by Paige Tyler
“Wait!” Peyton said.
He turned back to look at her.
“I could really use your body right now,” she said.
It was possible his jaw dropped. Noah couldn’t be sure because the rush of images that popped into his head right then made rational thought damn near impossible. He’d had women throw themselves at him, but it usually happened after hanging out in a bar for a couple of hours. Not within the first twenty minutes of meeting each other. And it had never been as blatant and as matter of fact as this. He didn’t know how to respond.
“Can you get on the floor with me?” she asked, reaching out to grab his arm.
Apparently, Peyton wasn’t a woman who liked to mess around. Obviously, being a bodyguard was a hell of a lot different than he’d imagined. Jon had never mentioned this as a possibility—and it definitely wasn’t something they’d taught him how to handle in SEAL training.
He opened his mouth, then closed it. He took a deep breath, carefully disengaged his arm from Peyton’s grasp, and tried again. “Since I’m supposed to be protecting you, I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”
Peyton frowned, clearly confused. She looked at him for a few seconds, then down to the floor, then back at him. Finally, her eyes went wide.
“Oh! You thought I meant…” A rosy blush colored her cheeks. “I wasn’t saying I wanted to have sex with you!”
He lifted a brow, wondering if he should laugh or be offended. That only made her blush more.
“Oh God, that didn’t come out right! Of course, I’d have sex with you. What woman wouldn’t?”
If putting your foot in your mouth were an Olympic event, Peyton would win a gold medal for sure. She must have figured that out, too, because her face started heading for beet-red.
“Oh crap! That didn’t come out right, either.” She sighed and ran a hand through her long, blonde hair in a gesture that was seriously sexy. “Let me start over before I say something I’m really going to regret. I asked you to get on the floor with me because I suck at writing fight scenes and the one in this book is giving me more trouble than most. I thought you might be able to help me if we acted it out together.”
It was his turn to be embarrassed. Talk about jumping to conclusions. Wishful thinking on his part, obviously.
“It was a silly idea,” she added before he could respond, shaking her head. “Forget I asked.”
She started toward her computer desk, but he stopped her with a gentle touch on her arm. Now she was making him feel bad about jumping to the wrong conclusion in the first place. “It’s not silly. I’d be happy to help you.”
Peyton caught her lower lip between her teeth, a move as sexy as running her hand through her hair—maybe more. “You don’t mind?”
“No, not at all.” He grinned. “What do you want me to do?”
She thought a moment. “In the scene, the hero and the other guy are fighting on the floor, but I can’t figure out how the hero gets the knife away from him. Can you lie on the floor on your back?”
“Sure.”
Noah walked into the center of the room and sat down on the carpet, then leaned back. “Like this?” She nodded. “And where are you?”
Peyton kneeled down beside him, then straddled his legs, careful to make sure her skirt didn’t ride up too high. “Right here.”
O-kay. He supposed he should have seen that coming since she’d asked him to get down on the floor with her. But damn, with her on top of him like this, the last thing he was thinking about doing was choreographing a fight scene.
“So, I have the knife and you’re trying to keep me from stabbing you,” she said.
Peyton clasped her hands together and lifted them over her head like she was holding a weapon, then lowered them as if she were going to stab him. Noah automatically lifted both arms to block the downward thrust, then immediately slipped his hands sideways until he could wrap them gently around her wrists. The move was pure instinct, but his next thoughts weren’t. Because all he could suddenly think about was how slender those wrists were, exactly like the rest of her. And her skin was so soft.
“This is as far as I got,” she explained. “Any tips on what the hero should do?”
It was difficult to answer with her warm body practically lying on top of his. His cock stirred in his jeans. He ignored it. “Are these guys experienced fighters? Do they have any special training?”
She shook her head, the ends of her hair brushing his shirt. “Not really. They’re both on the football team.”
Noah thought a minute, trying not to let himself get distracted by the way her breasts rose every time she took a breath.
“There are a few things the hero could do.” Noah took his right hand away from her wrists, shifting the left so he could hold both of them in that one. “He could punch the other guy in the jaw or the ribs. Or he could buck up to get the other guy off balance and roll him off.”
Her perfectly arched brows furrowed. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Realizing it was easier to show her, Noah lifted his hips slightly to get her off balance, then rolled both of them over until he was the one on top. Once there, he gently pinned her wrists to the floor over her head.
Peyton blinked up at him, her blue eyes wide, her mouth slightly parted. Her lips were the color of strawberries. He bet they tasted just as sweet. If he leaned over a little bit more, he could kiss her and see if he was right. It’d be so easy.
And unprofessional.
Not to mention damn stupid.
The cock straining against the front of his jeans didn’t agree. Shit. All he needed was for her to realize he was sporting wood.
Noah cleared his throat. “I should probably let you get back to writing.”
Something close to disappointment flickered across her face, but it disappeared too quickly for him to be sure. She licked her lips once, then nodded.
He released her wrists, then reluctantly pushed himself to his feet. The sight of her lying on the floor, one leg bent at the knee, her skirt riding up her thighs was nearly his undoing, and it took everything in him not to get back down there with her and do what his body was begging him to do.
