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  “We’ll get your sister out safe and sound. I promise. And in the meantime, I need you to be tough. Stay strong for Carina.”

  She reached up to stroke his cheek. She whispered achingly, “I’m so sorry I got you involved in this mess.”

  He shrugged. “No need to apologize. I’m just glad to get a shot at taking down the Ferrare organization once and for all.”

  Julia recoiled. She was part of that organization. The venom of his words—intentional or otherwise—spread to every corner of her soul, paralyzing her with guilt. Would that terrible night in the jungle never end? It had dominated her life for the last decade, and it wasn’t showing any signs of releasing its stranglehold on her. She would give anything to take back her betrayal, to undo it if she could.

  She would never forget Simon’s screams. The very thought of them still made her faintly ill. He was just a kid trying to serve his country. Trying to be one of the good guys. To make the world a better place. And she’d gotten him murdered slowly and horribly.

  How Dutch didn’t just kill her and be done with it, she had no idea. The depth of his pain last night had been a scourge that bloodied her soul. She’d absorbed it into herself as much as she could, but it would never be enough. She could never make it up to Dutch. Holding him through the dark hours of the night was a single drop of water in the ocean of what she owed him.

  Maybe this was some cosmic evening of the scales. Her penance was to take upon herself the suffering she’d caused the man she loved.

  “I’m so sorry,” she choked out.

  A finger touched her chin. It lifted her face until she gazed at him reluctantly.

  He said grimly, “Don’t agonize over the atrocities committed by bastards like Eduardo Ferrare. Just help me put him away and stop him from hurting anyone else.”

  A shudder ran through her, of dread and of hope at the possibility of finally freeing herself and her sister from the web of Eduardo’s threats and coercion. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been afraid of her father. In fact, Dutch was the first man she’d ever known who made her feel safe. What an irony that even he held a terrible threat to her locked away inside his mind.

  Poor Carina. She must be scared to death. And angry, too, if Julia knew her spirited sister. She sighed. She knew what she had to do.

  She took a deep breath. And looked Dutch square in the eye. “I’m sorry. This changes everything. I can’t risk testifying.”

  He stared at her incredulously. “You’re going to cut and run at the first sign of trouble?”

  “I’m no coward,” she flared. “I came this far, didn’t I?”

  He sighed. “Yes, you did. And you’re in the home stretch. Just hold the course a few more days, and it’ll all be over. Ignore everything I said before. I didn’t mean any of it. We’ll catch your old man and you and your sister will be safe. You’ll get your life back.”

  She threw her hands up in frustration, too agitated to accept the concession he’d made. “Don’t you get it? It’s not about me and my safety! It never has been. This has always been about protecting my sister, protecting the other innocents Eduardo will harm. I’m already dead.”

  Dutch stood up abruptly and pulled her to her feet. His hands rested on her shoulders, pinning her in place before him. His sapphire gaze burned into her like a laser. “Trust me. Trust the Blackjacks. We’ll get your life back for you.”

  “I don’t matter at all. Only Carina.”

  He growled, “Yes, you do matter.”

  She shook her head, denying his words, rejecting his message.

  His fingers tightened painfully on her shoulders. “You matter to me. A lot. More than a lot, dammit.”

  It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible that he returned her feelings. But there it was, clear as day in his eyes, for just an instant before he reasserted his rigid self-control. How he could shut down his emotions like that she would never know.

  “Let go of your fear and suspicion, Julia. Trust me.”

  “You’re one to talk! You never let go of your heart, not for a second.”

  “I… But… It’s complicated,” he mumbled.

  She huffed, frustrated. “You meet a girl, she’s crazy about you, you’re crazy about her. What’s so freaking complicated about that?” She was completely fed up with his ever-present restraint. His withdrawals. The walls of ice locked around his heart.

  His eyes blazed momentarily at her words, but still he held his cool. That infuriating, unshakable self-discipline of his. What was it going to take to get through to him?

  What the heck. Nothing else had worked. Maybe going on the offensive might. “What’s the matter?” she snarled at him. “Afraid of a weak little woman like me?”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” he ground out.

  “Then what is it? Why won’t you let yourself feel something? Anything!” He turned away, but she continued to batter at the walls he barricaded himself behind. “What are you punishing yourself for?”

  He paced a lap around the small room but still refused to rise to the bait.

  “Don’t tell me you’re beating yourself up because you lived and your brother died in that ambush all those years ago,” she declared in dawning enlightenment.

  “What would it matter if I were?” he flashed.

  Ah. Better. Definite anger. She pressed on. “Oh, puhlease. All of you guys knew the risks going in. Simon knew full well that he might die in the line of duty. It was his choice to be there. Not yours.”

  Dutch didn’t answer.

  Agony tore through her at the mountain of pain she’d caused him. Was causing him now. All these years, all this private hell… She owed it to him to take this burden off his chest, to help him make peace with the chain of terrible events she’d helped set in motion. She stepped in front of him, into his line of sight. She reached up and took his face in both her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Did you do your best that night?” she asked.

  “Yes. No. Hell, I don’t know,” he mumbled.

