by Tawny Weber
She was gorgeous.
He wanted to reach out and touch her. To see if she felt as good as she looked.
“Ahem.”
Blake’s gaze shot to the admiral. The older man stood in the doorway glowering. Not nearly as encouraging a look as the old man had offered when he’d been hoping to hook his daughter up with Blake. Then again, he’d clearly thought Blake a lot more malleable then.
“If you don’t mind, Father,” Alexia said, finally pulling her gaze from Blake’s to give the admiral a small smile, “I’d appreciate a few moments alone. I wasn’t able to thank Lieutenant Landon adequately before. I’d like to now.”
“Dinner is waiting.”
Blake wondered if his invitation to dine was still good. The other man didn’t say otherwise, though, so he figured it was.
“It’ll just be a few moments,” Alexia said. Then, in a move that shocked all three of them, she laid her hand on her father’s arm. “Please.”
For a second, the admiral looked as if she’d pulled a gun on him. Then he gave a gruff nod, awkwardly patted her hand and turned to go. He even pulled the door shut behind him.
“Holy shit,” Blake said, almost whispering. “How’d you do that?”
“I’m really not sure,” she told him with a little laugh, giving the closed door a wide-eyed look. “But enjoy it while you can, since he’ll probably be back soon.”
Blake’s grin only lasted a second, then faded as he stared at her. Damn, she looked good. Now that they were alone, he wanted to grab her and hold tight. To haul her off to the nearest private space that didn’t have her father’s stamp on it, and have his wild way with her.
He wanted to get the hell out before he gave in to any of those things and hurt them both.
“We should join them,” Blake said, gesturing to the door and wherever beyond it the dining room was.
“In just a second.” Looking at her feet, shod in impressively high fuchsia pumps, Alexia chewed on her lip, then gave a sigh and met his eyes. “I really do want to thank you. I also wanted to apologize. And, as soon as I confess, I’ll have to do both of those again, but I should get the first one out of the way, well, first,” she babbled.
Blake stared at her, trying to unravel her words.
Despite the gravity of her tone, her eyes danced as she watched him try to work it out.
“What do you want to thank me for?” he asked, starting at the top.
“For rescuing me.” She held up one hand as if to halt his objection. “Yes, I know I thanked you already and you will claim it was just your job. But this is for more than rescuing me.”
“You want to thank me for holding your hand?” he asked, trying to make a joke out of what was surely going to be an emotional mess.
“Well, you are pretty amazing at the hand-holding,” she teased. Her voice was low and sexy, bringing back all kinds of memories of her naked body, his exploding climax, the sounds she made as she took her pleasure.
God, he wanted her. And not just sex with her. He wanted that about as much as he wanted his next breath, but thinking about it in the admiral’s office gave him visions of the brig.
“But I wanted to thank you for a little more than that,” she said, pulling him off the ride to fantasyland. “I was scared. Even after you got me out of that nightmare, I was scared. You kept me from falling apart. You made me feel safe.”
“That’s my job,” he dismissed, trying to shrug the discomfort off his shoulders.
“Yes, that’s the point. It is your job. Your job, what you do, makes people feel safe.” She stepped forward, close enough that the familiar, heady scent of her shampoo enveloped him in a subtle cloud. “I threw your career in your face last year. I used it and, well, your connection to my father as an excuse to slam the door shut between us.”
Since Blake had done exactly that himself, he’d have to be a pretty big ass to hold a grudge. Or even to pretend to, for the sake of keeping a wedge between them. “You have every reason to see my career as an issue,” he told her. “It is one. I’m not a good relationship bet. I’m not going to be around a lot of weekends to go out. I’m not a ‘home at five for dinner’ kind of guy. I live on the edge and that takes a toll.”
He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his slacks and resisted the urge to kick the thick leg of the admiral’s desk. That was all true. That, and so much more. But he wanted, insanely and with all his heart, to ask her to take a chance anyway. To let him love her, despite those challenges.
But he couldn’t. He loved her too much to ask that of her.
“My career is who I am,” he said with a resigned shrug. “Relationship success with guys like me is pretty hard to come by. So rejecting me last year? That was a smart move.”
“You think I was right to reject you?”
His wince was minuscule, more an ego reflex than regret.
“I think we have too many things stacked against us. My career, your upbringing. Your father, my...” His voice trailed off. Even in the name of full honesty, he couldn’t bring himself to admit that he was still grieving. Instead, he shrugged as though his heart wasn’t weeping like a sad, little baby. “Like you said last year, the issues between us are too big.”
* * *
ALEXIA FOLDED HER FINGERS together, then flexed them apart before twining them together again. He listed all the same reasons they shouldn’t be together that she’d already told herself.
She should be grateful. And to show that gratitude, she should finish her thank-yous and let the man have his dinner.
“You’re right,” she told him. “Your career is a big part of who you are. Just as mine is a big part of who I am.”
She saw it, the flicker of anger in his eyes. It was that fury on her behalf that did it. That tipped the scales over from smart to heart.
