“Grandmas and puppies?”
She almost smiled, right until a torrent of guilt nearly swallowed her whole. Flashes of Rachel’s face, dirtied and frightened, tightened Penny’s chest. Each image was worse than the last until her heart pounded in her ears. She struggled, tried to squirm out from beneath Rafe, but he kept her still, his body still pressed into hers as he tried to gain her attention.
“Breathe,” he ordered gently. When she didn’t obey, he cupped her face in his hands and forced her to hold his gaze. Calm and steady, he ordered again, “Take a slow breath, Red. Breathe. Relax.” He ran a hand up and down the length of her arm. “It’s okay.”
“No. No, it’s not.” She fought against a surge of tears. “How horrible a person am I to be doing this…with you…while Rachel is being subjected to God only knows what?”
“It doesn’t make you horrible. It makes you human.”
Penny waited for him to tuck tail and run from the emotional display, but he didn’t. As a matter of fact, he never did what she expected. The corners of his eyes softened as he brushed away the moisture dampening her cheeks.
“Even the biggest badass needs a release valve.” He sounded so adamant, she almost believed him. “Why the hell do you think soldiers are scheduled R and R in cities close to where they’re stationed? Constant stress and danger weighs down even the most dedicated.”
“But—”
“It’s not wrong.” Rafe silenced her words by gently brushing his mouth over hers. “And it’s not selfish if it’s what helps you to move forward. We will find Rachel.”
“What if she’s a carbon copy of Carlotta by the time we find her?”
“Then she’ll have you to help remind her who she is. She’ll have you to help her through it.” He curled her into his side, the move so natural she nestled her bare cheek against his chest. Callused fingers caressed her arm from the back of her hand to the bend of her elbow.
Lingering sexual tension made every inch of her body tingle, but it wasn’t alone. Something infinitely more dangerous huddled beneath the hum of their bodies. Warm and cozy, it settled in the center of her chest, branching out until she didn’t give it a second thought when her hand absently stroked down the length of his torso and back up.
It was intimacy.
Beneath her ear, the quick thumping of his heart matched her own.
Rafe murmured softly. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll start mapping out the lay of the land, look for things that may be hidden beneath the pretty surface—like why Carlotta was so preoccupied with what was toward the east.”
“And if it’s more nothing?”
Rafe tugged her gaze upward. “Then we’ll deal with that just like we’ll deal with anything else that happens to come along. And we’ll deal with it together.”
Penny didn’t have the strength to ask him what that meant. She was too preoccupied with his use of the term we.
And together.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Quick and easy. That’s how this was supposed to go. With Penny keeping the eyes of Fuentes’s men turned in her direction, this would be a piece of cake. Of course, that meant Rafe had to keep his head from wandering to Penny keeping the eyes of Fuentes’s men turned in her direction.
He hadn’t liked the plan when she’d suggested it, but he’d had to admit that it made the most sense. Keeping the focus away from him, he’d be able to slip away undetected and find the main source of the compound’s power. Now that he had, he cursed.
Fucking solar.
“Where’s Charlie when you need her?” Rafe muttered.
Give him a Glock, a KA-BAR, or a fucking pair of boxing gloves and he was golden, but don’t expect him to pull out the science. Knowing he didn’t have time to nap on the job, Rafe got down to work.
Luckily for him, there was no way in hell Fuentes had the compound on-grid, not this far away from civilization. And sure enough, he found the battery bank that kept the system running off-hours. Once he took away the backup, it would be lights out at sundown.
Rafe couldn’t just pluck a wire or snip it in half, because even the dense security Fuentes had on staff would be able to tell the difference between sabotage and a furry critter. So he pulled out his toys and got creative, quick. The longer it took him to disrupt the compound’s solar grid, the longer Penny was out there alone.
*