A Sexy SEAL Novella Anthology (12 page)

“We’ll have to toast Briarwood Court,” he
said. “Who’d have thought when we moved there fifteen years ago
that I’d bring the girl next door with me to celebrate my sister
marrying the guy across the street.”

Who, indeed.

“To hear dad tell it, it was all his idea,”
Bryanna said, her laugh taking on a teasing edge. “He said you’re
next, Russell.”

“Did he now?” Russell mused, giving Gwen the
oddest look. “I guess we’ll have to see how his planning works out.
Wont’ we, Gwen?”

Huh? Confused, her only response was a stiff
smile.

“Why don’t I get you ladies a drink so we
can have that toast?” Russell offered. “I’ll be right back.”

“Thanks,” Gwen said faintly. Since she
couldn’t escape, she hoped he’d make it a double.

“We’ll meet you at the buffet,” Bryanna
said. “I want to show Gwen the cake.”

“Yum, cake,” Gwen murmured.

Bryanna’s grin flashed with an ease Gwen had
always envied. Though two years younger, the blonde had always had
a huge personality.

“I just said that to get you alone,” Bryanna
said with a laugh as she tucked her arm into Gwen’s to pull her
across the room. “After all, I hear tonight could be extra
special.”

Bryanna led them easily through the noisy
crowd, tossing smiles and waves of acknowledgement as they went but
not slowing down.

“What could be more special than your
engagement?” Gwen countered absently, nodding to acquaintances as
they moved through the crowd, wishing someone would jump in and
demand her attention so she could escape the bridal joy emanating
from the younger woman long enough to catch her breath.

“Oh, I’d say another engagement would make
tonight perfect,” Bryanna told her, all but singing the words. She
stopped at the dessert table to offer Gwen a chocolate covered
strawberry before flashing a huge smile and rubbing her hands
together with barely controlled glee. The pretty woman leaned
forward to whisper, “Rumor has it that Russell’s going to make my
dad’s wish come true. He’s going to pop the question.”

“Russell is really getting engaged?” Gwen
frowned. How had she missed that? “I didn’t even realize he was
serious about anyone.”

“Um, helloo,” Bryanna drawled. She looked a
little confused as she gestured to Gwen with her second strawberry
before nibbling at the dark chocolate shell.

“Me?” Gwen laughed and shook her head. Even
as she tried to shrug it off, though, her stomach tightened into a
tiny, worried knot. “We aren’t even dating. I mean, we go to a
number of parties and social events together, but that’s business.
You know what a workaholic your brother is.”

“Sure, but he’s a workaholic who goes to
parties and social events now,” Bryanna said with an arch look. “He
didn’t do that before you came on board. And look at how
comfortable he is around you.”

“Russell and I have been friends since grade
school. That’s why he’s so comfortable with me and why he brings me
to those social events. It’s not because he’s interested in me
romantically. It’s because I’m safe and easy for him to hang out
with,” she defended, her smile sliding into a frown.

She wanted to laugh off the comments as the
sweet imaginings from a woman so wrapped up in her own love story
that she saw sequels everywhere. But the laugh got caught on the
knot in her throat.

“Big brother’s a little slow sometimes. And
he’s always been big on privacy. Nobody knows what Russell is going
to do half the time until he does it.” Bryanna shrugged. “You know
how he is, always thinking and rethinking things. Heck, it took him
a year to pick the rug in his office.”

Gwen blinked. Had Bryanna just compared her
to a Berber carpet? It didn’t matter. She was sure the younger
woman was wrong. She cast a desperate look around the room,
searching for Russell so he could set his sister straight.

“Sam thinks it’s cool, too.” Bryanna’s words
snagged Gwen’s attention again. “He even promised to try to get
leave for your wedding. You’ll let me know when it is soon,
right?”

Gwen pressed her fingers over her temple,
hoping she could rub away the confusion.

“You told Sam about this?” she repeated
faintly.

“Well, yeah. I mean, helloo, we’re getting
married. That means we tell each other everything.” When Gwen
raised her brows, Bryanna shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “Okay, so
I tell him everything. I know he’s got all that top secret SEAL
stuff going on now. I’m just glad he didn’t listen to Eli and buy
into the whole SEALs go it alone stuff they used to spout.”