“Which brings me to the confession, apology and second thank-you,” she said, surreptitiously stepping closer. Close enough to breathe in his scent. To feel his warmth. To see deep into his eyes and revel in the heat there.
“You might want to make it fast. I doubt your father’s going to wait long before reminding us we’re missing the meal,” he said, looking toward the door then back, shifting from one foot to the other. Was he nervous? How sweet was that, Alexia thought, almost smiling.
“Actually, my mother knows I wanted to speak with you. She’ll keep Father from interrupting.” Yet another shock to add to the many of the day. All it’d taken was a request and the word please and her mother had been happy to run interference.
“Okay. Confession?” he prompted, shifting away a few inches.
This time she did smile. She liked that she made the big bad SEAL worry. It gave her hope for the rest of this discussion.
“I listened at the door,” she told him softly. Then, using his shock, she stepped right into his space and looked up at him with wide-eyed innocence. “I heard my name and couldn’t help myself.”
“Your father doesn’t like your job,” was all he said. He didn’t rat out the admiral’s threats. He didn’t claim heroship for standing up for her. This was it, she realized. Her chance to use that angry-grudge habit her mother had commented on and turn it into Blake keeping secrets from her.
Except she knew better.
“My father is commanding, overbearing and arrogant,” she said with a shrug. “But he’s also right.”
“That you should leave your job?” That shocked him and caused just a little anger, if his frown was anything to go by. “Why? Because he’s got a puritanical streak? Or because some asshole terrorized you and tried to use you to create a weapon?”
“Why does it sound like you’d be equally angry if I answered yes to either of those?” she mused.
“I think its bullshit that you let anyone bully you. For any reason.”
Alexia nodded. “I agree. Nobody has the right, even in the name of love, to try to control someone else’s life.”
Blake frowned. “Even if you think you’r
e doing it to keep them safe? Or because you believe a relationship can’t exist on half-truths?”
“You know, there are elements of my job that are classified. That I’m not supposed to discuss,” she told him, twining her fingers with his. He didn’t pull away, but she could feel the tension in him, as if he wanted to run. Or grab her. She figured if she held on long enough to stop him from doing the former, he’d go for the latter. “Would you have an issue with that? I mean, my job revolves around sexuality. I’m constantly dealing with people’s sexual fantasies, figuring out what turns them on. I’m a scientist. We do a lot in the name of experimentation.”
She left it there, with all that innuendo hanging out exposed and ugly.
He frowned, as if he’d never thought of her job in those terms before. Then he gave her a nice-try look.
“So you’d be okay with a relationship filled with secrets? One that didn’t have total openness and honesty?” he asked, his tone calling bullshit on that.
“No.”
He nodded, as if he knew he was right.
“I need total openness and honesty in a relationship,” she said slowly. “Or I should say emotional openness and honesty.”
“I can’t stop what I do, Alexia.” He lifted both her hands to his lips and brushed her knuckles with soft kisses. Then, sounding as if he was ripping the words from his gut, he added, “Not even for you. And what I do is dangerous. I lost one of my best friends last year. He caught a piece of shrapnel right in front of me. I know how it feels to have to go on after that. I’ve seen how hard it is on the people left behind. I’ve lived it. I can’t ask someone to do that for me.”
“You see,” she said, inching just a little closer so the wide hem of her dress brushed his legs. “That’s emotionally open and honest. That’s what’s important. Not the details of a mission or the location of your next raid.”
Frowning, he shook his head.
“I don’t think you heard me.”
“I did,” she promised. “I heard every word. But I responded to what really mattered. I’m okay with the danger. That’s what my father was right about. I grew up surrounded by hundreds, thousands of men who lived with that danger. And most of those men are still around. You are specially trained to deal with that part of your job. That doesn’t mean training eliminates the danger, or that horrible things won’t still happen. But they happen anyway.”
“Like your kidnapping,” he said quietly.
“Exactly.” Thank you, Father, she mentally sang, grateful that the admiral had laid the groundwork for that argument. “But the secrets, the danger? If we can communicate, if we’re emotionally honest, then we can work through any issues those things create.”
He didn’t look as distant and closed now, but his blue eyes were still cautious. Watchful. As though he knew there was a flaw in her argument, but he just hadn’t found it yet.
Because he was so worried about a trap, Alexia stepped away. Put some distance between them. Just because she’d reached a place where she felt good about pursuing this relationship, where she’d justified it all in her mind, that didn’t mean he had. Or that he would.
Fear clutched at her belly. Her breath tight, she tried to remind herself that she’d faced death, dammit. This chasing down the man she loved? Piece of cake.
She pressed her hand against her churning stomach. Okay, so maybe more like an entire decadently rich, double-fudge-chocolate cake eaten in its entirety in a single sitting. In other words, she felt like puking. But it’d be worth it, she promised herself.
“I have a relationship with your father,” Blake said as if he were laying another card on the table, slowly showing his hand one point at a time. “He’s no longer active on base, but he was my mentor for years. He’ll continue to have input into my career.”
