by Karen Anders
She moved against him in wild abandon, drawing him in deeper and deeper, her motion faster and faster.
A.J. growled savagely as he plunged into her. She yielded, her body going soft and willing as she arched frantically to fill the empty space between them. Water sloshed against the soft pink marble lip of the tub from A.J.’s frantic movements.
She tightened around him, her legs wrapping around his hips, giving him better access. The movement was almost more than she could bear, the pressure sweet agony.
She reached up and cupped his strong jawline, running her hands over the planes of his handsome face. Water streamed underneath her fingertips, dripping off his chin. She lapped it up with her tongue.
Her fingers left his face and traced over the taunt muscle of his biceps. He was built like a marble statue, but he was living breathing flesh, perfect in symmetry, exquisite in form.
His body tightened and released, and her name—drawn out in a long moan—burst from his throat. Sienna clung to him, holding him so tightly that she could barely breathe as air gusted in out of his lungs like a bellows. She felt like glittering sunshine, like a burst of white-hot light.
A.J. cradled her against his chest. After long moments he was finally able to speak, “Let’s get you out of here and into bed.”
Feeling languid and thoroughly exhausted, she went along with him.
When they were situated in bed, A.J. reached up to turn off the light.
“Leave it on,” she requested, getting a full view of the scars on his back. “I’m not ready to sleep yet.”
He stilled when her hand settled against the skin of his back. She wanted to soothe him even though the horror was far away in the past.
“Was it awful?” she asked.
He didn’t even pretend that he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Worse than that.”
“Do they bother you at all?”
“No, I’m all healed,” he said. “Except…”
“What?”
“I’m not as fast as I was before the blast.”
“How can you be sure about that?”
“I know my body and although I’ve worked hard to regain my flexibility and strength, it’s different, weaker.”
“That takes a lot of courage to admit. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I can’t give you the particulars of the mission, just that a tango—that’s the enemy—was able to lob a grenade.” He leaned back into the pillows and the air he stirred made her shiver, his delicious male scent driving her wild.
“What would you have done if you couldn’t have gone back to the SEALs?”
“I probably would have become a trainer,” he said quietly.
“Not being a SEAL…I mean…” She trailed off.
There was something about this man that robbed her of her remoteness. It was an intangible thing she couldn’t put her finger on. He lived life to the fullest, sometimes on the edge, but to the fullest. She couldn’t seem to get enough of absorbing all that intense energy.
He smiled. “I wouldn’t shrivel up and die if I couldn’t be a SEAL. The job means a great deal to me, but it’s more important to contribute and be proactive, not lament about what you can’t do, but what you can do.”
He snuggled her against his chest, wrapping his arm around her. His scent was overpowering, shutting out all other thoughts but him. His eyes were restless, thick-lashed blue pools that locked on to hers.
“You know what I learn every time I go on a mission?” he said, a darkness shadowing his eyes, his voice hushed.
She looked at him expectantly, imagining him in camouflage, carrying a weapon, his sure strides, the confident way he held himself. She felt strange then, a savage, tender feeling that she had never felt before for a man she barely knew. She admired him. The scars evidently showed what the man was capable of.
“I learn that you have to live every single minute. I’ve come close to death. Very close, Sienna. I know I want to live for every minute I have.”
Her eyes searched his compelling face. “Then why do you do it?”
“Because for me, Sienna, that’s living.” He turned onto his side to face her. “What about you and your job?”
“What about it?”
“It takes up most of your time. So much so that you don’t have time for something as important as your sister’s wedding.”
“That bust this weekend was part of a four-month sting operation that got a dangerous drug dealer off the San Diego streets.”
“And would it have gone off without a hitch if you’d been absent?”
“Well, yes, but I was part of the team. I had a right to participate.”
“I’m not saying that you didn’t, but where does your family fit into your life?”
“They fit,” she insisted.
It wasn’t long before the exhaustion of the day caught up with him and he drifted off to sleep. But Sienna lay there thinking about his question. Where did her family fit into her life?
THE WAIL OF sirens in the distance caused Sienna to come abruptly awake. A.J. was a warm wall of muscle, pressed against her from shoulder to thigh. Waking up in the middle of the night and having another human being to keep the loneliness at bay felt so damn good.
She’d thanked him for saving her life. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched him sleep, a man who affected her like no other. A one-night stand who had turned into something…more. She had been truthful when she’d told him that she wasn’t ready to let him go. But would it be foolish on her part to continue to see him and have to handle the heartache later on? His and her own. She hadn’t missed the rush of emotion in his eyes. It warmed her deep inside to know that she mattered to him.
A silly dare with two friends to blow off steam had complicated her life to the nth degree. She wondered how her friends were faring with their intended targets. Wondered how they were sleeping at night.
She didn’t think of A.J. as a target anymore. She couldn’t think of him as anything except what he was: a compassionate man who loved his brother, his parents and his country.
