Heated Pursuit (Alpha Security #1)(56)

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be. You sure you’re feeling—”

“Fine?” Penny teased weakly. Rafe didn’t smile. He looked a second away from giving her a gentle throttle with his bare hands. “I’m a little headachy and a whole lot sore, but I’ve felt worse when I had the flu.”

“Good. Because I’d hate to spank your ass if you were still feeling under the weather.” Rafe scrubbed his face and released a heavy sigh. “This has officially been the longest three days of my f*cking life. I think I aged ten years.”

Engrossed by the way his thumb brushed over the curve of her chin, it took her a moment to register his words. “Three days?”

Rafe leaned until their faces were less than an inch apart, giving her an up-close view of the exhaustion lurking in his eyes. “Three. Agonizing. Days. And I think we both know how this could’ve been avoided. You should’ve told me you were hurt.”

“At first there wasn’t any time, and then I cleaned it as best as I could and even used the antibiotic ointment from the bug-out bag. I didn’t think it was anything serious. It was just a scratch.”

“In the jungle, there’s no such thing as just a scratch. We were lucky Rosita’s the medicine woman of the village. She took one look at your leg and sent the men back into the jungle for supplies.”

Both she and Rafe watched soberly as Rosita removed a layer of green leaf bandages from her upper thigh. Red and raw, the skin around the gash hurt like hell but looked marginally better to her own untrained eyes. Penny turned her attention to Rafe, his silence unnerving her more than the fierce tightening of his jaw.

He watched the older woman slather the wound with an ointment that stank more than an overused gym sock and rewrapped it with a fresh batch of leaves. When Rosita finished, she gave them both a smile and left them with an “I’ll leave you alone with your wife.”

It took a moment for Penny to translate the words. At her look of confusion, Rafe explained, “They made the assumption from the way they found us.”

“What do you mean the way they found us?”

“Both half-naked and just about to—”

“Oh. My. God.” A rush of memories made her cheeks go crimson.

Rafe chuckled, not looking the least bit flustered. “Yeah, you may have said that a few times already.”

He easily caught the hand she halfheartedly attempted to smack him with and leveled her with a smile that almost stopped her heart. Her own soft chuckle died as he hooked a chair with his foot and dragged it next to the bed. He sat, staring at her in silence before they both looked down to where his fingers slowly caressed the backs of her knuckles.

The only way to catch even a glimpse of Rafe’s thoughts was if he cared to relinquish them. Penny really wished he would. God only knew her own were a jumbled mess. Maybe it was the fever. Maybe it was the entire screwed-up situation. But somehow, Rafe drew out parts of her personality she tried to keep buried, or that she hadn’t known she had.

A few moments ago she’d cried—with no shame, no hiding. She hadn’t felt like she needed to explain the appearance of her tears, because it had felt natural. She could be herself—a quirky smartass with a passable roundhouse and an addiction to Rafe Ortega.

As if sensing her thoughts, he tucked their clasped hands beneath his chin. His stoic mask dissolved, leaving behind an unguarded expression that clenched her heart. “You really did scare the f*cking hell out of me, Red. If it hadn’t been for these people, I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened.”

“You would’ve figured something out,” she said softly.

“I think you’re seriously underestimating my panic level. They took you away from me. Wouldn’t let me see you until you woke up. I’ve been in some hellish situations before, but none come even close to the last three days.”

Penny blinked fresh moisture away, his words tugging more to the surface. The things she said to him in that jungle…

They’d been true for the most part. It would be easier to keep an emotional distance if he’d just played the part of the misogynist jerk. But that wasn’t him. He was perfectly imperfect, in all ways except for his choice of occupation.

Her heart ached for purely selfish reasons. “Where are we?”

“In a Miskito village just off the Patuca. Once the people here realized we weren’t part of Fuentes’s crew, they’ve been ridiculously helpful.” He brushed the back of her hand against his lips. “We’ll wait a few more days just to make sure you’re fully recovered, and then we’ll head out. We’re only a day-and-a-half’s hike away from the Honduran military base at Mocoron.”

The reason why these people should know a man like Fuentes turned her stomach. Rafe must’ve read the realization in her eyes, because he gave her hand another kiss, this time keeping it propped against the corner of his mouth.

“All I need is another day and I’m good,” Penny stated. “We’ll go.”

“I already promised the village elders that we’d leave once you were able to get back on your feet and they wouldn’t listen. They insist on us staying until you’re entirely healed.”

“There’s no telling what Fuentes will do if he finds out they were helping us. I don’t want to chance staying longer than we have to.”