Back to duty, as if the danger and risk were just a normal part of life out here. For Max, the day before had probably been close to routine. What for Rachel would be a lifelong horrific memory was only one of hundreds of horrors that Max had seen. She touched Max’s arm. “When will you fly again?”

“Maybe never, this time around. I’m due to ship back to the States in a few days, at least I was. I’m not so sure right now.”

“Why?” Rachel asked.

Max hesitated, and that was unlike her. Rachel had never known her to be anything but straightforward. She took a wild guess. “This have anything to do with someone named Carmody?”

Max’s eyes narrowed. “Does he happen to be early forties, square top, cold eyes, definitely unfriendly?”

“You forgot the snake in the grass part.”

“Yeah, that’s him. He bother you?” Max’s tone was dark and tinged with belligerence.

“Bother me.” Rachel smiled. For a moment, Max reminded her of a high school girlfriend wanting to protect her from the unwanted advances of the boys on the football team. A silly thought, but the idea pleased her. “Yes, I think you could definitely say that. Did he bother you too?”

As if reading her mind, Max laughed and the darkness left her eyes. “Quite a bit.”

Rachel sighed. She wished Carmody was as harmless as an adolescent boy with too much testosterone and an overinflated ego. Carmody wasn’t a nuisance, he was dangerous. “What do you think’s going on?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t give much away.” Max took her hand. “It shouldn’t matter too much to you, though. You’re a civilian, and I imagine you’ll be heading home pretty soon.”

“No, not right away.” Rachel slid her fingers between Max’s, the connection so natural she almost didn’t realize she’d done it. “I want to go to our headquarters in Mogadishu. I need to follow up with the team to make sure everyone’s all right.”

Max frowned. “You know, it’s possible that raid yesterday was aimed at you. Mog is still a pretty rough place. Maybe you should rethink that trip.”

“I can’t imagine why I would have been a target. I’ve been out there for weeks, and no one paid me the slightest attention.”

“You don’t know that. And these groups are unpredictable—you never know what they have planned.”

“I won’t take chances,” Rachel said, appreciating Max’s concern. Max, unlike her father, hadn’t told her what to do, even though she could see Max was worried. “I promise.”

“A lot of people seem to be interested in you.” Max rested their joined hands on her bare knee. “Who are you, Rachel?”

Rachel met Max’s steady gaze. Her eyes were so blue, so easy to fall into. Rachel caught her breath. Who was she? That was the question, wasn’t it? To her father she was a stubborn, problematic daughter who wouldn’t embrace the party line. To her mother she was the disappointing daughter who rejected her mother’s values and refused to follow in her footsteps. To the women who purported to desire her, she was either a trophy or a stepping stone. Only out here had she’d ever felt like herself. Only Max had ever seen her. “You know who I am, don’t you, Max?”

“Well, I know certain things,” Max said, feeling the weight of every word. Knowing somehow what she said mattered more than anything she’d ever said to anyone. The intensity in Rachel’s gaze was almost a plea. “I know you’re not afraid to face danger. I know you’re stubborn and independent. I know you’re loyal to your friends and committed to your mission. And I know—” Max paused, searching for the lines she shouldn’t cross. She was tired but she’d only had one drink before she’d decided she’d rather think about Rachel than forget her, and she knew what she was saying. What she wanted to say. “I know you’re really beautiful. I especially like the way the green of your eyes changes when you’re angry or when you’re—” She stopped. Maybe that line wasn’t hers to draw.

“Or what?” Rachel asked. “When I’m what, Max?”

The whir of the air-conditioning unit sounded like the rasp of insects in the underbrush. The CLU was dim, the air heavy, like twilight in the jungle. They might have been a hundred miles away from civilization, just the two of them, alone, in a timeless, ageless world.

Rachel’s lips parted and she moistened them with the tip of her tongue. Her gaze held Max’s and her fingers lightly brushed the bare skin of Max’s thigh. “Max? Are they changing color now?”

“Yes.”

