Tempted Into Danger

by Melissa Cutler

Ryan rubbed the scruff on his chin. “Maybe you know more about women than you’re giving yourself credit for.”

  “Women, no. Vanessa, yes.”

  “So don’t make her sacrifice. You do it. Choose to be what she needs. Tell ICE to pound sand.”

  “You mean give up the job? How can you suggest that? My brother—”

  “I know all about Ossie. I was with you when he died, bro. But this job, you said it yourself, it’s not what it used to be. The world’s changing. National security isn’t the same game it was ten or even five years ago.”

  “Definitely not, but you, Alicia, John and Rory, you’re family to me. As much as I couldn’t leave Vanessa if I committed to her, I can’t leave you stranded like that. Wouldn’t be right.”

  “All four of us, we’d follow you off a cliff, but the job’s wearing on us, too. Might be time for all of us to move on to other things.”

  Diego chortled. “Says the man with the Chiara brothers obsession.”

  Another shrug. “I’m going to see that goal through, then think about making some changes to my life, too.”

  Diego scrubbed a hand over his face. Give up the career that defined him, along with the adrenaline rush he thrived on? Then who would he be? Could he still be happy?

  He’d buried the idea of having any semblance of a normal life a long time ago. After 9/11, the thought of getting married or starting a family had been unfathomable. Every day around the world people suffered at the hands of tyrants, and he was one of a select few with the skills and drive to fight for them. He’d made the choice and had never given it another thought.

  Then, boom.

  Without trying, without knowing she was doing it, Vanessa had him rethinking everything he thought he was at peace with—the constant risk of death, the toll his job took on his body and spirit, the loneliness.

  Maybe the better question was, could he be happy without Vanessa, now that he knew what he’d been missing? No matter what choice he made, he couldn’t stuff the new awareness she’d triggered into a box and ignore it.

  “I take it you like Vanessa for me?”

  Ryan didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, I do. I’m not going to lie, you caught us all by surprise, but I like her. And more importantly, I like the way you are around her. She’s good for you. Alicia and I talked it over. We’re going to support you in whatever you need to do so you can be with her. This thing you two have, it doesn’t happen to everybody, especially guys like us. You got to run with it. Like I said, a no-brainer.”

  “The only way this is a no-brainer is because my head’s going to explode.” Because the way he saw it, his choice came down to either the woman he could see himself loving with a selfish kind of happiness or his vow to Ossie that he’d never stop fighting for the world to be a better, safer place. There wasn’t a choice in the universe more difficult than that.

  Ryan slugged him on the shoulder. “Naw, man. You’re psyching yourself out. You know what you need to do, so make it happen.”

  “I had no idea you had so much advice inside you, waiting to get out.”

  Ryan grinned. “Got to live up to my nickname.”

  Diego managed a chuckle. “If only Magic Eight Balls gave great advice, you’d be right.” He’d issued the nickname to Ryan when they were eighteen and barrack roommates. At the time, Ryan’s quietness drove Diego nuts. One night, he was extra pissed about Ryan’s silence and told him he’d be better off buying a Magic Eight Ball to have conversations with. Usually the memory made him happy, but tonight he was too pent up with confusion to enjoy the nostalgia.

  “Don’t go knocking Magic Eight Balls. They really work,” Ryan said.

  Diego scoffed. “No, they don’t.”

  “Sure they do. They give you a push to trust your instincts. Like I’ve been doing with you since we were eighteen.”

  “And here I thought I called you that because you rarely say more than two words at a time.”

  “That’s the magic part.”

  Maybe he was overthinking it, at least for the time being. Maybe tonight was as simple as Vanessa being in a room by herself, probably nervous about being alone, and him wanting to be in there with her. “I’m going to stay with her tonight, see if it helps me figure out what to do long-term. Thanks for this.”

  “You bet.” They knocked forearms, then Ryan snagged his shoulders in a one-armed hug. “You need protection?”

