Navy SEALs Complete Series: 3 Books + 3 Novellas (Tempting Navy SEALs) (2 page)

He also wasn’t comfortable sitting on the back porch, his jeans tighter than normal, his skin too sensitive. The situation was getting out of control. Two years he had fought this awareness of her, and it was only growing rather than dimming. He was only growing hungrier, and that scared the hell out of him.

“Earth to Clint,” Morganna announced when he hadn’t answered her, waving her hand in front of his face as he shifted in his chair and thanked God she couldn’t see the erection swelling mindlessly beneath his jeans.

“I head out day after tomorrow.” He shot her an irritated glare as she leaned against the post directly in front of his porch chair.

Right in front of him, where he could see the rise of her full breasts against the soft cotton shirt she wore and received the full effect of those long, gorgeous legs encased in snug denim.

“Everyone’s leaving me,” she said softly, staring over his shoulder with a wistful expression. “Raven’s got her internship in the art design school this fall; she’ll not even be in the state. You and Reno will be gone. It’s going to be lonely here.”

Morganna had accepted a scholarship at Atlanta University to stay close to home.

“You have your friends,” he reminded her, forcing back a grimace at the thought of the pimple-faced boys she ran with in that crowd.

“Yeah.” She nodded firmly. “I do. I’ll be fine.”

He watched her inhale slowly, deeply, and tightened his jaw at the realization that he had managed to hurt her. Though how he didn’t have a clue.

“Aunt Beth remarked that this is the last time she’ll have to stay with me,” Morganna said then, her tone a little too bright. “Reno was a little slow on this one. I think he’s afraid I’ll burn the house down or something.”

“Reno worries about you being alone.” Clint worried. God, did he worry.

“You could stay with me,” she said softly. “You have two more days before you leave. I could call Aunt Beth. She would be happy to be able to stay home with her flowers and her neighbors.”

His gaze sharpened on Morganna’s face as he swallowed tightly and rose quickly from his chair.

“Won’t work, brat.” He forced the words past his throat. “I have to get ready to head out.”

“Yeah. Sure.” She nodded quickly, pushing away from the post as she moved to go around him. “Look, head on back to that rinky-dink little apartment of yours and whatever flavor of the week you have in your bed. I’m sick of watching you track each vehicle down the road praying it’s Aunt Beth. I’ll be fine without you.”

He caught her arm as she moved for the back door, pulling her around and making the biggest damned mistake of his
life. Because he saw her tears. Because he saw the hurt in her eyes as she turned away.

“I know what you’re doing,” he said softly. “I know what you’re offering, Morganna. Don’t make me hurt you. I don’t want to do that.”

Her expression twisted, determination, defiance, and, God help him, adoration filling her eyes. She saw him as some damned knight there to fulfill all her girlish dreams. He was a bastard for even daring to consider touching her. And he wasn’t, he assured himself. He wanted to touch her, but he was old enough that wants wouldn’t hurt him.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I’ve always loved you, Clint.”

“No.” He shook his head firmly, maintaining his hold on her arm as his other hand lifted to touch her cheek gently. His thumb slid over her lips, just because he needed to know if they were as soft as they looked. “You have a crush on me. I’m the only man you can’t twist around your little finger.” He smiled gently. “That’s all, Morganna. And nothing can come of it. Nothing can happen but the loss of something I cherish. Your friendship.”

“I can’t pretend,” she whispered passionately. “You still see me as a child. I’m not a child.”

“Then don’t act like one,” he suggested in return.

Pain flared in her eyes a second before he saw something more. Determination, yes. But something shocking, something almost frightening. He saw hunger. Sexual, intense, and more than he ever wanted to see in her eyes.

“Just kiss me good-bye then.” Her breath hitched. “Just a little kiss.”

“Morganna.” He held her still, staring down at her in regret. Regret for more than she could ever understand. Then he made the mistake of stroking over those soft lips once again.

They parted, the warmth of her mouth searing his flesh as her tongue peeked out to swipe over his thumb before her lips parted and her sharp little teeth nipped at the pad.

