Until There Was You (Coming Home, #2) by Jessica Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

room and Evan finally could take a full, deep breath. In the soft light, Claire looked vulnerable and tired. But not weak. Never weak.
    “I’m worried about him.”
    “I can see that,” he said quietly, wishing he had more to offer. Wishing he knew how to do this, whatever this was.
    At that moment, the vulnerability he’d seen in her eyes overrode any thoughts of self-preservation and he reached for her. A light touch, her shoulder beneath his palm. Evan felt her tension in the space between his gesture and her surprise. Her mouth opened, just a bit, and she didn’t move for a long moment. His blood bolted through his body like a razor, slicing any trace of his composure to shreds. He’d never before had the joint desire to throttle someone and hold that person close. But Claire tended to bring out the strangest reactions in him. He should be used to the dichotomy by now. He’d never been very smart when it came to Claire Montoya.
    Touching her after all those years was stupid. Yet there was nothing else he could do, nothing else he desired more than to simply touch her, to find some way to offer comfort.
    “What happened back there?” he said. “When you fell.”
    They stood in silence for several moments, and Evan was certain that she’d turn away from him—that she wouldn’t answer his question.
    Then there was a subtle shift as Claire leaned into him. She didn’t turn. She didn’t look up. She simply leaned against him. And Evan, fool that he was, held her up.
    “I don’t like being pinned down,” she finally admitted.
    Evan frowned, leaning away from her to peer down at her face. “But you do combatives. Several of those fighting positions involve being laid on. Crushed, even.”
    She lifted one shoulder in an absent shrug, an infinitesimal move away from his space. “That’s different. I’m fighting back against a fully conscious opponent.” She sighed quietly.
    “That’s not really an answer.” He stepped closer and for once, she didn’t dance away in retreat. She stood her ground, lifting her chin and meeting his gaze.
    “When the TOC got blown up at the end of our last deployment, I was pinned down. I don’t know for how long, but I panicked.” Her voice cracked. “While the building burned around me, I did nothing but lie there and scream.” She swallowed and looked away. “I couldn’t do anything but scream,” she whispered.
    * * *
    “Combat brings everyone low, Claire,” he murmured.
    He was close enough that she could see the shadow of a beard along his jaw. She had the intense urge to see if it was soft or rough. His scent wrapped around her, whispering for her to do something incredibly stupid like stand there and breathe in the spicy heat from his body. His words were a caress, a subtle sweep of emotion over her skin.
    They were alone in the late-night hallway. For once they weren’t ripping eachother’s heads off. She expected him to chew her out for her hasty decision to rush into the blown-up building. To echo the harsh criticisms she’d levied against herself since the day she’d gotten blown up. Claire waited, searching his eyes for a trace of the stoic arrogance she’d come to expect from him. But she saw nothing she expected.
    “I didn’t know you were hurt when the TOC blew up,” he said quietly. And with those simple words, he challenged everything she’d thought she’d known about Evan Loehr.
    She frowned at a not-so-distant memory and at the unexpectedness of his words. “I walked away. More or less. You got hurt though, right?”
    “Yeah. Just a flesh wound.”
    She swallowed and glanced at him then. She opened her mouth to speak but he shocked her when he lifted his hand, tracing his thumb over her bottom lip. A violent shiver wracked her body, stunning her with the force of her reaction to this man’s touch.
    “I’m sorry you were scared,” he murmured. “But that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
    Right before he kissed her.
    * * *
    It was a