[When SEALs Come Home 04] - Heated (17 page)

“I want to get this exactly right,” she yelled at him through the closed door.

He didn’t see how she could get it wrong, but if she wanted to dress up or do her makeup or whatever it was she was doing in there, he didn’t mind waiting for her. He had a feeling that he’d wait for Mercy for however long it took—minutes, hours, months. Hell, he hoped it wasn’t months, although she’d definitely be worth the wait.

After ten minutes that seemed like eternity, she stuck her head out the bathroom door. “Close your eyes.”

Obediently, he closed his eyes. Not that he had any idea why, but he was happy to play by her rules.

“Can I look now?”

“Okay.” She stepped out, and the first thing he saw was her nervous smile, and the next... yeah. That was his head short-circuiting. Or maybe that was his heart he heard going. Mercy was wearing a fluffy bathrobe. Pink with black leopard spots, the thing was beautifully, wonderfully, fantastically short. It stopped well above her knees, leaving parts of her bare and parts of her wrapped up like the best of presents.

***

“I
like your robe.” His eyes darkened. He was bootless and had made himself free with her bed, but he wasn’t naked. She should have instructed him to get naked. It would have made her current outfit feel less awkward.

“It was a free gift with purchase.” God. She was babbling. His grin got wider.

“Come over here.” He patted the bed beside him.

He was still dressed. And she was still nearly naked. Had she jumped the gun? She smoothed her hands down the fluffy pink. She should consider options for retreat, but the problem was that she wanted to run toward Joey and not away.

“I read the list.”

Oh, God. Was it possible to die of embarrassment? She shouldn’t have mentioned it, except... she would have been tempted to peek at it. Just once or twice. Just to make sure she had it right.

“I think we should start with number one and then work our way through it in order. Unless you want to start at the bottom and work our way up?”

“That’s a long list.” And picking a top ten would be difficult.

“Uh-huh.” His eyes crinkled up when he smiled. When he was eighty, he’d have gorgeous laugh lines. “But I’ve got all night.”

And then he got right on it. God, she loved that about him.

***

T
he dream started off so good. Wrapped up in the blankets she’d finally managed to wrestle away from Joey—the man was a bed hog—Mercy snuggled deep into the bed, listening as rain hit the roof in a brief, early-morning shower and sang the kind of song that made her want to smile and belt out country tunes. A hawk shrieked, hunting its breakfast. In the dream, she wasn’t alone, and like dreams so often went, things were absolutely fucking perfect. Awake Mercy would have assumed that meant bad things were lurking right around the corner, but dream Mercy simply dug her butt deeper into the mattress and enjoyed the moment.

The two of them were tangled up in the sheets together. Her head rested on Joey’s chest, and his leg pinned hers to the mattress. Their arms were wrapped around each other, and she had no idea where she started and he ended. That was part of the perfect thing. The musky scent of sex hung in the air. She was boneless and the best kind of sore because her SEAL had ridden her hard and loved her well.

It was the kind of dream where she knew she was dreaming. That was okay. She didn’t particularly want to wake up, so dream Mercy started running her fingers over the male chest so conveniently at hand and...

She woke up, and she was alone in bed. When she patted his side of the bed, the sheets were still warm, so she rolled over and stole his spot. She’d like it if he came back and they picked up where they’d left off last night when she’d finally fallen asleep because they’d worn each other out and she couldn’t keep her eyes open another moment. There hadn’t been enough hours left in the night either, because right now even patting around on the bedside table for her phone to check the time seemed like too much effort. It was what it was.

Her vagina was deliciously sore, and her butt muscles ached from all the pre-orgasmic clenching. Lifting the sheet, she took inventory. Running her hands down over her breasts and her stomach, she traced the faint red marks from his five o’clock scruff. He’d left marks on her thighs too, like he’d tattooed himself on her body, inside and out, and when she sifted a finger through the hair on her pussy and into her folds, she was still wet and slick.

Bringing her fingers to her nose, she inhaled. She could smell him on her fingers.

“You’re not waiting for me,” Joey drawled from the door.

