Until There Was You (Coming Home, #2) Read online

  “About what, Evan? You want to plan, I want to train, and therein lies the simple difference between us. Maybe it’s the fact that you’ve been an officer your entire adult life and I spent a good chunk of time in the trenches as enlisted. No matter how long we argue about it, we don’t see this problem the same way.”

  Evan took a step back, searching for a way out of the argument they were headed toward. He was so tired of fighting with her. “How can you be an officer and be that emotionally attached to everything you do?”

  “Because at least I give a shit about what I do. I may be loud and I may speak my mind, but no one will ever say I don’t care.” She took a single step backwards, crossing her arms over her chest. “How can you call yourself a leader when you don’t care about anything but doing what the commander wants? Those are people, not means to an end, Evan. You get the right people in the job and the rest will take care of itself.”

  “That’s part of your problem, Claire. You might be good, but you’re not good enough to succeed on talent alone. You’re reckless. And you don’t believe in the rules. But they exist for a reason.” The cold moonlight shifted on the breeze, dancing over the frozen, snow-covered trail. Her eyes glittered in the pale luminescence as he skirted closer, his body skimming against hers. He did it on purpose. He wanted to see if she would stand and fight or keep running away when things got too rough. He wanted to push her past her comfort zone.

  He wanted to get closer to the fire she kindled inside him.

  * * *

  Her lungs suddenly refused to cooperate. But she held her ground, refusing to retreat. Refusing to expose the twisted, trembling weakness that hunted her, threatening to reveal just how useless she really was.

  “Rules?” She forced the words over her tongue, forced her voice to relive a memory that tore at the fabric of who she was. “Rules get people killed. Rules leave people on the battlefield a few miles from help because they’re not the main effort. Don’t talk to me about the rules, Evan, because the only thing you know about rules is that you never break them.”

  “You know what pisses me off about you, Claire?” He stepped closer, until his breath lingered against her skin, his mouth the barest span of distance from hers. “It bugs the ever-loving shit out of me that you truly think I don’t care about anything but doing what the commander wants.” The fierce anger in his eyes held her, pinned her to the spot. Panic slithered up her spine, cold and grasping. He was standing too close to her. “You’re not the only one who cares about the people around you, Claire. But there are more important things than the army according to Claire.” His words were a harsh caress against her jaw.

  “This mission is about the people. You’re not going to convince me otherwise.” Her pulse jumped against her skin, a scattered staccato.

  His smile was cold as steel and just as biting. It fit the man she knew. This was Captain America that stood before her. The ruthless training officer, relentless in his drive for perfect timelines. What the hell had she been thinking? They were too different, from two completely opposite worlds. No amount of desire could change the fact that they saw the world through opposite ends of the spectrum: she looking up at things she could never attain, he looking down on a world he never had to experience.

  Evan’s laugh was filled with frustration. Claire bristled and would have lashed out, but his expression stopped her.

  He shook his head slowly, and then he lifted his hand, his fingers a breath from her cheek. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t will their training to be a success.”

  Her breath caught in her throat as his fingers held, just above her skin. “I know that.” Her words came out a harsh whisper, unconvinced.

  They were alone in the woods. Silence pulsed around them filled with a hundred unsaid things glittering on their frozen breath.

  “What are you so afraid of?” he whispered.

  Claire swallowed hard and tried to moisten her lips without licking them. “You have no idea what it’s like to go to sleep at night, wondering if you could have done more if only people would have listened to you,” she admitted.

  “People listen to you, Claire.”

  “You don’t.” She swallowed and looked away, her words slapping at him like a cold, wet towel. “The only thing I’m good at is being a soldier, and it kills me to know that I could do more to help Sarah and her team but I can’t because my hands are tied. Because a commander says no.”

  “That’s not true.” He studied her for a long moment and she lifted her chin, uncomfortable at the depth of his scrutiny. “You’re more than just a soldier.”

  “You don’t even know me, Evan,” she said gently. “Being a soldier is the only thing I’ve ever been good at, and no matter how hard I try, I’m always screwing things up.” She breathed deeply, releasing her breath slowly. “None of this changes anything. Nothing we do matters.”

  “That’s not true. You matter.”

  * * *

  He had no idea when she’d made the transition from being a pain in the ass to someone he found himself following into the frozen night. Her green eyes were dark and wary, ringed with disappointment and a lingering hesitation. She turned and tried to head off down the trail again. A dark frustration lashed out in him, refusing to acquiesce to her desire to be alone. She’d been alone too much.

  So had he.

  “Damn it, stop walking away from me.” He grabbed at her arm and the sudden movement threw them both off balance. She stumbled and slipped, grasping at him to keep from plunging to the ground. Her sudden weight made him misjudge his step and his boot slipped on a patch of hard frozen snow. He stumbled backwards. Trying to keep her from crashing, he pulled her toward him and took the brunt of the fall on his back. Her weight and the bad angle knocked the frozen air from his lungs.

  Panic clutched at his heart when his diaphragm refused to work. Clenching his arms around her when she tried to rise, he clung to her until he could breathe, taking a frozen hit of oxygen that had never felt so good.

