She didn’t know if she was breathing. She didn’t care if the world itself rained down upon them. Nothing mattered but this pleasure and the white hot mix of sensation and emotion rising through her.
Emotion.
She had sworn she would never love, but she knew, six years before, that was a promise she would end up breaking.
She loved Jordan Malone.
He’d just destroyed both of them.
Jordan stared at the ceiling above him as he held Tehya in his arms and knew he had made a huge mistake.
He’d fought this for six years. Fought it and swore he’d never give into it, because he knew it had no future. That he had no future with her.
Tehya had that love of danger, the addiction to the adrenaline rush, the same as he had. He’d seen it in her far too many times.
She wouldn’t let it go. She would find trouble if she stayed with him. They would tempt each other, dare each other, and eventually, he feared, find trouble that would end up getting them both killed.
And even if he was wrong, even if she was the home-and-hearth type, there was always the risk that his enemies, those made before his time in the Elite Ops, would find him. And when they found him, they would find his weakness.
Tehya.
“Nothing to say?” she whispered from where she lay against him, obviously awake.
When he said nothing, she moved.
Rolling from his side, she rose from the bed, and moving slowly, wearily, collected her gown from the floor and pulled it over her head.
Wiping his hand over his face, Jordan rose himself, sitting on the edge of the bed as he watched her broodingly. Son of a bitch, this was one of the reasons he hadn’t taken her to his bed. Tehya wasn’t a one night stand, and he had known it.
And hurting Tehya was something he had tried desperately not to do.
Something he had known from the beginning that he had no choice in.
Tehya promised herself she wouldn’t cry. She fought back the tears but she couldn’t fight back the pain clenching her chest and throbbing through her heart.
She had always assumed a broken heart was more figurative than literal, but she could feel it ripping in half beneath her flesh. Even her bones ached, her ribs felt too tight, under pressure, as though the emotions tearing at her heart were going to burst from her skin as well.
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Those eyes. That brilliant, almost neon blue stared back at her somberly.
Irish Eyes, her friend Sabella Blake had told her once. Jordan had Irish Eyes. Any woman lucky enough to steal his love would have a true window into his soul. Sabella had told her how she had once ‘seen’ the horror of her husband’s torture when he was kidnapped by a drug cartel owner, Diego Fuentes. That she had felt his pain, dreamed of his screams.
Tehya had always wondered what such love would feel like. She had fantasized about possessing this man’s love. A fantasy. That was all it was.
“I have to finish packing.” She heard the hoarseness of her voice and knew she wasn’t hiding her emotions as well as she had hoped to.
“Tehya, I don’t want to lose your friendship either, not because of this,” he said as he pushed his legs into his jeans then rose and pulled them over his muscled legs.
“Are we friends, Jordan? Were we ever?” She had never felt friendship from him.
She couldn’t define exactly what she had felt from him over the years. She knew her own emotions had been in conflict more than once, but friendship had never been the definition she would have put on their relationship.
“I hoped we were.” That edge of regret in his voice tore at her.
She could almost feel the pity coming, and she really didn’t want to have to shoot him. If he dared to feel sorry for her, then that would be the least of the problems he would have.
Giving her head a quick shake she turned and walked from the bedroom. She couldn’t handle this tonight. She couldn’t stand here and discuss friendships, see the pity on his face, or face the realization that six years of dreams had been wasted effort.