, healthy male. His good eye roamed over her appreciatively. “You’re even prettier close up.”

She flushed. “Thank you.”

“Couldn’t believe there was a manhunt for you, LT.
I was tempted to call CNN and set their story straight. You guys want something to drink? I’ve got beverages in the ’fridge.”

“I’m good.” Ike looked at
Eryn
.

“No, thank you,” she said, looking around. “This is really nice. Were you playing a Wii game?”

“Yeah, it’s part of my therapy. I’m networking my brain so that the right side will take cues from my right hand.”

“Really?”
As an educator,
Eryn
was intrigued. Questions sprang to mind, but a glance at Ike found him studying Spellman covertly. They had things to discuss, she realized. “I think I will take a drink,” she said, moving away.