He needed to gather her up, hold on to her, anything to help her stop trembling. Something was going to shake loose if she didn’t.

He should probably make love to her.

The man in 4B wondered if he could have your autograph. He told me his daughter is a huge fan.”Fan? What the hell? Dylan lifted himself up and looked over the back of his seat. Since when did covert operators have fans?

Excuse me,” she said, her voice tight. “But if I’d known there was going to be a firearms examination at the end of the kidnapping, by God, I would have studied for it!

He caught her, and he held her, and he let her cry, and cry, and cry, and he let her use his sheets to wipe her eyes, and her nose, and God knows what, because he had plenty of clean sheets, and he only had one Kat.

Hanson got to sleep with you, and I didn't,” he said, his own jaw a little tight. “So I stole his car.

She could not leave him hanging like this. “If you were hurt, I need to know.” It was a rule somewhere, in the good-guy handbook.

It worried him. Like him, she had to be exhausted. She smelled like gasoline; her clothes were torn. She had a small white bandage on her forehead where the EMT had cleaned her cut. Dirt smudged her face, her arms, her legs. He knew she still didn't have any underwear, and for the first time, he felt bad about it. Real bad. He wanted to protect her, make her feel secure, keep her from harm—and all he'd done was lose her underwear and practically get her blown up.

He wanted to paddle her himself, then shake her, then sit her down in a chair and explain to her why she must never, ever get herself in a situation where she could be shot at again—and then throw himself at her feet.