Kabul, Afghanistan August 2021
I sat on the couch, watching the coverage from Mazar-i-Sharif in a language I couldn’t understand as Nate’s team buzzed around us.
“You hungry, Izzy?” Sergeant Rose asked. They’d dropped the
Ms. Astor title over an hour ago.
I shook my head without looking away from the television. Serena was in there somewhere.
“And these are all processed and need to go back down to the clerk,” Nate told Sergeant Black, handing him a stack of files he’d personally called on in the last hour.
“I don’t even know what they’re saying,” I whispered, holding a throw pillow to my chest.
“Oh.” Sergeant Rose leaned in. “They’re speaking Dari. I’m stronger in Pashto.” He looked over his shoulder. “Green!”
“Nate speaks Pashto,” I whispered, wincing when I realized I hadn’t used Green.
“Yeah, and Dari, and Farsi, and French, and whatever else he’s working on. Guy never slows down.” He glanced my way. “And don’t stress. We all know his real name.”
Nate sat on my left, and I held myself rigid so I wouldn’t lean into him. We hadn’t exactly come to a conclusion in our argument. We’d just . . . stopped.
“What are they saying?” I asked.
“The Taliban took control of the city less than an hour after breaching the front lines at the city limits,” Nate recited. “When that happened, the government forces and the militias fled without a fight.”
Sergeant Rose cursed.
“That leaves only Kabul and Jalalabad under Afghan government control.” Nate looked my way. “You shouldn’t be watching this.”
“Why not? She’s experiencing it. She told me once that ignoring a situation doesn’t make it better for the people living it.” I squeezed the pillow tighter. “She’s living it.”
The door opened, and Sergeant Black walked back in, heading toward the dining area where Sergeant Gray was set up doing whatever the comms guy did.
“I failed,” I whispered.
Sergeant Rose glanced over my head at Nate, then stood and joined the others.
“You didn’t,” Nate assured me. “Serena made her choice. We’re all allowed to make our own choices. You got that girls’ team out.”
I scoffed. “You got that girls’ team out. I did the paperwork.” Defeat settled into my stomach like an anchor. “All I’ve done since I got here was fail to convince Serena to leave and waste your team’s time when you’re clearly needed elsewhere.” I’d also lost a fiancé, but I was counting that in the plus column. I didn’t even care that I’d have to explain it to my parents. There was a reason I hadn’t spoken to them in weeks.
“Newcastle would have been in Kandahar too,” Nate said. “He would have missed Covington’s Hail Mary return flight home too. I would still be in this room.” A smile curved his perfect mouth. “I just wouldn’t have let him sleep with his head in my lap. I have boundaries, you know.”
“Just not with me?”
“Never with you,” he said softly. “I know it doesn’t count for much right now, but I’m sorry for losing my temper earlier.”
I sent a dose of side-eye his way. “You didn’t.” “I did. You just didn’t know it.”
“Green,” Sergeant Gray called out. “I’ve got something.” Nate stood, and I went back to staring at the television. “Izzy,” Nate said a minute later.
I looked over my shoulder and saw him holding up a clunky-looking phone.
“It’s Serena.”
I scrambled off the couch and nearly tripped on the end table to get there. “Serena?” I said into the phone after taking it from Nate.
“I’m on my way, Izzy,” she said. “I don’t know who your man knows, but I’m in a car with this snazzy phone and Taj.”
“You’re okay?” I covered my face and ducked my head as my eyes watered.
“I’m okay. But it’s four hundred miles and a hell of a lot of checkpoints to Kabul. My credentials should get us there, but you can’t wait for me.”
My stomach twisted. “I can’t leave without you.”
“You can and you will. I’ll be on the first plane I can get on, but you have to get out of here. Promise me.”
“I don’t even know if I can get out before you get here, so it might be a moot argument,” I tried, lifting my head to see Nate shaking his head.
“I want to conserve the battery on this thing, so I need to go. But Iz, promise me you’ll go.”
“I promise,” I whispered. “I love you.” “I love you too.”
I handed the phone back to Nate, who lifted it to his ear. “I found a flight for her for tomorrow night.” He locked eyes with me. “I will personally throw her over my shoulder and strap her into the seat myself.”
My eyes narrowed at him. He flashed a dimple.
Ugh.
“Serena, don’t get yourself killed. Izzy would never recover from the guilt of you not putting your ass on the helicopter when you had the chance.” He ended the call and handed the handset back to Gray.
