Deadly Strain (Biological Response Team) (7 page)

“Yes, exactly, we’re best friends. Something hasn’t been right with you since we arrived at Bostick. What the hell is going on between you and Marshall? Did he try to hurt you?”

Sneaky,
sneaky
bastard. She opened her mouth to yell at him, to let the anger boiling beneath her skin out into the space between them to batter him with the truths he thought he could easily ferret out.

He spoke before she could utter a sound. “Don’t throw me a bullshit flag. There’s a history there, right? You weren’t alone with him long enough to start a new argument.”

“You’re right, it’s not new, and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it, so, please just drop it.”

He watched her face as she struggled to decide whether she should say anything. “Look, I get it. Shit happens. In my case, my dad beat the hell out of me on a regular basis when I was a kid.” Sharp snorted. “He said it was character building. He wanted me to be tough.” Sharp’s face reflected pain, fear, anger and despair. “Breaking a kid’s arm in three places doesn’t make them tough.”

He’d been
abused
? Oh God, no. Horror’s frozen fingers wrapped around her throat. “Did you fight back?” It came out as a quivering whisper. She’d fought. When the enemy attacked, she’d killed.

Sharp’s chuckle was unexpected, and it loosened the cold grip cutting off her air. “Not in the traditional sense.”

“Traditional?”

“I didn’t hit back. After he broke my arm, there was a social worker who figured out what happened, but she couldn’t prove it and I wasn’t talking. Instead of badgering me, she saw to it that the community center where I went every day after school offered martial arts training.” He paused. “I forged my dad’s signature on the permission form.”

“
What?
”

A grin came and went so fast on his face she wasn’t sure she’d seen it. “She made sure I could hit back, if I wanted to.”

“But you said you didn’t.”

“I didn’t. What I did was block every punch my father tried to throw at me. I never hit back. I didn’t shove or kick. I just blocked. Blocked and blocked until my arms were bruised and my father realized he’d succeeded.”

After that litany of pain she couldn’t reconcile the last word with the rest. “Succeeded?”

“I’d become what he wanted...tough.”

What a sad, awful way to grow up. Yet, here he was, healthy, strong and resilient. “What happened then?”

“On my eighteenth birthday I signed up for the army. I haven’t talked to him since.”

“Has he tried to communicate with you?”

“He did at first. He doesn’t anymore.”

“Well, that just sucks.” She released a breath and made a decision. Rationally, she knew he was safe and no threat to her, even if the primitive part of her brain had been programmed by circumstances to protect herself emotionally by whatever means necessary. The only way to reprogram herself was to leave her comfort zone.

Ever since the IED explosion, she’d stayed away from making emotional connections with people. She’d loosened up enough to befriend Sharp and the other men on the A-Team, but it had happened only because they’d ended up training together for nearly a year. Anyone else, she’d kept at arm’s length.

Change of plan. She was going to put herself in his hands. Again.

“Okay. Right.” She swallowed hard, met his gaze and held it. “Here’s who you are to me: my friend, my partner and the one man I trust. I can’t promise I won’t freak out again, because I just did, but I know you’d never hurt me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

There was a long silence.

“So,” he said drawing out the word. “Are you ready to talk?”

She tried, she even opened her mouth, but admitting she’d made mistakes that resulted in the death of a fellow soldier, no matter the circumstances, was more than she could do. “Could we compromise? Could we talk about it after I’ve had a chance to...” She glanced around at the cave, at the two of them bloodied, dirty and tired. “Wrap my head around everything?”

He considered her for a long moment. “Yeah, I think I can agree to that.”

Relief was a balm on her frayed nerve endings.

“Next question. Are you going to take off your pants?”

She blinked. “You...are the weirdest guy. It’s a good thing you’re my friend or I’d have to—”

“Kill me?” he finished for her.

“I can’t joke about that right now.” The young soldier’s dead face flashed across her vision. Followed closely by the sight of the bodies of the five men she’d shot today. Other memories surfaced. Memories she wished she could forget. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to joke about it.”