  “Dutch, I’ve seen you react to some tough situations. And never, ever, have you done less than your utmost. It’s not in your nature to do a half-assed job. You have to believe you did the best you could that night. But other forces were at work. People and events you couldn’t control. And that’s not your fault.”

  She looked deep into his eyes and saw a desperate wish to believe her flickering in their dark, wounded depths. “You have to believe me. Let Simon go. He wouldn’t want his death to destroy you like this.”

  Dutch ran a distracted hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to let go. I’ve held on so tight for so long… Aw hell. I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.”

  She stepped close and let all her feelings for him flow through her, praying they reached him. She whispered, “Let me help you.”

  He stared down at her, a struggle for self-control etched on his face. Doubt warred with desperation. Fear wrestled with need. His innate strength clamored for a moment’s rest. And behind it all, she saw a lonely man tremendously in need of love.

  What she was contemplating was terribly dangerous. Not only did she chance cutting loose his emotions but also his violence. She dared not go there. Except how could she not? She knew in her heart he needed to heal. To feel again. To rejoin the human race.

  She owed it to him. She’d cost him ten years of his life. And that was enough. It was time to right the wrong she’d done to this man. Even his subconscious was screaming for release by sending him those terrible, torturous nightmares.

  She reached up to stroke his cheek. “Give us tonight,” she murmured. “Forget everything else and live in the moment for once. Just one night.”

  He continued to stare down at her, motionless.

  She stepped closer, leaning into him with her whole body. “Can’t you feel the fire between us?” she coaxed. “How can your heart stay frozen in the face of that?”

  She took a step back and reached for the hem of
her sweater. “I’m not letting you retreat behind your stiff jaw and walls of ice anymore, James Dutcher. It’s high time you came out of your cave and into the light.”

  She lifted her sweater over her head and tossed it aside. She kicked off her shoes and shed her turtleneck shirt, only breaking eye contact with him when the fabric passed over her face. His hooded gaze revealed nothing of his thoughts. Determined to break through his emotional fortifications, she reached for the zipper on her jeans.

  She shimmied out of the soft denim and felt his gaze sweep down her body. Clad only in her lacy underwear, she straightened, silently daring him to take what she was offering.

  Blue fire flared in his eyes, tinged by a hint of savagery. Trepidation whisked down her spine, touching her with a chill that had nothing to do with the cool air. But there was no turning back now. Once and for all, she was going to break down the walls around his heart or make a complete fool of herself trying.

  She reached behind her back for the hook in her bra. The lace gapped away from her skin, and she pushed it down over her arms. The scrap of fabric dropped to the floor.

  She stepped forward and reached for the hem of his sweater. She tugged it over his head and he didn’t resist. But neither did he respond. His turtleneck followed suit, and then she reached for his belt. He sucked in his breath as her fingers touched the hard slab of his stomach, but he gave no other indication that she was affecting him.

  The leather belt slithered from around his waist. Girding herself to continue in the face of his stony silence, she reached for his zipper. The backs of her fingers rubbed a massive swell of hard flesh as she tugged the zipper down.

  The man of steel wasn’t completely impervious to her, after all! She slipped her hands inside the waistband of his jeans to push them down, and abruptly, her wrists were encircled in the twin vises of his powerful grip.

  “Enough, already,” he growled.

  “No, it’s not enough. I mean it. I’m sick and tired of you bottling up all your feelings. One of these days your head is going to explode. Tonight’s the night you let go.”

  “By what right—” he spluttered.

  “By this right,” she interrupted, standing on tiptoe and wrapping her arms around his neck. Oh Lord, that felt good. Skin on skin. Silk on satin. The heat and hardness of his chest against hers almost brought her to her knees. She tugged his head down to where she could kiss him, pausing an inch from his mouth. “If not me, then who? Who else cares about you enough to break down your walls? Let me do this for you.”

  He stared at her for a long time. He was so close she could see the individual flecks of silver within the sea of midnight blue in his eyes. She palpably felt the battle raging inside him. She murmured, “Stop fighting yourself. You and I were meant to be, and you know it as well as I do.”

  He held out for another second, and then without warning, his arms swept around her, lifting her completely off the ground. His mouth descended to hers, and he kissed her violently. Passionately. Overwhelmingly. And she was lost.

  She ought to make him admit she was right, ought to make him admit his capitulation. But as his hot mouth moved across hers and his strong arms plastered her against his body, she didn’t care. All that mattered was this moment. The crazy lust slamming back and forth between them, scorching her from the inside out.

  Maybe it was the recklessness of living outside the law. Maybe it was the danger of knowing that any second Dutch’s emotional control could shatter and transform into real violence. Or maybe he just drove her out of her mind with desire. But his touch lit a fire in her that raged completely out of control. She kissed him voraciously, his face, his eyes, his mouth.

  His lovely mouth. So mobile and expressive, be it clamped shut against the emotions churning inside him, or moving restlessly across her lips. She searched out the fire blazing beneath the icy surface of the man, plunging her tongue into his heat, slanting her mouth to fit more closely to his.

  Their lips and tongues clashed as they devoured each other, his ice to her fire, his yin to her yang. She tore at his jeans, frantic to feel his skin, to taste his flesh, to wrap herself around him, to take him inside her body and her heart.

