He raised his hands—have to touch her—and curled his fingers around her shoulders. “We’re working a case. We’re partners, that’s all.”
She stared back up at him. Her lips were full and parted, and he wanted to kiss her.
He’d wanted to kiss her for years.
She’s not yours. He had to keep reminding himself of that fact. Sydney wasn’t meant to be with him. She’d been engaged to his half brother. She and Slade were the ones who should have had the happy ending. The picket fence. That whole picture-perfect dream.
Not. Me.
But Slade was dead now. And Sydney was lifting her hand to touch his face. Her fingers rasped over the faint stubble that coated his jaw. “Don’t,” he gritted out.
“Why not?”
“We’re on a mission—”
“And we’re alone. We can talk, without anyone else hearing us. Without anyone else watching us.” Her hand dropped. He didn’t let her go. Maybe he didn’t want to. “You almost died on our last case. Do you know how that made me feel?”
He’d cheated death more times than he could count. Unlike Slade. Some nights, Gunner could still hear the echoes of Sydney’s cries. He’d had to pull her away from Slade’s body. Force her out of that hell of a jungle and get her to safety.
I lost him, but I damn sure wasn’t going to lose her, too.
She was staring up at him now, waiting for a response, her body a silken temptation. He exhaled slowly. “I’m sure you were worried.” Because Sydney worried about everyone. Her heart was too big; she cared too much.
“I wasn’t worried,” she said immediately, heat in her words. “I was terrified. I don’t want anything happening to you.”
And he’d die before he’d let anything happen to her. She was the whole reason he was still with the EOD. The better to keep watch on her. The better to stay close to her.
He was still touching her.
Hands. Off. He pulled his hands away, clenched his fists.
“I think about you.” Her voice had dropped to a husky whisper. A pause, then, “Do you think about me?”
Too much. “Slade.” It was an effort to force the name out. Like cutting open a wound that had just started to heal. “You—”
“I don’t want to crawl into the ground with him.”
He wasn’t so sure. Right after he’d brought her back from South America, he’d had to watch her so closely. Then he’d been the one to be terrified. But Sydney had healed in the past two years, become stronger and started to look more like the vibrant woman he remembered, and not a ghost.
“I want to live. I want a life again.”
His heart began to pound too heavily in his chest. What was she saying?
“You saved me that day, and, Gunner, I want to be with you.”
She rose onto her toes. Her body pressed against his. Her lips touched his—
He should have pushed her away in that first instant. Gunner knew that he should have pushed her away.
He shouldn’t have locked his arms around her as if he was desperate. He shouldn’t have held so tightly as if she were his lifeline. He definitely shouldn’t have kissed her so wildly—as if he needed her more than anything else.
But he’d never kissed her before. Never been so close to the thing he wanted the most. So he kissed her, he became reckless with his need and didn’t pull back. He didn’t push her away and tell her that what they were doing was wrong.
Because it felt too right.
His hand slid beneath her hair, tilted her head back. The kiss became deeper.
She trembled against him. Her fingers were over his chest, her right hand over his heart.
He wanted to strip her clothes away. To kiss every inch of her, to claim her.
She isn’t yours to claim.
The reminder burned through his mind. His head lifted.
“I wanted you to do that,” Sydney whispered. “For so long now.”
He stiffened. This wasn’t hands off. He tried to force his hands to free her.
She shook her head. “You want me. I want you.” She rose onto her toes and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “Why can’t we have what we want?”
Because she didn’t know the secret guilt that he carried. If she did, Sydney would never let him close to her again. He didn’t answer her, but he did back away.
Her hands fell to her sides. “Will he always be between us?”
The question was like a punch to his gut.
“He’s gone, Gunner. As much as that truth hurts us both...Slade is gone.”
Because he’d left his brother to die in a jungle, seen him get taken down by gunfire that ripped into Slade’s chest. But I didn’t get him out of there. I got Sydney out.
Slade’s grave was a jungle in the middle of Peru. Slade had never come home, not even in death.
“Why is it me?” Gunner rasped the question when he’d meant to remain silent.
Sydney blinked at him as if lost.
But she couldn’t be lost. The suspicion that he had ate at his soul. “When you look at me, do you see him?” Was that what she wanted? A substitute for her dead lover?
Her indrawn breath was almost painful to hear. “Bastard.”
He was. In every sense of the word.
“I’ve moved on, Gunner. It tore me apart, but...I. Moved. On.” Her chin was up. Her shoulders back. “I let his ghost go. Maybe it’s time you learned to do the same.” Then her phone rang, vibrating in her pocket. She turned away, yanking it from her pocket. “Logan?” A brief pause, then, “Yes, we had to seek shelter in a shack on the south ridge.”
Gunner ran a rough hand over his face. That had been too close for him. Far too close. Another few seconds, and he wouldn’t have been able to pull away from her.
Another few seconds, and he wouldn’t have cared about the secrets that hid in his heart or the guilt that ate him late at night.
Another few seconds, and he’d have taken her.
But he’d held strong. He could keep his control. He’d protect her, always watch out for her, just as he’d sworn to do.
Anything else wasn’t possible. Even if he had to keep being the bastard who held Sydney at arm’s length.
Sometimes you can’t have the one thing that you want most.
Because you knew, deep down, that you didn’t deserve that one thing.
* * *
SUNLIGHT STREAMED THROUGH the blinds, faint streaks of light that shot across the bed, and slid over Jasper’s body.