Chapter 10 #2
She almost groaned, wishing they were merely in the midst of verbal foreplay and sexual innuendos.
Life would be much easier if this moment was about a wild hookup, and she wasn’t in the woods with a SEAL who’d covered her body with his not even forty-eight hours ago to protect her from a barrage of bullets.
Bullets—it should’ve been bullshit. But, nope. This was reality. She’d crashed the biggest party of her life, and now she was paying the price.
“Should I go, or do you want to get this discussion over with?”
A coolness crept across her neck, and she realized he’d stepped back. “I thought about Googling the name Malik in relation to a consulate in New York,” she softly began while facing him, “but I didn’t know if I’d set off some sort of crazy bad-guy alarm in doing so.”
He visibly swallowed and let go of the towel. “I should shower.”
She reached for his wrist without thinking, her eyes widening. “Luke!”
He smirked, but glanced at her hand atop his arm. “Kidding.”
“Not really the best time for humor.”
He squinted and gave a half shrug. “I can’t seem to help myself around you.”
“Oh, yeah?” She let go of him. “And why is that?”
“You’re cute when you’re angry.”
“You already know so much about me, huh?” Her brow creased.
“I do have an entire dossier on your every movement since birth.” He stepped back and lowered himself to a seated position on the bed.
“Thirty. Parents divorced at age seven, and you bounced back and forth between your mom’s place in New York and your dad’s in Malibu.
You have two brothers and two sisters. Don’t get me started on the number of stepsiblings you have from your parents’ multiple marriages afterward.
” He took a brief pause. “Perfect grades throughout school, except your junior year, when you dated that actor Craig . . . talk about a bad influence.”
Her mouth dropped open, but she couldn’t find the words.
“Graduated cum laude from USC in L.A., and did a double master’s after at Boston University.
Went off the grid three years ago and reappeared as Eva Sharp.
” He scratched at his short beard. “A natural brunette, but I’m guessing you’re rocking darker highlights right now for your disguise.
” He paused for a moment, and his Adam’s apple moved in his throat.
“And you have the most beautiful hazel eyes I’ve ever seen. ”
Her heart took up residence in her throat. “That’s not fair. You can browse Wikipedia about me, and as for you—I don’t even know your last name.”
“Life isn’t fair. If it was, you wouldn’t be here with me right now. You’d be at your cabin writing your movie, living your lie of a life.”
“Don’t make it sound like that. Besides, who the hell are you to judge?”
He slowly rose, and she did her best to remain grounded as his eyes drilled into hers as if he were on the brink of stealing her every thought.
She couldn’t back down now. “Does anyone know the real you?” She poked his chest—his very naked chest. “It must make for a lonely life.”
“Clearly you know me, so . . .” He started to turn, but she flattened her hand against his flesh, and he remained before her.
“Don’t walk away from me. I want answers.” Confidence rushed through her raised voice.
The stubborn set of his jaw tightened; he eyed her hand as if it were a grenade. “It is lonely,” he rasped as if he hadn’t meant to admit that.
Guilt curled into a tight fist in her abdomen at the realization of how she’d talked to him—to a man who clearly put his life on the line for the country.
“You drive me nuts,” he said. “You’ve been making me crazy since I first saw you.”
“I—”
He gently gripped her chin and slanted his mouth over hers. He parted her lips with such an intense need it had her almost falling. But, of course, his hand swooped to the small of her back to keep her upright.
Her hands slipped between their bodies, and she guided them up his hard chest, groaning against his full mouth as he tugged at the strands of her hair, tipping her head farther back so he could deepen the kiss.
She wasn’t sure who would break first, but in her gut, she knew it’d happen. One of them would blink, one of them would bow to desire, and the other would hold to the sense of responsibility.
And in three, two, one . . . Luke, the dedicated and responsible SEAL, tore his mouth from hers and released his grip as if she were a butterfly in his palms and he had to set her free.
Her hand swept to her mouth to cover her nearly swollen lips.
His eyes darkened to a different shade of blue, a color meant for midnight and stolen kisses in some secret garden. “Goodnight,” he said in his signature husky voice.
She was grateful he hadn’t apologized for the kiss. Brief as it was, it’d been exhilarating.
A rush of energy had exploded through her body the second his tongue had swept into her mouth, and everything inside her came to life: pop, sizzle, and spark.
She sure as hell knew it’d be a moment she’d never forget, and so, she went to her bed, opened her laptop, and decided to change her fade-to-black sex scene to one with a little more color.