With the cover of darkness, she could admit to herself that wanting him to love her wasn’t foolish or reckless. Wanting him to make a commitment to her like Michelle was making to her fiancé, Geoff, wasn’t foolish, either. It seemed right and possible.
Except commitment was something alien to her and maybe that was why she craved it and feared it. If commitment could be given, it could be taken away. Yet it seemed like such a strong, permanent word. A word she’d love to add to her vocabulary if she had the courage to reach out for it.
Wanting someone to love her made her think of lying awake at night, as a kid, in some other family’s home because they’d never been her own. That had hurt so very much and each subsequent removal had made her close off her heart to any more pain. Before the Thompsons, she never got attached to anything. Not her room or her bed or even the family pets. They were just temporary.
And that was why permanence meant so much to her. She’d lived with temporary, the unsettling feeling of not knowing what she could depend on, and it was something she refused to ever feel again.
8
THE SOUND OF the apartment door opening woke Sienna. She got out of bed and threw on a bathrobe and grabbed her spare Glock in the drawer of her nightstand. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was nine o’clock in the morning.
Already awake and out of bed, A.J. pulled up his jeans. They both moved silently to the hall where Sienna gave a quick peek around the corner.
“In the kitchen,” she whispered.
A.J. nodded. Sienna moved away from the doorjamb and walked on silent feet to the entrance to the kitchen. She whipped around the corner and said, “Freeze.”
Her mother swung away from the refrigerator door, throwing up her hands. The carton of eggs she’d been about to put into the fridge fell to the floor.
“Sienna, you scared the daylights out of me.”
Sienna lower
ed the gun. “Lynne, I told you it wasn’t necessary to shop for me.” The humor was not lost on Sienna.
“Dear me.” Her mother put her hand flat against her chest. She shot A.J. a curious look and then looked back at Sienna.
“Lynne, this is Lieutenant A. J. Camacho. A.J., this is my foster mother.”
“Nice to meet you. I’ll just go put a shirt on.” He left the kitchen.
Sienna engaged the safety and set her gun on the counter. She moved forward to help her mother sit down in a kitchen chair.
“That’s quite a formidable young man, Sienna.”
“You have no idea.” Sienna said as she sat next to her mother. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“No. I should have called, but I thought you’d be at work.” Her mother saw the bandage on Sienna’s arm. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“Got in a tussle with a burly guy. He lost.”
She reached out and pulled Sienna into an embrace. “Well, I’m sure glad he did and that you’re fine. And the handsome lieutenant?”
“We’re working together on a case.”
She held her breath as her foster mother contemplated that. “Intriguing,” she finally said, giving Sienna a smile that told her that Lynne knew the score. She wasn’t going to stick her nose in any further.
“Actually, I am glad I had a chance to talk to you,” Lynne said as she went to the counter and picked up a roll of paper towels and began to clean up the egg mess. “Your sister is pretty upset.”
“I know. I’m working straight-out with this case and others are waiting for my attention.”
“Honestly, Sienna you’ve missed the last three fittings. How are you going to get it done in time? Your sister’s wedding is this weekend.”
“I’ll make an effort to do it in the next couple of days.”
“It’s already Wednesday. Time is running out.”
“I know. I promise I’ll make time.”
“Good. Call your sister and tell her that. She thinks you don’t want to be in the wedding.”
“I want to be in the wedding. Why does she say that?”
“You’re asking the wrong person. Now the other matter I wanted to talk to you about is dinner. It has been months. You must come on Sunday.” The tough set of Lynne’s jaw was a good indication that Sienna had better say yes.
“I don’t have a conventional job.”
“I know that, but you can take time out to eat with your family. Dad has a new toy he wants to show you.”
Sienna smiled. Scott was a riot when he had something new. Using it every chance he got, making them break out in laughter when he would say, “I can fix that.”
“He got a new jigsaw and he’s happily building tables with it. His hobby has turned into a little business. Several of the neighbors have seen the table he built for me and they want one. Now he’s commissioned for two.”
“Scott never took to retirement very well,” Sienna said.
“No. He didn’t. So we can expect you. I’m cooking roasted chicken with the works.”
“Corn bread stuffing?” she asked hopefully.
“Of course, your favorite.” Lynne reached out and squeezed Sienna’s arm.
“I’ll be there.”
Lynne’s smile grew wide. “That’s fine. Oh, bring A.J. with you.”
“I don’t think he…” Sienna started to help him by getting him out of dinner with her family.
“I’d love to come,” A.J. interrupted from the doorway, matching Lynne’s smile with one of his own.
“That’s settled,” Lynne said picking up her purse from the counter. “I trust you can get the rest of the groceries in the fridge. You might want to pick up some more eggs.”
Sienna laughed.
“I also brought over my Alfredo and a meat loaf, so enjoy.”
Her mother exited out of the apartment.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“What? The dinner invitation or the very awkward way of meeting your mother?”
“Both,” Sienna said and laughed.
“I’d love to see your father’s jigsaw.”
“If you come to dinner, believe me, you won’t be able to get out of it.”
“I think I might like to be invited to dinner on a regular basis.”
