Page 78 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

He moved from the kitchen into the living room of Isaac’s sister’s house, no light anywhere except for the flames in the woodstove. He stared in the general direction of the fire, but he didn’t see anything. He was far away, back in the past, neck-deep in yet another mission he couldn’t discuss in a place he couldn’t name. His contact had been a high-ranked aide to one of the local president’s cabinet ministers. She’d served as part of the man’s security team, and she’d been good at her job. Better still, she and Templeton had made an excellent team. In and out of bed.

And no one, not Isaac or the United States military, could convince him that it wasn’t that teamwork that had gotten her killed.

A last-minute call had kept Templeton out of the convoy he’d supposed to be in. He remembered the sound of the explosion and his split-second realization of what it meant. Then he’d been running to the wreckage, hoping for survivors, and denying the evidence he could see with his own two eyes.

And later, after the shock had worn off and Templeton’s team was back on American soil, he’d understood the real truth. It was him. It was his fault. He was some kind of walking Bermuda Triangle—let a woman care about him and she was doomed. His mother had been the first, the aide was the second.

Yeah, he had some past trauma around working with anyone not trained the same way he was. About letting a woman care about him when he knew what would happen next. He’d made a lot of rules around that, for everyone’s safety.

Which meant he knew exactly what he had to do here.Now. Before what was going on with Kate got any more intense.

“Why are you standing in the dark?” she asked from behind him.

And he nearly jumped out of his skin, which was embarrassing. He should have heard it the moment she sat up in bed upstairs. He certainly should have heard her come down those stairs. He couldn’t actually recall the last time anyone had managed to sneak up on him.

There was only one thing to do about this. He needed to pull the trigger. Now.

Templeton turned around, and Kate was standing there before him. Not a ghost. Not shades of his own past, his own guilt.

Just... Kate.

Beautiful Kate, who tasted sweet everywhere. She had her hair up in a lopsided knot on her head, her shoulders were high enough to suggest she was trying to ward him off, and she was scowling like she was having similar internal debates with herself. Right now.

Templeton should have sung a few hallelujahs. Instead, he... didn’t like that idea at all.

Kate rubbed at her face. “You’re staring at me. It’s weird.” She said that matter-of-factly and didn’t sound as if she was looking for a response. Good thing, because he didn’t have one. “It’s much warmer this morning. I want to go for a run. A hard one, if you’re up for it.”

And he could have psychoanalyzed her. He could have pointed out that it made sense to go test herself on a snowy road in “much warmer” ten-degree weather, because a much bigger test was coming her way later today. Or that working up a sweat was a terrific way to clear her head and pretend last night hadn’t been one big, epic jumble of crossed lines.

But he didn’t say any of that. Because he didn’t want to look too closely at himself.

“Bring it on,” he told her instead.

And they ran.

They ran together until Templeton’s muscles actually protested and Kate looked about frozen through. When they got back to the house, she went upstairs to shower, and Templeton thought he’d prove to himself how in control he was of everything by leaving her to it.

But the idea of Kate up there, naked and warm, was too much for him to bear.

He was halfway up the stairs before he meant to move. He found her with the hot water beating down on her, turning her skin that rosy pink that he’d acquainted himself with so thoroughly all day yesterday.

He pulled her into his arms, gazing down at her as she melted against him. She tipped her chin up to look at him as the spray from the showerhead kicked up steam all around them. And she didn’t smile. She looked almost solemn, and it made his ribs hurt.

He didn’t grin down at her. No big laugh, lazy performance, or whatever the hell else Isaac had said.

And it was the easiest thing in the world to pick her up, tilt her back against the tiles, and find his way between her legs. She was already slick and ready for him. And he felt himself shudder, deep. He told himself it was simple need. And that was all it was.

“I don’t have a condom,” he managed to grit out, vaguely surprised he could speak when his chest ached like this and she was slick and naked. “Here in the shower with me, to clarify.”

And for the first time in his entire life, Templeton wasn’t sure if he had the strength to pull himself away to go do what needed to be done. But he started to.

Instead, Kate rocked her hips up to him and didn’t let go from where she hung around his neck.

“I’m on the pill,” she told him. “I get tested regularly. I believe in preparation, Templeton.”

And he knew that was a bright red flag. A screeching, deafening alarm. He didn’t have to ask whether or nothis practical, rule-following trooper had ever let another man touch her without a condom. It had certainly never occurred to him to have sex with anyone without being properly protected before, for both their sakes.

She trusts you, a voice in him pronounced, like a death knell.

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