to his only friend.
Oh yes, he knew exactly what fueled Gabriel. The one thing that separated them was that Rafe had found a way to control the demon, by shutting himself off from anger and fear—the dangerous emotions that led to the dark place. If other feelings were shut off at the same time, so be it.
“Don’t suppose you have any cards?” In the hammock, Laura linked her arms behind her head.
Doing nothing would do his head in. He never let his company rest for too long. Rest invited doubt, bickering, impotence. What would he do if his men were sitting here, instead of the heiress? Article five of the Code of Honor: Soldat d’élite, tu t’entraînes avec rigueur, tu as le souci constant de ta forme physique. As an elite soldier, you train rigorously and you take constant care of your physical form.
“Do you run?” he said.
“Run?”
“As in jog, sprint...”
“Have been known to. Is this you making light conversation?”
“Get some running gear on.” He began yanking on his socks and combat boots.
She swung her legs onto the floorboards and took him in with blue eyes so bright they were almost painful to look at. “Seriously? It’s a gazillion degrees out there.”
Which made running an even better prospect. “It’ll be cooler under the canopy. And the snakes will be sleepy.”
“Isn’t there some law against torture of prisoners? The Geneva Convention or something?”
“Only if we were at war.” He tied the lace on his second boot and leaped up, welcoming the energy sparking in his veins.
“Some might argue that we are.”
He marched inside, grabbed her sneakers and backpack and threw two bottles of water in it. Then another two, followed by nut bars and chocolate, though it’d probably melt after a minute. As he stepped back outside, he yanked off his T-shirt. No point creating dirty laundry.
He sensed her stillness before he saw it. She was staring at his chest, her mouth open. What was it—a spider? His gaze darted down, his throat drying out. Nothing amiss.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m not.” She spoke too quickly, casting her eyes down. Pink flushed her face, from neck to forehead. Because he’d removed his shirt? Oh. A grin tugged at his mouth. He clamped down on it. She hadn’t struck him as the blushing type. She was more I’ve seen it all, and I don’t give a damn. Perhaps it wasn’t just his body that was responding in inappropriate ways.
All the more reason to run it off. He tossed her sneakers over. He’d stashed the comms gear in a place she wouldn’t dare go hunting, but he’d learned the hard way not to let her out of his sight.
“Put on sunscreen. And a baseball cap. I don’t want you dying of sunstroke before the day’s out.”
She leaned down and pulled on a sneaker. “Oui, Capitaine.”
His stomach knotted. One offhand comment from Uriel and now she had a clue to Rafe’s identity. If the guy wasn’t already dead, Rafe would have wrung his neck. It wouldn’t take a genius to narrow down the options—a non-French native with a French rank. He jumped off the veranda.
She stood. The blush had settled, leaving her skin the color of pale honey and just as smooth. Her blue tank top intensified her eyes, and her frayed denim shorts ended far too soon. He turned his back on her.
“Hurry it up,” he said.
Footsteps padded down the steps. “Where are we going?”
“A trail circles the island.” Recon plus a workout. That should stop his mind straying to places it shouldn’t.
He set off down the hard-baked path behind the villa, going slowly for Laura’s sake, though his body urged him to push harder, to the point physical effort consumed thought. As a child soldier he would spend weeks on the move, hauling a rifle, his legs whipped if he slowed. His Legionnaire training had him marching eighty kilometers from the Pyrenees almost to Carcassonne in full patrol gear, and then every year the two hundred kilometers from one end of Corsica to the other with a fifty-kilogram backpack. After Simone died, he would spend his rare leave days running near-marathon distances. Anything to get out of that haunted house with a silent son and a mother-in-law whose stoicism thinly veiled her heartbreak. Losing a child had almost broken her. Losing the grandson who’d kept her functioning would be the death of her.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Hey, Usain Bolt, slow down. Some of us like to breathe occasionally.”
“You go in front,” he said, hanging to the left to let her pass. He stared at the back of her head, forbidding his gaze from trailing down her body again. He hadn’t even looked at a woman that way since Simone. Their relationship had been a failed experiment, and that part of him had died with her. Or so he’d thought.
After his upbringing, he should have known better than to drag anyone into the twisted debris of his life. Not only had he dragged a woman into it, but a child, too. He wouldn’t let it happen again. He’d rescue Theo, then spend the rest of his life doing nothing but protecting him—even if it meant disappearing with him and leaving behind the Legion and Simone’s family. He might never be able to show Theo the love his mother had, but he could keep the boy safe, which was more than Rafe’s own parents had been able to do.
He frowned. But a kernel of hope was still buried deep in his chest—that he could placate Gabriel, that Theo could return to Simone’s family, where the boy was safe and loved, and Rafe could go back to the Legion, where he could do the most good—and the least harm. Was he deceiving himself?
He settled into the heiress’s pace. She wasn’t tall, but her strong, regular stride was comfortable enough to follow. As they ran, she seemed to relax, as if she was equally relieved to do something physical.
The trail was reasonably clear, at least. Whoever owned the island must employ someone to keep nature from reclaiming it, though gnarled tree roots snaked across at intervals. Intended more for romantic strolling than hard running, no doubt. The jungle smelled of overripe fruit, rotting leaves, rich dirt. Nothing like the deserts and plains he’d grown up in. He closed his mouth, breathing solely through his nose to let the scent wash through him, as if it could clean the muck from his brain.
The jungle eased out into a clearing. Laura bent double and clutched her thighs. He hurriedly pulled focus from the bottom of her shorts, which had ridden up almost to her butt cheeks. Merde.
“I need a rest,” she panted.
“We’ve just started.” He lowered the bag to the ground. “Two minutes. Have a drink.”
As she recovered, he dropped to the dirt and started push-ups, willing his muscles to burn, keeping a silent count in French. A couple of hundred followed by the same in abdominaux at the next stop would make up for the leisurely jog.
“You’re a freak,” she said, still breathless.
You have no idea.
* * *
Holly’s damn eyes wouldn’t stop staring. It was an anatomy lesson, at the least. Muscles pumped and rippled across Jack’s slick back like some kind of hydraulic machine. His biceps looked like they would burst like balloons, though he was jerking up and down so quickly she struggled to get a fix on him without bobbing her own head in time. Two greenish stones swung from leather cords around his neck, bouncing against his chest.
Just watching was exhausting. She stretched her arm in front of her and bent back her hand to ease the ache in her forearm. What was that from—holding onto the inflatable last night? Wow, this time yesterday she’d been sailing across the ocean, congratulating herself that for once something good had happened to her, and now she was on a deserted island with He-Man. One day this would be a story for her grandchildren.