Mission: Marriage: Bulletproof Marriage

Now, in his dream, he kissed her again, with all the ferocious passion pent up inside.

Instead of kissing him back, in his dream she froze, her huge amber eyes wide open.

He tried to deepen the kiss.

She made a sound of denial against his mouth.

Stunned, he backed away. What the hell was this? He knew she was angry with him. He didn’t blame her. But he’d been certain her fury would melt the instant his mouth touched hers. Always, always, always, the touch of his lips had made Natalie melt.

Not this time.

Made of ice, she hadn’t softened as he moved his mouth over hers. Hell, she hadn’t even parted her lips.

Had she really gotten over him so completely?

In his dream, sorrow engulfed him as he realized she had.

Worse, she didn’t understand why he’d done what he did. If she couldn’t handle that, how would she deal with the rest of his past?

He’d given her up to save her life. During the two years away from her, he’d almost managed to convince himself that he had no regrets.

He’d been lying.

The intensity of his pain woke him. Fully awake, he punched his pillow.

“Does your leg hurt?” Natalie’s voice, from across the room.

“Like hell.” Nearly as much as his heart. He pushed himself to a sitting position and clicked on the lamp, looking for her.

With her legs curled under her, she occupied the room’s single armchair. He couldn’t help but remember how she used to sit, head tilted just so, lost in the pages of a good book. This time, she’d been sitting in the dark, as lost in her thoughts as he’d been in his dream.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Blinking, she stared at him. The hostility in her voice dropped the temperature in the room ten degrees.

“You’re in no condition to go after anyone. I’m going to ask Corbett to get you out.”

He tried to move, to push himself out of the bed, but couldn’t make his leg go anywhere. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Sean, I’m perfectly capable of taking the Hungarian down alone. As it is now, you’ve become more of a liability than an asset.”

Stung, he bit back a sharp retort. “You’re using my leg as an excuse.”

Her reply was short and sweet. “Sorry. Sue me.”

He couldn’t believe the sweet irony of their situation. “Look. You can’t just dump me. You wanted to tag along with me to protect me, and the entire reason I wanted you nearby was to protect you.” He laughed, a tired, bitter sound, even to his own ears. “Admit it. And I’m not done protecting you yet.”

“I don’t need your protection.”

“Nor I yours.” He wished he could kiss her, hard and quick, like he had in the old days.

But he couldn’t, so he wouldn’t.

“How about a truce?” Her quiet question surprised him.

“I didn’t know we were at war.”

She shook her head, her short spiky hair making her look as if she’d just climbed from his bed. She was almost unbearably sexy.

Damn and double damn.

Swallowing, he collected his thoughts and tried again. “Look, we both want the same thing, right?”

She nodded. “I want to find him.”

“And learn who he is and why he—”

“Did what he did.”

“Yes.”

He held out his hand, bracing himself for the cool slide of her fingers into his.

“Let’s work together.”

“We’ve already tried that.” She didn’t take his hand. “You’re wounded. You need to go home. Once you’re healed, you can rejoin me.”

“I doubt you’d be alive.”

The statement didn’t appear to faze her.

“Such confidence you have in me,” she drawled. “Why don’t you let me worry about that, and you go back to doing what you do best—protecting your own ass.”

The barbs were getting sharper. He elected to opt out rather than continue slinging words.

“You know me. A little thing like this leg won’t get me down. We make a good team, Nat. Always have, always will.”

“Our marriage is over.”

He swallowed. Though she hadn’t meant it to be, that sentence was the most hurtful of all. “I’m not talking about our marriage. We are a working team, colleagues. You know that neither of us can get to the Hungarian alone. And to try to do so is suicide. Quit being so stubborn and admit it. Before you get yourself killed.”

Tilting her head, she considered his words, forced by their vehemence to put aside her personal feelings. “You may be right.”

“You know I am.”

Ignoring this, she continued. “If we’re going to be a real team, we need to lay down some ground rules.”

This should be interesting. “Like?”