[When SEALs Come Home 04] - Heated (10 page)

If he’d been smarter, he would have run like hell in the opposite direction.

As her eyes explored his chest, he could practically hear her considering having sex with him. Her brown eyes weren’t so cool anymore. She looked at him, and she came alive, like she was imagining where she could put her hands. Her mouth. And, please God, her tongue. He was on board with all of that because he had a few fantasies of his own.

He sauntered over to her. She had his shirt, and he should get it back, right?

“Aren’t you cold?” She blurted the question at his right nipple and then flushed, a pretty pink wash of color that lit up her face.

He shrugged, fighting the urge to reach out and trace the pink on her cheeks. He’d bet she had a
no touching in public
rule, and right now he needed to play by her rules.

“The cold’s a relief.” The heat of the desert had been a shock. Fire was nothing after that. You stepped out onto the sand, and there was nothing but you, the horizon, and the sun. The headache from the glare and the heat had been second nature after a few weeks.

Her gaze dropped to his dog tags. Now that he was no longer active duty, he should have removed the tags, but he wanted the reminder of who he’d been. “Did you serve in the desert?”

“We did a tour in the Middle East. It was hotter than hell there.”

“Thank you,” she said, tugging his shirt out of her bag. He’d have been happy for her to keep it, although his shirt was no white knight’s favor.

“For?” His dirty T-shirt? The dance show? He shouldn’t be hankering after this particular woman. Beneath her tough-as-nails exterior, she was sweet. She was the kind of woman who did the right thing, who did more than just live by the rules. She was honorable to the core in a way he respected but could never be. He didn’t deserve her, and she deserved more than a few nights of hot sex.

“For serving. For coming home. For being here for Abbie.” Her smile undid him. Fuck. How was he supposed to let her go when she said things like that?

“Coming home was the easy part,” he said gruffly, tugging on the shirt in her hands. Bingo. She took a little step closer to him.

“Is it? I’ve never found starting over easy. Or starting.” She gave a small laugh.

After living in a tent for months on end, he liked having his own place with four solid walls and a door. The indoor plumbing was a plus too, although he had no problem doing his business in the woods while on a jump. Once a guy learned to tell poison oak from the harmless stuff, it was point and shoot. No worries. But he wasn’t too hot or too cold, and he could be alone or have friends in. Compared to the desert, he was a pig in paradise and he wasn’t so stupid he couldn’t see that.

“I was glad to come home,” he said, which was the understatement. Good men failed to come home all the time, men like Will Donegan, who went out there and did their jobs and then died because of it. Life sucked sometimes. And other times, life rained good stuff on him, like the way Mercy was standing close enough to him right now that her thighs brushed against his. That right there made this a good day.

“Oh.” She chewed on her lower lip, twisting his T-shirt between her fingers. No matter what she’d seen growing up in Los Angeles or on the police force, she was sweet and far too innocent for a man like him. Here she was, chatting him up, and his head had death and dying on a repeating loop. How fucked up was that?

“Thank you for coming.” He gently tugged his shirt free.

“You’re welcome.” She sighed. “Although I’m not much of a help. You’re doing all the work.”

“Are you having fun?” He shrugged on the shirt. Because he didn’t take a step backward first, he bumped against her. She sucked in a little breath, but she didn’t move either. His day was looking better and better.

“Yes. But I want to help.” She squared off with him, her chin coming up. “I came here to help, not to watch.”

“Okay, but let’s eat first.”

She eyed the sky. Some gray clouds had piled up on the horizon, but nothing he was worried about. Mercy wasn’t as convinced.

“The weather report forecast rain for the early p.m. Do you think that’s still accurate?”

“It’ll hold off until we’ve finished here.” He’d checked the forecast too because he couldn’t frame a house in a downpour. “You want me to fetch you a plate?”

She smiled and fell into step beside him. “Do you think you know what I like?”

“If I get it wrong the first time, I’ll go back.”

“It would be more efficient if I went with you.”

“I’ve got it. You sit back and relax.” He wasn’t sure she’d let him do this for her. Mercy liked standing on her own two feet, and she was good at it. She didn’t need him to fetch her a plate, but he wanted to do something for her. Bringing her food was a start. He had no idea to what, but he wanted to find out.

