“Well, I’m flattered, Harlan. But I prefer my partners a little more…I dunno.” He tucked his cue under his arm and mimed an hourglass figure in the air. “Curvy.”
“Mmm, and with longer hair,” Jean-Luc said.
“Bigger lips,” Marcus added.
“Legs for days.”
“And no cock,” Marcus said.
“Va-jay-jay all the way,” Jean-Luc agreed and the two laughed like a pair of drunk frat boys, knocking their cues together.
Seth rolled his eyes, but found he was fighting a smile. Jesus, he hadn’t smiled this much in years. Or laughed. Or scowled. Cried. Feared.
Loved.
Yeah, all kinds of messy emotions he’d kept locked up inside were suddenly bubbling to the surface. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with them all, or even how to begin sorting through them. All he knew for sure was he had some groveling to do.
“No, you idiot,” he said when the laughter died down. “I need you to pick a lock.”
“Oh. That I can do.”
As Marcus leaned his cue against the wall, Seth couldn’t help but add, “Besides, you know you can’t handle this much sexy.”
Marcus stopped short and his mouth fell open. He exchanged a surprised look with Jean-Luc. The expression on both of their faces clearly said, Holy shit, Seth Harlan cracked a joke.
“What?” he said a little defensively. “I do have a sense of humor.”
Jean-Luc finally laughed. “It’s nice to see it make an appearance.”
Annnd awkward silence.
“About that lock?” Marcus motioned for him to lead the way. “No cheating while I’m gone, Cajun.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jean-Luc said and they heard the crack of his cue hitting a ball as they left the room.
Marcus shrugged. “Ah, he was winning anyway.”
…
Phoebe left the en suite bathroom off her bedroom, still reveling in the luxury of hot water as sweet-scented steam followed her across the carpet. The heat had done marvelous things for all of the lingering aches and pains left over from her near-death experience and she felt somewhat human again.
Tuc’s house was a palace next to the rundown shelter with its cold showers and stingy water pressure. And compared to the rustic living conditions in the mountains, hot water, soap, and even the plush carpet under her feet felt downright decadent. Admittedly, the shower had factored into her decision to stay here instead of going back to the shelter.
Well, the shower and Seth. Even though he shouldn’t have had anything to do with it, since she’d spent the last two days convincing herself the abrupt end of their relationship had been a good thing. Which it was. Helpless against the pull of attraction, she’d been incapable of keeping her distance from him, despite knowing all the reasons she should. But as long as their awkward morning after continued to anchor a wedge between them, it wasn’t a problem. He avoided her, and her secrets remained safe. She remained safe. There was no more risk of falling in love with him—which she’d been dangerously close to doing, dammit—and she’d never have to reveal that she’d once lambasted him in the press. She’d never have to hurt him.
Or at least that had been her plan until he kissed her on the roof. Thank God she’d come to her senses before things progressed past heavy groping. And thank God this bedroom had a lock on the door.
Stopping in front of a giant bureau, she opened the top drawer in search of panties, grateful Zina had dropped her belongings off when she picked up Darya and her son. It was nice to have her own clothes again. She’d just picked out a pair of functional blue cotton when the door burst open behind her.
The locked door.
She squeaked and dropped the panties. Nearly dropped her towel, too, but managed to catch the slipping terry cloth and tuck it around her breasts again as Seth strode in like he belonged.
She gaped at him. “How did you—?”
Marcus stood out in the hall, rolling up his lock-pick set. He gave a guilty wave. She glared. He shrugged. Seth pushed the door shut, blocking her view, but she continued to scowl at the wood.
Ugh. She was so going to take an unflattering picture of Marcus in a compromising position—wouldn’t be difficult because, hello, this was Marcus Deangelo, by all accounts the second-biggest man-whore on the team. Then she’d blow the photo up to a life-size portrait and ship it to his mother. That’d show him for picking locks to ladies’ bedrooms.
Seth moved into her line of sight. “We need to talk.”
Oh, no. Talking was a bad idea. She clenched the towel tighter and turned her glare on him. “You need to leave.”
“I’m not leaving until we clear some things between us.”
A bubble of panic expanded in her chest and she backed away, stumbling a little on her own feet as she reached blindly behind her for the bathroom door. If she shut herself in there, he’d eventually take the hint and leave, right?
“Leave. Please.” She spun away, but his arm banded around her from behind. He lifted her clear off her feet and turned her into his chest, holding her tight for a long time. His heart thudded under her ear, making her think of their time in bed together. The memories combined with the gentle slide of his hands down her back heated her from the inside out.
“Seth, no,” she protested, but her voice came out faint and embarrassingly submissive and she didn’t have the willpower to push him away when his arms felt so good around her. “Please, just…go.”
“All right,” he said after a moment, but didn’t release her. “If you let me explain myself first.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do. For several things.” He drew a deep breath and finally set her back at arm’s length. “Starting with that moment on the roof and in the elevator—it was a slip on my part. I was high on adrenaline and you were standing there next to Tuc looking so pretty, and your infatuation with him tapped into something—”
She gaped. “What on earth are you talking about? What infatuation with Tuc?”
