Take Me if You Dare (Entangled Brazen)

by Nina Crespo

  In the midst of her descent back to the ground, he caught her around the waist and held her in place.

  His smile added warmth to his eyes. “Do you know you’re nothing short of amazing?”

  She tightened her arms around his neck and laughed. “You better believe it, baby.”

  “Trust me, I do.” His gaze held hers, and then he captured her mouth in a bone-melting kiss that spread a slow, burning fire through her blood.

  The excitement of the win, the tightening grasp of his hands on her bare waist, the slow draw of his tongue gliding over hers, it all left her holding on for the ride. When he finally set her away from him, she was breathless and slightly stunned.

  “Are you in for another race?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.” She rose up on her toes and gently sank her teeth into his earlobe. “I think we should go home and celebrate.”

  He gave her a lazy smile. “I like the way you think. Come on. Let’s go.”

  They headed inside, and while he picked up their winnings, she went to the ladies’ room. When she came back out, he was still in line. Catching his eye, she motioned to him that she would wait near the main corridor leading to the exit.

  Her phone blared out the new ringtone Tab had taken the liberty of programming in as hers, the latest from P!nk, the last time they’d gone out for drinks in Dallas. They were way past their little phone tiff in Miami, but of course, once Tab had found out about her and Ethan’s plan for a fling, she’d taken every expected jab and gloating opportunity available.

  Jasmine answered the phone. “Hey, Tab—”

  “Tell me you haven’t seen it?”

  Spotting a clear space of wall nearby, she hurried over to it and turned her body away from the crowd. “Haven’t seen what?”

  “I can’t believe Brenda pulled this crap, but it makes total sense because she’s such a miserable —”

  “Slow down, Tab.” The mention of Greg’s sister never brought good news. “What are you talking about?”

  “Someone must have shared the picture you took with Ethan because Brenda just included you in a group text she just sent out with a picture of her brother at the baby’s christening.” Tab released an irritated breath. “I bet she’ll try to play it off as an accident, but she knew exactly what she was doing. She even sent it from someone else’s phone number so you wouldn’t recognize who it was from and delete it.”

  A text message? She was so into the races, she’d missed hearing it come in. It took Jasmine another moment to process the news and a few seconds longer to remember why she should care. She’d distanced herself from Greg and the entire situation after she’d ended the engagement. The baby was how old? She calculated time in her mind. At least three months, maybe four.

  “Are you all right?” Tab asked quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No, I don’t, and yes, I’m fine.” She took a long, cleansing breath, determined to clear it all away. “I don’t have time to worry about Greg or the evil Brenda.”

  “Good,” Tab said. “Stay busy, don’t dwell on it, and wear something bright. It’ll cheer you up, but if you need to talk later, call me, okay?”

  “Tab, I’m fine, just promise you won’t call and get into it with Brenda.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tab drawled out her response.

  Translation—fat chance. Once Tab got a hold of Brenda, drama was bound to start.

  “Just make sure you delete that text. It’s the one with the heading ‘Baby Felicia,’” Tab said, and hung up.

  They named the baby Felicia? The words swatted Jasmine like a slap to the face.

  An emotional ache crushed her ribs as she took the phone down from her ear. That was the name Greg had chosen for a girl when they’d talked about having children. The name Felicia meant happiness. He’d said that he couldn’t imagine anything happier than being married to her and sharing their life together, and she’d fallen for it—love, marriage, babies, and forever.

  She stared down at the text icon on the view screen and her heart started to pound. Oh yeah, this was definitely Brenda. She’d always tried to make her feel like she wasn’t good enough, hadn’t done enough, but she’d given up everything for Greg—her home, her career, two years of her life. What had he given her? Not a damn thing. Even when it was all out in the open, he couldn’t even give her the truth.

  “Jasmine?”

  She spun around and stumbled right into Ethan’s chest.

  “What’s wrong? Are you crying?” His brow lowered with a concerned expression. “What happened?”

  She swiped her hand under her eyes and was startled by the unexpected moisture on her cheeks.

  Still crying over Greg? How wrong is that?

  She looked up at Ethan and opened her mouth, planning to share what happen, but reason intervened.

  And ruin the first full day the two of you have had together since you met? No way.

  Her having some sort of an emotional episode was exactly the result Brenda was aiming for with her text message.

  “Nothing.” She forced out a cough. “Sorry.” She pressed hand to her chest. “I was on the phone with Tab and all of a sudden I got choked up. I don’t know what happened.”