  It was only after he started breathing normally again that he realized that Claire had stopped fighting him.

  Her eyes widened in a flash and her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She was close enough that in the low light, he could see the frost on her eyelashes, the strands of hair clinging to her cheek beneath the knit cap she was wearing.

  Beneath the surface of her eyes, a dark and powerful emotion flashed briefly and was gone. A twisted torment that writhed in the depths of her soul.

  And then she met his gaze and Evan was lost in her.

  * * *

  He’d meant for it to be a gentle kiss. A tentative request for forgiveness for not believing in her. For being one of the people who let her down. He gave over to it, straining to get closer to her despite everything that separated them. Right now, he didn’t care where they were or who might find them.

  He’d never thought that sex in the winter woods could be a good idea but at this precise moment, he wanted nothing more than to lay her down in the middle of the moonlit trail and strip away every barrier, every defense. He wanted to see her body gleaming in the moonlight, watch her shatter in his arms.

  The thought of the moonlight painting her skin sent desire spiraling wide inside him and he dragged her against him. She rubbed against his erection and he almost lost his mind in a harsh wave of pleasure.

  Arousal pounded through his body like the fire of an artillery battery, pulsing over his skin like a blast wave.

  The utter loss of control terrified him, licking at the edge of a chaos he’d buried so long ago, it felt as if it belonged to another person. When she nipped his earlobe, tracing the sensitive skin with her tongue, he forgot everything except for this moment, this wild, unbound sensation.

  A distant rumbling moved closer. Claire tensed, her breath gentle huffs against his skin. Evan eased back, pressing his lips against her jaw, wanting so much more but afraid to move and chase her away.

  Because if
there was one thing he’d learned about Claire Montoya, it was that she was a hell of a lot more skittish than he’d ever imagined. The overwhelming urge he had to protect her would only make her angry and drive her farther away.

  And while the thought of her eyes flashing with anger turned him on, he wanted her desire, not her fury. It stunned him, how fiercely he wanted this woman. Wanted her in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to want a woman in … ever.

  He held her for another moment. Held on to something more powerful than the storm he saw still broiling in her eyes.

  Another moment and he helped her to her feet.

  And for once, she did not pull away.

  Chapter Six

  They walked back to the lodge, the heat between them chilling the closer they got to warmth, to reality. They stepped into a puddle of artificial light from the overhead lights. Claire looked up at Evan, seeing him, the man, not the officer. “Did you really try to change Danvers’s mind?”

  “I was leading up to it,” he admitted quietly.

  It was such a simple declaration, but there was so much more running beneath it. Something Claire had never seen before: a crack in the cold steel façade of Captain America.

  A slithering thing traced down her spine, a fierce whisper that she did not know this man at all. The man she thought she knew? She did not like that man. The polished army brass who was never faced with the choices that those at the bottom of the heap had to make every single day. But this man, standing before her? This man who admitted that he’d tried to help her change a commander’s mind? This man was complicated and conflicted. He disagreed with her but he’d gone to Colonel Danvers to try and change his plan. It was an act of faith.

  Of trust.

  And it spoke of something new between them: a revelation and a declaration not of war but of dark and sensual promise.

  Tempting her to break the one rule she’d relied upon since learning a brutal lesson about trusting the wrong people.

  They walked in silence through the foyer and down the hallway, Claire’s thoughts racing about the choice she was about to make. She wanted to turn away, to shield herself from the dark emotions he inspired in her, but instead she opened the door to her room, terrified of what she was about to do. He followed her in and the quiet sound of the door closing behind them might as well have been the clang of a vault.

  She smiled as a warmth slid through her as they both stripped off their wet jackets. He stood a little too close, the heat from his body penetrating her workout clothing. She shivered and his eyes swept down her body, then back up to collide with hers. A hot bolt of desire sparked through her blood, chasing away the chill.

  Evan moved in front of her, his chest skimming against hers. It was the expectation in his eyes that destroyed the last of her barriers. “What is this, Claire? Between us?”

  “A mistake?” she said honestly, looking up into his eyes. “I don’t know.” She pressed her lips together, struggling not to say the wrong thing.

  His gaze dropped to her mouth, then caressed its way back up to her eyes. He lifted his hands, gently resting them at the base of her throat. A light touch. Hesitant. “I want …”

  His eyes went from brown to black in an instant, his big body stilling. His throat moved as he swallowed roughly. He cupped her cheek with one hand. His palm was solid and strong, the thumb he stroked over her bottom lip was callused and rough. She flicked her tongue out, tracing the lines of his fingerprint, and she heard his quick hiss of breath.

  “What?” she whispered. “What do you want?”

  She licked her bottom lip, wondering just how far she could push him. Wondering if she herself dared to step off the edge of sanity and into the depths of pleasure that his gaze promised.

