Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
BOULDER
I can do this. Knock on the door. If he’s in his cabin banging someone, no big deal. He’s not mine. Never was. Never will be.
She was there for work. For answers. Not for him. This was not an excuse to see him, to see if he still looked as good, smelled as good. Kissed as good.
The cabin was nestled in the woods in Colorado, and if snow was on the ground, it’d look like the set of a Christmas Hallmark movie. The two-story log cabin with a wraparound front porch was a slice of heaven. Pure paradise.
A swirl of smoke pushed into the night sky from the fireplace for dramatic effect. Perfectly romantic.
When the door opened after a few firm knocks, she bit down on her back teeth at the sight of the sexy SEAL shirtless in only worn-out denim jeans.
Her eyes lifted to meet his as if following the shot of a flare into the sky.
Like an explosion of fireworks lighting up her senses.
He was every bit of color in the rainbow in that one moment as she stared deep into his eyes.
The familiar insane pull she’d felt around him the last two times they breathed the same oxygen hit her.
He glanced at his wrist as if checking a watch that wasn’t there. “You’re about on schedule. Been three years. Although, I was hoping for sooner if I’m being honest.” His quip had her smiling. His lack of shock at her presence also meant he’d been alerted she was coming.
“Jessica called?” And if so, why the lack of shirt and the tantalizing tease of the start of a happy trail leading to oh-so-happy places?
She blinked out of her hot-British-now-American-commando stupor to remind herself why she’d flown to Colorado.
If she hadn’t been so busy ogling his chest, then falling captive to his eyes, it wouldn’t have taken her so long to notice the bandage spiraling around his left arm from the wrist to the elbow.
“What happened? Are you okay?” She had a pretty damn good idea, and if she was right, it’d confirm his presence on the operation in Romania.
“Minor burn. No big thing. Kitchen fire.”
“Oh yeah, what were you making?” she challenged.
He leaned into the frame of the door, casually crossing his arms and blocking her entrance. “Eggs.”
She rolled her eyes. “You gonna let me in or what?”
“If I do,” he began, his captivating lips slowly curving into a smile, “you gonna ask more questions about this burn?”
“Is the burn classified?”
“Maybe,” he replied, but his arms relaxed, and he stepped aside.
She moved past him and looked around the open-concept cabin. High ceilings with a crisscross of thick wooden beams overhead. The second floor was open to the downstairs. Three doors up there by her count. A couch in front of a roaring fire and a kitchen off in the back overlooking the living room.
“Why are you here? Vacation?” She set her overnight bag and purse down and unzipped her jacket.
He closed the door and faced her, his eyes going to her bag. “You planning on staying the night?”
“Not here-here,” she sputtered. “I’ll get a place at an inn.
” She tossed her red, lightweight jacket on the back of the couch.
“I need to know what happened in Romania. Did you see him die with your own eyes? Get a good look at him? Any identifying details you can tell me?” She’d decided it’d be best to cut through the bullshit and get straight to the point.
He strode past her without answering, without any change in his expression, and went into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He draped his uninjured arm over the top of the door as he kept his back to her, staring into the fridge as if searching for answers.
There were a few scars on his back, which pained her to see. Iraq? Afghanistan? His current line of work? Did he have any combat PTSD?
“Please tell me what happened.” She wasn’t above begging, not when it came to this topic. “It’s classified, I get it. But it was my intelligence that sent you to Romania.”
He faced her, armed with two beers. “Why would I go to Romania?”
She stalked into the kitchen as he removed the tops to the beers. He extended one, but she shook her head and folded her arms, standing her ground.
He set her bottle on the kitchen island off to his side and brought his drink to his mouth and took a few swigs. She tried not to let his tanned throat distract her as he downed the liquid. “Please. I can’t move on from this. I don’t think he really died. I need to know exactly what happened.”
He lowered his beer to the counter. “Tash.”
“So, it’s ‘Tash’ now?”
“I’m tired. It’s been a long week, and so yeah, it’s Tash. You okay with that?” A cut of pain moved through his tone. More sadness than irritation.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, unable to bury her concern for him.
“Nothing,” he said, but he hid his eyes by peering at the floor.
“Then can you please tell me what you know?”
“Hypothetically speaking, if I’d been in Romania, no one on my team got hurt.
