Joint Engagement

by Karen Anders

  A watery huff, half laughter and half despair, gusted against his neck. “I’m afraid that not even a navy SEAL can take care of this.”

  “Try me.”

  “When I was sixteen, my father was murdered.”

  He leaned away from her. “That sounds exactly like something I can handle.”

  Her brows furrowed, her straight little eyebrows bunching toward each other. “They were terrorists and they melted away into the fog. It was a long time ago, but yesterday was the anniversary of his death. The heavy fog yesterday morning set me off and I’ve been on edge since. Then...then finding Cameron and those other men, the blood and violence, it brought it all back.”

  “I know how that can happen. Sometimes it’ll just be a smell or a color and I remember something that happened when I was on a mission.”

  “I have to admit, I haven’t ever been in combat.” She looked up at him and he smoothed his thumb under her eye to wick away the moisture, her skin so soft. “I’ve been involved in confrontations with go-fast boats and drug smugglers, but not like what you’ve seen.”

  He’d never been this close to a woman he wanted before without initiating sex. She was pressed against him like a hot lamination. “We try to avoid combat as much as possible. It’s usually covert, grab-and-go, or recon.”

  Her face was earnest. “But you’ve seen combat, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve seen my share.”

  She nodded.

  “Was there any attempt to catch the bastards who killed your father?”

  “I’m not sure. I was only sixteen. The guy who talked to me, the one in the suit, said that I didn’t have to worry. They would take care of it. No one told me anything else.”

  “And your mom?”

  “She died from cancer when I was one. I don’t remember her at all. It’s always been my dad.”

  “That must have been tough. What happened after he died?”

  “I lived with family. At eighteen I went out on my own and joined the Coast Guard. I haven’t looked back.”

  His thumb slipped down her face, chasing a tear that hit the rim of her top lip. Without thinking, he rubbed over it and she made a soft sound in her throat.

  “Tell me to let you go,” he said, his voice balanced on a keen edge and soaked with desire. “I can be your shoulder, Cooper, but...I’m thinking things that are probably not a good idea. Have been thinking these things since I laid eyes on you.”

  Her hand shifted to the arm attached to the hand that was cupping her face. She smoothed her palm up his arm and covered his hand. “You do things to me that have never been done before, but we work together so I was trying to keep it professional, and I have history. Not fair to you. We...”

  A nicer guy would have helped her to fill in the blanks.

  Beau was not a nice guy.

  He brought up his other hand, bracketing her face between his palms, delving into all that tantalizing red hair. The next time she said, “We...” in her softly confused voice, her gaze imploring him to understand, he leaned down and kissed her, opened his mouth over hers and gave in to that hard, utterly decisive need to feel her heat. He felt like he’d just jumped from a plane and was free-falling.

  Her unbound breasts were cushioned against his chest, her soft skin beneath his fingers, her mouth opening for him, letting him inside—and the sound of instantaneous surrender she made in the back of her throat went through him with all the galvanizing punch of g-force acceleration. He felt the heat of her mouth all the way to his groin, turning him on, stirring him up, when he had no business getting stirred by her at all.

  But she was sweet, the taste of her damnably erotic, totally mind-blowing and completely forbidden.

  He opened his mouth wider and adjusted angles, so he could have more of her—more contact, more of her tongue in his mouth—because it drove him crazy in the most exquisite way. She melted against him, opening herself even more to the kiss. It was such a tease of what he really wanted: more her.

  He was in so much trouble. He was all about just one time, and he never engaged his heart, ever, not since Jennifer. But in the short span of time that he’d known Kinley, she’d burrowed her way in under his defenses. Yeah, it was always about that damn bullet you didn’t see. The one that slammed into you like a battering ram and took you down. For a second, he thought about pulling away—and then he thought to hell with it. She fed something he didn’t know was hungry.

  All this because of her. Was he crazy or what?

  Probably, he admitted, because he wanted to kiss her anyway, despite his past, her history, their professional relationship getting all shot to hell.

  And the last place he wanted to be was in bed with a coworker, but they weren’t really coworkers. This was a temporary assignment and then he’d be back in DC.

  It was exactly where he wanted to end up tonight, though. In bed with her. It was all temporary, including the sex. He’d made love with lots of women, keeping it loose and easy. He tended to be particular about his lovers. He liked women, loved them at their best and was fascinated by them at their worst, but he didn’t need to sleep with everyone he met.

  He just needed to sleep with this one, Kinley Cooper. He needed to be with her.

  It was attraction, wrapped around raw need. He didn’t want to allow any thoughts about how she could save him, save him in a thousand different ways. It was a fear-induced adrenaline boost that he quickly blocked out.

  And he still wanted her, even with those obstacles.

  So they would do it as many times as they wanted. Sex. With her.

  Hell, she’d practically fallen into his arms, so why not? It was the perfect situation. Straightforward, simple, with no complicated extraneous objectives in mind, nothing to get all screwed up—especially his head. He wasn’t going to let his head get into this at all.

  “Beau.” His name was a plea, a hushed, desperate demand for help. His insides compressed from a solid mass to instant mush.