“And you know why, don’t you,” Rachel whispered.

Max swallowed. Her skin flamed where Rachel’s fingers rested and heat scorched along her spine and simmered in the pit of her stomach. Her fingertips, her lips, her nipples tingled. She was breathing too fast. Overdrive. Overload.

“I need to kiss you.”

Rachel’s lips lifted at the corners and the forest green of her eyes glinted with gold warmer than sunlight. “Do you?”

Max leaned closer until her mouth was only millimeters from Rachel’s. “So bad, or else…”

“Or…?”

“Certain parts of me might burst into flames.”

Rachel’s fingertips slid beneath the lower edge of Max’s boxers. Her palm pressed into Max’s thigh. Her chest brushed Max’s bare upper arm. Her lips skimmed over Max’s jaw. “You’re not supposed to incinerate until after you kiss me.”

“Kissing you won’t burn me up.” Max’s chest felt as if a grenade was about to go off inside. “I think…” She gasped. She was so hot everywhere. So hot, so parched, as scorched as the land that had seared her soul. Rachel’s lips were so cool against her skin. “I think kissing you will be like falling into cool clear water.”

“Find out,” Rachel murmured.

Max groaned softly and covered Rachel’s mouth with hers. Rachel leaned into her and their lips reformed against one another, reshaping, fitting together, exchanging softness for softness. The tip of Rachel’s tongue skated over the surface of Max’s lower lip and was gone too soon. Max slid her palm around the back of Rachel’s neck and held her still, changing the angle of her kiss, tugging Rachel’s lower lip between hers, savoring the silky fullness between her teeth.

Rachel moaned softly and pressed closer until Max fell back on one elbow and pulled Rachel down with her. Rachel sprawled across her chest, both of them with their feet still on the floor, hands and mouths grasping and seeking. Rachel half crawled on top of her and Max groaned.

Rachel gasped and tried to sit up. “Oh God, your arm. I forgot about your arm!”

“My arm’s perfect.” Max pulled Rachel’s mouth back to hers. She’d been right. Kissing Rachel was like sliding naked into a crystal-clear mountain lake, brisk and refreshing and incredibly exciting. Every cell vibrated with energy, her nerve endings tingled. She felt clean and alive in places she hadn’t realized had been numb and lifeless. She wanted to be naked. She wanted Rachel on top of her, under her, sliding over her like water cascading down a mountainside. She wanted to drown in her.

Rachel pushed up Max’s T-shirt and stroked her stomach, making Max’s hips jerk and her clitoris tense beneath the thin cotton of her boxers. Rachel took her time exploring Max’s body, slowly edging the T-shirt up to the undersides of her breasts, stroking her fingers up and down the center of her belly. Max struggled to stay still, to let her look and touch, to expose what she kept hidden. When Rachel’s thumb brushed under the cotton and over her breast, she shuddered.

“Rachel, I can’t—”

“God, you have a beautiful body.” Rachel’s gaze was locked on Max’s body, her expression fierce. When she looked up, the hunger in her eyes stole Max’s breath. “I can’t believe how amazing you are. I want to see you naked.”

“Rachel…”

“I know.” Rachel’s eyes burned into hers. “It’s crazy. I know. I don’t do this sort of thing—no, that’s a lie, I do, I have. But never like this. God, Max. I’ve never wanted to touch anyone so much.”

“It’s—”

Rachel pressed her fingers to Max’s mouth. “I don’t care what it is. I don’t care if it’s the aftermath of stress or the reaffirmation of life or laughing in the face of evil. I don’t care about any of that. I think you’re gorgeous and sexy and strong. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited in my life. Don’t stop kissing me.”

