Rafe mentally cursed. This was a ploy to get him alone with Anna. It was Shaw’s way of telling him to finish the damage control he started.
“So we’re staying at the base?” Anna asked. Probably because the other two men walked away without answering her, she turned to him. “Is that where we’re spending our honeymoon?”
Forcing himself to move, he hooked his arm around her neck. “Nope. That’s a surprise, darling. We’ll just stay the night there in case the local cops need to talk to me about the shooting.”
At least that was probably how the plan would work. They would have to wait in quarters until he got further orders from Shaw.
“Look, I’m really sorry about what happened,” he told her. “For the shooting and that stupid thing I said earlier. I’ll do that groveling now if you like.”
He said it lightheartedly, but there was nothing humorous about the look that Anna gave him. However, it didn’t last long. By degrees, her expression softened. Or something. A frustrated sigh left her mouth, and she stepped into his arms as if she belonged there.
“I’m scared,” she confessed. “And I’m tired of feeling this way. I just want things to be normal again.”
Rafe automatically tightened his grip around her. “I know.”
“It was just such a shock when you called me Kate. I mean, you’ve never done anything like that before. I always think of you as, well, unshakeable.” She buried her face against his neck. “I guess the pressure got to you.”
“Oh, yes. It definitely got to me. I’ll try very hard not to let it happen again.”
But now what? He could go two directions with this. He could blow it off and try to make her laugh. Or he could confess that he was scared, too. Damn scared. He didn’t have time for either.
Anna came up on her toes, with plans to kiss him no doubt. It certainly wouldn’t be the first kiss they’d shared, but from all the signals she was giving, it wouldn’t be chaste like the one at the altar.
He was right.
She wound her arm around his neck, her eyelashes fluttered down, and she fit her mouth to his.
It sure wasn’t innocent. Nowhere near it. It was the kind of kiss a woman gave her new husband.
Hot. Needy. Raw.
Still, he didn’t stop it. Nor did he pull away from her or do what he’d done for the past three days—make some stupid joke to break the tension. He just stood there and enjoyed a great kiss that he had no business enjoying.
She gripped the front of his jacket and pressed herself against him. Her breasts against his chest. It didn’t matter if he shouldn’t react, he did. But then his body didn’t seem to understand that this was a game he had to play. A sick game with lives at stake.
He cursed himself. He had no right to kiss her this way. None. And yet he had no way to stop it. If Shaw’s plan was to work, then Anna had to believe he was the man she’d fallen in love with months earlier.
She broke the kiss but kept her mouth close to his. So close that he could still taste her. “I want to make sure that we’re okay,” she whispered.
He didn’t have to fake a laugh, even though this one was filled with frustration. “Oh, we’re okay.”
Well, with one exception—he was aroused beyond belief.
Not exactly the military bearing he’d hoped to maintain.
“You guys need a few more minutes or what?” he heard Buchanan call out.
Rafe broke away from her as if he’d just been caught doing something wrong. Which, in a way, he had.
Buchanan flexed an eyebrow, but other than that, there was no change in his neutral expression. “Looks like you’re ready to start the honeymoon. Come on. We’ll get you to quarters as fast as we can.”
It hit Rafe then. With all the chaos of the shooting and the name incident, he’d forgotten one important detail.
This was his wedding night.
With the change in plans, it was also a night he could be expected to make love to his bride. There was just one problem with that. He couldn’t. Because Anna didn’t know the truth. And the truth was something he couldn’t tell her.
Because if he did, it could end up costing Anna her life.
Chapter Three
Had she imagined that something was wrong? Had she imagined that jolt?
Maybe.
Anna stared at herself in the bathroom mirror and ran her fingertips over her mouth, remembering the way Rafe had kissed her at the chapel. That certainly seemed, well, normal. And incredible.
Maybe Colonel Shaw was right, and this was just a case of nerves. Wedding jitters combined with that horrible shooting incident. With all that had happened recently, a case of frayed nerves certainly seemed a reasonable response.
She shook her head, embarrassed at the way she’d behaved. Not only had she given Rafe the cold shoulder, she’d actually thought maybe he had been brainwashed. Or worse. It’d even crossed her mind that he was some sort of spy sent to infiltrate the Special Ops Unit at the base.
Talk about jumping to crazy conclusions.
Bolstered by her pep talk, Anna swiped on some transparent lip gloss, ran a hand through her hair and stepped back to give herself one last look in the mirror.
Well. The image she saw wouldn’t have a G-rating, that’s for sure.
The fire-engine-red nightgown covered all three of the important S’s required for a hot honeymoon night. Skimpy. Short. Sexy. Definitely meant to seduce. And that was exactly what she wanted to do. Then, after making wild, passionate love with her husband, maybe they could sit down and just talk. She had so many things to tell him.
“This is what I want,” she reminded herself. “I love Rafe. I really love him.” And she reached for the door.
The sound of his voice stopped her. Anna peered into the room and saw him on the bed with the phone pressed to his ear. His shoes and jacket were off, and he was in his usual lounging repose with his back against the headboard. He had his shirt unbuttoned, revealing a toned, tightly muscled chest sprinkled with dark brown coils of hair.
It was provocative. No doubt about it. Just the sight of him caused the heat to roar through her skimpily clad body. Mercy, she was one lucky woman.
He took a sip of water, set the glass next to his holster on the nightstand and spoke in soft, murmuring tones. She only caught a word here and there. Security. Colonel Shaw.
She started to join him, but something in his tone stopped her. It wasn’t the tone of a man who simply wanted to clarify information. He sounded a little angry. Rafe fired off his terse responses in clips, like gunshots. Yes. No way. We’ve been through that.
Anna stepped back into the bathroom and put her ear against the door so she could listen to the rest of the conversation.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, sir,” she heard Rafe say.
She felt the wave of doubt creeping up again, but she refused to let herself jump to conclusions. This probably had something to do with the cancellation of the reception. That’s all. Or maybe something had gone wrong with his plans for their honeymoon.
Rafe continued. “I can’t do that to her.”
Anna froze. Held her breath. And waited.
“This won’t work,” Rafe snapped. “She’s not stupid. If I stay here, she’ll know. I think we need to come up with another plan.”
Oh, God. What plan? Anna squeezed her eyes shut and frantically