Breaking Through (Book 2 of the SEAL TEAM Heartbreakers) (37 page)

“Would you like to order something to eat?” he asked.

“No thanks. Maybe later. How’s your side?”

 “Better. Itching, so it must be healing.” He leaned back against the door

“What did Doc mean when he asked if Hawk had filled you in?”

“There’s some political stuff going down, and they’re being deployed.”

“But they just got home what—five months ago?”

“Yeah.”

She studied his expression. “Can you share it with me?”

“Yeah, but I was hoping to spend time with you first.”

When she smiled, he knew he’d finally gotten something right. He pushed away from the door and linking his fingers with hers, guided her to the couch.

Her expression grew grave as he placed the Sig on the oak end table.

“It’s just a precaution.”

“I’ve never been around guns, Brett.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” He picked up the weapon, released the magazine, and ejected the round in the chamber, double-checked, then offered her the empty pistol, butt first. “It’s a part of who I am, Tess.”

Her hand wrapped around the gun’s grip, and she held it in her lap. “It’s heavier than I thought it would be.”

“I can take you to a public range and let you shoot it.”

She bit her lip and ran her fingers over the barrel of the weapon.

He slid his arm around her and guided her into holding the pistol in a firing grip.

She smelled like citrus and spice, her hair lay against his cheek, the texture a little coarse compared to the silky smoothness of her skin. The contrast mirrored the qualities in her personality. She had complete confidence when she had the recorder in her hands or a pad and pen. She was intelligent, focused, and patient when doing an interview. She’d wooed him into dropping his guard and giving her what she needed. And then there was her uncertainty when it came to the sharing herself with him. Had she always been that way? Or had it happened after the asshole she’d told him about had betrayed her?

“Maybe you’d better take this,” she said. The Sig looked weighty and foreign in her hand, and she held it awkwardly, her fingers wrapped around the trigger guard and ejection port.

He took the weapon by the grip, and then caught his breath as her hand dropped to his thigh and ran up the inside of his leg toward his groin.

Had he thought her shy? Her smile was laced with amusement.

“Have you ever seen that movie where the guy calls his rifle a gun and his drill instructor makes him repeat over and over this is my rifle, this is my gun?”

“It’s called
Full Metal Jacket
,” he managed, though he couldn’t draw a full breath with her fingers resting high inside his thigh.

“I’ve handled your weapon, now I’d like to touch your gun.”

CHAPTER 30

Just the thought of her touching him sent blood rushing to his cock so quickly he thought he’d explode. When Tess leaned forward and kissed him the last remnants of surprise dissolved into full-fledged, raging need. He tossed the pistol on the cushion next to him to free his hand and reached for her. The hot hungry way her lips and tongue tangled with his drove his desire higher. His erection pushed against his zipper, painful and hard.

“I was trying not to pounce on you the moment you walked in the door,” he said when the kiss broke. She turned and straddled his lap and his hands ran down over her slender hips. He grabbed one of the round bolster pillows from the end of the couch and shoved it behind him to support his lower back.

“Me, too.” Her cheeks were flushed and her lips berry red from the pressure of the kiss. “I tried to talk Doc out of coming up with me.” Her fingers rolled up the bottom of his t-shirt and when she dragged it upward, Brett wiggled free eager to be skin-to-skin with her. 

When he followed suit with her silk tank top, she shimmied free, then pressed her bare breasts against him. His breath seized, then released. Oh God, her skin was as soft as the silk she’d been wearing and her breasts were high and perfect, a lush handful that peaked against his palm. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever touched, Tess,” he said his tone husky. She was, with her long, lithe body and pale skin.

Her sherry brown eyes turned dark and sultry as her hand grazed the bandage over his side. “Are you sure you’re okay to—”

He kissed her, cutting off the question.
Screw the pain.
He’d die if he didn’t have her, right now.
His hands ran up her thighs beneath the wraparound skirt and encountered, instead of lacy underwear, only luscious, warm, bare skin. He groaned aloud.