  It wasn’t the first time the topic had come up over their seventeen-year friendship, but it felt wrong to talk about Vanessa that way with another man, even Ryan. He’d stumbled on a stash of condoms in the bathroom after his shower while looking for toothpaste, and though he didn’t want to meditate for even a second on the intimate details of Alicia’s private life, they’d been kind of hard to miss. “I’m good.”

  Ryan gave him a hard shove toward the door, then pulled his rifle around from his back, grinning. “Then get out of here. I’m trying to start my guard shift and you’re distracting me.”

  “See you in the morning.”

  Wiping his hand on his pants, he walked past Rory, John and Alicia without looking their way. He stood and stared at the closed bedroom door for a beat. What was he going to say to her? Did it matter? What if she was already asleep and he’d be disturbing her?

  Screw it.

  He turned the knob and stepped into the darkness. The shaft of light from the door illuminated the room all the way to the bed. Vanessa was sitting up, her back against the headboard, her arms hugging her knees.

  He was right to return.

  Closing the door, he took a tentative step closer. Knowing he was right didn’t make him any less jittery.

  “Hi,” she said, turning on the bedside lamp.

  He opened his mouth but nothing came out. How come he never hesitated in battle, but this soft, pretty creature brought him to heel with one simple word?

  Come on, Slick. You’ve got to have the perfect words floating around somewhere inside your thick melon.

  “I thought...I thought you might need me. I mean, so you can sleep. I could stay with you if you want.” What was he, an eighteen-year-old virgin? “I’d like to stay with you, if that’s okay.”

  She scooted to the edge of the bed and dangled her legs over the side, a serene expression on her face. “It’s more than okay. Come here.”

  He walked to her and stood, totally blanking on what he should do next. Take off his shoes? Sit down?

  Kiss her?

  That’s what he wanted to do more than anything. Hell, he’d wanted to kiss her constantly for the whole day, but the presence of his crew rendered that impossible. While he was still contemplating his strategy, she slipped her fingers behind his belt and pulled him between her knees.

  She pressed her face into his shirt, grazing her nose and lips across his stomach, and all he could do was dig his hands into her hair and hang on for dear life.

  Then she turned her big blue eyes up at him and smiled. A sultry, confident invitation.

  Just like that, his future came into focus. Ryan was right. This was a no-brainer. Being with Vanessa was going to be as easy as breathing.

  He still had no idea how he was going to reconcile his promise to Ossie with this new, selfish need to keep Vanessa in his life, but he’d find a way to make it work. He had to.

  Emboldened by the realization, he dropped to his knees.

  Chapter 18

  Vanessa had been debating strategies to get Diego back to the bedroom.

  Although they didn’t have a future together, her new, bold self decided she wanted one night in his arms. So she gave herself permission to ask for what she wanted. She hadn’t quite figured out the details of how to entice him to let down his guard and give himself to her when he appeared at the door as if she’d conjured him.


  Even though he’d been his typical brazen self to walk right into a sleeping woman’s room without knocking, once there he was uncharacteristically nervous. As if they hadn’t spent every moment of the past three days together and they were back to being cautious strangers.

  Diego was a natural leader and an alpha male through and through, but if he needed her to take the lead tonight, she was prepared to. She was determined to create a memory of the two of them together—not just a fantasy—to carry her through the scary days, weeks and months to come.

  She had a hand on his belt, ready to show him exactly what she had in mind for the night, when he lowered to his knees between her legs, his hands spanning her ribs. Nervousness had vanished from his expression, replaced by eyes that glimmered with tenderness and perhaps even a hint of joy.

  Stroking his hair, she leaned in and brushed a kiss across his lips. “I want you.”

  It made her feel strong, asserting herself, saying aloud what she’d been thinking every waking minute. Strong and proud of the person she was evolving into.

  The corners of his lips curved into a smile. He touched his forehead and nose to hers. “Like breathing.”