Oh. God.
Busted.
She shot upright in the bed, the sheet falling to her waist. Her
naked
waist.

He padded across the room and crouched down beside the bed so his face was level with hers. Dropping a kiss on her nose, he grinned at her. “Good morning. Someone’s feeling naughty.”

Deflect
. “Is that for me?” She pointed toward the mug in his hand. “Gimme. I could kiss you.”

He grinned at her and handed over the mug. “I can work with that.”

She’d bet he could. Joey was insatiable once he got started. She took the first sip, closing her eyes as the rich coffee hit her tongue. He’d fixed it just right, with enough sugar and cream for a small army.

“Addict.”  He rubbed the back of her neck briefly, his fingers still warm from the coffee mug. “But I guess that excuses me for taking liberties with your kitchen.”

“Do you have plans for today?” Feeling shy was silly. He’d turned her inside out last night, and she’d loved every minute of it. Plus if she didn’t meet him head-on, he’d decide he was the boss of her. That might be fun in bed, but out of bed... not so much.

“I can think of a few things.”

She’d bet he could.

“I thought we could go back to Abbie’s,” he said. “There’s more work to be done on the house.”

“Together?”

“Well, yeah.”

“I can’t. There’s been too much talk about us as it is.” She wished things could be different. She really did. “I can’t go with you.”

***

J
oey drove his truck back to the scenic lookout. He took a trailer with him because hefting the bike into the truck bed by himself wouldn’t be easy. Funny how the place managed to look both the same but different in the daylight. Even from the road, he had an awesome view of the mountains that only got better when he parked and got out. The bike was right where he’d left it, which wasn’t surprising. He probably
was
Strong’s criminal element, and of course, that was the real problem. He didn’t think he was all that bad. He’d done things overseas that he wasn’t proud of—and some that he was—but here in Strong the only thing he was really guilty of was going too fast and burning up the roads. He wasn’t robbing banks or running a pot grow in a national park or even setting things on fire.

So why was Mercy so adamant that they not be seen together in public as anything but casual acquaintances?

He thought about that while he loaded the bike into the back of the truck. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any epiphanies, although the patch of grass where Mercy had had her way with him had him smiling.

A big, shit-eating, man-am-I-happy grin with more wattage than the Vegas strip. Fuck.

She’d all but kicked him out of her house this morning. They’d had a deal. Casual sex. No strings, no regrets—and no publicity. His head had gotten the memo, but now he wasn’t so sure about his heart. And how screwed up was that?

He pushed the motorcycle up the trailer’s ramp and locked the front wheel into the wheel chock. Then for good measure, he tied the bike down and tested the straps. Nope. Her bike wouldn’t shift or fishtail around a bend. It was all good. Safe, just the way Mercy liked things. Funny how Fate worked these things out.

Thanks to the detour, he was one of the last to reach the building site. It also meant he took plenty of teasing from the guys about being a slugabed and needing his beauty sleep. He wasn’t in the mood and waved them off to get down to work. By the end of the week, unless there was an unexpected fire call, Abbie could start working on the inside.

And speak of the devil, when he dragged his feeling-sorry-for-himself ass around the new porch, he all but stood on the woman herself. Smooth. She sat cross-legged on the ground fisting a handful of paint cards. Bathroom colors, nursery colors—he didn’t know, but he didn’t think she was really looking at the chips anyhow. They were just an excuse to stay put and zone out.

She looked up at him. “Hi.”

“Hey.” He crouched down beside her because walking past seemed cowardly. Will would have stopped if this had been Mercy perched on the ground like a fragile flower. He had no idea where that thought had come from. Was he really putting Mercy in the wife bucket? He was pretty sure that, even if he produced a ring and spouted poetry, Mercy wouldn’t have him. Which stung, if he was honest with himself. Just because he hadn’t ever thought in terms of marriage and happily ever after didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate the value of what Will and Abbie had had.

Or that he could miss the big potential downside. Abbie was miserable.

Say something.
“How are you?”