  “Do you want me to get you some water?”

  “No.” She waved away the offer and shut off her phone. “I’m fine now.”

  He gently grasped her shoulders and studied her for a long second. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes.” She managed to lift her mouth into what she hoped was a convincing smile and slipped her arm through his, leading him down the corridor. “Let’s go. I want to stop by the mall and buy a new dress for our date tonight.”

  “Sergeant Worth,” someone called out.

  Ethan stopped and turned around.

  Jasmine looked over her shoulder and saw a man with salt-and-pepper hair, dressed casually in a yellow golf shirt and tan slacks with knife-edge creases, walking toward them with a slight limp. He had the same air of confidence she’d noticed in Ethan, and the hard, slim build of someone who’d spent more than a few good days in the gym. When the man reached them, he and Ethan shook hands.

  “Colonel Ellis.” Ethan’s tone held a clear note of respect. “Good to see you, and it’s just Ethan now, sir. I got out two years ago.”

  “Same here.” Colonel Ellis gestured to his left leg. “Humvee accident in Afghanistan. I officially became a civilian nine months ago.”

  Ethan and Colonel Ellis stared at each other in silence for a moment.

  “I’m glad you made it home,” Ethan said. He turned to her. “Jasmine, this is Colonel Bill Ellis. He was one of my commanding officers.”

  She offered Bill her hand, and he shook it with a firm grip. “Hello, Jasmine, and please, call me Bill. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” His sharp gray gaze looked between her and Ethan. “I wondered when this guy would finally get smart and settle down. He’s a good man. I know you’re proud of him.”

  “Uh…yes. I am,” she said, politely, returning his smile.

  She waited for Ethan to correct Bill about the status of their relationship, but he didn’t say a word.

  Bill turned back to Ethan. “What are you doing these days?”

  “I’m with Bode-Wynn.”

  The man’s face lit up in recognition. “That’s a good outfit. If you’re going to stay in the action, they’re the ones to go with.” He lowered his voice. “One of my golf buddies was a part of that delegation you guys escorted to Colombia six months ago. I heard it was rough, but the way your team handled the situation kept it from turning ugly.” Another long silent look passed between the two men. “I know it’s hard to take the losses, but don’t forget. You saved a lot of lives that day.”

  For a fleeting moment, a haunted look passed over Ethan’s face. He cleared his throat. “Will do, sir.”

  A woman farther down the corridor called out Bill’s name and gestured for him to
join her.

  “Well, that’s the wife,” Bill said. “I guess she and her parents are ready for the buffet. She’s kept me on the run.” He chuckled. “Well, more accurately, a fast walk ever since I got back. I don’t know what I would have done without her these last few months. That’s the advantage of having someone to come home to”—he looked at Ethan—”but I guess you know that now.”

  He tipped his head in Jasmine’s direction and smiled. “Keep him in line and don’t let him get away with too much.” He turned to Ethan, and the two of them shook hands again. Bill clapped Ethan on the shoulder. “Good to see you. Make sure you keep your head down out there.”

  Bill walked down the corridor and joined his waiting family.

  As she and Ethan walked out to the parking lot, she couldn’t get one of the things Bill had said out of her mind. Losses. How many times had Ethan gone through something like Colombia? Any time he’d given her insight into his job or what he used to do, she’d realized he’d given her a sanitized version of things, but the pain she’d spotted in his eyes at the range and just now was real. Did he ever talk about it or did he just bottle it up inside? He didn’t have the same bottomless look in his eyes as the other contractor at the range, but how many more Colombias would it take before Ethan stopped being Ethan?

  The thought of him not being the man she knew tore at her heart.

  “Jasmine, where are you going?”

  She surfaced from her thoughts and looked up at his puzzled expression. He gestured toward his truck.

  “Oh.” She’d almost walked right past it.

  He followed her to the front passenger-side door, but instead of putting his key into the lock, he backed her up against the truck, braced his hands near the sides of her head, and trapped her in.

  “What’s going on?” He looked almost angry as his gaze searched over her face.

  “Nothing —”

  “Don’t.” He placed his finger against her lips for a brief moment. “We may not have been together for that long, but I know when something is up with you. Is it about the call you got earlier from Tab?”

  “No. It’s nothing.” She shrugged it off.

  “Is it because of what Bill thought about us being a couple?”