  He cupped the back of her head. He’d just realized something and it pissed him off. “Give me permission.” He closed his eyes. “Give it to me.” The demand was a harsh rasp of his voice.

  “For what?”

  “To call you by your first name. I want it.”

  She gasped and clutched at him, shivering. The good kind of shiver, the one that had everything to do with desire, the uncontrollable, turned-on kind.

  “Yes.” Her voice wisped out of her.

  “Kinley.” He growled low in his throat at the victory. “Do we need protection?” he asked, taking her mouth again, her hips cradling his, her hand sliding up the back of his neck, playing with the hair at the nape, pulling him closer. He loved the hot sweetness of it, the way she softened against him.

  She couldn’t answer because he slid his tongue into her mouth and felt the sharp need of desire take hold, the taste of her, the honey of her tongue sliding against his, teasing him.

  Her other hand jolted him like a surge of electricity when she touched his waist just above the elastic of his skivvies.

  His hands slipped down the length of her back, a groan escaping as he cupped her butt and pressed her fiercely against his throbbing erection. Now, right damn now, he let himself remember what she’d looked like this morning when he’d met her eyes in that mirror. The high, full breasts, the delicate rib cage and flat, enticing belly, the juncture of her thighs that was currently pressed against him and those long, shapely legs. His mouth got demanding then, hard. His breathing harsh, he mindlessly turned her away from the window, toward the bed, the breeze drifting across his heated skin.

  When he reached it, she was already folding down to the mattress, clutching him, but he stopped her by catching her lower back and holding her suspended.

  Her green eyes were heavy with need and swolle
n from crying. He’d never seen anything so damned beautiful. The wispy nothing she wore was a tangy lemony color. The material left nothing to the imagination.

  He reached up with his free hand and sent his fingers over one of her nipples, the bud tightening.

  He bent his head as her hand slipped over his biceps, holding on. He made a humming sound of deep pleasure as his mouth closed over that hard little knot. The filmy material rasped against his tongue and her.

  His chest heaved. With one simple pull, his hands looking so huge, he stripped her. She closed her eyes, her mouth partly open from panting, making a soft sound in the back of her throat. She was so lush and full, and hearing her groan and seeing her nipples harden on a pair of the most exquisite breasts he’d ever laid eyes on sent a flood of heat to his groin.

  He lowered her down as he braced his knee on the mattress, wanting nothing more than to get closer to her.

  She was sweet, such a visceral addiction, all heat, the taste and feel and scent of her imprinted on every cell in his body, driving him goddamn crazy. She rose up with a hand against the middle of his chest. Before he could figure out what she was about, her fingers grasped the waistband of his shorts and she pushed him back up, his foot dropping to the floor.

  She was level with his lower chest and stomach. She looked up at him, those green eyes looking bruised and so lost. He wanted to ignore it. But he couldn’t. That she found him gorgeous. She didn’t have to say it. It was all there in the way her eyes went over his face.

  She ran her hands up over him. “Damn, yeah, baby, I want you to manhandle me. I do, but...” He was shaking so hard—never deny him a willing and consenting woman. But Kinley had been hurting and she was reacting to the pain of her father’s death and the terrible things that had happened today.

  As she took a breath, she dragged her fingernails down his chest all the way to the top of his briefs.

  He sucked in a heated breath and expelled a heated groan, then lost his voice completely.

  Curling her fingers into the waistband, she dragged them down and released his hot hard-on as he groaned.

  He loved a woman who knew what she wanted, especially if she wanted him. When she took a breath, he felt it against his impossibly rigid erection.

  “Oh, Beau...” Her words trailed off, punctuated with the slow glide of her fingers up his shaft and then down, setting off explosions of sensation and pleasure that made his knees buckle for a moment. It was incredible.

  With the iron will he’d honed in the Navy and the tough mental mindset he’d developed during his time on the teams, he grasped her wrists and finally found his voice. “No, chérie,” he whispered.

  He pushed her back, unable to let her go. He settled down onto the mattress and pulled her into his arms, smoothing back her hair.

  Her gaze locked on his just like it had in the mirror when they were devouring each other. He stretched out over her, covering her, his body aching to have her. He kissed her, then tightened his arms around her. “I’m not going to take advantage of you.”

  “A man with a conscience,” she said softly, desire in her voice and she looked at him with those same bruised, lost eyes, so lonely. His head came down, and he covered her mouth with his, filling himself with the taste and scent and softness of her.

  He kissed her with something that was akin to comfort. Something that he wasn’t aware he still had in him. And it felt so good, better than he thought it would with an aching erection and a sweet, naked woman in his arms. Damn. When he raised his head, she buried her face in his neck. All he wanted to do was hold her and fall asleep.

  Chapter 6

  Kinley woke slowly, at first reveling in the hard warmth wrapped around her. She snuggled closer, burying her nose into the tantalizing scent of something wholly delicious, spicy and...male.

  Very, very male, ripped and hard.