And he lost his mind. Hell, he couldn’t even claim insanity, because even a crazy man would have walked away. Instead, in less than a second he had her in his arms, his hand snagging her hair at the back of her neck to pull her head back and his lips covering hers.

She was innocent. He tasted it in her kiss. Felt it in the shock that stiffened her body as he gave her a man’s kiss. A man’s hunger. Slanting his lips over hers, he fought to consume, in one kiss, all the hunger, the sweetness, and the insane need possible. To hold inside his memories.

Sharp, hard kisses parted her lips. His tongue licked over them, before thrusting inside, before possessing her in a way he knew he should have never attempted.

Because she was sweeter than sweet. Hot as hell. And the pleasure ripped through his senses like a cascading explosion as she moaned against his mouth.

As quickly as he had taken her lips, he released her, jerking back to glare down at her as she stared back in shock, in a pleasure that darkened her gray eyes and flushed her heart-shaped face.

“It’s never going to happen,” he snapped, gripping her shoulders to give her a little shake that he prayed would instill some common sense inside her. “Little party girls and Navy SEALs don’t work out, Morganna. Stick to the little boys you run with and leave the men alone. You’ll be a hell of a lot safer that way.”

Before she could argue, and he knew she would argue, he turned and strode quickly from the porch and across the yard to the car he had left parked in the back lot. Staying with her any longer was out of the question.

MORGANNA AT TWENTY-ONE

Being alone sucked. Morganna stared around the living room of the house she had once shared with her parents and her
brother. Her parents were dead, her brother was gone more often than he was home, and one day he wouldn’t be here at all.

Her best friend, Raven, spent most of her evenings and nights studying the graphic design she had grown so adept at, and Morganna was stuck in an office job she hated.

And she was alone. Because she didn’t have the common sense to let go of a dream and a man who didn’t want her.

She walked through the living room, moving to the shelf of pictures she kept and the memories they brought.

Clint was in most of them. With her, her brother, and her parents. Handsome. Tough. Hard. Clint had always been harder than he should have been, tougher than anyone else around him. And he had ruined her heart for any other man.

But she was still alone.

Tucked between two of the pictures were the pamphlets she had kept from the Academy. The Law Enforcement Academy was accepting applicants.

She had meant to discuss it with Reno when he was home the week before, but the stay had been a brief one, and he had been exhausted. He had slept the two days he had been home, only to have to leave again.

She laid her head against the shelf and closed her eyes. He would worry if he knew anyway. And Clint, jerk that he was, would do everything to stop her. And he could stop her. He had connections in Atlanta, connections she couldn’t afford to let him use. As long as no one knew she was Reno Chavez’s sister, then there wasn’t a chance of anyone saying anything to Clint. And what were the chances that the guys at the Academy would really care to call Reno and let him know jack? Especially if his name wasn’t on her list of contacts.

She tapped her nail against the papers.

She was bored and she was alone. She wanted more than a secretarial job going nowhere and a silent house every night. Like Reno, she wanted to make a difference. She wanted more than to keep dreaming of something that didn’t exist.

She sighed wearily. Restlessly. She was tired of just being Reno’s sister. Or Clint McIntyre’s responsibility when Reno wasn’t around. She was tired of being put on a shelf and taken down to perform when they decided to visit.

She was strong enough to be who and what she wanted to be. And she didn’t want to wait for Clint any longer.

She pulled the papers from the shelf, shoved them in her purse, and grabbed her car keys. She wasn’t waiting any longer.

Clint stood in the shadows of one of his favorite clubs, his eyes narrowed on the dance floor. He liked Diva’s for a variety of reasons. The music was a mix of tracks. A little hard rock, a little Goth, a little pure fun. The women were the same mix, but he had found they all went for one thing in particular. The darker edge of sex. The dominance games, the harder, powerful sensations to be found with a man willing to push their limits. He hadn’t expected to find Morganna here.

The music playing now, he imagined, was meant to be pure fun. It should have been causing a riot.