“Thank you,” I said to Nate. “Whatever you did. Thank you.” It didn’t even come close to what he deserved to hear, but it was all I could get out.
He nodded once. “I meant what I said. I will strap you onto that flight myself tomorrow night.”
Which meant I only had twenty-four hours left with him.
 |
I rolled over and stared at the clock just like I had every hour since I’d come to bed a little after midnight. Once the State Department had gone home for the day, there was no point continuing to call and follow up on visas, but in a few hours I could be useful helping with the interviews until Nate decided it was time to leave for the airport.
Four a.m. meant he was probably just waking up.
I flopped to my back and stared up at the ceiling, letting my thoughts run haywire.
Nate thought I’d turned his proposal down because I didn’t love him, and then he’d taped my engagement ring to a dog tag and carried it with him everywhere. What was I supposed to do with that?
Staying here, wasting the only hours I might have with him, wasn’t going to get me—or us—anywhere.
My heart pounded as I swung my feet over the side of the bed and then walked into the living room of my suite, turning on the lamp with the switch as moonlight poured in through the windows.
I turned near the kitchen area and folded my arms across my tank top as I stared at the ring. It was perfect. Simple. Exactly what I would have picked out if I’d been at the jewelry store with him. And he’d bought it after Fiji. After I’d resigned myself to living for the moments I had with him. He’d seen a future for us.
It took me three attempts before I actually managed to pick it up. It was slightly sticky from the tape’s residue, and all the more perfect for it. My heart hurt at the life it represented, the life we could have had.
I grabbed my key and walked out of my room before I could think twice and then stop myself.
Sergeant Rose blinked at me from where he stood next to Nate’s door. “Everything okay, Ms. Astor?”
Well. Shit. It wasn’t like I could storm across the hall and knock on Nate’s door now.
“You’re on babysitting duty.” I wrapped my arms across my chest, more than a little self-conscious that I didn’t exactly sleep in a bra.
“I’m on guard, yes.” He smothered a smile behind his beard.
“Right. So I’m just going to . . .” Go back into my room and pretend this never happened.
“You know what?” he said, whipping out a room key from his front pocket. “I’m in the mood to stir a little shit this morning. Why not.” He
shrugged and tapped the key against Nate’s lock.
The light above the handle turned green, and I didn’t hesitate. “Thank you.” Flashing him a smile, I grabbed the door handle, turning it quickly so it didn’t lock again.
“Just don’t tell him it was me.”
I nodded and opened Nate’s door, stepping inside and closing it behind me before I lost the nerve. Light poured out of the bathroom, and I heard the shower running, but the rest of the room was dark.
“Nate?” I called out softly, not wanting to startle him, seeing how well that had gone last time I’d made that mistake, but he obviously couldn’t hear me over the sound of the water running.
My lips parted. He was in there. Naked. Heat rushed through me, and I used my key card to fan myself before putting it on his dresser when the shower finally stopped. But I held on to the ring like it was the key to breaking through to him.
I was still wholeheartedly in love with him, and this was worth the fight.
“Nate?” I said gently, standing between his bed and the desk.
“Izzy?” I heard the sound of fabric rustling, and he walked out of the bathroom in a towel.
A towel.
A singular, lonely towel wrapped around his lean waist. He hadn’t even dried off. Nope, there were still water droplets sliding down the same lines of his body that I had traced with my tongue. Like that one, right there
. . . the one that slipped down his pec, gathering other drops, and then falling into the canyons of his abs before finding its way to the fuck-me lines that carved the deep V—
“Izzy.”
My gaze snapped upward to Nate’s face, and damn if my entire body didn’t flush. “Hi.”
His brows rose. “Hi? It’s—” He glanced at his clock. “Four in the morning and you just popped by to say hi? The girl who sleeps until ten if she can?”
“You’re in a towel.” Was that really the best I could come up with?
“I was in the shower. That’s a natural progression of events. Shower. Towel. Clothes. And how the hell did you even get—” He sighed. “Never mind, I already know who let you in.”
“Don’t be mad.” The ring bit into my palm, but I kept my fist closed. “I’m not mad. Confused, but not mad.”
“I couldn’t sleep. Not when I know I only have a few hours left with you.” The last bit tumbled out.
His expression went blank. He was retreating behind those mile-high walls where I wouldn’t be able to reach him, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not tonight.
“I thought you were proposing out of shock,” I blurted with as much grace as I’d had the day we met. Good to see we’re growing over here.
“We don’t have to do this.”