She sat next to Doc in the car without any panties on. Jesus.
The need to claim her, to mark her as his, raged through him, raw and basic. He slid a hand between their bodies and found the intimate heart of her with his fingers and caressed her, tempted her. She was so warm and wet.

Tess caught her breath and soft color rose to her cheeks. Her voice turned breathy and weak as she said his name. The way she responded to his touch sent a wave of heat through him. The urge to free himself and thrust up inside her was almost overwhelming. Instead, he palmed the rounded curve of her buttocks and wiggled down, aligning their bodies so when she pressed down she’d ride against the bulge beneath his pants.
Jesus, his damn side hurt, but this felt too good to stop.
He drew her lips back to his again and tried to slow things down by guiding the movement of her hips.
Can’t take that for very long without something major happening
. His fingers found his zipper
. And where the hell did I put that condom?

***

Tess rose up on her knees to give Brett room to shove his pants down. He jerked his wallet free from a pocket and produced a condom. “I’ve been carrying this around, in hope, since we first met.” He tore open the packet.

Tess plucked it from the wrapper. The hard length of his erection brushed against her intimately beneath her skirt and the desire just to sink down on top of him was almost uncontrollable. Had she ever wanted a man like this before?
Never
. “Let me put the safety on,” she said, her voice a husky whisper.

Brett groaned again. “You’re killing me, baby. I’ll never touch my weapon again without thinking of you,” he said, his lips finding her throat, her collarbone. The moist heat sent arrows of sensation downward to her breasts.

As she rolled the condom down over his erect penis she caught her breath, he was so warm and thick. She slid back and guided him inside her. Brett’s head fell back against the couch cushions and a sound, half groan, half sigh, escaped him. She bit her lip to keep from echoing it. For a few breathtaking moments she contented herself with just rotating her hips and pushing down, taking him as far inside as she could.

She brushed a hand over the blond hair at his temple and the scar there. She brushed her lips over his brow, his cheek, until she found his lips again. He ran his palms up over her bare back and, when she drew back, looked up at her, his blue eyes alight with desire. She braced her hand atop the couch and began to move—slow, careful, mindful of his injury. But when his hips rose to meet her, her heart stuttered as pleasure spiraled through her. The compulsion for release took over, and she captured a slow, steady rhythm, guided by the pressure of Brett’s hands and the upward thrust of his hips. His breathing grew as ragged as hers. Her muscles tensed as, with every movement, the elusive moment of release crept closer and closer. Brett murmured her name as he swelled, filling her to the point of pain, and an orgasm hit her so fierce prickles rolled outward from her core to her fingers and toes. The answering pulse of Brett’s release brought on another wave, this time gentler, yet enough to make her hum with pleasure.

She rested her forehead against the back of the couch. With Brett’s breath hot against her neck, she tried to catch her own. Minutes passed before she started to ease away, but his arms tightened around her. “I know your legs are probably killing you, but don’t move yet,” he said.

Her heart turned over, and, smiling, she straightened enough to look into his face.

He brushed the weight of her hair over her shoulder and his hand trailed down the slope of her back from her shoulder to her waist, then around to cup her breast.

As he played with her distended nipple, nerve endings fired, running from the peak of her breasts downward to where their bodies were still connected. She drew in a shaky breath.

“I could spend hours just touching you,” he said, huskily.

“I’ve felt the same way about you,” she said, and when the heat of a blush rushed into her face, she looked away.

He cupped her cheek and ran a thumb over her cheekbone, then, thrusting his fingers through her hair and cradling her head, he drew her lips to his. He kissed her with a long, slow thoroughness that left her weak and aching.

“Just thinking about you sitting next to Doc in the car without your panties on … Promise you’ll only do that with me from now on.”

It had taken her hours to build up the nerve to ditch them, and all the way to the hotel she’d felt self-conscious and uncomfortable. But his reaction when he’d discovered them missing had been worth it. “Doc didn’t know.”

“Promise.”

That possessive, protective look on his face stole her breath and thrilled her.

