Revealing Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 4) (15 page)

She held out a hand, silently offering it to him. He didn’t mistake it as anything other than a new deal. If he took it, that meant he’d see it through, no matter how deep this went.

No lies
. It wasn’t a real rule. But there was still power in having a safe place away from everyday life that gave him the freedom to do and say whatever he wanted. There were no bars here, nothing to numb his pain. Except when he was with Rachel, he didn’t want to be numb.

He wanted to feel. He wanted to pretend there were no consequences for bad choices, that like she said—he could have his cake and eat it too, and when they got back to the real world, whatever had happened here on Ilhota Rosa could stay here.

No lies.

He reached out. For the first time, instead of denying it, the shock of their connection thrilled him. Because this was a date, and if he wanted to be attracted to her, it was okay.

They walked hand in hand toward the beach. Sand shifted under their feet, but Rachel held tight and he never once felt as if the world was sliding away under him. Her strength bled through him, and he grabbed on to it eagerly, letting it infuse through him. Something told him he might need it later.

He took the blanket to spread it out on the sand while she pulled sandwiches and water bottles from her bag. As they settled in to eat, something lightened inside him all at once. He shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” he asked.

Her laugh washed over him, and he made a mental note to make her do that at least a hundred more times. Evan had experienced very little laughter that lodged in his soul like hers did.

“I’m wearing my contacts. Normally I don’t because…” She shut her eyes for a beat. “I like my glasses. They’re another layer between me and the world. You’re the only person who’s ever realized that.”

The vibe between them shifted. He couldn’t put his finger on what changed, but it was equal parts easy and electrifying. As if anything could happen, but if nothing did, they could relax and have fun on this date.

“I haven’t been on a date in a long time,” he confessed. “I might not do it right.”

Leaning back, she stretched out her long legs, kicked off her sandals, and crossed her ankles, sandwich in hand. “I’ve been on lots of dates. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing it right either. Can we forget about scorecards?”

Since that sounded like exactly what he could handle at the moment, he nodded and held up the sandwich. “Chicken cacciatore, I’m assuming?”

“Yep. Took me forever to make it. I was scared I’d miss you, and then when I did finally get to the island, you weren’t here. What took you so long? I was about to text Charlie to come get me.”

Of course she’d devised an escape plan. But he wasn’t sorry he’d come ashore, despite the difficult question. “I was at the resort bar.”

Actually that hadn’t been hard to say at all. Rachel already knew his weaknesses and was here anyway. He wasn’t going to make the mistake of assuming anything about what motivated her, not anymore.

Her expression didn’t change. “Trying to test your willpower?”

Her assumption that he’d passed pleased him for God knew what reason. “My entire life is a test, twenty-four seven. The guys all keep beer in their refrigerators. The hotel has four bars. I have access to the speedboat and a license to drive it to any port in the Bahamas.”

“Yet you don’t give in,” she murmured. “You’re amazing, Evan, and I admire the hell out of you.”

“Keep your praise. Tomorrow might be the day I crumble.”

It was the unvarnished truth, and it had come out as naturally as breathing. He liked the fact that he could be transparent without censure—his or hers.

She nodded. “Could be. But I doubt it or I wouldn’t be here.”

“Why are you here? In the Bahamas?” He’d gotten a little of the story from Dex, but it had an Emma bent that he suspected wasn’t anything close to Rachel’s story.

“I’m running away from home, of course. Isn’t everyone?”

The blanket statement was so true he had to laugh. “I’m pretty sure, yeah.”

That had so much wrapped up in it he fully expected her to probe it with her lawyer brain, dissecting his prior life with pointed questions until he confessed everything. Which might be a nice change for once.

“I have an eleven-year-old daughter,” she said quietly. “Somewhere.”

Holy hell. Missing daughters was not the thing he would have expected them to have in common.

Anguish so colored her voice that he immediately revised his assumption that the majority of the crap standing between them was his. This confession was one of her layers, and she’d freely offered to peel it back for him. Warmth splashed through his heart, and he let it.

Sandwich forgotten, he rolled toward her, closing the gap between them because he needed to be within touching distance. Her breath caught as she stared at him.

Slowly he slid a fingertip down her temple, hooking a lock of her shiny brown hair and tucking it behind her ear. “Tell me.”

“Teen pregnancy.” Her wry smile packed a punch, despite the heavy subject. “She deserved a better life than the one I could give her, or so I was convinced. I gave her up for adoption.”

“But you regret it.”

She recoiled, clearly surprised he’d zeroed in on that, but come on. It was all over her face, and it cut through him.

“Every day. But it’s done and I can’t undo it. I have a degree that I might never have achieved as a single teenage mom. I opted for an open adoption so she can contact me if she decides to. Every day, I think, this might be the day. How will I explain that it was more important for me to become a bloodthirsty lawyer than it was to be her mom?”

Rachel’s voice shattered, and he couldn’t do anything else but sweep her into his arms. She shuddered against his shoulder, but her arms slid around him in kind and she held on. Desperately. His hands tangled in her hair as he murmured nonsense in her ear for an eternity while her hot tears soaked into his shirt.

Nonsense
. Because what could he say when his own sins mirrored hers? Jordan might one day ask similar questions about her dad, and what would be his defense?
Nada
.

Eventually she stilled, and her head drifted to the side, cheek resting on his shoulder.

“I’m okay now, thanks.” Her lips fluttered against his throat, and he had a very inappropriate reaction to it. It was wrong to push his flesh against her mouth while she was in the throes of all this anguish.

But he had Rachel in his arms, and the smell of her hair was driving him mad. He wanted to feel something other than lost and alone and damaged.

