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relationship department. Pop's advice didn't stop him from screwing up more than once. Which put him right back between that rock and hard place, wanting more time, while not wanting to hurt her again.
    "Monica, you've said you trust me to get her. So we should put this on hold—"
    "Please let me be there when you pull her out. Not some stranger. At the very least, she'll need a basic physical. She'll have to give an accounting of what..." Her voice cracked.
    He swallowed, or tried to anyway, a tough-as-hell proposition with all Monica's pain clogging the air.
    "Please, Jack, don't make her talk to a stranger."
    Finally he sucked in air, only to find Monica's pain rode the gulp and seared his insides.
    "Damn it, Jack, I'll do anything to be there when they bring my sister in." She gripped his arm. "Anything."
    Anything.
    His eyes snapped up to hers. The word sizzled between them with a promise of a mind-bending, all-day release from a long three and a half months apart.
    Anything. Anywhere. Anytime. His squadron motto mocked from the patch on his flight suit sleeve.
    How many times had she whispered those words in his ear?
    He could tell she damned well remembered, too. Her emerald-green eyes glinted, pupils widening. With heat. Passion. Just like they did when he filled her. Deeper.
    No way could he move forward, fling her on the bed and take her up on the offer. He might get fuzzy on relationship nuances, but this one was pretty damned clear. It would be wrong to take her.
    However, if she made a genuine move in his direction? Exhaustion fell away faster than paratroopers from a cargo deck.
    Monica blinked, protective shields shuttering her eyes again. "You can put that thought right out of your head, Jack Korba. I don't care what the patch on your flight suit says." She threw down her gauntlet, giving no quarter, her determination leveling him and firing him up all at once. "Nothing, nowhere, no time are you getting me back in your bed."

Chapter 3
    Whoops.
    Monica stifled a wince. She'd just challenged Jack Korba. Damn. Damn. Damn. God bless it, the man thrived on challenges and had patience in spades.
    She watched his dark eyes narrow, flick with quicksilver determination. He may not have moved an inch closer to her, but anticipation sparked from him.
    The way she saw it, she had three choices. Cry, because Jack puddled when a woman wept. Hell, he'd even married her because of a crying jag gone way wrong last time they'd been in Nevada.
    Okay, no tears.
    But her second option of retreating from his VOQ room and away from that bed equated to wholesale surrender. He would follow her every step, anyway. Which left only one choice. Hold her ground and face him down.
    For Sydney.
    Sydney, in many ways her child as well as her sister. She'd brought her up more than any of the string of live-in lovers her father had paraded through their lives in hopes of giving his girls a replacement mama.
    Those women may have bought frilly dresses and styled pretty pigtails. But Monica had read Sydney Charlotte's Web and explained about periods. Nothing would keep her from being there for Sydney now.
    Not even the risk of having her heart broken by this man. Again.
    Monica stepped closer. Her boots tucked between Jack's bare feet with a hint of intimacy. "I would do it, you know."
    "What?" His fists clenched against his thighs, but he didn't touch her.
    He didn't have to.
    "I would have sex with you again if that's the price to be there for my sister. But it wouldn't be in a bed.
    And it wouldn't be making love." As much as her body screamed for release, her eyes stung at the loss of the tenderness he brought, as well. "Besides, we both know you won't go that route and use me." A truth that made her want him all the more. "We may be an atomic mix in the relationship department, but you're a good man, Jack."
    "Shit."
    "You don't scare me."
    "Then you're not as smart as you think." He crowded her with his bulk and fresh-washed scent. "Do you