“What infatuation?” he echoed incredulously. “Are you kidding? It’s obvious. You salivate every time he walks into a room.”
She knocked his hands away from her shoulders. “Because I want his picture. You know how much magazines pay for shots of him? Enough that I could set Zina and the shelter up in a place like this and have enough left over to travel the world. Twice!”
His mouth opened and closed like a fish. “Oh.”
“Oh’s right, you dummy.”
“But you—” He shook his head as if trying to clear his thoughts. “No, never mind. That’s not the point. We’re getting off track. I need to apologize for the other day. For the way I left. It wasn’t—I, uh, didn’t mean—I couldn’t—aw, fuck.” He paused, rubbed a hand back and forth over his hair a few times, and winced. “Listen, I let myself get all knotted up again, but that was no excuse for walking out like you meant nothing to me. Because you do. Mean something.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “More than something, actually.”
“But…what about Emma?”
His brow wrinkled in an expression of genuine confusion. “Emma? She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“She does if you still love her.”
“What? No, I don’t love her.”
She didn’t bother hiding her doubt. “You don’t?”
“No.” But then he blew out a breath. “Okay, I admit I miss what I had with her and I like the idea of what we could’ve been. But that’s it. I don’t love her anymore. I haven’t seen her in years and barely know her now.”
“Then why carry her photo around?”
His hand covered the pocket of his vest before he caught himself and dropped it to his side. “It’s…hard to explain.”
“Try.”
He said nothing. And more nothing. So much nothing, in fact, that she figured their conversation—and relationship—was officially over. Because despite all of her protests to the contrary, she wanted to talk with
him. Without communication, they’d never have anything but sex. If she’d learned nothing else from her ex-husband, it was that harsh reality.
She bent to retrieve her dropped panties, then opened the bureau drawer to find something more substantial to wear than a towel. “Like I said, you need to leave.”
Seth touched her shoulder. “I can’t explain it. Just…know I don’t love her anymore. I’m a one-woman man and right now, that woman is you.”
Sighing, she gave up on trying to maintain her anger. How could she stay mad after an admission like that? It meant she’d have to come clean with him about her past, but not now. At this moment, she only wanted to hold him.
“What am I going to do with you?” She spun around and walked into his arms. “You spend too much time and energy dwelling on all the bad parts of life—you miss out on the good. The two of us together, that was some of the good.” She kissed his chin. “And we can have it again if you want.”
“I do want,” he breathed next to her ear. “That’s gotta be obvious. I can’t control myself around you. It’s like my cock has a mind of its own.”
She slid a hand between them, found him hard, and squeezed him lightly through the fabric of his pants. “Hmm. And explain to me why that’s a problem?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Problem? What problem?
Seth shuddered violently at her touch. When she put her hand on him like that, his only problem was the clothes keeping him from burying himself to the balls inside her. He fisted the material at her lower back as she continued to stroke him, the caress maddeningly light, almost nonexistent between the numbing effect of his scars and the muffling of sensation through his pants. And almost too much. Wound as tight as he was and still riding the effects of adrenaline from the successful training op, he was about three seconds from exploding. And he had to be inside her when he did.
“Sweetheart.” He caught her hand. Part of him wanted to pull her away. Another part never wanted the sweet butterfly caresses to end and he pressed his hips forward, thrusting into her soft palm. “If we do this, I can’t go easy. Not this time. I’m too wound up, and I’m going to bend you over that bed and fuck you until you’re screaming.”
She inhaled sharply in the moment before his mouth covered hers. He showed her what he meant with the kiss, used his teeth to prove how hard he needed it, his tongue to show how he’d take over. When he finally released her, her breaths sawed in and out of her lungs and she looked up at him with dazed eyes.
“You promise?” She backed up a step and dropped her towel, exposing her bare body to him. She was too good to be true. All satiny white skin with a faint dusting of freckles over her shoulders. Her nipples plumped and darkened as he drank in the sight of her, and his mouth watered for a taste of those tight buds. She was slim through the waist and hips, with a thatch of hair at the apex of her legs the same copper as that on her head. She squeezed her thighs together as his gaze settled there and, hell no, she wasn’t hiding her arousal from him. He wanted to see her glistening with dampness, ready to take him. He hauled her toward him, turned her back to his chest, and reached around to find her clit. She cried out with something that might have been his name and bucked her hips, grinding her ass against his cock.
Jesus.
He needed inside her.
He kicked her legs apart and used his free hand to unzip.
“Seth,” she gasped. “I’m so…close…” She rocked faster against his fingers and a shudder of release took her knees out from under her. He caught her with a banded arm around her waist and maneuvered her to the bed, bending her over the mattress just as he’d promised.
“Hang on to something,” he said and her fingers clawed at the blanket. He took himself in hand, found her entrance, and inched into her heat. She drenched his tip with her arousal, reminding him they needed a condom. Goddammit. He held agonizingly still as he searched through the many pockets of his pants. He knew he had one somewhere…
“Seth,” she whimpered. “Move.” She spread her legs wider, taking him in deep and almost making the condom unnecessary. He held his breath as heat coalesced at the small of his back and his balls tightened.