Instead of berating him for it, her lips fused to his neck, hesitantly. Then with more intent, shafting heat through his entire body. Suddenly the vibe on their blanket shifted again, into a specific sort of urgency that he welcomed.

He tipped back his head to give her more access, even as he hefted her deeper into his arms, shoving his thigh between hers to align their bodies better. Oh God, yes, that was better. Her hips snugged up against his, and he fully appreciated how thin her sundress was as heat radiated from her core, which he could feel even through his jeans.

Her lips nipped at him in a little trail across his jaw, meandering toward his mouth at a maddening snail’s pace. With a growl he spread his fingers at the base of her head and brought that diesel-powered mouth to his. And kissed her.

She moaned as he opened her up, delving deep to possess her mouth with tongue flicks that she responded to instantly with her own. The taste of her exploded through his senses, and he needed more of her. Because there was no way he’d let this kiss end like the last one, he felt around for her hand and guided it under his shirt, laying it directly on top of the worst of the rippled flesh across his left side.

“Shrapnel,” he murmured against her mouth. “Not bullets.”

Her fingers spread, lightly caressing each indentation. “I want to see.”

Without hesitation he sat up and whipped off his shirt, twisting at the waist. He raised his arm to give her a better view. No lies. He had to remove this obstacle between them, no matter how difficult it was to let her into his pain, no barriers.

Her gaze roved over him, slowly and silently cataloging the places.

Carrie had gasped and covered her mouth, her revulsion cutting him to the bone. As if he could help the fact that battlefield wounds were horrific, and no he didn’t still have the same body as when he’d left the states.

“I’m sorry, Evan,” she murmured. “That’s a raw deal. Was it bad?”

He nodded and left it at that. She didn’t. She crawled up on her knees, hands to his shoulders, guiding him back against the blanket. He shouldn’t let her but God, was it so wrong to want this encounter to end differently than the last one?

But then she placed her lips on the closest wound, then the next, and the next until the heaviness in his chest made it too hard to breathe.

This was all wrong, the way she was worshiping his body with her mouth. He didn’t deserve that. She should be the one gasping under his touch.

“Stop,” he choked out.

She laid her cheek against his chest. “You’re so beautiful, Evan. I can’t stop. Don’t ask me to.”

“Rachel,” he said hoarsely and trailed off because what else was there to say but that?

“I’m not going anywhere. Let me see you in my own way. Please.”

Her fragmented plea snapped something inside him, a final barrier against her that he hadn’t realized was still there. But she’d broken it as easily as she’d laid her lips on his skin.

Nodding because he couldn’t have spoken if his life depended on it, he raised his arms behind his head, giving her full access to do whatever she pleased. It was a surrender in every sense of the word, and he wondered if she fully understood what she’d asked of him, what it meant that he’d given it to her.

Surrender wasn’t something he did lightly given how catastrophic the results could be when he let go of his iron will.

But then her eyelids lowered to half-mast as she slid her fingertips over his chest, following the hills and valleys until she hit the waistband of his jeans. Which she promptly unfastened, dipping inside to take him in hand, apparently unaware that when a guy hadn’t had sex in over a year, everything operated on a very fine hair trigger.

He shuddered as her fingers tightened around his flesh. Playtime was over. Very over.

Evan’s erection pulsed against Rachel’s fingers, and she nearly wept with the perfection of it. She wanted to taste him, to pleasure him until he forgot all about the ugliness of the war he’d fought. He needed her to be with him, to salve his aches and whisper to him that it was going to be okay.

He needed
her
. She was finally in a place where she could give him that. As long as they were on Ilhota Rosa, she could be what he needed and worry about the ramifications later.

With a guttural growl, Evan forcibly removed Rachel’s hand from his pants. “Not so fast.”

With a
tsk
, she shook her head. “I barely got started.”

Those pants needed to come off. Right now. A lovely orgasm was in his future, and she had enough skill that she’d get to watch while he came. She went to work on pulling the waistband down around his hips when Evan manacled her wrists, halting her easily.

Startled, she glanced up into his dark eyes.

Something new flashed through them, a spark she hadn’t seen before with a hint of wicked laced through it that skittered down her spine. “Why did you stop me?”

“I think you’ve
seen
enough,” he murmured. “It’s my turn.”

He pulled on her trapped wrists, twisting her back against the blanket until she lay deliciously confined underneath him, her wrists still encircled by his hands. He drew them upward, pressing them into the blanket as he settled into the grooves of her body.

He was gorgeous, dark in all the right places, with muscles that bunched beautifully when he flexed. The lines of his cut torso called her name, and she definitely planned to answer.

She tried to pull her wrists free. “Evan, I want to touch you. Let go.”

“No. Don’t make me tie you up.”

A dark, wicked thrill tore through her, flooding the juncture between her legs with damp heat. Automatically she tilted her hips seeking relief from the ache. But the hard length she sought stayed maddeningly out of reach. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

He chuckled against her throat, nipping at her sensitive skin. “Both. Lie still and let me taste you.”

Oh, well, if he was going to insist…

Transferring her crossed wrists to one strong hand, he trailed the other one down her jaw lazily, as if he had all the time in the world. Her skin pebbled under his touch, and she willed him to hurry with this unexplained side trip. The sooner he finished this lazy exploration, the sooner they could get on with the good part. Her on top, riding him to a blistering climax, head thrown back as she worked them both. Yeah. She’d been dreaming about that for ages.

He followed the line of his knuckle with his lips until he hit the neckline of her sundress. His teeth caught the fabric, scraping across the swell of her breast as he dragged it down. She arched involuntarily, pushing into his mouth with a gasp.