With an easy roll of her eyes, Bryanna
dismissed her older brother’s oft-spouted beliefs. Beliefs that
Noah
had
bought into, lock stock and barrel.

“Are you okay?” the younger woman asked,
gripping Gwen’s arm. “You’re kinda pale.”

Pale, sick to her stomach and filled with
such a flurry of emotions that Gwen was surprised her hair wasn’t
standing on end.

“I’m going to get a breath of air,” she
excused, hoping she wasn’t wheezing. “Back in a flash.”

She considered it a credit to her
control—and her four-inch-heels—that she didn’t run for the balcony
doors. Instead she made her way across the room in a sedate
saunter, which was the best her shaking knees could handle.

Shit, shit, shit.

She liked Russell.

She’d worked with him for two and a half
years now, had known him even longer since they’d grown up in the
same neighborhood. Russell, Bryanna and their older brother Eli had
lived across the street from Gwen, and next door to Bryanna’s
fiancé Sam and his brother, Noah.

And unlike Noah had been, Russell was a
sweet guy, and a great friend.

And he’d been a great safety net the last
few years, a nice buffer against her mom’s matchmaking and the idea
of dating. Could that have given him the wrong impression? It must
have if he was thinking marriage.

Marriage that he was going to propose
tonight of all nights.

Could this fiasco get any worse?

Gwen took a long, deep gulp of the foggy San
Francisco air, hoping it’d clear her head.

Behind her, someone coughed a quiet bid for
attention.

Steeling herself with her best social smile,
Gwen turned to offer an excuse or a dismissal. Whichever would get
rid of the other person until she got herself together.

As if the heavens had heard her question and
mistaken it as a joke, there stood the man she’d never gotten over.
One shoulder leaning against a pillar, his crooked smile was as
familiar as her dreams.

“Hey, babe. Miss me?”

Damn, she was still gorgeous.

Gwen Fitzpatrick had always been good
looking. So much so that he’d sometimes wondered late at night if
he’d made her out to be prettier in his mind than she was in real
life.

But seeing her again for the first time in
three years, he had to admit it. None of his imaginings had come
close to how hot she was now.

She’d grown her hair out. Instead of framing
her face in a shaggy bob, it flowed over her shoulders like black
silk, the ends teasing the lush curves of her full breasts. His
hands warmed, itching to touch, to test their weight.

Had they changed?

Were her nipples still hypersensitive? Did
she moan when they were licked, whimper when they were nibbled?
Would she still come if he teased them and whispered dirty
suggestions in her ear?

Once upon a time, he’d known Gwen’s body as
well as he did his own. He’d known what turned her on, what sent
her over the edge. He’d known where her boundaries were and how to
push her past them. He’d been able to read her every
expression.

Like the one she was giving him now.

Wide-eyed shock combined with a million
memories, a smidge of horror and, if he wasn’t mistaken, there
beneath that sheen of fear was a nice layer of lust.

He liked the lust. Especially when he was
feeling quite a bit of it himself.

Noah Morelli rocked back on his heels with a
wicked smile. Sure, it’d been three years since he’d last seen her.
Things changed. But as long as that lust was there, he figured he
had a shot at changing the important things back the way he wanted
them. Back the way they were meant to be.

Despite his decision to confront Gwen, he’d
wondered if his feelings for her were real or if he was in love
with the memory of Gwen rather than the woman herself.

That’s why he was here. To figure out his
emotions, to find out hers. Before it was too late.

He’d planned to take it slow. To keep this
first encounter non-threatening and talk her into meeting him in
the morning for coffee at that little café she’d liked so much.

But the tight heat in his body distracted
him. Damned if she didn’t still get him hard and ready with a
single glance. If he touched her skin, felt the silky texture of
her hair on his body, he knew the need would shift to throbbing
demand.

Ready to let it, desperate to appease it,
Noah moved forward.

