She met me here in the evenings, dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

  We exercised the dogs.

  And…she eventually went home.

  Yeah. Okay. We generally ate first, but the bottom line was that Torie wasn’t sleeping in my bed anymore, and I hated it.

  When she turned her head and smiled at me, I could almost forgive her for abandoning me. “We always knew that arrangement was temporary, Cooper. I’m sure you’re probably happy that I’m not using you as my personal electric blanket anymore.”

  I wasn’t. “I never minded,” I said unhappily.

  Hell, if she really wanted to sleep in her own bed, who was I to stop her?

  Truthfully, she looked happier. Probably not because she was sleeping in her own bed, but because she was slowly gaining confidence again and getting her sleep.

  “Will Milo really have to go back to the shelter?” Torie asked in a woeful voice. “He’s still a puppy.”

  The two of us were currently seated on the carpeted floor in the play area of the center, all of the trainers already gone for the evening.

  Torie still looked beautiful, and smelled even better, even though she’d been working with the puppies for hours now. All I could say for myself was that I desperately needed a shower after a long run.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. We’ll try to find him a home, but he’s an obedience school dropout. He’s wicked smart, and he follows commands, but he can be a goofball, which is something we don’t need in a dog that has to be steady for veterans.”

  She turned that beautiful pair of soulful amber eyes toward me as she said, “He’s still a baby.”

  “That baby is about to become an adolescent. Yes, he’s still a puppy, but he may never be steady enough to be a working dog,” I told her.

  Hell, I hated sending any animal to a shelter if I didn’t have to, but almost every single one of my friends already had a dropout from my program.

  I watched as Milo jumped up and started to lick Torie’s face.

  “Milo!” I said sternly. “Down. You know better.”

  I swore the canine shot me a dirty look before he responded and hit the ground right next to Torie’s legs.

  “See how good he minds,” she said hopefully as she stroked her hand over his coat.

  Fuck! It killed me to disappoint her, but Milo wasn’t going back into the program. He was just too high risk for failing at his age.

  The mutt was perfectly capable of doing the job.

  He just wasn’t always sure that he felt like doing it.

  None of us were exactly sure of his dubious parentage. He had floppy beagle ears, a tan Labrador coloring, and his face was reminiscent of an Australian shepherd.

  Yeah, he was cute, but he was a handful.

  “He doesn’t have the temperament for the program, Torie, but I’ll see what I can do,” I grumbled.

  Her face lit up like a Christmas tree, and I felt my heart squeeze inside my chest.

  She leaned toward me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Thank you, Cooper. He’s such a sweet dog. I don’t want him to go back to the shelter, even if it is a no-kill shelter. Milo needs a home.”

  As she laid those soft lips over mine, I swore to God I’d find that damn mutt a home if it was the last thing I did.

  Instinctively, I wrapped my arm around her waist and kissed her back, but I backed off the second we came up for air. “I probably stink,” I warned her.

  She gripped my T-shirt before I could go very far. “You smell delicious,” she said in a sultry tone. “Like we just had hot, sweaty sex.”

  My eyes widened because that wasn’t something that Torie would usually say. “It would probably be a lot sexier if that were actually true,” I replied.

  “A woman is allowed to fantasize,” she said as she slowly let go of my shirt and got to her feet.

  I practically stumbled to my feet and hefted Milo into my arms so I could put him back into his crate.

  Fucking hell! What was this woman trying to do to me?

  First she abandons me and my bed, and then she tells me she fantasizes about us having hot, sweaty sex?

  I locked up after all the dogs were settled, and followed her to her vehicle. “What are you trying to say to me, Torie?” I asked her gruffly as I trapped her body between me and her car.

  I wasn’t going to let her get away until I had some answers.

  I’d been fucking restless all week, and worried as hell that she wasn’t ready to tackle her dreams all by herself yet.

  Granted, she didn’t have a nightmare all that often anymore, but what if she did?

  Who in the hell was going to be there for her in the middle of the night?

  Me!

  Who in the hell was I kidding? If Torie had a bad dream, I’d be at her condo in record time.

  Didn’t matter if it happened at midnight or in the wee hours of the morning.

  “I’m not exactly sure,” she said as she wrapped her arms around my neck. “But I think I was flirting with you. I probably can’t say it was seduction, exactly, but I’m working on that.”

  “Torie,” I said in a warning voice next to her ear. “You just decided that you didn’t want to sleep with me anymore. Please don’t tell me you actually want to seduce me.”

  We were situated underneath one of the lights in the parking lot, so I could see her face clearly as she stared into my eyes and said earnestly, “I do. I am trying to seduce you. I’m just not all that practiced at doing the whole seduction thing. I’m back to sleeping at my condo because I’m ready to move on, Cooper. I don’t need you to take care of me anymore like a friend or a casual date. I don’t need you to be with me every night in case I have a bad dream. What I really want is a boyfriend who wants to take me to bed and fuck me until we can barely move the next day. When you’re ready for that, let me know. Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?”

  “You know damn well I want to have dinner with you every night.”

  She cocked her head as she shot me an innocent look. “Do I know that? Sometimes I don’t think I actually know what you want, Cooper. You pull me forward, and then you push me away. What in the hell am I supposed to think about that?”