And we didn’t get the chance to smoke anyone, either.
” He cleared his throat and dragged his eyes up to her face.
“Hypothetically, it looks like he had the place rigged with multiple explosives. Probably a thermite charge on his mainframe along with accelerants, based on how fast the place went kaboom and burned white-hot. Remote and command-detonated.”
Her stomach squeezed at the news. “But you saw him? Had the exits covered?”
“Whatever was in that house, he wanted to make sure it was destroyed. I assume the explosion was meant to cover his tracks.” He gripped the bridge of his nose, and her attention moved to the bandage on his arm.
“I did see a guy, but he was on fire, and I couldn’t get a good look at his face or save him.
” He let go of a long sigh. “But he was nice and toasty. Could roast marshmallows on the fucker.”
She maneuvered around the island to stand closer to him, which had him pivoting to face her, arms dropping like anchors to his sides. “Same war humor as my brother’s, I see.”
“I’m not in the military anymore.”
“Neither is he. But with what you both do, every day seems to be a battlefield.”
He leaned in closer, dipping his head a touch, eyes straight on her. “That’d imply there was some competition on the other side.”
“Says the burn on your arm.”
“That was my own stupidity. Going in after your man because I knew it’d eat you up if I didn’t bring him out alive for questioning.” He straightened his spine. “Hypothetically speaking.”
“Nice of you to think of me.”
“How could I not? You’ve been in my bloody head since the last time we saw each other.” His eyes thinned as if he hadn’t meant to let the truth slip, but now it was out there dangling between them, and she found herself trying to remember how to breathe again.
“Is it possible he got out alive?” she asked, choosing to focus on her problem at hand and not the way this man made her feel absolutely every possible emotion whenever he was near her.
“The guy had the place rigged with the kind of shit we use to blow up a downed drone, so yeah, he was prepared. I assume he chose that place because of the tunnel system, too.” He angled his head. “But you know about the tunnels since you provided the operational details, right?”
“But could he have survived that fire to make it out of those tunnels alive?”
His mouth pinched tight for a moment. “I don’t know. I thought the police found a body.”
“They said they did, but I’m not buying it.” She shook her head. “Do you think he’s dead?” she asked softly.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked, his voice grittier this time.
“I hope for your sake, for the world’s sake, the guy you were after, who I’m now calling Mr. Crispy, did die.
” He crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the kitchen island.
“And if he’s dead, you gonna slow down? Maybe stop being forever single? ”
What made him think she wasn't already dating? Had he been keeping tabs on her the way she had on him?
“You still only having sex?” she shot back.
Maybe she shouldn’t have brought that up, but she couldn’t exactly redact her statement, mark over her words with black ink.
He was in no hurry to hide his smirk, either. “We back to playing the question-with-a-question game?”
“That’s another question,” she replied without dropping the ball. A repeat of their conversation on the beach three years ago.
“Yes.” He’d practically breathed out the word, and his eyes darted to her mouth. “Just sex.”
She’d been thinking about the hacker, the possible end to her three-and-a-half-year pursuit of the man. And now it was as if she were crawling out of her skin with the desire to have Wyatt take her into his arms and go all caveman on her.
She’d never felt this way with another man before, certainly not with Dale. No one had ever made her feel the desire to be thrown over a shoulder and carried to the bed, to a carpet, to some type of surface to be properly fuc—
“You still the admiral’s daughter?” His thumb made small, sweeping circles over her cheek, and the action had her sex clenching.
“That doesn’t ever really change. He’ll always be the admiral.” But he knew that back in Ibiza, and he’d pinned her to the bed beneath him anyway.
“There’s talk he’ll be the next Secretary of Defense.”
She nodded. “And that means?”
His attention moved to her powder blue long-sleeved shirt, to the scoop-neck that didn’t feel all that sexy, but with his eyes drawn to the bit of cleavage there like a magnetic pull, it was as if she were naked.
“Why are you out here in Boulder?” she asked when he didn’t respond, and her words had his hand falling from her face, and he took a step back.
A chill grabbed hold of her, and she was grateful her sleeves and jeans hid the rise of goose bumps on her body.
“I come here when I need space.” He turned and went back to the business of drinking his beer.