“Oh, Max.” Rachel sighed and stroked her face. “I’m so sorry.”

“Listen, I’m okay. At least no worse than anyone else. And you—you have nothing to be ashamed about.” Max sat up and clasped Rachel’s hand. “What happened out there, you weren’t ready for that. No one ever is, but at least we’re military. We train for it, we know it might be coming, we have more time to prepare. Now you’re exhausted, stressed, and in mourning for those you lost. I’d be surprised if you weren’t having flashbacks.” She squeezed Rachel’s fingers. “When you’re home, if it keeps up, you can talk to someone. Okay?”

“Is that the doctor saying Do as I say or do you actually take your own advice?”

Max glanced at the half-empty bottle on the floor. “Not all the time.”

“Well,” Rachel said, her voice sounding a little stronger, “I will take your advice when I get home. For now, I wouldn’t mind a little of your remedy.”

Max laughed and reached for the bottle. She uncapped it and handed it to Rachel. “Sorry I don’t have any—”

Rachel took the bottle, swallowed a healthy amount, and coughed violently, tears forming in her eyes. “Yep, just as vile as I remember.” She handed it back to Max. “Thanks. I think.”

Max set the bottle down and slipped an arm around Rachel’s shoulders. “Better?”

Rachel caressed Max’s thigh and rested her palm on the inside of her bare leg. A faint scar ran across the muscle, doing nothing to mar the beauty. “You’ve been taking care of me for the last two days. I appreciate it.”

“I don’t want your gratitude.” Max cupped her face. “I’d like to kiss you again.”

“Yes,” Rachel whispered, “I’d like that very much.”

Max’s kiss was a slow, lingering kiss that feathered along the torn and tattered edges of Rachel’s soul, soothing her, comforting her, kindling the fire again. Rachel gripped Max’s shoulders and kissed her harder, delving deeper, pressing her breasts to Max’s, sliding a leg over Max’s hips until she straddled her in the middle of Max’s bed. “I want you.”

Max cupped Rachel’s ass and pulled her tight against her hard abdomen. Rachel rolled her hips and felt her control fray. When she would have pulled back with anyone else, she thrust harder, willing her body to explode. Max pushed both hands under her shirt and clasped her breasts, and Rachel threw back her head and laughed. “You do things to me with all my clothes on I’ve never felt naked.”

Max kissed between her breasts. “I’d just as soon have you naked.”

“God, yes.” Rachel stripped off her shirt, pulled off her bra, and threw them onto the floor behind them. She pressed her breasts to Max’s face. “Put your mouth on me.”

Max lifted Rachel’s breasts in her hands and sucked her nipple into her mouth. Rachel’s clitoris pulsed and she rocked harder against Max’s belly. “Like that. Just. Like. That.”

“You like that,” Max said, her voice low and self-satisfied.

“Oh yes.”

Max’s fingers closed over her other nipple, squeezing one as her mouth tugged the other.

Light exploded behind Rachel’s eyelids, bright bursts of white and red and yellow, and she wasn’t afraid. The dark gave way to light and pleasure rolled through her. “Max. Max…”

Max gripped Rachel’s hips and pulled her tighter against her body, her mouth and fingers working in time to Rachel’s thrusts. Rachel clenched her fists in Max’s hair and watched Max make her explode. “Oh my God.”

Max pressed her cheek to Rachel’s breast and held her close until her shudders stopped. When Rachel collapsed, she kissed her. “You’re so beautiful I think my heart stopped.”

Rachel couldn’t move. She was completely demolished. “My God. I’ve never…I didn’t…I have never come like that in my life.”

Max laughed. “I said you were amazing.”

“I think you did all the work,” Rachel said, her words lazy and slow.

“Believe me, that wasn’t work.”

Rachel licked a drop of sweat from Max’s throat. She tasted salty and powerful. She wanted her again. She was losing her sanity here. “All the same, you have no idea what you do to me.”

Max kissed her. “I think I might a little. Because you…you make me feel like a god.”

Rachel braced her hands on Max’s shoulders and pushed herself up until they were eye to eye. “I might’ve called you God there a time or two—okay, maybe ten—but don’t let it go to your head.”

Max nipped at Rachel’s chin and kissed her again. “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”

“Oh, I don’t want to put it back.” Rachel kissed her hard. She was half-naked, totally exposed in every way, and incredibly alive. Max had been the first to see her as she was, the first to touch her where it mattered. The last thing she wanted was to undo any of it. Desire rose again, hot and hard and fast. “I want to do it again. I want you.”

