by Karen Anders
She took the phone, tucked it into the fanny pack and swallowed hard. “Vin,” she said, but had to swallow again. “Don’t let anything happen to you.”
“Sky...”
She covered his mouth with her fingers. “Don’t.... I already know what you’re going to say. I know I’m all about facts and hard science, but right now I want the fantasy. Screw reality. I want you to tell me everything is going to be okay. We’re both going to be okay. I need that.”
He grabbed her hand and kissed her fingers, then her palm, sending sensual heat all the way through her. She didn’t think she could get enough of this man, and that was a bad thing.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down, planting a kiss on him that was different from what they’d shared in the past. Slow and deep, she felt as if her heart was in her lips, beating with the need for Vin. She fell completely into it, feeling him against her, so strong and sure, her protector, her warrior, her shield.
It was more than her erogenous zones in play. Her heart was all the way out there, and it was both exhilarating and terrifying to think his might be, too. What did it mean? What would it change?
She didn’t want to think about any of that. She just wanted to be right where she was, in that particular moment, exulting in the intensity of the connection they seemed to be sharing. Knowing she wasn’t in it alone made giving in to it unbearably seductive.
He broke the kiss and said fiercely, “We’re both going to be okay.”
She traced his lips, the tantalizing strength of his jawline. “Tell me you were a badass, lethal marine.”
His mouth came down on hers in a soul-searing kiss; the chilly wind didn’t even faze her, she was so wrapped up in Vin’s heat and need. He pulled her closer, took the kiss even deeper, until she shivered with the power of him all trapped inside her. They both groaned a little when their lips parted.
He pressed his forehead against hers. “I am a badass, lethal marine. There are no former marines. I’m an excellent shot, too,” he whispered.
“Good. Don’t forget to kill them twice.”
He tightened his hold on her. “There won’t be anything I won’t be willing to do to keep you safe. Just follow my directions to the letter, and it’ll all work out.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and her attempts at schooling her emotions failed miserably. She nodded.
“Okay, let’s go learn about GPS and practice jumping out a bedroom window.”
She stuck her lip out. “I suppose you’re going to be a badass drill sergeant?”
“Yes, I am. Now, hup to it, missy.”
She walked with him to the car, and her heart wobbled, dipped, but held on with valiant effort. She hoped the men didn’t find them. Not because of the danger, not because of the fear, but because it would mean that Vin would be safe, too.
Chapter 12
Standing at the dock watching the water swirl past, Vin was trying to work through what had happened at the blind. The sound of her voice on the verge of tears because there wasn’t enough room in the hidey-hole for both of them.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then there was that kiss. He closed his eyes. It was...beyond words.
Ever since he’d taken this assignment and seen Sky’s face on the monitor at NCIS, he felt as if he was continually trying to surface from the deepest part of the ocean. Getting involved with her was exactly the worst thing he could have possibly done in his career as an NCIS agent. Not because getting involved with a woman he was protecting was against the rules. It wasn’t. He wasn’t even sure if that would have stopped him.
He rubbed at the back of his neck, the cold wind cutting across the dock, making the surface of the water ripple. That was what he was struggling with. Everything with Sky was simply better than good.
Profound. Primal, filling a need in him he wasn’t aware he even had. Maybe, just maybe, that was what was missing from all his past relationships?
Because there was absolutely nothing missing when Sky looked at him, touched him, joined with him. She affected him viscerally on every level.
And that was why it was the worst mistake he’d ever made.
They were in an iffy situation at best. He didn’t have enough information about who was after her or why. Yet he had to protect her.
He couldn’t fail.
That tore him up. The thought of failing. That was also something new. He never really contemplated failing when he was working a case, just as he hadn’t ever considered it as part of his thought process when he was sniping. There was only win in his head.
Losing her just wasn’t an option. It wasn’t even part of the equation. Protecting her and keeping her safe was all that mattered.
He heard her quick scrabble down the small hill to the wooden dock, then her footfalls before she wrapped her arms around him from behind.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Working shit out,” he said noncommittally. He wasn’t ready to say anything to her. He wasn’t even sure where they stood. The situation really precluded him from declaring anything.
She walked around him and gave him a soft smile. “While you were working shit out, I was practicing jumping out of a window gracefully.”
“We don’t need any freaking ballerina moves, sweetheart. Just get your ass over teakettle out the window and run like hell.”
She gave him a bemused look. “I suspect that my ass over teakettle will be unavoidable because you’ll be behind me shoving me out.”
He chuckled softly. “I don’t shove ladies. I might boost or firmly encourage.”