“We do.” I closed the distance between us but didn’t reach for him. “I was still reeling from you no-showing Palau, and my parents were there, being all . . . parental for once, and then you showed up, clearly distraught over losing your friend, asking me to choose if you were going to stay in the military or not, and you weren’t . . . you. Your words ran together, your eyes were wild, and you just kept telling me that you needed me to choose what you were supposed to do, despite every argument I threw at you to show that you weren’t acting like yourself. And looking back, I didn’t have my head on straight, either, but Nate, I didn’t think it was real.”
“I got down on one knee,” he whispered.
“Trust me, I remember.” I took that last step and cupped his bearded cheek with my free hand. “All I could think was that this was everything I’d ever wanted, and yet, if I’d said yes, I would have been taking advantage of you at your worst moment. You would have woken up and regretted asking.”
“You chose your parents.”
“I didn’t.” I shook my head. “Sure, I used Dad’s connections to get into Lauren’s office, but it was only to help that legislation that never passed anyway. Serena told you the truth. I didn’t go to DC for my parents. I went for you.”
His brow furrowed slightly, just enough to tell me I was getting through.
I swallowed the fear and forged ahead. “You asked me why I told Jeremy yes.”
He closed his eyes. “I can’t, Izzy. You have me so close to breaking that I can barely look at myself in the mirror, so if you’re about to list my faults—”
“I said yes to him because he was familiar, and comfortable, and I’d already made the biggest mistake of my life by saying no to the right man.”
His eyes flew open.
“And I’ve lived every single day with that regret.” I opened my other palm, revealing the ring. “You may have carried this with you, but I carried you here.” I slid my hand over my heart. “I should have said yes and then held on to you for dear life, damn the consequences, and if I’d known that you were going to disappear minutes later, I would have. I should have said yes. I never stopped loving you, Nate. Not for one second.”
His eyes flared for a second before he grasped the nape of my neck and pulled my mouth to his.
Finally.
The kiss felt like coming home.
His tongue swept past my lips and I melted against him as desire flared to life, spreading through my veins in a rush of fire, waking up every shiver of need that had lain dormant since the last time he’d touched me. How had I lived for nearly four years without his kiss? His arms?
He tasted the same, like spearmint and Nate, and I couldn’t get close enough. When he retreated, I followed, flicking my tongue along the sensitive ridge behind his teeth and reveling in the catch of his breath, the way his grip tightened as he moved us sideways.
I dropped the ring on the nightstand as he sat on the side of his bed, tugging me between his thighs, and then I kissed him like it might be the last time I’d ever feel his mouth on mine. If this was all I had, one more priceless moment where he was mine to kiss, to touch, then I wanted everything.
His hand slid to my ass, and he grabbed hold, pulling me tight against him. Water soaked into the thin material of my tank top as our mouths moved in a rhythm I’d all but forgotten. It was hunger and need and still achingly sweet.
“Say it again,” he demanded against my mouth, his hands sliding beneath the fabric of my pajama pants to cup my bare ass.
“Which part?” I teased, nipping at his lower lip. God, I’d missed this.
Missed everything about how right it felt to be in his arms.
“You know which part.” He drew back to look into my eyes, and my heart raced.
“I’ve always loved you. I am in love with you, Nathaniel Phelan.” I lifted my hands, running them through his wet hair. “And you love me too.”
“Do I?” A corner of his mouth lifted.
“You do.” My fingers trailed down his neck and across his shoulders. “Your call sign wouldn’t be Navarre if you didn’t.”
He captured my mouth again, the kiss spinning beyond control with the first few strokes of his tongue. This was what I wanted, what I needed, and not just for the few minutes we had, but for the rest of my life. I never wanted to go another day without being in his arms.
“I need you.” I’d never spoken a single sentence with so many meanings, and they were all true. I needed him in every way possible.
“I know. God, I know.” His hand shifted between us, his fingers dancing tantalizingly on my skin beneath my waistband. “I feel the same way.” He kissed my chin, my jaw, and the spot just beneath my ear before skimming his lips down my neck, sending a shudder of pure want down my spine and adding to the gathering need between my thighs.
My head fell back as his mouth worked down my chest, then covered the peak of my breast through the fabric, testing my nipple gently with his teeth.
“I’ve wanted to touch you from the second you stepped off that plane,” he said, tugging my tank top down to bare my breasts and sucking at each tip.
I moaned, my fingers digging into his bare shoulders, my body leaning into his.
“It took everything I had not to grab ahold of you and kiss you until you threw that goddamned ring off your finger and remembered what we felt like together.” He raked his teeth over me and dipped his fingers down the plane of my stomach. “There hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of you, haven’t missed you, wanted you, loved you.”
