They'd both gone through what seemed like complete transformation the past months. Somehow she'd never felt more like herself. She was complete, and she was done running.
Gunner was on the same page. If he hadn't told her-which he had-she'd know it by his kisses, each one a promise. He was tugging down her sweats, pulling off her tank top.
"Because you have to take it off for the session anyway," he said seriously.
"And my pants?"
"All for your comfort," he assured her as he dropped them to the floor and dragged a finger gently along her wet sex. She gasped at the jolt of pleasure. "See? Better already?"
"Yes," she agreed, because stopping now might kill her. Between the danger and her wounds, just being with him like this hadn't happened frequently enough. Since the first time she'd let him see her scars, before Landon was caught, the sex had been during stolen, frantic moments.
His finger slid inside her as his thumb played along her clit. She pulled his head to her, kissed him, tongue sliding along his.
A second finger slid into her, and her hips rose to meet the touch. He always made her feel like this-aching with need and so completely wanted.
She moaned into his mouth as they kissed for a while. Then he kissed his way down to her breasts, laved her nipples until they were swollen and tender with arousal, until she was so wet and needful, she clawed at him for more.
She helped yank his pants down impatiently. Stroked his cock as he groaned. Guided him inside her, then pushed against him so he was forced to enter her quickly. She was on her back and he was standing over her, holding her thighs up, watching her face as he thrust.
"Fuck yeah, Avery. So tight and wet."
"Yes."
"For me."
"Only. All for you." Pleasure strummed every inch of her body as her climax built, started with the intense tightening in her belly and spread until her orgasm took away any coherent thoughts. Gunner rocked into her as she contracted around him until he came too, with a shout that sounded like her name. And then he half collapsed onto her as they recovered. And then he began to draw. While he was still on top of her.
"Should I be offended?" she asked.
"Did you come?"
"I think you know the answer to that." She felt boneless. He smiled, slid off her, covered most of her with a towel. When she looked down, she noted that he'd kept one of her scars exposed. He ran his finger across it, the way she did sometimes. It was only slightly raised and pretty thin, considering how ragged the cut had been.
"Drea did a good job," she said, tried to keep the sadness out of her voice, and he nodded. "I promised her I'd fix it further."
"I wish we could fix her," she whispered.
"Me too." He pressed his lips to one of the scars. "But this is your night. She'd want this."
Although Avery couldn't claim to know Drea well, she did know her well enough to recognize the truth in Gunner's words. She knew he would cover the scars so well that the first thing she saw when she looked in the mirror would be his work, not Donal's.
She also knew that when Gunner looked at her, he didn't see any scars at all. This was all for her. "Make it beautiful," she told him.
"Can't improve on perfection," he teased, and she giggled. Giggled. It had been so long since she felt free.
There were still more tests coming at them-she knew that there might be problems from what they'd done to Landon-problems from whatever they decided to do in the future as S8. But they'd handle them together. "I love you, Gunner."
She'd said it to him so many times in the past month. Loved saying it as much as she loved him.
"Love you, chere." He traced a finger over her skin. "Ready?"
"Yes."
She'd seen him do something similar to cover scars. The first night she'd met him, he'd been tattooing over the breasts of a mastectomy patient, making her look and feel beautiful. And now he was going to make his mark on her, turn something horrible into something beautiful.
He was so good at that.
The buzz of the needle was like a drug to her. She let herself drift in and out, confident that Gunner would keep all his promises.
He didn't finish it all that night, but he covered the large one on her upper torso and he repaired the very first tattoo he'd given her in painstaking detail.
"You can't even tell anything happened," she said. "But it did. And you made it okay."
"I'm always going to make it okay," he told her fiercely. "Always."
She believed him.
Epilogue.
All she could remember was Danny. He helped her. Saved her from her family and now the handsome, dark-haired man was refusing to let her see him.
He looked so grim when he told her for what had to be the hundredth time, "That's right, Drea-I won't let you be with Danny."
"Why?"
"Maybe one day, you'll know the answer to that."
He'd told her the real answer, a few times, that she was broken up with Danny, that she was a doctor. That Danny had hurt her. That she'd run from him. That she'd asked Jem for help and now he was helping her.
Sometimes she felt as if she was going crazy. After two weeks, she still couldn't remember anything he'd told her. He'd even gone so far as to show her a picture of herself on the FBI's database.
A wanted woman. Because of Danny.
So although she might believe it somewhere deep inside, because she knew that Danny was the head of a motorcycle club that sold drugs and could believe he'd get her in trouble, she remembered how bad it had been at home. How much better it had been with Danny.