“Fair enough. You look like you’ve got your groove back, so I’ll lay off the jokes, but I reserve the right to go back to being funny if you lose it again.”

She blinked away sudden tears. “I did lose it, didn’t I?”

He shrugged, as if it was all good. “It’s been a pretty shitty day.”

That’s when she noticed he had tear tracks running down his face. “Did you lose it too?”

He snorted. “You’d know if I’d lost it. I prefer something a little more...physical.”

* * *

She sucked in a breath, but responded with a shaky smile. “Right, the martial arts stuff. What do you do to blow off steam, break a bunch of boards?”

She looked so confused, uncertain and shocked, Sharp had to force himself not to take her in his arms and hold her until the sorrow left her face. He wanted to touch her again, to put his hands on her and watch the pleasure make her light up like a fucking Christmas tree again.

“Punching bag is more my style. Sometimes I spar with another one of the guys. Rasker...” The rage he normally kept locked down threatened to explode. He had to forcibly stuff it down into the mental prison he’d constructed back when he was a kid. Everything that went in there never came out.

“Rasker and I liked to keep our skills sharp.”

A soft, feminine hand slid over one of his to squeeze and stroke. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have saved him.”

“Not your fault. The assholes who shot our aircraft down are to blame.”

She stroked his hand once more before pulling hers away. “Sounds like we’re both going to need therapy when we get out of this mess.”

“That’s my girl.” She wasn’t his. He had to keep telling himself that, because the second he didn’t, he was claiming her in his head.

Kissing her.

Taking her on the dirt.

Get a hold of yourself
,
asshole.
She was a career officer, and a damn good one. This was not a woman he could romance and see when he was on leave. The rules of fraternization were clear. She was a major and he was a long way down the chain from that. If they were found out, they’d both lose big. He had to stop creating X-rated fantasies of her in his head. What happened today was a onetime thing born out of the stress and danger they were in. That was all. He was a professional, damn it. She was a fellow soldier and a good friend. Nothing more, nothing less.

She sighed, shook her head, got up on her knees and opened her pants. She had to wiggle a little to get the waist down over her butt, then she sat down in the dirt and pulled her left leg out.

Her panties were pink.

The panties his hands had just been inside were
fucking pink
.

Holy Mother of God, he was going to go to hell. He couldn’t take his eyes off the scrap of fabric between her legs, and he could almost feel the wet heat of her against his fingers again. Then she let out a pain-filled groan and his gaze jerked loose to land on her bloodied calf. It was still oozing blood.

“Damn it,” Grace hissed between clenched teeth. “I think I just tore the scab off.”

He should shoot himself in the foot for lusting after a wounded woman. “What made the wound? A piece of shrapnel or a bullet?” Sharp scooted over until he could get a good look at it. He reached into a pocket on his right thigh and pulled out a small LED flashlight covered by red translucent tape. He turned it on and shone it at her leg.

“Shrapnel probably. During the crash,” she answered.

He palpated the skin around the wound, trying to discover if anything was in it that shouldn’t be there. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Close it with a few Steri-Strips and bandage it up,” she ordered, sounding much more like her normal businesslike self. “I can get it properly cleaned out when we get to a base.”

He had a few of those small, but useful bandages in another pocket, but he didn’t want to use them up until he had to. “We got extras of those?”

She reached into the backpack behind her and pulled out a compact first-aid kit. It had everything he needed inside.

He cleaned up her leg first, using a few iodine swabs. He waited for that to dry, then closed the jagged-edged wound with four Steri-Strips, covered it all up with a nonstick dressing pad then wound a self-adhering bandage around her calf until he was certain it wouldn’t come undone.

She watched him silently throughout the whole operation, but as he finished she said, “Nice job. Ever thought of going into medicine?”

“Not really, though adding medic to my skill list wouldn’t be a bad idea. Uncle Sam likes us special soldiers to have as many skills as possible.”

She snorted at that, got to her feet, tried to stand on one so she could put her pants back on but wobbled badly.