  I had given her mixed signals at times. Hudson and Jax had been right. I’d confused Torie while I’d been trying to protect her.

  “Is it really possible that you don’t know what I want?” I asked her huskily as I palmed her cheek.

  I saw her swallow hard before she nodded. “I’m tired of wondering, Cooper. I think I really need to know. I don’t want to experiment anymore, and I know what I want. I. Just. Want. You. I don’t want to date anyone else. I want an exclusive relationship where we spend as much time as possible together burning up the sheets. That’s it. That’s what I want. I won’t promise you that I won’t have some issues from what happened in the Amazon, but some of those things just need time to heal.”

  “Fuck! I thought you understood,” I rasped.

  “Apparently, I didn’t,” she answered. “You might need to explain that whole thing to me again.”

  “Clearer this time, obviously,” I said tightly.

  “I need you to at least understand one thing,” Torie insisted.

  “What?”

  “I’m ready, Cooper. If you want the same things I do, I’m ready.”

  I tightened my arm around her waist. “I wanted you from the moment we met, but it was safer for me not to acknowledge those feelings at all. I want you to know that I hate myself for those first two weeks when we barely spoke. You were still recovering, and I could have been there to help you.”

  Torie stroked the hair at the nape of my neck as she replied, “No, Cooper. There’s no way you could have known about my history, and you had no obligation to know. I don’t want to go back there. I want to move on. With you, if you want me.”

  Christ! What in the hell had I ever done to deserve a real chance with a woman like Torie?

  Whatever it was, I sure as hell wasn’t going to spend another moment trying to screw things up.

  Nor was I going to try to make sense of how badly I wanted and needed Torie Durand to be mine.

  Those feeling were just…there. The emotions just existed. Whether they made sense…or not.

  I wrapped my arms around Torie and claimed that gorgeous mouth because I couldn’t wait another second to get closer to her.

  When I finally released her lips, Torie murmured, “I have an early morning appointment tomorrow with Dr. Romero. It was the only time she could get me in this week. My place for lunch around noon?”

  Christ! I wasn’t sure I’d survive that long before we started this new relationship.

  “I’ll be there.” Hell, I’d made it this long. Did another day really matter? “I want you to know that I’ve always wanted more than just casual dating. I’m not that guy who can have sex with you and walk away, Torie. It was never going to be that way for me.”

  I could feel her shake her head as she rested it on my shoulder. “I don’t want it to be that way, either. I care way too much about you for it not to mean something to me.”

  Fucking hell!

  I regretted every harsh word I’d ever said to my brothers about losing their minds because if Torie muttered one more revelation, gave me one more sign that she wanted to be with me, I was completely fucked.

  Torie

  “Everything went fine, but this mission wasn’t exactly smooth,” Marshall, the leader of Last Hope, said from headquarters the next morning. “The local indigenous tribe got confused and thought we were the bad guys.”

  I didn’t really need to be here at Last Hope headquarters this morning, but I wanted to be.

  Apparently, a team had done an emergency rescue mission last night in the Amazon—which was right up my alley—so I’d decided to drop in when I’d gotten the usual text message that was sent to all Last Hope members when a mission was in progress.

  Marshal was present, as well as Hudson, Jax, and Cooper. They all looked like they’d arrived long before Harlow and I had.

  Harlow had hung around during the rescue, too, so she could monitor the weather conditions.

  All of us were still sitting in the large mission room on the first floor of the headquarters trying to figure out how this group of river rats, also known as Amazon pirates, were operating.

  I rose from my seat so I could examine the map up on the large screen. “I know this area,” I told Marshall. “It’s not far from where I was rescued. It has to be the same indigenous tribe that saved me. They aren’t hostile, Marshall. I’m sure they were just trying to protect their territory.”

  The older man nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. I just wish we could explain to them that there are pirates in their area, too, and we just needed to rescue an American citizen who shouldn’t have been pulled off his boat to be a hostage. I’m not sure what’s going on in that area of the Amazon Basin, but things have been heating up there lately. This new gang of river rats in that area are getting extremely active. Nothing new had happened since your kidnapping, Torie. And now, all of a sudden, there’s been three pirate hits on small luxury cruises over the last month, plus this latest kidnapping.”

  I’d listened to the entire rescue from start to finish just in case anything was said that needed to be translated, and I’d been on the edge of my seat the entire time.

  Marshall had sent in a team of four, and if the drama with the indigenous tribe hadn’t come up, those guys would have been in and out of the pirate camp within minutes.

  Honestly, the confusion with the tribe had nearly blown the mission.

  I kept studying the map as I asked, “Do you think there could be more trouble with the pirates?”

  Marshall shook his head. “I’m not sure, but judging by the activity, it’s likely. This is the first time they’ve taken a captive, and the guys said he was unharmed, but boats are being hit for money and valuables, too. The pirates are so damn mobile that it’s going to take a while to catch them. Hopefully, they’re not as violent as the ones who took you hostage, Torie, but we only have a few incidents to judge by right now.”