She stopped walking away from him at that comment. Turning around she studied him. “You would?”
“Is there a problem with that?”
“No,” she smiled. “My family is really nice.”
“So, you’re adopted?”
“I was orphaned, then I was fostered. My parents died when I was five and I was shuffled through the system more than I can count. Just when I’d get settled, I’d get pulled out and put into another home. Lynne and Scott are my seventh set of foster parents.”
“Shuffled around. That must have been tough for you.”
“It was hell, to be frank, but that’s all in the past. I’m grounded now. A San Diego police officer and I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do anymore. Speaking of my job, we’d better get going.”
“We should. It can’t hurt to have a quick bite and head out in about an hour.”
His face was so earnest, so tender, the comment made her smile.
He was no man for her to fall in love with. He tempted her and teased her, seduced her into letting go of everything that comprised her life. He interrupted her routine. He challenged her rules and regulations, made his own kind of reality.
A seductive one.
It wasn’t something she could embrace. She had her plan and it didn’t include a dedicated Navy SEAL. But as she thought of the time they had spent together in her bed, she couldn’t think of a single need he hadn’t met. He had offered her more than his body. He had offered tenderness, comfort, his strength.
The phone shrilled and Sienna picked it up.
“Hello,” she said into the receiver.
“Sienna, are you all right? Hobart said you’d taken down gunrunners and you were bleeding.”
The concern in Kate’s voice made Sienna smile. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t say it’s just a scratch,” Kate scolded.
Sienna pulled at a loose thread on the arm of the couch, lowering her voice a little bit more. “It is, though.” Both women laughed.
“Yeah, sure. You work too hard, Sienna.”
“This case can’t wait,” Sienna said. “I expected you to call last night. Didn’t Hobart tell you what I wanted?”
There was a long pause. “Yes, but I’ve been jumping through hoops for St. James. I did manage to get the request to the FBI. They said they couldn’t promise anything.”
Sienna could detect the stress in her friend’s voice. “Is everything all right?”
Kate’s sigh was filled with more than just frustration. “Some old case that’s causing him some indigestion. He thinks I messed up.”
“Did you?”
“Who, me?” Kate snorted. “No way. He’s wrong.”
Sienna felt a sudden overprotective feeling for Kate who had the sweetness of a lady and a spine of steel. “You tell St. James to play nice or I’ll come over there and kick his butt.”
“Not exactly a good way to start seducing a guy.”
Sienna shifted the phone to her other ear “How goes it?”
“Not too good.”
“We’ll have to work on that. When do you think you can get me the information about the guns?” Sienna hated to push when Kate was overwhelmed, but she needed that information as soon as possible.
“Tomorrow morning?”
“I have court in the morning, dammit. Just put it on my desk as soon as you can.”
“And I expect a full accounting of what’s going on with you when I see you. I’ve got to get going or I’ll be late for work. Be careful with this case and with that Navy SEAL.”
“I will.”
Sienna dropped the receiver into the cradle. Too late. Careful had gone out the window a long time ago.
She was heading straight into a whirling storm of emotion and heartache and couldn’t seem to help herself or slow her crazy descent.
“What’s the ETA on the gun info?”
“The FBI has the request and they said they would rush it,” Sienna said.
“When did she think they’d have the data?” he asked, sitting down next to her, the scent of him heady first thing in the morning.
“She thinks tomorrow.”
He scowled, reaching out and casually running his warm, calloused palm along her leg as if it was the most natural thing to do. “I was hoping for some answers sooner than that.”
“So was I.”
“What’s the agenda for today?”
“We still have the truck we can track. I also want to find out what’s holding up the M-16 serial number and the identification of the prints that were found in the truck.”
“You don’t give an inch, do you?” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“No,” she replied staring at him. “So, do you need to go home and change?”
“No, I always keep my duffel in the trunk of my car, then I’m always ready at a moment’s notice.”
“To leave.” A cold feeling started in the pit of her stomach and branched out like killing frost. The silence stretched and Sienna looked away. It really wasn’t her place to say anything to him about his lifestyle. He wasn’t her man, just a temporary lover. Sienna fought for equilibrium. “You’d better hightail it down there and get your stuff. I’ll make some breakfast. I think I still might have some eggs in the back of the fridge.”
He nodded, got up and grabbed his keys. He put on his shoes and quietly slipped out her apartment door.
After the impromptu visit from her mother, A.J.’s words from last night came back to her. How did her family fit into her life? It wasn’t until he’d voiced those words that she began to think about all the times that she had canceled because of her job. She shrugged off the unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had made an effort to fit her family in her life. A.J. barely knew her, she tried to tell herself, but a little voice jeered at her that maybe he knew her better than she knew herself.
She walked over to her purse and dug around inside. She found the receipt for the dress she’d purchased at Caroline’s Bridal Shop. Walking back into the kitchen, she picked up her phone and dialed. It took her less than a minute to make another fitting appointment. See, she knew how to fit her family into her life. It wasn’t difficult.
