Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Three hours later, Knox stood in the hall outside her hotel room, and she observed him with her heart in her throat.
The crisp white button-up shirt stretched over broad shoulders and wrapped around hard biceps like a fitted glove. Long legs were covered in dark slacks that matched the color of the bluish-black tie.
The man before her looked more like a billion-dollar businessman, or heck, a politician, than a Navy SEAL.
“Why the tie?” she asked, untangling the words caught on her tongue as the bite of desire clipped down her body, consuming her inch by inch until she had to press a palm to the doorframe for support.
“And why are you already in your pajamas?” His eyes journeyed the length of her, starting at her pink painted toenails up to her pale pink shorts and on to the matching camisole.
He checked his black wristwatch, a thick and heavy thing that was the only giveaway this man didn’t normally wear a suit. But the luxurious material fitted him to absolute perfection.
“It’s barely eight.”
What were they talking about? Right. The time. Her clothes.
They weren’t talking about how sexy he looked right now. Or his brown eyes ringed in mahogany. The confident clench of his jaw.
She stepped to the side to allow him entrance. “I’m tired. It’s been a day.”
He remained in the hall. Maintaining a firm position. Regarding her with curious eyes.
And then he lifted his hands and worked at the knot of his tie, allowing it to drape loosely around his neck. He popped the top two buttons of his shirt next.
Despite undoing his tie and shirt buttons, he still appeared to be standing at attention, uncertainty in his eyes.
“Should I come in?”
For the last several hours, her mind had been racing, thinking about the bomb he’d dropped on her earlier and what she was going to say to him when he showed up and wanted answers.
There was an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, and they were in the midst of a scorching-hot tug-of-war.
Had she been turned on? Not by him getting hurt—of course not.
But what if she’d lost him without him ever knowing how much more she wished there was between them? And after last night, for a fraction of a second, she’d thought he wanted more, too.
She had so much to say. So many questions. But she managed out a “yes.”
Still no movement from him on the other side, though.
That clenched jaw could pulverize titanium with one look.
His eyes moved to her camisole, and she followed his gaze to her nipples pressing against the thin fabric.
No bra. Because who wore a bra with PJs?
“Please, come in.” She struggled to keep her voice even.
When he finally stepped inside, she shut the door behind him and turned to find him right there. “I, um, why the tie?” she asked, flustered.
His brows slanted. “Were you the only person who didn’t tune in to the news today?”
“My entire team, apparently. We’ve been a bit preoccupied. Why?”
When they returned to the FBI field office, she and Knox had parted ways, and she wasn’t sure what Knox had been up to. She assumed he’d gone back to his friends’ suite after giving his statement. So, the shirt and tie? No, she was clueless.
“I had to give an interview. My mom insisted on the tie.” He flipped his brown eyes to the ceiling, the movement in his throat noticeable. A clash of the Titans raged in those eyes when his gaze returned to her face.
He’d had the same look in the SUV earlier when he’d accused her of getting turned on.
“Word got out that I took down Ike, and my dad decided it’d be best if I fess up to it and give a press conference or whatever.”
“You? On camera?” she asked in surprise. “Tell me there’s a recorded version I can watch.”
His attention veered to her neck. He was still so close. Could he see her pulse hammering against her skin?
She breathed in his Nautica cologne, wishing they were on a beach somewhere as the touch of the ocean met her nose.
The sand beneath her toes, his eyes on her—yes, that’d be much better than reality.
But they’d experienced several beach trips in the last twenty years and none ended with her naked beneath him getting sand in inappropriate places.
“You’re red,” he said while looking into her eyes.
“I’m what?” She blinked.
He placed his palm to her cheek. “Your cheeks are red. Maybe that’s not the right word. They’re that shade of embarrassed you get sometimes. You know, when you’re . . .”
Checking you out? She covered his hand with hers. She intended to remove it, but he’d already felt the truth of his statement in the heat radiating from her skin and onto his. So she left it there. “You were talking about the, uh, press conference.”
“Yeah, I had to take the blame for shooting Ike so my guys didn’t wind up on camera.” He lowered his hand, the mention of his friends a punch back to reality.