Too close.
Condom, he thought again once he got the rising tide of his orgasm under control for the moment. He continued his search, all but emptying his pockets on the floor until he found the damn thing in a leg pocket and withdrew from her to slide it on.
“No,” Phoebe cried and arched to keep him.
He flattened a hand on her lower back, holding her steady as he sheathed himself, then gripped her hips and slammed home again. And again. And again. She buried her face in the mattress and screamed, her sex spasming around him. He leaned forward and nipped the skin at the base of her neck and another shiver racked her, nearly undoing him.
Fuck, she felt good.
Straightening, he lifted her hips and set a pounding rhythm until his muscles quaked and she screamed again. Her orgasm clamped around his cock and ripped his own release from him with such force, it blurred the line between pleasure and pain.
Groaning, he pressed his face to the sweat-slicked skin of her lower back.
“Oh. My. God,” she gasped, trembling with the aftershocks. “I’ll never move again. And I’m good with that.”
Seth dragged in a deep lungful of air and peeled himself off her. She was right—she didn’t move. If anything, she started sliding off the edge of the bed like melting Jell-O. He gripped her rear and boosted her up until she lay across the mattress on her belly.
“I’ll be right back,” he told her, still breathing hard. “Have to take care of this.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Yup, she was already well on her way to dreamland. Seth smiled, a primal kind of satisfaction filling his chest that had nothing to do with his own release and everything to do with satisfying his woman.
His woman.
He kinda liked the sound of that.
The air in the bathroom was still thick with moisture from her shower. He tossed the condom, but when he stopped at the sink to wash his hands, he caught a glimpse of himself in the vanity. He still wore his face paint and all his weapons. And she’d let him touch her looking like this?
He quickly shed the weapons and holsters, setting them on the bathroom counter. Then came his pants, his shirt. He ran through a shower, soaping himself up and rinsing off as fast as possible, his focus completely on returning to the bed, to Phoebe.
He had the evening free and he didn’t plan on wasting a second of it.
Clean again, he shut off the water and stepped out of the glass-enclosed shower. Opened the linen cabinet to grab a towel—and came face-to-face with a full-length mirror on the back of the door.
Fuck.
There was a reason he only had one small vanity mirror at home. He hadn’t wanted to see this, the whole view of his torture in a stark reflection.
He looked at his hands, almost like seeing them for the first time. His palms were rough from scrapes that had never healed properly. Raised welts covered the backs of his hands from the thin stick his captors used to smack his knuckles. He still had indents in his wrists from the cable he’d hung from for more hours than he remembered. Thin lines striped his ribs from the blades of multiple sharp objects. Circular burns from cigarettes. A brand on his hip—the Pashto word for infidel. The ragged ridge of scar tissue across his neck from when Devil sliced open his throat.
They’d intended for him to die before the SEALs got to him. By all rights, he should have. He didn’t know how he’d lived and for a long time he’d wondered, why him? Why not Bowie or Link, whose bodies had never been recovered? Or Joe McMahon, who had been blown into such small pieces by the time the firefight was over all they’d had to bury was an arm and his dog tags? Garrett Rey, who had lasted only four days in captivity? Or Omar Cordero? Why couldn’t he have just fucking hung on a few more days?
Why, out of all of them, had Seth Harlan survived?
> Soft hands swept across his shoulders, down his spine, and then circled his waist. Phoebe leaned her cheek against his biceps and met his eyes in the mirror. Next to him, her skin was milky perfection and only highlighted how monstrous he truly looked.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
Unable to manage an immediate reply, he swallowed hard. Shook his head. “How can you find this attractive?”
She took the forgotten towel from his numb fingers, gently dabbing his shoulders, chest, stomach. Then she looped the towel around his waist and tucked the end in before entwining her fingers with his. “Can we try something I’ve been dying to do since we met?”
Thrown by the subject change, he let her lead him into the bedroom without protest. They’d already done the most intimate thing two people could possibly do together. What else could she be “dying” to do?
At the edge of the bed, she pushed on his chest until he sat, then, ignoring her own nakedness, she dug her camera bag out of a large bureau.
Fuck that. He sprung to his feet. “I don’t think so.”
She frowned over her shoulder as she fitted a lens onto the camera. “Trust me, Seth. Please.”
She didn’t think he trusted her?
Well, hell.
“All right,” he said on a sigh. “On the condition nobody but us sees them.”
She grinned and he got the distinct feeling he’d just been played. “Deal.”
Man, what was he getting himself into? Self-conscious, he rubbed the back of his neck, which had gone hot to the touch. Now he was blushing. Great. “Uh, what do you want me to do?”
“Just lie down on your stomach. No, wait.” She looped her camera around her neck and crossed to the bed. Considered it for a second, then yanked off the spread and rumpled the sheets. “There we go. Lie on your side here, arm tucked under your head. Oh, and get rid of the towel. There.” She positioned him and stepped back. Darted forward, trailed the sheet over his cock, just barely covering it, and backed up again, head tilted, calculation wrinkling her brow. As if he were livestock she was assessing for purchase.
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