She patted her stomach or an area approximately in the region of her stomach because her oversized fire department T-shirt had enough fabric for two people. Which, now that he thought about it, was exactly what he was looking at. Abbie was a plus-one, even if the baby was bean-sized rather than man-sized.

“I’m doing okay,” she said.

“Liar.”

“You bet.” She was silent for a moment.

Fuck. This was an awkward conversation he didn’t want to have.

“Will loved this place,” he said gruffly. He didn’t have a clue if those were the right words or not, but she nodded.

“He did.”

He bobble-headed, and more silence followed while he tried to figure out how to stand up and go back to building her a house she didn’t fucking want and would have traded in a heartbeat for the dead man. He could fix a roof or a wall, but Abbie’s feelings were in a whole different league.

Crouching down next to Abbie wasn’t the most comfortable place in the world to have a heart-to-heart. He rocked back on his heels, digging his steel toes into the muddy ground for more purchase. One wrong move and he’d end up on his ass. Plus he felt like he was on display. In addition to the half-built house, there were five smoke jumpers and a handful of hotshots. Abbie looked at him like he was crazy for staying put and should just move along now. He’d bet that look usually got her the solitude she craved.

It had been a long, satisfying, exhausting night. He had no desire at this point for anything other than a shower and a twelve-hour date with his pillow.

Okay. So now he was lying to himself. The pillow date was at the top of his list, as long as it came with Mercy. And maybe he
could
have her too. That was what made him antsy and nervous as hell. If he got back in his truck and headed for her place, she might let him inside. He could climb in the shower with her and then take her to bed. That would make three times, and he got the feeling that upped the stakes to relationship territory. Mercy wasn’t a one-night stand, and he didn’t want her to be. That scared the hell out of him, if he was being honest.

“You’re friends with Mercy Hernandez, right?”

Abbie gave him a look. “I’ve been getting to know her. She hasn’t lived in Strong all that long, and she’s a private person.”

All true.

“Are you dating?”

Shit. He wasn’t supposed to talk about it. On the other hand... this was Abbie.

“I—”
hope so
. He said the words in his head and waited for panic to hit him. It didn’t come.

“Can neither confirm nor deny. Got it.” Abbie tossed the paint chips onto the porch and stretched her legs out in front of her like the ground was a plush lounger.  She started a complicated series of running stretches. “So if you were hypothetically dating Mercy, I would be congratulating you, except you’ve got that unhappy guy face that says something’s fucked up.”

She paused for a moment, reached for her toes. He’d bet she wouldn’t be doing that in another three months. “Or you fucked something up. Hypothetically.”

Since Abbie clearly knew what was going on, he gave in. “She doesn’t want anyone to know we’re dating.”

Which meant he was definitely a booty call and not a boyfriend. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have minded being used for his penis. Mercy was different. He had no idea how, but she just was.

Abbie nodded and switched legs. “I’d heard as much. Strong’s a small town. We don’t have secrets, particularly not when it comes to who’s sleeping with whom.”

Story of his life. Every person in town had the inside scoop on his sex life or believed she had it.

“You heard about Officer Belcome?” From the look on her face, she expected him to have memorized the video frame by frame.

“We’re not making sex tapes.”

Abbie widened her stance, dropping her chest to the ground as she loosened up. He shifted away because it was move or get kicked. Message received loud and clear.

She made a face. “I hope not, but she’s got a new job and people talk. I’ll bet the sheriff’s department is being extra careful right now. Why would she want to risk her job for a little hot sex?”

Well, damn.  “It’s not like that.”

Or maybe it was.

“Then how is it? Because it sounds like she’s taking you for a test drive.”

Time to change tactics.

“How do you know when you’ve found the right person? The kind of person you can imagine spending the rest of your life with.”

Abbie teared up. Fuck. Yeah, that hadn’t been sensitive, had it? She’d just lost Will, the guy
she’d
planned on spending the rest of
her
life with.

“Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it’s a lightning bolt from the sky. Either way, it’s awesome and it rocks your world.”

Which explained why she missed Will so badly.

“So how do I know?”