Page 47 of Under Fire

She exhaled, confessing, “Dean, I have no one, nothing. No one can help me now.”

“Not true.”

“Then who?”

He stepped forward, throwing out his coarse hand to her. “Me.”

Chapter Seventeen

Warren

Present day

The sun had long set over his training camp, but Warren didn’t care. All the guys had gone home long ago and were probably having dinner with their families. Warren had had girlfriends before. He knew what those final moments were like before a big tour.

Hard. Heartbreaking. Lots of anticipation.

And that’s why Warren had reluctantly agreed to the master chief’s request to let the guys have a long weekend. Though it was only Thursday, they’d trained hard enough that week. It was as good as it was going to get, the master chief had said. Let them all go to Crash’s wedding the next night and blow off some steam.

Warren reached into his gun case, storing the customized rifle he’d had purpose-built for the mission, locking it up. It was kind of like his baby. Maybe he’d be the only guy on target practice all weekend. Maybe he’d be the only one camping out in the middle of the desert, with dummies of high-priority targets for company. But he didn’t mind.

That’s where he was at home.

He paced to the front of the compound, not far from where the HMMWV—or Humvee—was parked. They had a handful of different vehicles driven up here for some of the more technical aspects of assault training. But tonight, that HMMWV was going to be his camper. He’d already pitched a small tent in the bed of it—the type of tent that he could ditch the top fly and watch the stars at night. It was hot enough that he barely needed anything anyway—just a cot and a net to keep night crawlers away.

Solemn, solitary, he focused on the few tasks he had left to do for the evening before trying to find something else to keep his mind off things for the rest of the night. Yeah, to say his mind had become addicted to fantasizing about the taste of her skin would be an understatement. He couldn’t get a fleeting thought of Alisa through his mind without his cock throbbing in angst. To say he wanted to fuck the shit out of her would be…

Well, goddamn accurate as fuck.

Things had just gotten complicated. He didn’t have space for complicated.

Pivoting to turn back to the office, he saw a flash of headlights coming off the gravel road in the distance. Immediately, he was thrown out of the temporary peace he’d attained. His spidey senses tingled, wondering what the fuck it was all about. Sure as hell, someone showing up randomly wasn’t going to be good. As the car repositioned itself in front of the gate, he heard a buzzing at the radio in the office. He felt irritation rising up his neck as he realized that whoever was there was trying to get in.

Marching inside the office door, getting to the radio console, he pressed the button.

“Can I help you?” he grunted into the box, keeping it distinctly unfriendly.

He waited for a second, still seeing the headlights outside the gate.

Finally, a response.

“Warren?” An anxious feminine voice crackled through the line.

Alisa’s voice.

“Christ,” Warren snarled, buzzing her into the gate and marching out of the office.

His temporary peace was kicked aside, replaced by a blaze sparking in his chest. What the fuck was she doing? He should have known her damn curious eyes had caught on when they’d driven by the place together.

Shit, she’s bright.

As his heavy boots hit the packed dirt, he stopped dead in his tracks, crossed his arms and watched her old beater drive down the gravel driveway. His mind spun with questions, including what the hell he was going to say to her. Within seconds, she was parking right in front of him, shaking like a leaf as she got out of the car. And despite the fact that it looked like she was suffering from heat stroke, with her cheeks flushed and skin glistening, she was undeniably the hottest piece of ass he’d ever seen.

For the first time all day, he felt that aching pain in his back, deep in his scar—a reminder of what mistakes cost.

“So, this is where you work?” Alisa broke the silence in the desert night air, approaching him in the dim moonlight.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Warren said, struggling to temper his growing anger.

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