“I promise.”

He kissed her again. When she moved to rise, he steadied her.

Her legs ached from being in one position too long. Brett’s movements were a little stiff as well as he slid off the couch and hiked up his pants. He disappeared into the bathroom.

Tess retrieved her tank top from the floor and slid into it. She stretched luxuriously. Every muscle in her body felt loose, and there was a wonderful languorousness in her lower limbs.

She plucked the discarded pistol from between the couch cushions and gripped it. She held it in her hands as Brett had directed her and pointed it at one of the watercolor seascapes hung in a grouping on the wall.

“You need to widen your stance a little,” Brett said as he came out of the bathroom. She frowned in concern at the careful way he moved.

“Like this?” She increased the distance between her feet.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed close to her from behind. “Yeah.”

How could she want him again so quickly? “Where’s the safety?” she asked.

“It’s a military-grade Sig 226, so it doesn’t have one.” He nuzzled her neck.

She shivered and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Neither do you.”

He laughed. “A well-trained SEAL is always prepared.”

She smiled and turned to cuddle against him. She held the gun down at her side. “You can prove it after you’ve rested a while. And in the meantime you can tell me about this political issue you and your team are worried about.

“I’d rather take you to bed for about a week instead.”

“When you’re completely healed, I’ll hold you to that.”

His grin was something special. “Okay. But what I’m about to tell you has to stay off the record.”

She tensed. Would he ever learn to trust her?

“After we find who’s responsible, you can do what you want with the story. But you can’t use Hawk or me as corroboration. We have to stay below the radar on stuff like this. ”

Understanding eased the momentary hurt. “Okay.”

He drew her over to the bed to sit down. “About four months ago Derrick Armstrong had a meltdown. Because my team disarmed him instead of calling the police, someone’s looking for a way to prosecute them for acting in the capacity of police officers. If they’re able to do that, four of my teammates could go to federal prison. One of them is Hawk.”

Shock tumbled through Tess, taking her breath. “They can’t do that.”

“Yeah they can, unless we can figure out who’s putting pressure on the Justice Department to bring charges, and figure out how the hell someone in Iraq got my name.”

“Those two instances may not be related,” Tess said. “But my dad called this morning, and he thinks NCIS agents are following up his interviews. He reassured me your name hasn’t been shared with anyone through him. But someone must have said something, because he made a point of reassuring me.”

“I think both things may be connected, Tess. And if we can find the person responsible for one … ”

“Think in terms of what would motivate someone to leak your name,” she said.

“Money, power, revenge, being an evil asshole. In Iraq, all of those could apply. People there are poor, and though their religion encourages them not to get hung up on possessions, they have to eat.”

“But who there would have access to your background information and information about your missions there?”

“No one outside of the Special Ops community.”

“Who here would have access?”

“The same, but anyone on the SAC could if they knew who to approach. And someone on the committee is accessing information.”

“All right. Then we concentrate on the person we think might be involved, and ask ourselves what does he, or they, have to gain by going after you and the others?”

“They already have money and power so that only leaves being an evil asshole or revenge. I’m not ready to rule evil out, but why revenge? What could we have done in Iraq that would inspire someone to leak my name there, or go after the others here?”

“We have to look for a reason. And maybe somewhere along the way we’ll find out if our suspicions are correct. Even if they’re not, it might still lead us in the right direction.”

“There are five guys from the same team, me included, who are counting on what we can find.”

“Then I suppose we’d better get started.”

“First I need you to do something for me.” He slid his hand into hers and smiled in a way that her heart leapt to double time.

“What is it?”

“I need you to put on some underwear. Otherwise I won’t be able to think of anything but how you feel without them.”

***

Clara looked over her shoulder between the car sets to check on Evan. Even in sleep, his fingers gripped the pillow. His legs were bent and his bare feet braced against the opposite door. Despite his six-foot height, he looked small and so very young. How was it possible for anyone to be so thin and still be mobile? His elbows looked sharp enough to pierce his skin.