  Her eyes slid open languidly. They should have popped open, and even as part of her brain was calm, the other side was going, What have you done? But when her eyes collided with Special Agent Beau Jerrott and slammed into a brick wall of wow, her breath caught and held...and held. Oh, dammit. Beau. Oh...God...Beau. He definitely put the “special” in special agent. He was only inches from her face. His lashes thick above his cheeks. His oh-so-kissable mouth slightly parted in sleep, his enticing hair thoroughly mussed and looking even sexier than usual.

  Memories filtered back to her from the previous night. How sweet he’d been, how comforting in the way he’d held her. Her heart hitched at that. But she should be careful. He’d been so kind...she only had one explanation. Her defenses had been so low and she’d been hungry for the touch of someone, to feel the warmth and comfort that could so easily be found in the physical. Her heart melted at his restraint. She was going to find it difficult to stay guarded against him. But she decided that she needed that barrier.

  His mouth, his skin, the feel of him in her hands were also potent memories. And she’d fallen into an even more terrible trap then she had with Daniel. With Beau it was different. There was no other way to describe it. She should be freaking out. She should be moving away and trying to bring this crazy situation to a place where she could manage it, but looking at him was fine for right now.

  Her eyes went over him, down the length of his naked body, and discovered the sheet bunched around his nice-looking feet. Under his clothes, the man was as put together as he looked while dressed. She tilted her head when she caught ink out of the corner of her eye. Rising up on her elbow, it was not lost on her that she was 100 percent naked, as well. But she wasn’t self-conscious about her body. If it was any indication from the way Beau looked at her, she didn’t really need to worry.

  The tattoo was around his thick biceps, rounded even in sleep. It was a chain—more accurately, links in a chain. Wanting to get closer to see what the small lettering said, she brushed her breasts over his arm and peered closer. He shifted in his sleep and she glanced back at him, caught up in the way his face changed. He made a soft humming noise.

  When he seemed to settle, she turned back to the tattoo, trying to get closer.

  “It’s a chain. The lettering is initials of the people in my life who’ve made a difference.”

  She froze at his husky, drowsy voice. When she looked at him, his eyes were half-lidded and sigh worthy.

  Without taking his eyes off her or even broadcasting his intention, he shifted and brought her against his chest so that she could get a better look. Her skin vibrated from the feel of him. His sleeping presence had been potent, but when Beau was awake his charisma was palatable.

  One hand slipped into her hair as he nonchalantly ran it through his fingers.

  She closed her eyes. Oh, damn, he was just so cool and collected. She had to wonder if he did this often. Woke up with strangers. That made her barrier harden just a bit.

  “The first link holds my grand-père’s name, the second my mère’s and père’s initials. The third my first-grade English teacher who introduced me to books and opened up my world. The fourth is my navy recruiter for giving me the world, and the one after that is my drill sergeant from my BUD/S training, who made me understand the world better.”

  Her voice rasped out, “The last one is empty.”

  “I haven’t found the person to fill that link yet,” he said softly.

  “That’s a really cool tattoo.”

  He shifted so that he could see her better. “How are you doing?”

  “You mean after I blubbered all over you last night, or that I’m freaking out just a bit because we almost had sex?”

  “Um, I’ll go with, ‘Who needed a shoulder to cry on?’ Alex, for a thousand?”

  Kinley snorted. “You trying to charm me, Beau?”

  “Maybe. Is it working?”

  “Maybe.”

  He sobe
red and his hand was in her hair again. “Really, how are you?”

  “Better. I’m sorry...”

  He slipped his thumb over her mouth. “No need to apologize. We’re not robots or machines. We’re human, chérie. It’s totally okay to let your feelings show. Yesterday was a tough day for you. I have to admit, I got choked up once or twice after finding out that Cameron and his friends were all primed to make a nice amount of money only to lose their lives instead. I want to find these bastards and make sure they pay for what they did, especially if they are out to harm more US citizens. On top of that, your father’s death is profound. So, no apologies.”

  Without thinking, she brought her hand up and brushed her fingers against his rough cheek. He kept catching her off guard with these kinds of statements. It was genuine and heartfelt. Men didn’t serve their countries by putting their lives in danger every day out of the blue. There was a core of steel there, something admirable and honorable. Beau was a navy SEAL. They never really stopped serving. NCIS was a service to the navy and Marine Corps.

  He smiled slowly. “Kinley,” he whispered, and she remembered that she’d given him permission to call her by her first name. The memory of his fierce, demanding tone sent tingles through her.

  “Now let’s talk about the whole getting-naked-and-almost-doing-it thing.”

  She finally gave in and slipped her hand into his hair. Damn, it was so soft. “You think this is a time to joke?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not going to pretend I’m not attracted to you. I’m also not going to pretend that it wouldn’t have been crazy amazing with you last night.”

  “But.”

  “What makes you think there’s a but?”

  “I have buts and doubts and I promised myself I wouldn’t do this again. It wasn’t a good move for my career.”

  A shadow passed across his face and his jaw hardened. Somehow she had hit a nerve. “Okay, so you’re right. There is a but. I do this often, usually one night only.”

  She took the hit and reinforced her barriers. Kinley didn’t want to hear this but she was glad that he was saying it. It put everything in perspective. She pushed away from him. “Sounds like I dodged the bullet, then. I wouldn’t have liked to be just another notch, Beau.”