“I won’t.” Max couldn’t stop. If she pushed Rachel away, the last struggling remnant of her soul would wither and she would be nothing but a shell. She dragged Rachel all the way onto the bed until they faced each other on the rough military-issue blanket, heart to heart, body to body. She kissed her. “I won’t stop until you tell me to.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Rachel couldn’t bear to lose touch with Max’s lips. Max’s mouth was as captivating as her eyes—intense and commanding and exquisitely gentle. She felt as if she’d never been kissed before. She hadn’t. Not like this. Not when the merest brush of flesh on flesh drove a spike of pleasure into her depths, sharp and bright and brilliant. She traced the sweep of Max’s cheekbones with her fingertips and wove her fingers through her hair. Max was the heat she hadn’t known she wanted—the flame that pushed back the dark. She arched against her, craving the pressure of Max’s body against her breasts, her belly, her thighs. Max was strong, all hard muscle and bone, and breathtakingly tender, her hands and mouth gliding over Rachel’s face in soft benediction. Max and only Max had ever wanted to see her, know her, touch her. Closer. More. Her clothes were in the way. Max’s clothes were in the way. She wanted to climb inside her. She wanted Max inside her. She couldn’t get her breath.

“You feel right.” Max stroked Rachel’s throat and slid one hand lower, lightly skimming over Rachel’s breasts to her waist. “Holding you feels right.”

“Yes. No. Not enough,” Rachel gasped. “I want your hands on me everywhere. God, I’m losing my mind.”

Max opened the first button on Rachel’s shirt and slipped her hand inside. “Maybe you are. But if you are, so am I.”

Rachel grinned. “Good. Because I don’t want to be crazy without you.”

Max laughed and nipped at Rachel’s chin. She kissed her throat and teased her fingertips beneath the cotton stretched tight across Rachel’s breasts, circling closer to Rachel’s nipple with each stroke. “We might want to slow down just a little, though.”

“Why? I can’t think of a single reason.” Rachel pulled Max on top of her and arched when Max’s thigh came to rest between hers. She covered the hand Max had slipped under her plain dark military-issue bra and pressed Max’s fingers into her breast. The pressure made her want to come and for a second her mind blanked. She groaned and her vision swam. She was too close, too soon. “I can’t think at all.”

Max braced herself on her good arm and looked down into Rachel’s eyes. “All those things you said earlier. About stress and laughing at death and all that. I don’t want you to regret—”

“Do you always worry so much when you go to bed with a woman?”

“No, but this isn’t like that.”

Rachel stroked Max’s face. “I know. I don’t know what it is, exactly. But I know it’s like nothing else.”

“I feel like I’ve never touched a woman before,” Max whispered.

Rachel jolted, her clitoris swelling so fast she nearly came. “And you think I could stop now?” She yanked Max’s mouth back to hers.

Max’s kiss was like her—strong and gentle, slow and deep, a kiss that touched her in places where nothing ever had. Rachel pushed both hands under Max’s T-shirt and caressed her back, smoothing her palms over the columns of muscle and bone and smooth skin. Even with her eyes closed, she could see Max with every stroke. Sensation was everywhere—immeasurable pleasure, wonder, and fearsome awe. She kissed Max’s throat, tasted her—clean and vital. “What is it? This power you have over me?”

Max shook her head. “No. Not me.” She rested her forehead on Rachel’s. “It’s you. I can feel you inside me, filling up all the empty places. I don’t want to stop.”

“Then don’t.” Rachel wrapped her calf over Max’s leg. Max’s eyes were so deep and so dark Rachel should have been afraid of getting lost in them, but she wasn’t. This was a darkness that thrilled her. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Make love to me, Max.”

Max opened the rest of the buttons on Rachel’s shirt, parted the fabric, and rubbed her cheek over the valley between her breasts. Rachel’s nipples tightened beneath the material that restrained her breasts. Her breasts ached and she clasped Max’s head, guiding her to the spot where her nipple peaked. “Please.”

Max cupped her breast, long fingers closing around her sensitized flesh, squeezing, spearing the pleasure into her core. Rachel moaned. Never like this. Never. Max’s teeth closed around her nipple, tugging it through the fabric. Lights burst behind Rachel’s closed lids. Her heart pounded. Her breath fled. She stiffened, gasped. Panic raced through her. Explosions, screams in the dark.