Dynomite.
Her chest squeezed. If she was wrong about this, she wasreallywrong. Cringe-worthy wrong. She took another step toward him, and his gaze darkened with just a hint of wariness.
It gave her the hope she needed to continue. Maybe he wasn’t as indifferent as he appeared.
“I thought...” Her voice fell off as she lost her nerve. She had to force herself to take a big, deep breath and continue. “I thought you cared about me.”
There was a long harsh pause before he suddenly smiled. “I do. You’re a great kid. A great friend.”
Hammer. Nail. Heart. Straight through. She was twenty-two years old. He was twenty-four. Never had she felt those two years so painfully. She felt like a child—a little girl—in the face of someone much more experienced. Someone who knew what he was doing. Someone who had broken hearts before.
But she wouldn’t back down that easily. They weren’t just friends. It had been more than that. She knew it in her heart.
To hell with pride. She had to know. “Bullshit.” He flinched, her cursing obviously surprising him. “That’s BS and you know it. We aren’t just friends. What has been happening between us is more than that. My brother put you up to this, didn’t he? He told you to stay away from me.”
John’s mouth was clenched so tight his lips had turned white. “It’s late. You need to leave. I’ve had too many shots to deal with this right now. We’ll talk in the morning.”
This couldn’t wait until morning. She took another step toward him, and she swore he would have moved back if he hadn’t been against the door. “It’s true, isn’t it? That’s why you were with those women tonight on thebeach. My brother is trying to protect me, so you decided to get rid of me by breaking my heart.”
He looked a little pained at that. But whether it was good pain (as in “you are right” pain) or bad pain (as in “I feel sorry for you” pain), she couldn’t tell.
“I’m sorry if you misunderstood—”
“I didn’t misunderstand anything.”
She knew she was right. So right that she threw caution to the wind—and herself against him.
Instinctively, his arms went around her waist, and just as instinctively, hers looped around his neck. Did she pull him toward her? She didn’t know, but the next minute his mouth was on hers, and he was kissing her.
Really kissing her. With lots of groans, lots of tongue, and lots of passion.
Justlike she’d imagined it. Better than she’d imagined it.
It was as if the dam had broken, and everything he’d been holding back came pouring out all at once.
It was incredible. A rush of sensation. Heat. God, the heat. It was drenching. And his mouth was... intoxicating.
And not just from the faint taste of lime, salt, and tequila. It was everything. The way he tasted, the way he smelled, the way he felt against her. All those hard muscles that she’d admired too many times finally wrapped around and pressing against her.
She moaned as pleasure seemed to infuse every nerve ending. She wanted more. She wanted to feel his hands all over her body, his mouth on her neck, her breast, between her legs.
She wanted to take the hard column wedged between her legs in her hand, wrap her fingers tight around him, and see if he was as big and hard as he felt.
And then maybe she’d take him in her mouth.
She’d never done that before, but she had a feelinghe’d be happy to show her what to do. It wasn’t like there was a ton to it.
But kissing was good for now. Really good. His tongue was circling deeper and deeper into her mouth, as if he wanted to devour—
She was pushed away so suddenly that it felt as if she’d been slapped by a snap of cold air.
She stumbled back. Wobbled, trying to find the bones in her legs. And looked up at him in shock.
“What the hell did you do that for?” he shouted.
She’d never heard him yell before. She hadn’t thought Mr. Laid-back, “No Worries” capable. But he was drawn up tight and seething.
It was disconcerting. How well did she really know him? This was the deadly Navy SEAL, not the endless-summer surfer boy.