While Mercy hesitated, Abbie loped past them, headed off on a run. She did that a lot. She was going to have more miles on her running shoes than he did on his truck if she wasn’t careful.

“She okay to do that?” Admittedly, he didn’t know much about pregnancy, but he’d never seen a pregnant woman running. She was what, four months along now? Her face seemed rounder, her belly a small, almost unnoticeable bump underneath her fire department T-shirt.

“For as long as she’s okay balancewise.”

He tried and failed to imagine running with the equivalent of a watermelon strapped to his stomach. He’d run with a thirty-pound pack strapped to his back, but that was just stuff, and he’d trained to do it. Abbie had a baby on board. “It just seems crazy. What if she trips and lands on her stomach?”

***

T
he man was positively sweet.

He’d probably cut off his left nut before he admitted it, but he was worried about Abbie. He tucked his thumbs in his tool belt and stared after Abbie, a frown creasing his forehead.

He didn’t know anything much about pregnancy—not that she was an expert herself—but he wasn’t afraid to ask questions. He was fearless like that. If he didn’t know, he asked. It wasn’t a problem. He just did it. She admired that. She, on the other hand, was suffering from a serious lack of guts.

“Lunch would be great,” she said, because she needed to think about something else and why not food?

He nodded and wandered over to the loaded picnic tables, grabbing a couple of plates from one end.  Better yet, he loaded both plates up equally with fried chicken and potato salad, and he didn’t skimp on the chocolate cake. Definitely a keeper. And then he came back, handed her a plate, and took her hand with his newly free hand.

“Come on. Let’s find a place to sit.”

“What’s wrong with right here?” Her friends were here. They could help her fill in the awkward pauses.

“I feel like we’re having sex in public.” He shot a look over his shoulder at their peanut gallery. “Bad sex,” he muttered. “And I’m a guy, so that’s a low blow, and you need to help me out here.”

She knew how he felt.

“Laura Jo is—” She had no idea how to finish that sentence.

“Special. And nosy, loud, and bossy.”

All true. She was also loyal, funny, and one of the best EMTs Mercy had ever met. But Joey was already towing her toward a row of parked trucks. It was easier to follow him. Plus when she smiled apologetically over her shoulder, Laura Jo winked at her and shooed her on. So there was that.

Joey’s truck was in the middle of the row. He dropped her hand and flipped down the tailgate. “I’ve got some quality seating with your name on it right here.”

When he took her plate from her, his fingers brushed against hers. Oh, Lord. A little skin on skin, and that chemistry they had together woke her body right up. Before he could help her up, she swung herself onto the tailgate and grabbed her plate. Lunch. That was all this was. It was
so
not a date, and she needed to get this urge to jump him under control.

The back of his truck was no inspiration. It was an out-of-control mess, filled with crates of bike parts. A cooler. A couple of crushed soda cans and enough rope for an entire bondage club.
Don’t think about that.

“You were a US Navy SEAL, right?” Way to go making small talk. She could ask him about the weather next or how the Oakland Raiders were doing in the post season.

“I did a couple of tours of duty.” He shrugged, like those tours of duty didn’t count for anything and steered the conversation back to her. “I’m more interested in you.”

“There’s not much to know. I’m boring.” She hadn’t been many places in her life. She held out hope that someday a round-the-world ticket would fall into her lap, but it hadn’t happened yet, and most days, she was fine with that. She had a good life.

He shook his head. “Trust me. The last thing you are is boring.”

She pointed her fork at him. “Trust
me
. You are the only person who thinks that.”

Sadly.

He shrugged. “Their loss.”

“Being boring is a plus in the job column anyhow.”

“How so?” He leaned back on his elbows and grinned at her. “Because I’m thinking that means I won’t be exploring my career options with the sheriff’s department.”

“We have a morals clause in our contract.”

“Uh-huh. Is that the part where you promise to behave and not get caught visiting bondage clubs?”

“I signed on the dotted line promising that I’d be of good moral character and would do nothing to besmirch the department’s good name.”

“Sounds medieval.”

Maybe, but it seemed hypocritical to arrest people for stuff she’d done or the guys she’d worked with had done. They had to be that little bit better, control their urges better.