  “Why now?” Cooper asked, sounding troubled. “Before Torie’s kidnapping, nothing significant had happened in that area of the Peruvian Amazon in years.”

  I looked at Marshall to see if he was going to answer. When he didn’t, I gave my opinion. “Sometimes these gangs of river rats move around like nomads. Once an area gets hot, they move to another. It sounds like they just moved in or back in recently. They’ll stay for a while until things get too hot to risk anymore. Then they’ll go somewhere else unless the authorities apprehend them first.”

  “Luckily,” Hudson said. “Everyone got through this mission okay. I hope they stick to stealing and stop the hostage taking.”

  “It would make our life a lot easier,” Jax agreed. “Especially since that indigenous tribe is so close.”

  “Maybe someone should talk to them,” I considered.

  “Do the tribes all speak Spanish?” Harlow asked curiously.

  I shook my head. “The languages and dialects of the indigenous people are kind of complicated in the Amazon. Some of the tribes do speak Spanish, but many have their own language. The tribe that rescued me had members who spoke Spanish, but most communicated in their own dialect.”

  “Sounds confusing,” Jax commented.

  I smiled at him. “It can be, but you have to understand the history. There are still tribes there that have never come into contact with anyone other than their own tribe members, so they don’t know anything about the world outside of their own tribe.”

  Hudson nodded. “I’ve heard about those no-contact tribes.”

  “They’re pretty unique,” I said. “Marshall, I could probably talk to the tribe. I know the leader, and I’ve always wanted to go back there to thank him for what they did. They saved my life.”

  “Over my dead body,” Cooper growled. “That place nearly killed you.”

  I turned until I caught Cooper’s gaze.

  His eyes were fierce and unyielding.

  “How could you work that out?” Hudson asked, ignoring Cooper’s outburst.

  I shrugged. “I would have to go there. Obviously, the area is remote, so there’s no other way to contact them.”

  “Not. Happening,” Cooper reiterated.

  “Calm down, Coop. Let’s get all the information first,” Jax suggested.

  I could tell that Cooper was in no mood to be reasonable.

  Honestly, I’d never seen him act the way he was acting right now.

  His expression was wild and unreadable, and I had no idea what he was thinking.

  “She’s not going,” he rumbled. “Christ! We could never ask that of her. She nearly died there.”

  “But I wouldn’t be going back under dangerous conditions,” I explained. “I could get safe transport down the river until I got to the area—”

  “Where there are now currently pirates,” Cooper rasped as he slammed his hand down on the desk. “Be reasonable, Torie. It’s not a no-risk trip. We know there are pirates in that area.”

  “We could keep her protected,” Jax contemplated. “We could hire our own boat and send a bunch of guys with her as bodyguards.”

  Hudson shrugged. “We could make it fairly no-risk.”

  Marshall held up a hand. “This has to be totally Torie’s choice. Would it help? Yeah, probably. We may have more incidents in that area and they’re ransom cases the government isn’t going to want to touch. But I don’t want her doing anything that’s going to make her uncomfortable.”

  “I speak enough of their tribal language to communicate well with them, and much of the tribe speaks Spanish, too,” I explained to Marshall. “I spent a day in their village before I could get transport out of there, so I’m sure they’ll remember me. If you want a representative to go and speak with them, I’d be your safest and least threatening person to do it.”

  Marshall shook his head. “Logically, yes, but are you up to going back there, Torie?”

  “I don’t think I’ll know that until I get there,” I said honestly. “The Amazon rainforest was once one of the locations I wanted to visit the most out of any other location in the world. Now, I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

  “It could trigger some really bad memories,” Jax said carefully.

  “He’s right,” Hudson agreed. “If you think it might set back your recovery from the kidnapping, it’s not worth the risk, no matter how convenient it would be to have someone sort out the natives there.”

  “I think I could do it,” I said.

  Honestly, I wasn’t certain how I’d feel about seeing the Amazon again, but I could manage if it could mean less danger for a future rescue.

  “Are you certain?” Marshall asked solemnly.

  I nodded. “I am.”

  “It’s not fucking happening,” Cooper said in a loud, graveled voice as he slammed his fist down on his desk again, but even harder this time. “It’s too dangerous. It’s risky to Torie’s physical and mental health, and she’s not setting foot in that goddamn jungle again. She left that place barely alive and with more injuries than most people could survive. We are not sending her back there.”

  Everyone in the room, including me, stared at Cooper.

  I was assuming I wasn’t the only person who had never seen him raise his voice like this.

  “It’s not your call to make, Coop,” Hudson said calmly. “Torie makes her own decisions.”

  “What in the hell do you think Chase and Wyatt are going to say?” he rasped. “Do you think either one of them will be happy that we’re suggesting that their little sister go back to the location that nearly killed her?”

  “The Amazon didn’t do it, Cooper,” I said quietly. “Pirates nearly kill me.”

  “It’s not Chase or Wyatt’s decision, either,” Marshall said.

  “But they definitely won’t be happy,” Jax considered.

  I took a deep breath and tried not to get too irritated. “My brothers never have and do not make decisions for me,” I informed everyone. “I’ll speak with both of them and let them know what I’m doing, but I don’t need their permission to leave the country.”