  “You.” His fingers twitched against her throat, caressing the line of her neck. “I—”

  She smiled then, her fingers resting on his sides. Lightly. Unsure whether to tease or tempt. She brushed her lips over his. “Say the words, Evan. Say ‘I want you.’ ”

  Neither of them moved for the longest moment. They stood, Evan’s palm cupping her cheek, his thumb stroking her lip and a slow burn building in the seat of her soul. His nostrils flared and she felt rather than heard his breathing grow rough.

  “Do you always have to be in control?” she whispered. Her breath failed to fill her starved lungs. Anticipation bloomed inside of her.

  “Claire—” Her name, a barely restrained desire.

  It was enough.

  She closed the space between them. His thumb caressed her lips as she opened herself to him, her tongue slipping inside his mouth. All the tastes and textures were him and she didn’t realize until this moment just how much she’d wanted this.

  How much she’d wanted him. His arms wrapped around her, his palm stroking the space between her shoulder blades as she kissed him. Here was power and strength. Desire and sensual heat all mixed together with the lingering pain of old wounds.

  She slipped her hands beneath his shirt, her palms flat against the smooth muscles of his back. He stiffened beneath her touch and in that moment, realization dawned on her.

  He didn’t have nearly as much control as he wanted her to think.

  She lifted the hem of his shirt, just a little, dragging one nail along the edge of his pants. Across the small of his back. He shivered but didn’t move. His hands clenched at his sides, a fierce restraint, his breath shallow and quick. She flattened her palms against his back, sliding them up against the raw silk of his skin, dragging his shirt higher and leaning back to take in the pure masculine beauty of his body.

  She froze at what she had revealed. Holding her breath, she pushed the shirt over his shoulders until he finally reached down and tugged it the final distance over his head.

  He stood stiff and straight for her inspection. His eyes were closed, his shoulders rigid, his head bowed, his breath harsh and ragged.

  “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Captain America?” she murmured.

  Tentatively, she reached out, tracing the gnarled roots of an old oak tree, tattooed in black at the base of his rib cage. It curled and twisted over his left deltoid, the black, gothic branches spreading over his shoulder and halfway down his bicep and the left side of his chest.

  This was not a tattoo that someone did for fun. This was a memorial. This was pain. A wicked, vicious inscription carved into his flesh.

  In the middle of the tree, a faded pink scar ripped through indecipherable writing. “What is this?” she whispered, tracing the lines over his back with the tip of her index finger.

  “My sister. It’s a tribute to my sister.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard.

  “What about the scar?” she whispered.

  “When the TOC got blown up, a ricochet from the mortar blast tore off her name. I’ve been waiting for it to heal enough to get it fixed.”

  Claire couldn’t speak past the block in her throat. This was more than just a flesh wound.

  She’d never dreamed that Captain America—that Evan—had experienced such a loss. The depth of his pain was written all over his body. She stood near his shoulder and met his gaze, looking past the constrained façade to the torment beneath. Then slowly, slowly, she traced the black branch twisting over his biceps with the tip of her tongue.

  His lips parted, the only visible reaction to the intense sensation of her mouth on him. He held his breath as she tasted the black branches covering his shoulder.

  A tribute. She pressed her lips to the scar at the center of his shoulder. She wanted to ask about his sister, wanted to know more about a man who would mark his body permanently for someone else. It was the kind of thing she would have done when she was young and stupid. She pressed her lips to his shoulder, felt his muscles jump beneath her kiss. For a brief moment, she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, pressing her cheek to the black lines covering his back, wondering at the boy he had been. At the pain that carved that boy into the man before he
r.

  For once, the silence between them was empty of blame and hurt. Claire was moored to the spot, filled with a warmth that nearly overwhelmed her. Desire burned low and deep in her belly, but now there was more—the connection of shared loss.

  He’d shared at least part of the loss that had shaped him into the man she held in her arms. But would he accept the losses that had shaped her?

  She didn’t know. And her inability to trust in this fragile connection between them nearly broke her heart.

  * * *

  There was no reason for him to be standing in the middle of her room. He could have turned out the lights, hiding the tattoo. There was no reason for him to have shown her the ragged memory he’d carved into his body as both penance and tribute.

  He wrapped his hands around hers, which were folded against his abdomen. He couldn’t see her face, couldn’t see the questions or the judgment there. Would she look at him and know he was a killer long before the army had pinned a rank on his chest and placed a weapon in his hand?

  She called him Captain America. Claire looked at him and saw the man he’d forced himself to become after a single reckless night had driven him away from the home he’d once loved.

  It terrified him how easily he’d handed her the power to crush him. A hundred thousand things tumbled through him, twisting and writhing, refusing to be locked down again. Never had a lover taken the time to do something so incredibly erotic and so touching all at once.

  Claire shifted until she stood in front of him. She pressed her lips to his collarbone, at the edge of a single, twisted black branch. “How did she die?” Claire’s whispered question pierced the silence. The thin veil of Evan’s control vibrated like a wall of heat rising from the pavement in August.

  He shifted then, lifting one arm over her shoulder to cradle the back of her neck, struggling to find the words that were not a lie. “Car accident.” He released a shuddering breath. In the thirteen years since his sister had died, he’d never told anyone the full truth of what had happened. “She was sixteen.”