Bound By Temptation (7 page)

It was hard to believe that Lucas would go to the trouble of subtly reminding her of what they’d shared, but it was equally hard to believe he’d forgotten what his French Toast had led to all those weeks ago—on both occasions—so why in the world would he make it again?

B
y the time
Lucas returned from showing Rio’s sketch artist out the door, Emma had sunk down on the couch with her ratty terrier stretched blissfully across her chest like an extra blanket. The ugly shadows that had blackened her brown eyes as the sketch took shape had spread across her face. She looked haunted. The artistic rendering of her would-be kidnapper apparently stirred up her earlier anxiety and fear.

Tenderness snuck up, wrapped around his chest and squeezed, trying to choke him.

“Hey.” He took a seat on the coffee table beside the couch and leaned toward her, projecting confidence. “You’re safe here. Nobody’s going to get past us to get to you.”

An odd look flitted across her face, one he couldn’t quite decipher. Maybe doubt? Or disbelief? Both of which made sense. She had no idea what he did for a living, or why he and Tag were so well suited to protect her.

Silence, when it came to his career, was essential. Not just for his personal safety, but his teammates and their families as well. SEALs were at the top of multiple kill lists. If a terrorist identified him and staked his place out, they’d locate a fair share of his teammates too. From there they could ferret out his teammates’ families.

Ian, and the guys at the gym? Hell, they were, or had been, in the corps. They knew the price of loose tongues. But civilians? Neighbors? They were oblivious about the dangers of this world. Fuck, he’d been falsifying his career for years in order to satisfy their curiosity.

With the exception of Tag and a couple of ex-teammates two doors down, nobody in this development knew what he did for a living. As far as they were concerned, he and Tag were Naval Intelligence officers assigned with tracking down departmental theft. So far the alias had served him well.

The only neighbor he’d gotten close to was Emma, but hell—he’d been lying to her, too, for years. She had no clue what his life was like or why a relationship with him would be so damned difficult.

Which meant there was no reason for her to trust him to keep her safe.

“Look, if you’re worried I can’t protect you—” A full confession hovered on his tongue, anything to blast those shadows from her face, regardless of the repercussions.

“It’s not that.” She stirred slightly, hissed in pain, and froze again. “I’m just really sore.”

He leaned back. Of course she was in pain. She’d barely been able to walk from the car to the condo, and that had been a good two hours earlier. Stiffness, along with muscle and joint pain, would have set in by now. He should have given her a pain killer eons ago. What the fuck had happened to his common sense?

“Ibuprofen will help with that.” He stood up.

“A hot bath will work even better.” She rolled her head on the couch to stare up at him.

“Hot water will counter the effects of the ice.” He forced himself to ignore the plea on her face.

“I don’t care.” The look of entreaty gave way to determination. “I’m not a child. I know what works for me, and I want a hot bath.”

“You’re knees and hands are pretty skinned up,” he reminded her quietly. “Hot water is going to sting like hell and you’ll need to change the bandages.”

Pure stubbornness flattened her gaze. “I won’t use soap, so the pain will be minimal and I don’t need bandages. They’re scrapes, not cuts. They’ll heal better with the air flow reaching them.”

Taking a bath was a mistake. He was certain of it. After dealing with hundreds of traumatized muscles and joints, he knew the treatment protocol to reduce pain and increase mobility.

But she
wasn’t
a child. And it wasn’t his call.

“I’ll get the water going.”

Her face relaxed and she smiled up at him. “Thank you. Steaming hot, okay?”

She’d managed to attain a sitting position by the time he returned from drawing the bath, but from the look of frustrated pain on her face, that was as far as she’d been able to get on her own. He handed her a glass of water and two ibuprofen tablets. After she’d downed the two pills, he took the glass back, set it on the coffee table, and leaned down, slipping his hands beneath her armpits. Straightening, he carefully lifted her.

The flowery scent that had sucker punched him in the motel bathroom, and then teased his cock to painful urgency during that slow, erotic shuffle up the walkway, drifted from her hair, attacking his lungs and brain with its aphrodisiac properties.

His head spun. His scalp prickled. His hands started to sweat. His cock went from stand down to full salute in a nanosecond. Christ, much more of this and he’d be stiffer than her—at least in one hard to hide spot.

Once she was steady on her feet, he eased back, keen to step away. Jesus, he needed to put some space between them. A buffer of air to curb his base instincts. He stood a better chance of keeping his impulses in check if he wasn’t rubbing against her with every step. But when he dropped his hands she swayed and shot him a panicked look.

Son of a bitch.

Grimly he moved back in, sliding his arm around her waist. The feminine sway to her hips hypnotized him as he led her—one waddling step at a time—around the coffee table and down the hall to his bedroom. With each brush of their thighs, heat flared, prickling up his spine and infusing it with goosebumps. When they finally made it to his bedroom, he steadfastly ignored his bed and the erotic images it conjured, as he guided her, Cuddles trailing behind them, toward the bathroom.

The bathroom was hot, and steamy, and brimming with flowery fragrance—which made no damn sense considering he hadn’t poured anything into the water. He settled her on the closed toilet seat and took a huge step back, his fingers itching to touch her…to slide beneath her loose clothes and search out all those sweet spots he’d been obsessing over for the past three long months.

Jesus, I have to get out of here.

He turned to flee.

“You told me I didn’t know where I was headed and it wasn’t fair to lead me on. What did you mean by that?”

Her soft, hesitant question hit him like a gut punch. He froze, escape a mere foot away.

Ah fuck.

But this conversation was long overdue, and maybe his explanation would reassure her that she was safe in his care.