  Her fingertips danced over the stubble on his cheek. She knew exactly what he meant because it was the same for her. “Yes. Like breathing.”

  Then he pulled her down to straddle him and crushed his lips to hers in a kiss loaded with the promise of incomparable pleasure. Forget about creating a memory of sensual lovemaking—she wanted Diego to ravish her.

  She grabbed her shirt and tugged, but his hands shot from where he cupped her backside to clamp over her wrists. “Not yet.”

  Openmouthed and breathing hard, she tried to make him understand. “I need you right now, here on the floor. I don’t want it soft and slow on the bed.”

  He rose up, pinning her torso against the side of the mattress, and kissed her again. “Not on the bed, not on the floor. Come with me.”

  He strode to the bathroom, guiding her by the hand into the shower. Showering was fine with her, as long as he was with her, both of them naked. She reached for the hem of her shirt again.

  “Your shirt stays on.” His words were gruff, clipped. He stripped off his own shirt and stepped in. “You drove me crazy for days in your wet clothes. I couldn’t stop thinking about putting my hands on you, peeling your shirt off, wondering what your rain-soaked skin would taste like on my tongue.”

  She hadn’t thought it was possible to be any more turned on, but his words made her dizzy with arousal. She’d been fantasizing about his mouth on her skin, too.

  He turned the faucet on and scooted her out of range of the spray. The water was straight-up cold. It licked at her feet and sprinkled over her arms, making her skin tight and her breath catch in her throat.

  But then Diego pulled her against him and all thoughts of the cold vanished. Her hands smoothed over the bunched muscles of his shoulder and chest, exploring the harnessed power of his body as she’d longed to since watching him emerge from the lake after his dive. The moment she’d stopped thinking of him not only as a stranger who’d saved her life, but also as a man in his prime.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he rumbled low as his hand found her breast through the cotton.

  “I was thinking the same about you.” She pressed her lips to his tattoo and licked down. Her tongue captured his nipple and flicked it. As if in answer, his hand tightened around her breast and rolled her taut nipple between his fingers.

  Steam rose up around them as the hot water kicked in. He lowered his lips to her neck and nibbled a path behind her ear.

  “Diego,” she whispered on an exhale.

  “No.” He jerked back. Clasping the sides of her face, he urged her gaze to his and she wondered what she’d said or done wrong. Then she registered the look on his face. The intensity of the adoration in his eyes made her legs weak. “Not Diego. Marcos. My name is Marcos Aponte.”

  Her mouth fell open with a soft gasp. But before she could recover her wits, he spun her into the stream of water, wrapped her hair around his hand and seized possession of her body with his lips and tongue and hands.

  He was everything she needed—urgent, demanding, hard in all the places it mattered. Every spot of skin he unwrapped from the drenched cotton, he laved with kisses, working his way down her body until she stood before him in nothing but a pair of white satin panties, drenched and translucent.

  Whispering words of reverence about her body, he turned his hand palm-up and fluttered the pads of his fingers lightly over the wet material. A touch so light and teasing, she could hardly stand it.

  Her need for him was primal, her thoughts nothing but More. Harder.

  With a wicked grin, he indulged her, pressing his index finger along the crease of her folds. He swallowed her whimper with a kiss as he gathered the satin in his hand and gave a gentle tug. The satin lodged between her folds, shrouding the epicenter of her nerve endings.

  He jiggled the material, brushing her with delicate wisps of friction until her knees buckled and she had to brace her shoulders against the tile wall.

  Stepping back, he drank her in, his gaze lingering on the cling of the satin as his hands reached for his belt.

  The clang of the metal buckle opening was the most erotic sound she’d ever heard. She stepped forward and shooed his hands out of the way so she could have the pleasure of unzipping the cargo pants and unleashing his straining erection. The anticipation of seeing him naked for the first time had her breathing shallow and her hands trembling. She felt nineteen again, alive with wonder and want. Fearless.