Before he could reach out, before he’d taken
three steps, Gwen’s expression shifted. It was as if she’d turned
to ice. Her entire demeanor chilled, from her distant eyes to the
stiff set of her shoulders.

His grin faded.

When had she learned to do that?

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was so
cold he was surprised he couldn’t see an icy fog drifting off her
lips.

“It’s my brother’s engagement party,” he
countered. He was very well trained, so he knew his confusion
didn’t show on his face. But his irritation might. He’d never been
able to disguise his edgier feelings around Gwen. “Where else would
I be?”

The look in her big blue eyes suggested that
she’d rather he was dancing through the flames of hell. But unlike
the Gwen he’d known before, the siren on the balcony didn’t hiss
out a wish for his misery. She didn’t cuss at him or even toss a
sarcastic comment his way. She simply arched one of those slender
brows of hers and inclined her head, royal to peasant.

“Where else, indeed,” she murmured, flicking
a glance toward the party happening behind him. “Then you should be
in there with your brother, celebrating.”

He’d finagled leave, spent a day on standby
waiting for a plane, and then to top it all off, had been subjected
to seven hours of his mother’s fluttering.

No way in hell he’d have gone through all of
that just to slap his brother on the back and wish the bride-to-be
luck.

He’d come to see Gwen before it was too
late.

To see if those feelings that had haunted
him for the last three years were real, or simply a memory. And if
he had to sleep with her to find out, well, he was willing to give
it his all.

But he knew better than to tell her that. So
Noah leaned back on his heels and offered a grin again. This time
making sure it had a wicked edge.

He’d figured that his mere presence making
her want to jump into his arms was a long shot. So he’d go with
Plan B. He’d piss her off. A pissed off Gwen was a passionate Gwen.
And he loved it when her passions ignited.

“Sam’s busy fending off congratulatory
advice,” he said, tacking back to her suggestion he go hang out
with his brother.

“I’m sure there are other members of your
family who’d like to see you,” she pointed out in a tone that made
it clear that she was anything
but
sure. She stepped to one
side as if to go around him. Noah simply blocked her.

“I’d rather catch up with you.”

“You’re here to see your family, to
celebrate your brother’s engagement.” Her expression didn’t waver.
But from the way her jaw stiffened, he figured he was making
progress.

“Sure I am. But I’m good at multi-tasking,”
he reminded her. “I can check out the view, remind my family that I
exist, celebrate and hit on you all at the same time.”

“Hit on me?” she asked, her voice two
decibels higher at the end of her sentence and her eyes shooting
sparks.

And there it was. Noah didn’t bother toning
down his grin. Not when it felt so good to watch the flush pour
from her high cheekbones, down her throat and wash over that
gorgeous chest of hers. Satisfaction tangled with desire as he
remembered in vivid detail that she blushed the same way when she
was turned on.

She also made the sweetest little mewling
sound and sucked her lower lip between her teeth just before she
came. A vision he planned on seeing before the clock struck
midnight.

Rock hard, Noah reveled in the anticipation
pouring through his system. How many times had they ended up
tearing each other’s clothes off in the middle of an argument,
their spiking emotions setting off an explosion of lust? Hell, how
many times had he wound her up for just that reaction?

Then, just like that, she reeled her temper
back. He could actually see her do it. A deep breath that did
amazing things for the sequins covering her breasts, a quick clench
of her fists so her nails dug into her palms instead of his back,
and a tightening of her lips.

“I don’t know what game you’re trying to
play, but you can leave me out of it,” she told him, waving her
hand in a shooing motion. “I’m going inside.”

Seriously? Noah blinked, surprised that he
could be surprised. But really? She thought he’d just move out of
her way so she could walk away from him? Sure, he’d been the one to
walk away three years ago, but she’d said that she understood. So
what was up with the woman scorned routine?

Noah shifted again, angling his shoulders
just enough to block her exit. She wasn’t leaving until found out
what was going on.

He hadn’t anticipated quite this reaction.
His entire strategy was based on the years of knowledge he’d
amassed by studying—okay, obsessing over—Gwen Kirkpatrick. He had
no doubt that he’d succeed. He’d simply have to modify his
approach.