“Someone in the department just got busted for having an affair,” she blurted out. “He taped himself in his uniform, having sex in his patrol car.”

“Sounds like more than an affair to me. Maybe he wanted to shake things up some.” He ran a finger down her arm. She wished she’d taken the time to take her sweatshirt off so he was touching bare skin instead. He didn’t seem to mind though.

“Monday is pretty much like Tuesday, and Wednesday takes after Tuesday,” she admitted. “But making a sex tape on the job is pretty extreme.”

She thought he would make a joke, but instead he nodded slowly, like he was thinking things over. 

“When we were deployed,” he said, “plenty of guys complained about the sameness of the days. Every day that ended in
y
, we had the same tents, same sand, same faces. You try to be all Zen about it, but the fighting becomes a welcome relief. A change-up to the same old same old.”

“I don’t mind things staying the same,” she said, just in case he thought she was bored enough with her day-to-day to make a sex tape.

He leaned over and sniffed her. “You’re not wearing the same perfume.”

While he, on the other hand, smelled like fresh air and sawdust and Joey. She tried and failed to imagine him at Macy’s men’s counter, picking out scents. He wasn’t a cologne guy, except she somehow knew that if she gave him a bottle of the stuff, he’d wear it.
Don’t think about civilizing him. Don’t think about keeping him
, she told herself. Joey was fun and he was sexy, but he wasn’t a keeper. If she wanted her walk on the wild side, he was the perfect man for the job, but once their walk was over, he’d keep right on walking.

Out of her life.

“You want to discuss my choice in scents?” Because that wasn’t her first choice in conversational topics.

She snuck another peek at him. She might be okay with a temporary man. Joey was a crème brûlée kind of man, the perfect treat but too rich for an everyday diet. He was funny, flirtatious, and sex on a stick. If she gave him the go-ahead, he’d rock her world in bed and she’d be a happy, happy woman for a few weeks. She had a feeling that he’d handle their breakup as smoothly as he did everything else. They’d drift apart or he’d have work calls, but there wouldn’t be a dramatic fight or fireworks. She could work with that.

“I like the way you smell.” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Do you want me to say more?”

Please.

“I’m a cheap date. I use those little cards that fall out of my magazines.” She wasn’t good with words or flirty exchanges, and she couldn’t, wouldn’t change who she was, even for him. She might want to
have
more fun, but she was still the same person she’d always been.

***

J
oey obviously didn’t read the same magazines that Mercy did. In fact, now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d picked one up. While he didn’t necessarily want to smell like roses himself, perhaps she was onto something. He made a mental note to stock up the next time he was standing in the supermarket checkout line. Or maybe one of the Donovan ladies could hook him up. He could save a tree and time.

“What else is in your magazines?” From the grin on Mercy’s face, she’d only confessed to half the truth. He had secret methods of getting women to talk, so he tickled her gently, nipping her waist with his fingers. She shrieked, and he caught her plate, setting it carefully beside her. There was no point in wasting a perfectly fine piece of chocolate cake.

“Sex tips.” She smacked his shoulder. “Don’t
do
that.”

He hadn’t seen that answer coming. “I need to start reading more.”

She reappropriated her cake and took a large bite. “God. That’s good. Do you need the help?”

“It’s not help. It’s intel.” Although, apparently, he could just ply her with chocolate and maybe she’d come that way. Or he could cover them both with the sweet stuff and see what happened...

“Really?” She made a disparaging sound. “Sounds like an assist to me.”

He jerked his thoughts back to the present.

“Why do you want to sleep with me?”

“I’ll buy you a mirror.” He snuck a crumb of cake off her plate.

She looked amused. “I’m giving you fair warning. Try that again and things are going to get ugly.”

“Duly noted.”

“And I’m still waiting for your answer.”

“Eat your cake,” he said. He wasn’t sure why he wanted Mercy so badly, only that he did. They were all wrong for each other in some ways—and so very, very right in others. Winning an invite to her bed topped his fantasy list, but what had seemed like a fun challenge a few weeks ago was now something more. He had a feeling that once he got the uniform off her, the woman beneath would be stunning—and not just because she would be naked. Although naked was good too. Fantastic. Absolutely number one on his new Mercy to-do list.