“Let’s start with the getting you naked part.” Max reached for the button on Rachel’s pants.

“Not just yet.” Rachel shifted onto her knees and pushed Max back onto the bed. She grabbed the bottom of Max’s T-shirt and shoved it up over her breasts. She wore nothing under the shirt. Her breasts were small and firm with perfectly centered pale pink nipples. Rachel’s throat went dry and she tugged at the shirt while she stared. “Off.”

Max grabbed the bottom and had it halfway off when a sharp rap on the metal frame ricocheted through the space. Max froze.

A deep male voice called, “Commander de Milles. Open up, please.”

Max half sat up. “Rachel, stay back here.”

“Why? Who is it?” Rachel whispered.

Max gripped her around the waist and moved her aside as if she weighed nothing. “Get dressed.”

Suddenly chilled, Rachel fumbled for the bra and shirt as Max yanked on a pair of pants and shoved her feet barefoot into her boots. Max glanced down, saw that Rachel was dressed, and said, “Just stay here. You’ll be fine.”

“Max—”

Max strode through the CLU and pushed open the door, holding it at arm’s length. Rachel followed and looked over her shoulder. Two bulky men in blue camo BDUs stood at the foot of the steps with their arms folded across their chests. Both wore caps pulled down so low their eyes were barely visible. Neither smiled.

“If you’ll come with us, Commander,” one of them said.

Nothing in their expressions indicated they even saw Rachel.

Max didn’t move. “Ms. Winslow will need transportation to her quarters.”

“We’ll arrange for that, Commander.”

Max turned to Rachel. “Wait here. Someone will come to take you back.”

“What’s going on? Who are they?”

“I have to go.” Max smiled, her smile crooked and weary. “Go home, Rachel—get out of this place.”

Another Humvee pulled up behind the one idling in front of Max’s CLU. A man and a woman got out, both dressed in desert khakis. Both were white, trim and tanned, in their early thirties. Both looked a lot like Carmody. The woman, a brunette with a perfect face that registered absolutely nothing, walked up beside the uniformed men. “Ms. Winslow. We’ll take you back to your quarters.”

Rachel gripped the back of Max’s T-shirt, as if she could keep her there, away from these strangers. Keep her safe. “Thank you, but I’m fine. I’m going with Commander de Milles.”

Max reached behind her back and gently eased Rachel’s fingers free. “You’re not part of this, Rachel. Go home.”

“But—”

Max strode down onto the hard dry ground and said to the two men, “Let’s get out of here.”

Rachel watched them pile into the Humvee and drive away. Max never looked back.

Chapter Twenty-two

The Humvee disappeared around the corner, and Rachel was left standing on the steps of Max’s CLU in the hot, bright sun. A burst of annoyance helped push aside the wave of sadness left in Max’s wake. Max saw her as she wanted—needed—to be seen, but she still had more to learn if she believed for a second Rachel would leave her now. Squinting into the glare, she looked down at the two people regarding her impassively. “Who are you?”

The woman held out her hand. “Abigail Kennedy.”

Her accent said New England, her carriage and demeanor said privilege. She was in her early thirties, with medium-length, sun-streaked brown hair, professionally cut into a casual, layered, easy-to-care-for style that would look good out in the desert or at a cocktail party. Clear, straightforward blue-eyed gaze. Perfect heart-shaped face, nicely proportioned straight nose, full-lipped smile. Very pretty and trying to play it down with the absence of any makeup, no jewelry of any kind, and the same neutral-colored shirt and pants everyone wore in one form or another. Her attempt to blend in couldn’t quite hide her breeding or her background. Rachel had seen a thousand like her growing up in DC, at prep school, then college, and later at diplomatic events she’d been obligated to attend with her parents. Women like her generally wanted to be in charge, but they’d never go outside the wire, as Max would say. They’d order someone else to do that. Under other circumstances she might not have judged her quite so harshly, but right now she wasn’t given to being nice.

Kennedy still held out her hand and Rachel shook it briefly. Cool and confident, just like Abigail Kennedy.

Rachel looked at the man who stood a pace behind Kennedy. Another perfect specimen. Six feet or a tad taller, with a rangy build and the requisite broad shoulders. Dark hair, long enough on top to be stylish but not too long, neatly trimmed around his ears and the back of his neck. A long thin face, dark brown eyes to go with the hair. Eyes some women might call soulful. Just a little stubble on his nicely formed jaw. Five o’clock shadow at what…ten in the morning? She wondered if that was a studied effect. She held his gaze.