  He ripped her panties off, and they stumbled to the bed together, kicking aside shoes and laughing as they tripped over clothes. They fell in a heap onto the mattress. He disentangled himself long enough to fish a foil packet out of his wallet and slip on a condom, but she gave him no mercy, kissing her way across his body while he did so. He gathered her close in a tangle of heated limbs and loomed over her, pushing her hair back. He captured her gaze with his. “Is this what you want?” he asked roughly.

  “No. I want a great deal more than this from you,” she replied, dead serious.

  Frustration flickered in his beautiful eyes. “I don’t know if I can give you more.”

  She reached up and tugged at the back of his neck, pulling him down toward her. “I want it all. I want all of you.”

  She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him close with her entire body. He stole her breath away with all that magnificent, naked flesh against hers. Where the blazing glory of his body stopped and hers began, she had no idea. She just knew that she wanted him inside her. Now.

  Thankfully, he was as impatient as she. He plunged into her softness, burying himself to the hilt. She gasped at the glorious sensation of being impaled upon a fiery sword of steel flesh and arched up into him, seeking everything he had to give and more. He groaned and surged again, and she arced in a tightly strung bow of ecstasy.

  His forehead landed on her shoulder, but she tugged at his hair, forcing him to raise his head and look her in the eyes. There would be no hiding between them tonight. She looked deep into the blue ocean of his gaze and dived in. What was that Melville quote? Beneath the icy seas ran the hottest blood of all?

  The words drifted away as he surged inside her again, unleashing a veritable inferno of pleasure within her. His mouth dipped to hers, never breaking the soul-baring lock of their gazes. There would be no escape for her, either, now that the battle was joined.

  He invaded every corner of her body and her soul. Not one inch of her was safe from his explorations as he took her totally. He lifted her hips to fill her more completely, he tweaked and teased her breasts until they positively ached for more. His hands roamed over her, seeking and finding her most sensitive places, plucking at her and playing her like a fine violin until she fairly sang for him.

  And all the while, that mind-blowing slide of flesh on flesh, the stretching fullness of him, the throbbing pleasure pulsing through her blood, driving her closer and closer to the edge. His fingers entwined with hers, dragging her hands up over her head. He pressed her deep into the mattress, his body pinning hers in place, claiming her irrevocably and unmistakably as his.

  His gaze never wavered from hers, locked in a mesmerizing dance of desire and possession. She stared up at him, hypnotized by the play of emotions raging through that beautiful sea of blue. He demanded all she had to give, but in return, he laid his heart completely bare.

  He released one of her hands to reach down between them. He stroked her most sensitive flesh, already engorged with pleasure and on the verge of exploding. He touched her again and she fell apart in his hand, shuddering with ripples of drowning pleasure around him.

  A groan of soul-deep gratification escaped his throat. And still he stared at her, willing her to feel what he did, to experience the mind-numbing explosion along with him. His jaw rippled, and with a last apocalyptic thrust into her very core, they detonated together like a nuclear blast.

  She released a shattered breath while the fallout rained down around her. Gradually, her breathing slowed and she focused on his face. He remained seated deep within her and continued staring down into her eyes. But now his gaze was filled with something new. Something she’d never seen from him. Joy.

  Thank God.

  Completely wrung out by the experience, she could only smile
at him in speechless awe.

  Dutch stared down at Julia, struggling to form a thought. But words floated through his head disjointedly. Inadequate words like amazing. Beyond amazing. Phenomenal.

  He propped himself up on one elbow and pushed damp tendrils of hair off her forehead. Were those tears in her eyes? For a second, he jolted in alarm, until he noticed the brilliant smile unfolding across her face. He knew the feeling exactly. No more walls stood between them. Brick by brick, she’d torn them down, ripped them away with her bare hands. How a gentle soul like her had managed to do it, he had no idea. She’d asked him to open himself to her completely, and like a tamed lion, he’d docilely gone along.

  Not that he was complaining about it. The sex between them had been spectacular. Never had he let another human being inside his guard so totally, nor had anyone ever given herself to him so without reservation. He was humbled by the gift.

  He rolled over onto his back, tucking her against his shoulder. She snuggled close to him, and he reveled in the sleek length of her body against his. He drifted on gentle waves of pleasure and gradually regained awareness of their surroundings. But the delirious haze of joy remained.

  He glanced down, and a faint smile still curved her mouth. Contentment unfolded deep in his soul as he looked into the face of the woman he loved. The thought didn’t even panic him. She was right. They were meant to be together and he’d known it from the very beginning. Why he’d wasted so much time and energy fighting it was beyond him. He stroked her hair lazily, enjoying the silky slide of it beneath his fingers.

  “I hope you’re prepared to have a lot of kids,” he murmured. “I want a houseful.”

  She twirled the hairs on his chest lazily and murmured, “Me, too. I want a home chock-full of noise and laughter and love.”

  “I assume there wasn’t much of those in your home growing up,” he replied.

  “No. My mom died when Carina was two. I was eight. When she went away, the light went out of our lives.” She propped herself up on his chest to look down at him. “Until now. You’ve changed my life.”