He swallowed hard and held out his hand to help her up. She placed her smaller one in his, allowing him to tug her to her feet. While she was tall, she still only came up to his chin, and she tilted her head back to gaze up at him.
“Thanks for helping me with the fight scene,” she said.
He smiled. “Sure. Once the hero has the bad guy pinned, it should be easy for him to punch him a few times, then yank the knife away.”
Peyton caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she nodded. Then she hesitated, as if she was thinking about saying something else, but didn’t.
“I…um…I’ll be downstairs,” he said.
Allowing his gaze to linger once more on those luscious lips of hers, Noah turned and left the room. He walked downstairs on autopilot, checking his phone for messages on the way, hoping for a distraction. No such luck.
He thought about turning on ESPN, but as he reached for the remote, the bookshelf along the wall caught his eye. Realizing it was filled with Peyton’s books, he crossed the room to take a closer look. The covers were smaller versions of the poster upstairs in her office, each of them featuring a good-looking guy with a pretty girl. Admittedly, they weren’t his usual reading, but curiosity made him pick one up and flip through it. If nothing else, maybe it would take his mind off the beautiful author who wrote it.
Before he knew it, he was on the couch reading the whole book. And not simply because he needed a distraction, but because it was good. Damn good. Having enlisted in the Navy right out of high school, he never went to college like the characters in Peyton’s books, but he could relate to them anyway. Maybe because when you got right down to it, a lot of the crap they went through wasn’t so different than what he had to deal with at some point as a young SEAL.
Then again, it could also be beca
use he had an eighteen-year-old sister who’d been talking his ear off about her friends, boys, course loads, and college ever since he got out of the Navy.
But as interesting as the book was, he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering to what had happened upstairs earlier. He could honestly say he hadn’t seen any of that coming. And he wasn’t talking about Peyton asking him to show her fighting techniques, either. Although that had certainly led to it. He was referring to the spark between them.
He couldn’t decide which part of the whole event he enjoyed more. Having her on top of him, straddling his waist, had been pretty damn spectacular, but being the one on top hadn’t been any less amazing. And then the way her skirt had slid up to show off her legs when he’d rolled her over? Damn. That had been seriously sexy.
And now he was hard again.
Shit.
Noah finished that book and was halfway through the second one when Peyton came downstairs. He looked up, stunned to see it was almost 1730—five-thirty. He’d been reading for a while.
Suddenly remembering the book, he stood and held it up with a smile. “Hope you don’t mind?”
She looked surprised, but shook her head. “No, definitely not.” Her lips curved. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a romance reader, though.”
He chuckled. “I’m usually not. But yours are good. Not too much of the mushy stuff.”
“Thank you…I think,” Peyton laughed. “I wasn’t really expecting company, so I don’t have much in the fridge except yogurt. I get a lot of takeout, especially when I’m on deadline.”
He shrugged. “Takeout works for me.”
“I have a bunch of menus in the kitchen.” She looked at him over her shoulder. “Any preferences?”
“Whatever you want is fine with me,” he said as he followed her into the kitchen. “I can order something if you need to do some more writing.”
She shook her head. “I’m done for the day. Although I wouldn’t say no to taking a quick shower if you really don’t mind ordering.”
A naked Peyton standing underneath a spray of warm water with soap suds running down her body wasn’t something he’d say no to, either. Okay, and now he was going to have that image in his head for the rest of the night, if not the entire time he was on this job.
Noah shook his head and picked up the handful of takeout menus she’d put on the counter, his gaze locked on her spectacular ass as she walked up the steps and disappeared upstairs.
Chapter Three
Peyton still wasn’t sure how she’d gotten any writing done after rolling around on the floor with Noah, but after the impromptu lesson on hand-to-hand combat, the scene she’d been struggling with for a few days practically wrote itself. So much for telling her agent that having Noah around would mess with her creativity.
She opened the bottle of shower gel and squeezed some of it into her shower pouf. The scent of pineapples and coconut filled the enclosed shower as she ran the fragrant suds over her arms and down her legs.
But while he might not be messing with her creativity, the gorgeous SEAL had her seriously off her game when it came to everything else. She’d almost died of embarrassment when she’d said that suggestive line about needing his body and asking him to get down on the floor with her. She was more out of practice with the opposite sex than she’d realized.
In all honesty, being with him on the floor earlier had been the closest she’d been to having sex in a long time. Heck, it was the closest she’d been to a guy period. She’d actually felt heat pool between her thighs while straddling him. Her desire had only intensified when he’d rolled over and pinned her hands to the floor so easily. She’d never been one for any kinky stuff in the bedroom, but that subtle show of dominance had gotten her seriously hot and bothered. Even now, she was getting tingly in all the right places merely thinking about it.
And if the bulge in his jeans offered any indication, Noah had been just as aroused.