“Like you did this morning?”
His chest filled, thinking about having her mouth on him. “What was it that I said? I was completely distracted at the time.”
She flushed but met his eyes directly, and his heart went to mush.
“I believe your exact words were ‘Oh, yeah, baby. Use me.’”
“Really. I was that crass. That’s not like me.”
She giggled. “Oh, no, not like you at all.”
He stopped fighting the inevitability of kissing her. Just like from the beginning. He fought a battle in vain. Even as he took her mouth with his, he was still waging that losing battle inside him.
Her mouth was too irresistible, too sweet. The tiny hitch of her breath at the back of her throat unraveled him just a bit more. He figured if he could find some balance, some solid ground, then he might have a fighting chance at focusing on the job at hand and not on how he couldn’t get enough of her.
But that little hitch in her breath was a hard push that kept him unstable. And those incredibly soft lips beneath his. He was affecting her defenses, which made him feel a little bit better.
That little hitch sounded again, and he immediately found himself gentling the kiss, soothing rather than conquering. She tasted so damn sweet. She felt fragile and vulnerable, and damn if he didn’t want to save her.
He kissed the corners of her lips before taking her mouth once again. He was unhurried in his tasting of her, reveling in the moment, knowing it could end at any time with no guarantees of a future. He kissed her with a gentleness he didn’t typically express and carefully avoided examining any further why that particular side of him had surfaced now, of all times. The fragility he sensed was probably temporary at best, no matter what his libido wanted him to believe. But he quickly discovered kissing her like this wasn’t just soothing her; it was soothing something deep inside himself, too.
When she sighed into his mouth, urging him on with a little moan deep in her throat, the part of him that was almost out of control for her wanted to take her back to the cabi
n’s bedroom and let her use him again.
But the man who was falling for her found a different kind of contentment, skimming his fingertips over her cheeks, sliding them into the long, sleek strands of her hair, loosening her soft ponytail so he could feel that silken wave cascade over the backs of his hands, all the while taking in her breath with his own.
She was no longer just that beautiful face on a monitor or a brilliant scientist with her life neatly summed up in a file. She was a flesh-and-blood woman who had yet to bare all of herself to him. Something he craved. A woman whose plight should matter to him only in the strictest professional sense. She shouldn’t otherwise matter to him at all.
But she did, and there was no going back to impartiality, if he’d ever had it in the first place.
He broke the kiss, and they stared at each other for a few moments as the wind played with her now loose hair.
“What exactly do you do out here when you and your buddy come up here together?”
“Not the same thing I do with you.” He grinned.
She laughed and shook her head. She rolled her eyes. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he assured her.
She laughed again, pushing at his shoulder. “Vin...”
He chuckled and nudged her back. “We fish, drink and cut wood for the winter. But mostly fish and drink. Okay, maybe a little more drinking than fishing.”
She snorted. “Get in touch with your good-old-boy self?”
“Something like that.”
“Do you eat these fish you catch, providing you do actually catch something?”
“Of course we do. I do the cleaning and my buddy does the cooking. What do you do for fun?”
“Fun?”
“You know, when you’re not doing something that makes you a living.”
“I don’t really do much but work.”
“No vacations?”
“Um, I present papers at conferences. Does that count?”
He gave her a wry look.
“I don’t really have anyone to travel with, and I’m so busy....”
Now he gave her a skeptical look. “Seriously? You don’t take vacations or any time off?”
“Not really.”
“Not even to the Philippines?”
She bit her lip and looked away. “I’ve never been to the Philippines.”
“What? Okay, that seals it. Before we leave here, you have to do something spontaneous.”
“What? Why?”
“Practice for when you go back to your job. Sky, life was made for living, not working all the time. I saw my father do that, and I didn’t want that for myself.”
“Tell me about...”
“No. Why don’t you tell me about your father? I think I jumped to some conclusions the last time we talked about your family. I’m sorry. I want to understand your culture. Your mom was American. I know all about Americans, but I don’t know much about Filipinos.”
For a moment she stared at him. Then she looked away. She swallowed, waited a few seconds, then, her voice thick with emotion, said, “It’s getting on toward dinnertime. Aren’t you hungry?”
He had a sister, a mother and had been in a relationship for two years, and he totally understood that when a woman was ready, she would talk. There wasn’t anything he could do to get her to open up. But he was impatient. He’d never felt this way before. Sky didn’t know him that well, and he’d been looking at things through his own eyes and not trying to understand them through hers. After his revelations this morning, he wanted a closer connection with her.
He nodded. “I got steaks when I was in town yesterday. Do you eat beef? I didn’t even think to ask.”