She flipped through his words in her head as if turning the pages of a novel trying to find meaning. “Blame?”
He offered her his back, facing the window even though the curtains were drawn and the ruddy brown fabric the only view.
“You’re a hero.” Blame made no sense.
“We don’t take credit for . . .” He dropped his words, his shoulders lowering with them. “It’s not an easy thing for us to do.” Quiet descended upon the room. The kind of quiet that offered her a moment to collect her thoughts and pin them back onto the it’ll-never-happen-for-us board.
She thumbed back through the pages of her mind, slower this time so she could formulate a response that’d make sense given her jumbled mess of thoughts. Her body still aroused when it shouldn’t be, especially given the events of the day. Given his words right now.
She strode closer and placed a tentative hand on his body.
His broad back expanded as he took a deep breath and let it free. “What’d you find out after I left you at the field office?” he asked. His voice was gritty, the question forced as if he had no choice but to change the subject.
“Ike’s out of surgery. Not awake yet.” She removed her hand, and his shoulders relaxed. “There are uniforms parked outside his room waiting, though.”
He turned, and her world narrowed down to Knox—his slow-motion progress toward her, the intense energy emanating from his powerful body, the heat in his eyes that never left hers as he grew closer.
“Ike came on to Sarah the night before the shooting. Invited her to breakfast the next day. He bound and gagged her after.” She swallowed.
“The FBI traced several unknown calls from Ike to a burner phone, which matched the one at Chelsea’s place.
” The business-like talk of assassins and murder dialed her from slow and intense to just north of normal.
She had to stay focused. Get through this moment.
Even if this wasn’t the conversation she wanted to have right now.
“What about Aaron? Did Ike ever call him?”
“Not on his regular cell, but Aaron may have a burner we don’t know about.”
He swiped a hand over his shaved head, and a touch of red appeared on the sleeve of his shirt.
She reached for him, trying to hide the panic in her eyes at the sight of blood, evidence he could’ve taken a bullet to the chest or abdomen instead—she could’ve lost him like her mom.
“I have bandages. Let me get you something.”
“Why do you have—”
“Part of the job.” She rifled through the bag atop the dresser. “Secret Service who work with POTUS even have to carry his blood around with them.”
“Yeah, that’s not a visual I want to picture, especially if the next POTUS is my old man.”
She motioned for him to come into the bathroom. With his sleeve rolled to the elbow, she discarded the old bandage saturated in blood and tended to the wound.
“I’m not used to someone taking care of me like this,” he murmured as she worked. “I’m usually the one fixing people up.”
“Why do you have to fix . . .” She refrained from finishing her question because she knew why, didn’t she?
After this week, she understood. How could she not?
His work was much more dangerous than he ever let on, and he’d been afraid to tell her.
“You should get stitches,” she said instead and wrapped his forearm.
“It’s fine.”
“And you’re stubborn.” She turned on the sink and caught his eyes in the mirror as she washed her hands. “You planning on meeting up with your team to try and figure this puzzle out?”
He perched a hip against the vanity and folded his arms. His gaze a slow caress of her body. And now her need for this man returned. Maybe it never left, but it’d been suffocated by the sight of his blood and talks of murderers.
“I stopped here first for a reason.”
“To find out what I learned about the case?” Her voice was weak when she spoke. Guarded, even if she didn’t want it to be.
“You know why.” His proper posture returned when he pushed away from the vanity to stand tall before her.
The bathroom was too small for them now.
She slipped away, allowing fear of the what-ifs to strong-arm her.
His shirt was untucked from his pants when he entered the living room. Another button undone. He wanted out of those stiff clothes as much as she wanted them off him.
Her fingertips dragged across her collarbone as he moved toward her. And she nearly drew blood from biting into her bottom lip.
He stopped a foot away, his body rigid once again. His jaw clenched beneath his sexy stubble, and his very kissable lips tightened. An impenetrable force field seemed to hum around him—one maybe only she could get through.
She almost lifted her hand to see if she could reach out and touch him.
“Do you want me?” His words were a deep rumble.
Four words. Four words that had her faltering. One step back to adjust her view of him as he continued to speak.