You're a doctor.
You're strong as hell.
You'll remember everything soon.
Jem told her that. A doctor did too.
"So basically, I'm in hiding from the FBI?" she asked. They were in a rental house, he'd told her earlier, and it was cozy and furnished and very comfortable, but she was going stir-crazy staying inside. There was only so much TV she could watch, and she'd read so much her eyes were strained.
Nothing could take her mind off the fact that she had no memory and that she was a fugitive, supposed to give testimony against a man she thought she loved. A man who had used her.
"Yes. And I'm not turning you over to them. Not when you're like this. Not ever." He'd paused. "We can talk about it when you get your memory back."
"Okay."
He looked troubled. "Drea, look, I've got to go away for a little while, for work. And I've asked a friend of mine if you can stay with her. She's cool. I know you'll like her."
As he spoke, the doorbell rang. He went to grab it and when he came back, he was with a woman who wore a black pantsuit, her white hair swept back into an elegant chignon, and she had a serious look on her face. She made Drea feel completely underdressed and intimidated in her tank top and she tried to shrink into herself, wrapped her arms around herself.
"Drea, this is Carolina," Jem said. "I was just telling Drea that you're going to make sure she's okay."
"I will," Carolina said in her cool, dulcet tones. Her voice was calming and Drea felt better hearing it. "I'll keep everything under control."
"What if I never remember?" Drea blurted out suddenly, and Jem and Carolina turned to look at her. God, she hated feeling so out of control and lost, but she had a feeling she'd been like that for a lot of her life.
Carolina gave her a small smile. "I'll tell you what I always used to tell Jeremiah. We'll deal with everything when and as it comes, not before."
"Okay. Yes. I can do that," Drea told them both, and for once, she truly believed it.
Acknowledgments.
Writing a book is never a solitary process, so I have the usual suspects to thank.
For Danielle Perez, my fantastically patient and most enthusiastic editor. For Kara Welsh and Claire Zion for the overall support, for the art department who always comes through with one cover that's more amazing than the next and for everyone at New American Library who helps with all aspects of my books.
For my readers and writer friends who keep me going with their support.
And always, to my family, because I could never to this without them.
Don't miss the first novel in the Section 8 series, SURRENDER.
Now available from Signet Eclipse.
Prologue.
Zaire, twenty years earlier The explosion threw him forward hard, the heat searing his body, debris cutting into his back as he covered his face and stayed down. Darius didn't need to look back to know what had happened-the bridge had exploded. Simon had purposely cut off their last means of escape. It would force their hands, Darius's especially.
"Darius, you all right?" Simon shook him, yanked him to his feet and held him upright. His ears would continue to ring for months.
"How much ammo do you have?" he called over the din. Couldn't see the rebels yet, but he knew they were coming toward them through the jungle.
"Stop wasting time. You go." Simon jerked his head toward the LZ and the waiting chopper about thirty feet away, crammed full of important rescued American officials and the like. Already precariously over capacity. "Go now and I'll hold them off."
Simon had always had a sense of bravado and a temper no one wanted to deal with, but one against twenty-plus? Those odds were not in the man's favor. Darius shook his head hard, and it was already spinning from the explosion.
"You are no fucking help to me," Simon told him. "I can't watch your back this time, Darius."
"Fuck you."
"Leave. Me. Here."
"If I do that, I'll come back to just a body."
"You're never coming back here." Simon's teeth were bared, ready for battle-with the rebels, with Darius, if necessary.
"If we both fight, we've got a better shot," Darius told him.
"You would tell me to leave if things were reversed, Master Chief, sir."
Simon stood straight and tall, hand to his forehead, and Darius growled, "Don't you dare salute me, son." Their old routine. Simon managed a small smile, one that was as rare as peace in this part of the world.
"Don't take this from me, Darius. Let me save your goddamned life. You have your son to think about-I won't take you away from Dare."
Dare was in middle school-his mother had already left them both, and pain shot through Darius at the thought of leaving his son without a parent.
Simon knew he had him, pressed on. "The team will always need you, and me-well, you can always find someone who can fight."
"Not like you."
"No, not like me," he echoed. "You go and you don't ever return."
Darius didn't say anything, and for a long moment they were silent, listening to the rustling that was still a couple of miles away. The blood was running down his side, and if he stayed in this wet jungle much longer with a wound like that . . .
"There's one spot left for a ride home." Simon told him what he already knew. "That seat is yours."
"I'm half-dead already."
"You think I'm not?" Simon asked, and Darius flashed back to a younger version of the operative in front of him, walking along a dusty road two miles from Leavenworth.