A mix of fury, disbelief, and wild hunger filled him as he watched the witchy little woman on the dance floor strut some daring stuff. She had his body tense, his cock engorged. A man only thought about one thing when he watched a woman dance like that, and it wasn’t how concerned he should be with her safety. A man thought about sex when he watched her, and when he watched her dancing like a wanton, the need for sex overrode all else.

The song was a fast-paced rock version of a messed-up line dance, he guessed. The dance floor was packed with women and a few men, laughingly following the singer’s direction. Hell if he had ever heard of the guy. Casper? Clint shook his head in disgust. Diva’s had an interesting mix of music some nights. The point being to get the women on the dance floor. On display.

This music wasn’t his thing, but Morganna was.

Unfortunately.

There she was, dressed in a little hip-hugger girls’-school skirt that barely covered her curvy little ass. Her ass nothing,
the top of the skirt barely kept her decent. He swore if it dipped just a breath, then there would be no secrets left to bare between those pretty, shapely thighs.

The white tank top she wore might at first thought have been considered demure. On the rack it might have been decent. On Morganna, it was a crime. It barely reached her belly button, flashing an indecent amount of skin, not to mention that damned gold belly ring he didn’t know she had. When the hell had she had her belly button pierced? Raven hadn’t said anything about that, and his sister was usually a font of information where Morganna was concerned.

The top was thin; thankfully, it looked like she might be wearing a bra. He couldn’t be sure from this distance. She wore a pair of black-and-white girl’s shoes on her dainty feet but a pair of over-the-knee white stockings on her sexy legs. Those stockings were going to be the death of him. He could see her stretched out on his bed, her hands tied to the headboard with the silky hose while he stretched between her thighs and drove her crazy with his mouth. The image almost had him panting in anticipation. Oh yeah, he knew exactly how to use those stockings.

Long, long, nut-brown hair rippled down her back as she tilted her hips forward, placed one dainty foot in front of her, and shook her ass in a move that had a cold sweat popping up on his brow. His dick was ecstatic. If she could dance like that, then those sweet hips moving, rotating, thrusting, would play hell on a man’s sanity in the bed.

And to top the entire outfit off was a thin black leather collar buckled around her neck.

Sweet God have mercy, Clint prayed silently as he watched her, his eyes narrowed, his muscles tense. And the truly frightening part was that she was actually having fun. He could see it in her face, in her exotically tilted laughing gray eyes. In the way she moved.

If she put half as much effort into fucking a man as she did
into driving them crazy on that dance floor, then Clint was in trouble. Deep, deep doo-doo, as his dad once used to say.

As the song came to an end, she shook her head, causing that long skein of hair to ripple and sway again as the leather-clad man beside her lifted her in his arms and swung her around with a laugh.

If his hand had slipped down so much as a thought farther than it had toward her shapely ass, then he would have gone on the endangered-species list. Because Clint knew he would have tried to kill him.

She patted the man’s shoulder, making a laughing comment as she turned away and headed back to the crowded table she had been sitting at. The chairs were taken, but rather than taking the offer one of the men made as he patted his knee, her hip bumped at one of the women, who moved over a few scant inches on her own, allowing Morganna to perch on the edge.

She crossed her legs as she leaned forward, listening to something the heavily Goth-dressed woman beside her was relating with an animated wave of her hands.

Clint wiped the sweat from his brow and took a deep, steadying breath. He felt as though he had run a marathon. His heart was pounding in his chest, blood pooling between his thighs, torturing his cock. And it was all Morganna’s fault.

He glared back at her, not even bothering to rein in the crash of male irritation the thought brought. What the hell was she doing here? The women who came to Diva’s knew the score, knew what they wanted, but even more, they knew what the men wanted. Sex. Wild, often extreme, sometimes not so sober, sex.

He shifted his shoulders, flexing the muscles in an effort to relax, at least marginally, to find the strength to pull his eyes from the sight of the leather-clad man who had embraced her moments ago, bending close to her, his hand lying intimately on her shoulder.

Clint had been standing there for over an hour, hiding in the dark corner, watching her, trying to watch those around her.