Then he grimaced and added, “Unless he follows through on those threats, of course. Then I’ll probably be stationed on Guam.”
“Ironically, I’m starting to think I might have a relationship with my father, too,” she said, still not sure how she felt about that. “I doubt it’ll ever be a close one, or even cordial. But I’m beginning to believe that maybe it doesn’t have to be antagonistic and angry any longer.”
“Wow,” he breathed.
“I know,” she said with a laugh. “Look at me, all grown up.”
His gaze skimmed her body, as if reminding them both of just how grown up she was. Her blood heated, her breath slowed. She wanted him like crazy, and dammit, they had to get through this issue and then dinner with her parents before she could have him. So they’d better hurry up or she wouldn’t be able to resist giving him a toe massage during the dessert course.
“If your job wasn’t an issue, if the danger and secrets didn’t exist, would you want to be in a relationship with me?” she asked, putting it all on the table. The questions, the opening, her heart. All there for him to take or leave.
“They are an issue.”
“If they weren’t,” she insisted, giving him a quit-being-stubborn look.
“If they weren’t an issue,” he said slowly, so slowly she wanted to scream at him to quit tormenting her, “I’d be begging you to go out with me. I’d be doing my damndest to sweep you off your feet. I’d have you in bed so fast, the sheets would catch fire.”
Relief, pleasure and excitement poured through Alexia, making her want to grab him close for a hug, then dance around the room laughing.
“Then why are you making them an issue? I’ve made my peace with them, so now it’s up to you. It’s not because of me that these things stand between us.” There it was, the truth gauntlet. Tossed between them in challenge. Now it was all up to him.
“I watched what it did to Phil’s family, saying goodbye to him,” he said quietly, his eyes boring into hers with an intensity that made her want to cry. “I saw the devastation. How could you ask me to do that to you?”
“There are no guarantees, Blake. All you can do is make every day we have together one that I could treasure, in case something did happen. Isn’t that all anyone can do?”
He frowned, looking as if he was turning her words over and over in his mind. Trying to find the flaw, to figure out how to dismiss them.
Alexia wanted to tell him to get over it already. To agree they had a chance. She wanted to run from the room and hide, so she didn’t have to face rejection. And mostly, she wanted to grab back the last eight months, to go back to the time that he’d believed they had a chance. Before her fears had fueled his, before she’d given him enough reason to believe that she wasn’t strong enough to handle a future with him.
But she couldn’t. Instead, she had to accept that she’d given it her best. With all his issues on the table, she’d answered each the best she could.
Well, she did have one argument left. But it made her feel naked. Terrified. And, again, a little like throwing up.
Faced with probable rejection, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell him she loved him, only to be turned away.
“Here’s the thing. I can’t date you,” he finally said, his words low, quiet. As if the words were torn from him.
It took all her willpower to keep her smile in place and not look as if she’d just been kicked in the gut. But Alexia did it. Hey, something to be proud of.
“Well, then...” She took a breath, still smiling, dammit, and looked around. “I guess we should go in and join the dinner party. I’m sure our presence will help my father’s digestion.”
And the sooner she took him into the dining room, the sooner she could get a sudden migraine and have to go lie down. Looking forward to that, Alexia turned toward the door.
She didn’t make a single step before Blake grabbed her hands and drew her back.
Gasping, she started to pull away. Then realized she was exactly where she wanted to be and stopped, sliding closer to him with a challenging look instead.
“Yes?” she asked in a long, slow drawl.
“Here’s the thing,”
he said, sliding his fingers into hers and pulling her close so both hands were captured in his behind the small of her back. “I can’t date you, because that’s not enough.”
“You want sex, too?” she teased, shifting just a little closer so her hips brushed his.
“Hell, yeah,” he responded, grinning. Then he shook his head and gave her a chiding look. “But that’s not where I was going.”
“I thought that’s always where you wanted to go.” She was having trouble containing the giddiness she felt. Crazy, since she wasn’t even sure what she was giddy about. But she needed the answer to what was standing between them as much as he needed to say it, so she bit her lip and said, “Sorry. Why can’t you date me?”
“We’ve got stuff between us, things that can be problems. I know your father will interfere. I know my career, your temper, they’ll be challenging. But the things that matter, they’re stronger.”
“My temper?” she asked, giving him a wide-eyed look. Then her brow twitched. Hadn’t her mother mentioned that very issue earlier? Clearly she had some self-reflection to do. Especially if it might fix the problem between her and Blake. “What are the things that do matter to you, then?”
He gave her a look so intense, her stomach plummeted to her toes and hid.
“I want a future. A commitment. A chance to see if this thing between us—the explosive heat and sweet humor and weird wavelength connection—to see if those are real. If they last.”
A future? This time when Alexia bit her lip, it was to keep herself from crying with joy.
“They’ve lasted over eight months,” she said, smiling so big her face actually hurt.
“I want to see if they last day in and day out. If we can both do our jobs, live together and still do that emotional honesty thing that’s so important to you.”
