Pushing the Limit by Emmy Curtis Page A

needed help. Professional help. The help he’d been brushing off for seven years. He knew that now. Maybe if he’d taken it when it was offered back then, he would be fixed by now. He was fucked up beyond all recognition. He knew this was true because he still wanted her. Still wanted to possess her even though she belonged to Danny. He couldn’t even look at her without wanting to be inside her again. It was like a drug.
    A drug with nasty side effects. Flashbacks. Guilt. The feeling that he was no longer in control of his battle-scarred thoughts and memories. It was a control he’d fought hard for over the years, and it was evaporating like clouds in the desert. He took a breath and dragged himself back to the task at hand.
    Even the smell of Molly’s perfume in the room, and the copious amount of red and black lacy underwear on the floor didn’t give him pause. Didn’t even make him visualize her in it, not even for a second. Maybe it would take a shrink to get both Harry and Danny out of his head. Maybe everything out of his head.
    He was deeply, deeply fucked up.
    There was nothing suspicious in Molly’s room, so he quietly let himself out and found Jason’s.
    At least there was no underwear on the floor. Matt checked the desk chair, and all around the table in case, but found no bugs. That was a huge relief. He wouldn’t have to argue with Harry about keeping everything need-to-know for now.
    He let himself out and made his way back down to the lobby, where he planned on asking them to arrange a taxi for him. As he rounded the corner of the staircase, he literally bumped into Nitro.
    “Dude,” Matt said as he grasped the banister to stop them both falling. “You are a hazard to be around.”
    “Sorry, man. I was coming to see you. Keeping my ear to the ground, you know.” He paused, then shrugged. “Thought I’d touch base, see if you needed anything.” He turned around on the stairs and continued down with Matt, but not before he cast one last look up the staircase. It was a strange look, and Matt wondered if he’d in fact interrupted a liaison with someone in the hotel. Horny bastard. At least that hadn’t changed.
    “I could use a ride. Is that in your remit?” Matt asked, only half-facetiously. Military contracting firms, although populated with ex-military, usually had very different rules of engagement, and what might seem a logical request for someone who was contracted to be his security point man, chauffeuring might not count.
    “Anything you want, buddy. I’m here for you. Just keep me in the loop, and I can anticipate what you might need.”
    David “Nitro” Church held the door to his Suburban open and Matt got into the passenger seat. As David walked around the back of the car to get in, Matt marveled at the equipment that was installed in the SUV. He was surprised, but also not, to find a military-grade GPS, a handgun Velcroed under the dash so just the butt was showing, and a satellite uplink, for what he couldn’t fathom. But he did know contractors, and they did like their toys.
    The last time Matt had been in a war zone, he’d been in a Humvee with only a radio, and it had always been a bit hit-or-miss whether it’d work. In the world of military contractors, money talked.
    When Nitro settled in and put the car in gear, Matt asked him about his work with MGL Security. “How long have you been in-country?”
    “Nearly a year. Wait. No, yeah, just about a year at the end of the month.” David nodded to himself. “It’s a long time to be away from home, but it’s nowhere near the hardship of our deployments. I have an Internet connection anywhere I am, and a sat phone that works so much better than the ones we had in Afghanistan. You remember those? Jay-sus. It’s a miracle any of us got outta there alive.”
    Matt laughed. “You just never knew how to use it. You thought shaking it like an Etch A Sketch would reset it.”
    David laughed.
    “You enjoy it?”
    “Hell