* * *

E
mma cringed
, watching Lucas stop in his tracks. He just stood there for a moment, perfectly still and then a shudder rocked his shoulders. Slowly, he turned.

While the question had played through her mind like an earworm for hours, she hadn’t intended to blurt it out like that. It had simply erupted from within, without permission, too pointed and too late to call back.

“You sure you want to get into this now?” he asked quietly.

The look in his eyes, a hungry, even ravenous, expression launched a full scale flutter attack in her belly. Her nipples tightened. Quivers spread across her chest and down her spine. Her hyped up physical reaction to him certainly hadn’t faded. And judging by the hard-to-hide erection pressing against his normally loose jeans, he was just as attracted to her.

“You’re damn near impossible to resist, Em…”

His tense, reluctant admission in the car whispered through her mind. He hadn’t been lying about that. He
was
still attracted to her, wildly
even, so why the disappearing act?

“What did you mean, Lucas?”

“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he answered immediately, his brown eyes penetrating and unwavering.

Okay…
she cocked her head and frowned, trying to ignore the ache in her arms and back, and the constant stinging in her hands and knees.

“How so?” She shifted uncomfortably on the toilet seat. Good lord, she desperately needed to sink into that delicious, steaming tub of water, but she wanted to hear what he had to say even more.

“I’m not assigned to Naval Intelligence,” he said.

“You’re not with the Navy?”

“I’m with the Navy, just not intelligence. I’m a special operator, with SEAL team 7.” He paused to scan her face, before adding flatly. “I’m a SEAL.”

A SEAL? He was a SEAL?

In San Diego, the SEALs of Coronado were legendary. Some of her friends staked out Coronado beach, early in the mornings, around the Hotel Del in the hopes of catching the men training in the sand and surf. She’d heard about the SEALs of Coronado for years, she just hadn’t realized she’d slept with one.

Although, oddly enough, she wasn’t surprised by the news. There had always been something ultra-capable and a bit dangerous about Lucas.

“Well, that explains your quick reflexes and how you were able to take down the van so quickly,” she said wryly.

It explained a bunch of other stuff too, like the vigilance he wore as naturally as a second skin, his obsession with security, his air of competence, and his honed, muscled physique.

What it didn’t explain was why he’d dumped her.

“I’m not bluffing when I say we can protect you. Tag and I have the skillset to do just that.” His intense gaze caught and held hers.

She’d never questioned his ability to protect her. “Tag’s a SEAL too?”

“Yeah.” He rocked back on his heels and eyed her closely. “We’re on echo platoon.”

She lifted a bandaged hand, pushing her hair aside so she could see his face more clearly. “Why the secrecy?”

His shrug was accompanied by a frown. “There are multiple organizations out there gunning for us. If word of my whereabouts reaches the wrong ears, my teammates and I could find ourselves under unfriendly scrutiny. Besides—” He grimaced and ran his fingers through his close cropped hair. “Some guys view us as personal challenges to prove just how tough they are.”

Okay…both of those reasons made sense. His profession was a dangerous one. And undoubtedly some of the terrorists they’d tangled with were out for blood. Keeping silent about his profession was probably Lucas’s best bet for personal safety.

When you added in the public’s fascinated and ravenous appetite for any tidbit involving the SEAL community, it made sense why he’d want to keep his profession private.

She got it. Truly. But none of this explained why he’d dumped her.

“You’re not mad.” There was a surprised lift to the words.

“About what?”

“That I lied to you.”

“Well I’m not happy about it. But I get why you did it.” She hesitated, this was a perfect opportunity to ask him the question that had been haunting her for months.

What had happened all those weeks ago? They’d gotten along so well, the physical chemistry had been off the charts, they’d liked each other. She’d thought they were developing something special, so why had he dumped her?

How could she have misread the situation so completely?

“What?” he asked with a lift to his eyebrows.

If his query had been a little less gentle, she might have held her question in. But the affectionate way he’d treated her back then and the tenderness with which he’d cared for her today, none of it reconciled with the cruel way he’d abandoned her. It didn’t make sense. Was he a Jekyll and Hyde? Did he have split personalities?

“Look, I get why you never made this public? But none of this explains why you didn’t return my phone calls.” She forced her eyes to hold his, even though her cheeks were on fire.

“Ah, hell.” He was the one to look away, grimness falling over his face. He kneaded the back of his neck. “You’re a civilian, sweetheart. You had no idea what your life would be like if you hooked up with me. The uncertainty. The worry. Never knowing where I was, or whether I was alive. You’d start measuring time by months, the months I was on deployment, the months I was gone, the months you were alone.” He took a shallow breath, his eyes returning to her face and his gaze softened. “I’ve seen far too many relationships between operators and civilians sour, even turn to hatred. I didn’t want that to happen to us—to you.”

She waited for him to continue, to add another reason, one that made more sense…one that wasn’t so…so…
stupid
. Only he stopped talking and crossed his arms as though he’d concluded his case.

“Wa…wai…
wait
a minute.” Her voice rose, disbelief honing her words to razor sharpness. “Please tell me you’re psychic and saw into our future and
didn’t
dump me because of what
might
happen.”

He scowled, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “I made a judgement call based on—”

I spent months wondering what I did wrong, mourning the loss of something special because he’d made a judgement call?

“Without talking to me first? Without asking me how I felt? Or how I’d handle such a situation? Without taking my feelings into account at all!” Her voice rose even further, fueled by incredulity and outrage.

“Hey.” He held up his hands in a whoa gesture. “You didn’t know what you were getting into. I did. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. You were
all
I was
thinking about. You had no idea what kind of life you were headed toward.” For the first time his voice rose, rivaling hers in volume, although his was more hard than sharp. “I was protecting you!”