Page 96 of Delta Force Defender

She didn’t look away. “I did.”

He wanted to rage at her about how she’d put herself at risk. He wanted to pick apart the decisions she’d made. To plan good-bye speeches in the car, then walk into Sharkey’s knowing he might not make it to her in time.

He wanted to ask her what she thought would happen to him—and the whole world—if he’d burst into that lobby to find her gone. Or worse, in pieces. What did she think he would do? How did she think he would survive that?

“Is there ever a time when you’re not playing games with me?” he demanded.

Caradine blew out a breath. “Really, Isaac? Have you noticed that we’re in a fancy hotel room?” She stretched out in her bed. “Is an interrogation the only thing you can think of to do?”

And something in him snapped.

“Not everything is about sex!” he roared at her.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d yelled outside the job. Not once. He’d made it his art and calling to exude calm no matter what. To be friendly and approachable and— Too bad. He was done.

Isaac had watched her get manhandled because she’d thrown herself headfirst into yet another situation that could have killed her. She could have died, and he was trained to be the exact person she should runtowhen she found herself in trouble.

He was not supposed to be the guy she ran away from, again and again and again.

Almost like she knows, too, he told himself.

She blinked at him, and he saw her pulse in the undamaged part of her neck. He saw her glance at thehands he’d curled into fists at his side, then up to his face, and he heard her pull in a steadying sort of breath. He couldn’t deny it was gratifying that maybe, for three seconds, she might not see him as a freaking teddy bear.

But he didn’t like it when she smiled again, as sadly as before. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” she said. “Nonstop, actually, since I woke up in the hospital and you weren’t there to confuse me.”

“I was in federal custody at the Pentagon,” he bit out. “And I wasn’t aware that Iconfusedyou. Or that anything could.”

“We’ve had this connection since the beginning.” She was meeting his gaze in a way that made the back of his neck itch. Foreboding. “We’ve had a lot of sex. We tried a few days of domestic harmony in Fool’s Cove—”

“Domestic harmony? Is that what you call it? I had to kidnap you and take you there against your will.”

“Fine, then call it Stockholm syndrome,” she snapped. She shut her eyes a moment, then took another one of her steadying breaths. And when she opened her eyes again, he hardly recognized the expression he saw there. A beat or so later, he realized she was beingkind. “That isn’t any better. We fight. We have sex. We fight some more. I spent five years telling myself that it had to be that way, but it doesn’t now. But maybe that’s all you and I have.”

You’d choke on love, he remembered her saying over pancakes.

“I’ve been waiting for you to admit we actually have something since the night we met,” he growled at her. “Why am I not surprised that you want to make it into another game?”

“See? Even now, you want to fight. It’s the only thing you know how to do.”

“Caradine.” He raked his hands through his hair. “I can’t fight you by myself. You know that, right?”

“I fought because I had to. Because I had no other choice if I wanted to survive. You fight because you like it. It’s your job and you’re good at it.” Her blue eyes seemed too bright, or maybe that was him. Maybe something terrible was happening inside him. “But I did it. I survived. And I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Then don’t fight.” He managed to get the words out, even though it felt as if he were the one who’d been choked. “Tell me what this is. What you want, since you had all this unconfusing time over the past couple of days to change your appearance, play a character for the press, and in your spare time while receiving medical attention, figure out our entire relationship.”

The Caradine he knew glared at him, then winced, because that must have hurt.

“Are you offering me something?” she asked. “Because I can’t help noticing that we’re out of your comfort zone now.”

He let out a laugh. “Do I have a comfort zone where you’re involved? That’s news to me.”

Her head tipped slightly to one side, which he took as the warning it was. “I don’t need saving any longer. I’m not reeling around, lost and in need of Captain America to swoop in and save me with his magic hammer.”

“Shield,” Isaac growled at her. “Captain America has a shield, not a hammer. Thor has a hammer, and what did they teach you in that college of yours?”

She ignored that. “What all that means, no matter what superhero we reference, is that you don’t get to mope around, pining all over Alaska, waiting for my past to catch up with me. I’m over it. I’m moving on. Can you?”

“Marines do notpineormope, Caradine.”

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