My knees weakened.
“Please tell me I can have you.” The tips of his fingers grazed the top of my thong.
“I’m yours.”
He lifted his head and kissed me hard and deep at the same moment his fingers found me, and I whimpered into his mouth. Banding his arm around the back of my thighs, he held me upright as he pumped two fingers inside me with the same rhythm of his tongue.
Oh God. Need and lust swirled within me, overruling every thought that wasn’t closer, more, and now. Nate had always known how to play my body, had spent hours edging my orgasms, building them until I couldn’t take it anymore, but I wasn’t going to be able to wait. Not this time.
I hooked my thumbs in the elastic of my pajama pants and my underwear and pushed them down my legs, stepping out and kicking them free.
“Izzy,” he groaned against my mouth, then broke the kiss to tug my shirt off with his free hand. “You feel so fucking good.”
“Don’t stop,” I begged as he added his thumb, working me in the exact way I liked, the way he knew I needed. I touched him every place I could reach, stroking my hands down his arms, his chest, around to the irresistible expanse of his back.
“No chance.” Years of pent-up desire built and coiled, stringing my body tight. Every kiss took me higher, every plunge of his fingers brought the pleasure further to the point of pain.
But I didn’t want to come like this, not after all this time.
I tugged the towel from his hips and wrapped my hand around him. He hissed as I stroked the hard length of him, swirling my thumb over the blunt tip.
“I want you inside me.”
“Good, because that’s exactly where I want to be.” His eyes locked with mine as I straddled his lap, rising on my knees so he fit perfectly against my entrance. “I love you, Isabeau Astor.”
The words filled my chest, and I kissed him as I lowered myself inch by glorious inch, my muscles gripping tight as he thrust upward and took me to the hilt.
We both groaned.
This was what I’d been missing. Not just his body, but him. The way he looked at me, touched me, made me feel like there was nothing in this world that mattered more than the fit of our bodies, the combined rhythm of our hearts.
“Fuck, Izzy.” He gripped my hips and lifted me, his biceps flexing, before he slammed back up into me. “You feel better than every dream I’ve ever had. Every memory. Every fantasy. So goddamn hot.”
“Again,” I demanded, winding my arms around his neck and rocking back into his hips when he gave me what I asked for. Every stroke of him
radiated through my body, my fingers and toes tingling with the sweetest hum of pure, unadulterated pleasure.
Then he stilled, all but freezing beneath me.
“Nate?” I asked, pulling back just enough to see his face in the dim
light.
“We can’t.” He lifted my hips again, agonizingly slow, and the strain
of the action showed on every line of his face, as if he was fighting his own instincts.
I took his face in my hands. “Yes. We can.” Swinging my hips, I took him all the way and bit my lower lip at how phenomenal he felt inside me.
“I don’t have a condom.” He bit out every word. “I wasn’t exactly planning on this.”
“Oh.” My hips swiveled of their own accord, as if my body was more than willing to take what I tried to withhold. “That’s okay.”
His brows shot up, and his fingers bit into my hips.
“I’m on birth control.” I ghosted a kiss over his lips. “And I’ve never had unprotected sex, so we’re in the clear.” Not to mention I’d had the whole battery of tests after I’d found out about Jeremy’s extracurricular activities.
“Me either,” he admitted, his thighs tensing underneath me. “You sure?”
“Not sure I could stop even if I wanted to, which I don’t.” I lifted up on my knees and slid down again, biting back a moan.
“No wonder you feel even better than I remember, and believe me, I have an excellent memory of just how perfect it was between us.” His hand moved to my ass, and he kissed me deep as he drove up into me, setting a pace that I met with equal fervor.
The coil of tension deep within me built and built until I knew I’d break soon, and I pushed it back.
Last. This had to last.
Our bodies moved in complete unison, partners in a dance too long denied, and never forgotten. He kissed me like I was the very breath he needed to survive and took me like each thrust only left him hungrier for the next.
“There’s nothing like this in the entire world,” he said between kisses. “Nothing compares to the heat, the fit, the feel of you, Izzy.” Wrapping an
arm around my back, he spun me to my back on the bed, then drove in, hard and deep. “I want you in every possible way.”
I moaned in frustration when he pulled out, but heat flushed every inch of my skin when he flipped me to my stomach and then pulled my hips so I was up on my knees. Hell yes. “Now.”
Every second I had to wait was torture.