  The thick curve of his erection was molded by his wet, black briefs and wrapped around his hipbone. A sound of admiration bubbled from her throat. Being with him was going to feel magnificent. She stroked up the length of him, relishing his hiss of breath and the way he arched into her hand.

  His cargo pants, as wet as they were, required some oomph to push down. He kicked them into the pile of clothes and reached for the waistband of his underwear.

  It was her turn to clamp her hands around his wrists. Time for him to experience the same rapturous agony as he’d put her through. “Not so fast, soldier.”

  Tamping her impatience to see him, she knelt and cupped her hand around him, then drew up the side of the leg hole. She filled her mouth with him, savoring the salty spice of his flesh.

  He groaned and twisted. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him open the same drawer she’d inadvertently discovered condoms in before her shower. He must’ve come across them earlier, too, because he pulled one out and ripped the wrapper open.

  The thought of what they were about to do sent a pulse of exhilaration through her core, even if she wasn’t ready to quit her exploration of his body. “Right now?”

  He hooked a hand under her arm and hauled her up. “Yeah, right now.” His voice was gravelly, his eyes dilated. He stripped her panties off without ceremony and burrowed a finger in her folds. The move elicited a sound like a purr from her chest. “Right now” was sounding better and better.

  He swirled his finger. She looped an arm around his neck to steady herself as she was rocked with sensation.

  “This night’s not going to end without me putting my mouth on you here,” he said. “I’ve been dreaming of that since the first time we kissed. But if I don’t get inside you right the hell now, I’m going to have a heart attack.”

  She loved that she drove him as crazy as he drove her. The head of his erection jutted over the elastic band of his briefs. She bent and pushed her lips over it, sampling him as she slipped the water-soaked fabric from his hips.

  With a growl, he took a firm hold of her hair and lifted her away. Then he pinned her to the wall, his hand roving over her body, his erection a hot, hard force between them. “Damn, Vanessa. You’re going to kill me.�
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  She’d never seen a condom go on so fast.

  Faces close, they breathed into each other, their bodies slick with water and sweat. Stroking himself with one hand, he grasped the back of her leg at the knee and jerked it up in a dirty, functional move to open her that proved he understood as well as she did that they were beyond tender caresses. The burn of arousal they’d suffered for days demanded to be quenched at the same frenzied speed with which it had blazed to life. To be eviscerated by a hard, reckless crush of flesh on flesh.

  She rolled the back of her head along the wall as he stretched her with that first thrust. A tuck of her hips slipped him deeper. He gripped the backs of her thighs and her second foot came off the floor, driving him deeper still.

  His stubbled jaw rasping over her cheek, he pumped into her again and whispered a curse that sounded like a prayer. Vanessa couldn’t make a sound. The rapture was too powerful for her to do anything but succumb, to let herself be taken. With his strong arms holding her up and the confident control he’d taken of her pleasure, there was nothing left to do but bury her face in his neck and lose herself in the relentless rhythm of his thrusts.

  Release started way deep down in her belly, a gathering pressure that drew a deep inhale from her. She held the air in her lungs, felt her abs clench, then every muscle squeezed. Her hands pushed against his chest. Her knees drew up.

  His movement froze, hanging her on the edge. Her head tipped back and she moaned around gritted teeth. Impossible, impossible...

  With long, smooth thrusts, he finally let her go. The bliss turned her vision white. Maybe she was noisy, because he covered her mouth with his, but she couldn’t tell and didn’t care. Her body pulsed, over and over, outside and inside. She rode it all the way through, meeting him movement for movement.

  She knew when he’d joined her in the fall because his body quaked and his face twisted into a sneer that could’ve been pain or pleasure. Cursing again, his head dropped to her shoulder and he held himself inside her, merging them to their pelvic bones until nothing was between them, not even the steam from the shower.