“I don’t eat red meat.” She smiled at him.
“I’m such a typical guy. But, hey, I got chicken, too.”
“That will work. I can make some fried rice.”
He turned to head toward the house, and she grabbed his hand. He looked at her, then looked away, smiling to himself, his grip on her hand tightening. They walked up the stairs and into the house.
She went to the kitchen, then turned to look at him. “Do you have my hair tie?”
He’d forgotten about that. It was around his wrist, and he walked up to her. She held out her hand, but he just turned her slightly and started to braid her hair. She made a soft noise of surprise in her throat, and when he tied her hair off with the elastic, she twisted to look at him, her eyes softening.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“I have a younger sister, and sometimes she wasn’t exactly ready for school on time.” He felt a shot of nostalgia and vowed he would call her tonight after dinner. He felt bad for the way he’d acted when she’d called about the damn business. She had to know that he wanted nothing to do with it, and that included discussing it. She’d sounded stressed. But he’d gotten caught up in this case and had been preoccupied with Sky and keeping her safe. The other truth, the one he harbored whenever he saw a Boston area code on his phone, was that he could hear their disappointment, and it was something he wanted to avoid. Had been avoiding for a long time.
“What’s her name?”
“Delilah. I call her Lilah.”
He didn’t press her for any information as she grabbed a frying pan and gathered her ingredients. He pushed up the sleeves of the gray ribbed pullover, leaning back against the counter, his ankles crossed, his arms folded over his chest. The solemn lines around her mouth tugged at his heart.
“Where is she now?” Her tone was nonchalant, but her eyes were very interested. Very curious.
“In Boston, working for my dad.”
She got to cooking, and the aroma of the chicken and rice made his stomach grumble.
“Do you have a picture of her?” Once again, her voice had that easygoing tone with the underlying edge to it.
Regret in his voice, he said, “On the phone I dumped, not on me at the moment.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
When the food was almost done, she looked over at him, her gaze connecting with his, and for an instant there was an unspoken communication between them that was oddly restrained, yet oddly revealing—one that silently acknowledged his attempt to connect with her. There went his heart again, and she blinked a couple of times.
He noticed how her knuckles grew even whiter, which was saying something, considering she already had a death grip on the frying-pan handle. “I haven’t seen him since I was six. I remember him being strong and sure. With dark hair and an infectious smile. My aunt said that my mother fell head over heels for him when they met in college. I loved him and I miss him. But I couldn’t risk going back to China, and he refused to let me help by getting involved.”
His opening up about his family had put her at ease, it seemed, and she was finally responding to his inquiry about her father. “And you honor him.”
“Yes, definitely that. In any Asian culture, honor and respect are very important. Certainly you have that in your family?”
“Yes, I do, but it’s a bit different. I rebelled against my parents’ wishes and ended up doing entirely the opposite. It’s given me a richer life.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Trying to understand.”
She pressed her hand against her stomach, her face crumbling, and he was across the kitchen, pulling her into his arms.
“The grief is still fresh. I’m so sorry. I should have just kept my big mouth shut.”
She shook her head against his shoulder, her hands bunching the fabric of his sweater in her tight fists. He could hold her like this forever.
“I have no one to really talk to about this. No family. My aunt is sympathetic, but she barely knew him and she’s not really my aunt.”
“Grief is good, Sky. To feel it, you have to embrace it. Mourning someone is human. You shouldn’t have to hide it or bottle up your feelings. It’s what gets you through to the other side.”
She pressed harder into his chest. “Tell me what you remember about him. The memories are all we really have, but that keeps him in your heart and your mind. That presence.”
She lifted her head and looked at him as if she’d never seen him before. “I never thought about it that way.” Anguish in her eyes, she said, “He built me things out of paper. It’s called karakuri in Japanese. He was a mechanical engineer. Very smart, very clever.”
He let her go when she pulled away. “He loved math and gave me the same love for it. I was doing calculus when I was six and playing binary hopscotch.”
“Damn. I think I was driving fire trucks around and making siren noises at six.”
She laughed, and the sound of it, all soft and natural, filled the kitchen with warmth. She shook her head a little as if to say he was incorrigible, then turned to dish out the food.
After eating, he excused himself to make the phone call to his sister, and Sky sat down in one of the chairs by the fire and pulled out what looked like knitting. She would be surprised to find out that his buddy knit. The craft just seemed too domestic for her, but she didn’t have a lot to do here in the wilderness of Pennsylvania.
After going into the bedroom, he entered his sister’s number into the phone and sat down on the edge of the bed.