He fit himself between my thighs and thrust forward, taking me so deep that lights flashed behind my eyes. “Nate!”
“Grab the headboard.” His breath was just as choppy as mine, his questing hands just as ravenous as the clawing need within me as he stroked every inch of my skin.
I gripped the wooden frame of the headboard, then pushed back against him with the next thrust. It was beyond anything I could describe. Every time he moved, I burned brighter, spun tighter.
“So damned good.” His hand stroked down my spine as he kept a rhythm that had me keening. “God, I’ve missed this. Missed you.”
There were no words, only jolts of pleasure that pushed me right to the edge of reason. My orgasm was so close I felt the first waves rise within me, threatening to break at any second. “Not yet,” I whimpered, my muscles tensing. “Nate, I don’t want it to end yet.”
“It’s not going to,” he promised, his fingers rolling my nipples. “Let go for me.”
I came apart, bliss flooding my body in wave after wave. I screamed into his pillow, my hands falling from the headboard as I went limp beneath him. Heaven. He was heaven, and I wanted more.
As soon as I could move, of course.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his hands sliding to my hips as he stroked into me slowly, coaxing that glowing ember of desire into another flame, this one hotter than the last. “You’re not close enough. I can never get close enough.”
He slipped his hands up over my breasts and lifted, pulling my back against his chest as he took me over and over and over.
I reached back, cupping the nape of his neck, and turned my head for his kiss. It was open mouthed, desperate, and messy as our sweat-slick bodies met again and again.
“You feel so right inside me.” My nails scraped the back of his neck.
“God, I love you.” He pushed deeper and I moaned. “I need to see you.”
He was only out of me for a matter of seconds before I found myself on my back, Nate hovering over me like the god of every fantasy I’d ever had. Bracing his weight on an elbow, he pushed back in, and I gasped at the fit, lifting my knees for an even better angle.
“There you are.” He cupped my face, staring into my eyes as he picked up the pace. “My Isabeau.”
I nodded, words escaping me as I arched for him, pressure building low within me again with every push and drag of his hips.
He was everything I’d ever wanted. “I love you,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around him.
The words seemed to snap whatever control he’d had, because his eyes darkened and the snaps of his hips came faster and his rhythm slipped into a frenzy. His muscles tensed beneath my fingers, and his hand fell from my face to reach between us.
He was close, the harsh lines of his face so very beautiful, that I couldn’t look away as he fought his climax.
“Your turn to let go,” I told him.
“You first.” His fingers stroked my clit and my body exploded, the second orgasm sweeping through me without warning, making me arch and writhe as he found his own release, shuddering above me as he thrust three more times, his eyes widening with that last one.
He fell against me, immediately rolling to his side and pulling me with him, holding me close and looking at me with what seemed like a mix of wonder and . . . resolve.
“Are you okay?” I asked, stroking my hand over his face as my breathing finally slowed.
“I’m supposed to be the one asking that.” He smiled. Not a grin. Not a smirk. A real, heart-stopping smile.
“I couldn’t be better.” Leaning over, I kissed him softly, tears pricking my eyes. In a few hours I’d be on a plane back to the States. “I don’t know how to live without you, Nate. And I know that’s not what you want to hear right now. I tried. I really did. But existing isn’t the same as living.”
“I know.” He stopped my words with his mouth. “Fuck, do I know.” I swallowed the knot in my throat. “What are we going to do?”
He tunneled his hand through my hair. “We’re going to get in the shower, and then I’m going to make you come a few more times, and then we’re going to face this day.”
No promises. No sweet vows. No plans past the sunset. After ten years, we’d walked right back into familiar territory.
He did exactly as he’d planned, making me come against his mouth in the shower, and then again with my back sliding across the water-slick tile as he buried himself inside me, taking me like he could hold us in this moment if he just fought hard enough for it.
But we’d barely wrapped towels around our bodies when someone pounded three times on the door.
“Stay in here,” Nate said, kissing my swollen lips quickly before walking out of the bathroom, then closing the door behind him.
I wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at the woman I found there.
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright, and her neck slightly red with whisker burn. She looked like the version of me I liked best, the one who only existed when I was with Nate.
The bathroom door opened, and I tensed at the serious set of Nate’s mouth.
“What is it?” I spun toward him, fearing the worst. “Serena?” He shook his head. “Get dressed. They’re at the city gates.” My lips parted. “At Jalalabad?”
His jaw clenched. “No. They surrendered Jalalabad last night while we were sleeping. They’re here in Kabul.”
Oh shit.