He surged up and caught her, wrapping both arms around her waist and back before she landed in the dirt. “I’ve got you, you’re okay,” he whispered.

Her whole body shook once, then she pressed her face into his neck, took a deep breath and seemed to completely relax. “Oh.”

Since she wasn’t screaming or trying to get away, he was going to go on holding her, earning himself another decade or five in hell. A few seconds passed before he asked carefully, “You okay?”

“Yeah, you just smell good.”

“Finally, a use for my dirty, stinky laundry.”

“Oh no,” she said, her elbow in his ribs telling him to let go. “You’re not turning me into your laundress.”

“Laundress?” he asked, loosening his hold on her until he was sure she wasn’t going to fall over. “Who uses the word
laundress
?”

“Fine. Housekeeper, maid, girl Friday, whatever you want to call a woman who cleans up after you. I’m not it.”

Sharp sighed with all the theatrical
oomph
he could muster and said, “Mom?”

Grace pushed him over with a shove from both hands.

He rolled with it until he was a couple feet away. Thank God he’d managed to keep her off the ledge this time with nothing more than his sweaty self. He glanced up and froze at the sight of Grace taking her shirt off. She shrugged out of the left sleeve and lifted her arm up to eye level. “This one isn’t as bad as the one on my leg.”

Sharp hardly heard her, he was too busy staring at the finest set of breasts he’d ever seen. She wasn’t wearing any fancy lingerie, just the opposite. Her bra was beige, plain and appeared to be more solid than some canvas tents. No, what had his attention were breasts bigger than he’d imagined, and he’d imagined hers a lot. And her waist was smaller than he’d expected. Her body armor made her look more padded around the midsection than she really was.

She was
hot
.

And very, very quiet.

He lifted his gaze to meet hers. Oops, she was giving him the stink eye. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. They’re—” he glanced down again real quick “—amazing, and wow, you’re totally gorgeous, you know that, right?” So much for professional, jackass.

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you turned into a college junior just by looking at my boobs. I’m wearing more fabric than most bikinis.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t put that image in my head. Have you no compassion? No pity?”

“Fine. Here. They’re covered up.”

He cracked open one eye. She’d brought her shirt across her chest to cover herself.

“Now, can we get on with dealing with my arm?”

Damn. That fabulous view was all gone. He should have kept his mouth shut.

Patching up her arm took less time than her leg. Then she turned around and put her shirt back on.

Spoilsport.

“Your turn,” she said. “Take off your pants. I want to take a look at your thigh.”

On one hand, he was happy to take off his pants and get that wound dealt with. The problem was, now he knew just how much she loved being touched, how her internal muscles had gripped his finger, and he could imagine what it would feel like when they gripped his cock. He was primed and ready to go all over again.

Waiting was only going to make her pissed at him again. Might as well get the yelling over with. He began to disarm all the extra gear strapped to that leg, then went to work on his belt. Just before he pulled down his fly, he cleared his throat and said, “Don’t take this
too
personally, okay?”

Grace frowned. “Take what personally?”

He pulled his pants down enough to pull his leg out, and managed to keep the bulge in his underwear somewhat hidden. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to notice or not. A smart man would go for not, but he’d been all kinds of stupid today. “Never mind.”

Grace shook her head and leaned forward to prod his thigh.

Having her head so close to him made things even bigger than they already were. Fuck, she was killing him.

“Looks like a through-and-through. I’ll clean it now, but it may need to be cleaned again.”

“No problem, Doc. I expected that.” If she didn’t hurry up, he was going to poke a hole in his shorts.

She didn’t use Steri-Strips on him; rather, she used iodine to clean the wounds, packed the holes, front and back, then covered them with pads and began bandaging them both to his leg with another self-adhesive bandage. They were rapidly running out of those.

She couldn’t quite get the roll of bandage around his leg. He was still holding his pants over his crotch. She nudged his hand.

“Uh, Doc, maybe I could do this part?”

“You need two hands and a clear view of where the bandage is going. Not happening. Move.”

He hesitated. This was going to suck.

He removed his hand, taking the material he’d been hiding behind with it.