Unfortunately right now it felt the same. But she was too happy to argue with him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Very aware of her appearance, she made a face.“Don’t you know women don’t like to be surprised? Especially when they’ve been in the sun all day working outside.”
“You look gorgeous.”
He swung her up in his arms, carried her inside, and proved it on the living room couch. As she’d yet to put up the new shutters on the windows, they were fortunate that no one stopped by unexpectedly—they certainly would have gotten an eyeful.
Scott had insisted on stripping every last piece of clothing off them both before settling her on his lap and letting her sink down on him inch by inch.
He pinched her nipples and cupped her breasts as she rode him. Sliding up and down that thick slab, until she drove them both to the peak. Right when he started to come he brought her down hard and ground his body against hers until she shattered in a chorus of gasps and cries.
Still collapsed on his lap, she recovered enough to pull back and look at him. He’d shaved and cut most of the brown dye out of his hair, looking more like her clean-cut officer. But there was still an edge to him that hadn’t been there before.
He’d loosened up a little. He was still by the book and held those around him to a high bar, but he wasn’t quite so rigid and uncompromising as before. She didn’t know whether it was her, his biological father, or that he wasn’t trying as hard to prove himself worthy of the name of the man who’d raised him. Maybe it was a combination of all three as well as what he’d been through with the team. Betrayal on all its levels had fundamentally changed him.
“I didn’t realize you were such an exhibitionist,” she said with a glance to the window.
“I’m not,” he said with a smirk. “I told Brouchard to make sure we weren’t disturbed.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You mean the sheriff you’ve been having keep an eye on me?”
He didn’t bother denying it. “Yep.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you didn’t like each other.”
“We came to a little understanding.”
“What kind of understanding?”
“The kind where I won’t kill him, and he won’t ask you to dinner again.”
She rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t strike me as the back-down type.”
Scott smiled, caught. “He’s not. I think it had more to do with your friend.”
“Becky?”
He nodded. “As much as I hate to admit you were right, it was just friendly interest in you on his part. Apparently there’s been something going on with him and Rebecca for a long time.”
Natalie wasn’t surprised. She’d have to get the whole story out of Becky the next time she saw her.
“So if you are here, does that mean...?”
He nodded, lifted her chin, and planted a soft, tender kiss on her lips. “It’s done. It’s over.”
Her eyes searched his face as if not trusting herself to believe it. “All of it?”
“All of it. For the good of the country and to avoid war, what happened in Russia is going to stay buried for now—as is the general’s role in it.”
Natalie had figured as much. In the press, General Murray’s death by suicide had been blamed on grief over the death of his son, which she supposed in a way was true.
When the four men had returned from General Murray’s house to tell her and Kate that he was dead, Natalie knew she wasn’t the only one wondering whether the“suicide” was by the general’s hand. But Scott said they’d given him a choice and the general had done his part.
“And...?” she said anxiously, wanting to shake him for making her wait.
His eyes twinkled. “And your role has also been buried. The president agreed that you’d suffered enough, and when it came down to it, nothing would be served by putting you in prison. It helped that you had tried to call off the mission and ended up saving six men.”