She rinsed off the soap, letting her hands linger on her breasts for a moment before gliding down to brush her pussy. She was about half a second away from grabbing her waterproof vibrator and pleasuring herself when she remembered her hunky SEAL bodyguard had already ordered dinner and was probably waiting for her so he could eat.
Stifling a moan, she shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. The towel made her already sensitive nipples ache even more and she couldn’t resist giving them a squeeze as she dried off. Letting down her hair, she ran a brush through it, then went into her bedroom to change.
Considering she had a guest, she probably should have put on something else, but she grabbed her usual shorts and tank top and was halfway down the steps before she thought about it. By then, it was too late to do anything about it because Noah looked up from his phone and saw her. Running back upstairs to change would be silly.
Peyton forced herself to pad slowly across the living room and into the kitchen, keenly aware of his gaze on her. The flare of heat in his eyes made her suddenly warm all over and she quickly opened the fridge to grab a bottle of cold water.
“Want one?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Yeah, thanks.” He shoved his phone in his pocket. “The delivery guy should be here in a few minutes. I ordered pizza. Hope that’s okay.”
She held out the bottle of water. “Perfect.”
His fingers brushed hers as he took it from her hand, sending the same little zip of electricity rushing through her that she’d felt upstairs. She darted a quick glance at his face to see if he’d felt it, too, and caught her breath at the look she saw there. But the doorbell rang and it was gone.
While Noah went to grab their pizza from the delivery guy, Peyton used the time to regroup. She’d never been with a guy who had this kind of effect on her. If by some crazy chance they ever did kiss, she’d probably spontaneously combust on the spot.
“Have you always lived in Virginia Beach?” he asked after they were both seated on the couch enjoying their pizza.
She shook her head as she added parmesan cheese to her slice. “No. I grew up in Charlotte, but my family used to come here all the time on vacation when I was a kid. Every time we left to go home, I promised myself that I was going to move back here.”
“And did you always want to be a writer?”
“At first I wanted to be an English teacher,” she said. “I always loved to read and write so I thought that’d be a natural fit. After getting my degree, I taught for a couple of years and wrote in my free time. I really enjoyed teaching, but I couldn’t devote as much time to writing that way, so after I landed my first big book deal, I quit teaching to write full-time.” Peyton regarded him over the top of her pizza. “How about you? Are you originally from the area?”
He helped himself to another slice. “I grew up in Norfolk, but I used to come down here a lot with my grandfather when I was a kid, so I know the place pretty well. Plus, I was stationed here the whole time I was in the Navy.”
And she’d never run into him even once. She really needed to get out more. Then again, SEALs didn’t spend a lot of time in the States, did they? “What made you join the Navy?”
He chewed before answering, which gave her time to be mesmerized by his mouth. He had the most sensual lips she’d ever seen on a man. They looked like they’d be perfect for kissing—as well as other things.
“There was no way my mom could afford to send me to college, and I definitely wasn’t getting a scholarship, so the military seemed like the logical choice,” he finally said, interrupting her fantasy before it could go anywhere. “My grandfather was in the Navy, and after listening to all his stories growing up, I didn’t have to think too hard about which branch of service I wanted to join. My grandfather would never have let me live it down if I joined the any of the others.”
Peyton laughed. She bet Noah would look good in whatever uniform he put on. “Your grandfather must be very proud of you.”
“He was,” Noah said sadly. “He passed away a f
ew years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Was he a SEAL, too?”
“Nah. But he couldn’t have been happier when I graduated BUD/S,” Noah said, then clearly anticipating her next question, added, “Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training.”
Ah. All those acronyms were so confusing. But at least she did know SEAL stood for Sea, Air and Land. “So why a SEAL?”
He shrugged. “I was looking for a challenge, and I’d always been athletic. When the recruiter showed me a video of all the cool stuff SEALs did, I couldn’t sign up fast enough.”
Peyton could imagine him as an eighteen-year-old kid looking at a video like that. To him, it probably all seemed so badass.
“What did your mom think of that?” she asked. “From what I heard, SEALs do dangerous stuff and are gone more than they’re home.”
He frowned slightly and reached for another slice of pizza. “She didn’t think much of it. She worried a lot.”
Peyton sipped her water. “Is that why you got out of the Navy?”
“That was part of it,” he admitted. “I loved the work and going on missions, but more promotions meant moving into a staff position, and I wasn’t interested in that aspect of the job.”
“I guess that’s not something you can turn down, huh?” she asked.
He snorted. “No. The system in the Navy is sort of based on an up-or-out concept. As you get more senior, it’s expected you’ll start to do some of that other stuff. Like I said, though, it wasn’t my thing.”
“How did you end up at GAPS?”
“The guy who runs it—Jon Rudnick—and I worked together on the teams,” Noah said. “When he heard I was getting out, he offered me a job. It still lets me use the skills I learned in the Navy, which is why I took it.”
Peyton wasn’t surprised. Something told her that he was the kind of person who needed adventure in his life. She wanted to ask him what kinds of things he’d done in the Navy, but decided against it. She was sure everything he’d done had been all classified and ultra-need-to-know. He probably wouldn’t be able to tell her anything.