  “No, of course not.” She met Ethan’s hard stare and it took her a minute to figure out. They’d never fought the whole time they’d been together, but for some reason, leashed tension rolled off of him in waves. “Knowing your job is dangerous is one thing, hearing someone actually say it made it real.”

  “But a lot of the times, it isn’t. I told you that.” He leaned down until they were eye level. “What’s really going on? You were happy until you got that phone call.”

  She didn’t want to lie to him, but raking up the whole Brenda and Greg issue was out of the question. If he wanted to scrap it out, they’d do it over what was truly bothering him. She held up her chin. “And you were happy until we saw Bill. What happened in Colombia?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Anger simmered down to confusion. Maybe he hadn’t heard it right. Ethan moved his hands from the truck and stood up straight. “You want to know about Colombia?”

  “Andrew said you would fill me in on what you do, but you never talked about what Bill mentioned. Is it classified?”

  “That’s where you want this conversation to go.”

  “Yes.”

  Fuck. Ethan resisted punching the side of the truck. Promises from Drew or not, she didn’t have a right to ask him this. He didn’t owe her anything, but she was asking him, and he wouldn’t lie. That’s what her ex had done, and no way in hell was he going down in history compared to that bastard in her mind. No. This was a good thing. She needed to hear what was real. He needed to hear what was real. Then, he could finally put an end to the fairy tale he’d been spinning in his mind for the past week about the two of them.

  “A little over six months ago, I was on a security detail assigned to escort the secretary of commerce in Latin America. We were taking his delegation to a meeting at a hotel in Bogotá when Jax spotted a suspicious guy walking away from a delivery van parked near the hotel. When we checked it out, we found enough explosives inside of it to level half of a city block.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her brow crinkled in confusion. “What you guys did is a good thing, right? You stopped a major catastrophe.”

  He looked past her shoulder. “Yeah, but that’s not the whole story. Evidence from the van led us to a terrorist cell in the city. We went in with the Colombian strike force when they raided the apartment. The strike force lost someone. Dario Ortiz.” Ethan released a ragged breath. “And he was my friend.”

  A breeze blew over them and moisture cooled in his eyes. Looking up, he squeezed his lids shut, and memories, vivid and clear, came back to him. Raiding the apartment, taking down the targets, hearing the words “man down” in his com set, and looking back to see Dario lying on the ground. As they’d tried to keep him stable until the ambulance arrived, Dario had kept reaching for his pocket. He’d known what he’d wanted, and he’d found it for him—a picture of Elaina and Gabriel. Dario had died clutching it in his hand.

  “Ethan, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressed the issue.” She laid her hand on his chest. “I didn’t realize what I was asking.”

  He focused back on her face. “No, you needed to hear it. That’s why Drew and Devin don’t write off mental well-being as some sort of a perk that’s included in the benefit package.” He shook his head, and drew from the new sense of irritation rising up in him to clear away the rest of the memory. “What happened to Dario is just a good reminder for me about why I’ve never committed to someone. It’s too much to ask.”

  Her eyes widened with a look of shock. “Wait, no, you can’t do that. You can’t just assume what’s too much for someone else.”

  Assume? He’d lived through watching his mom hide her grief every anniversary, birthday, and holiday after his dad died. No, he wasn’t making some half-ass assumption. He knew.

  Jasmine lifted her other hand to his chest. She had tears in his eyes…for him?

  He shook his head. Pity never helped anybody. Reality always set things straight.

  “Would you want to be in a committed relationship with someone who’s gone half the time to who knows where, on assignments like the one in Colombia?” She recoiled from the snap in his voice. “Would you want to spend your life worrying about if he’s coming home or dealing with what you’ve lost when he doesn’t?”

  “You can’t ask me that question.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  He started to back away, and she grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. “No, you can’t ask me that question because I’m the wrong woman to ask, and we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you making stupid assumptions because you’re scared.”

  Scared? The word threatened to spark his anger to the next level, but he held it in check…barely. He didn’t want to be a dick to her, but they both needed to stop dancing around the truth.

  “The same way you’re scared about being hurt again?” He huffed out a derisive laugh and her shoulders stiffened. The vulnerable look in her eyes almost got to him, but he kept going.

  “A lot of people are scared about the same things you are, and most of them get over it. What I’m scared of is leaving someone behind. Look at what Dario did to Elaina. He knew the risks, but he still got married, and now she’s going through hell. She may never get over it.”

  “How do you know what she’s going through?” She gripped his shirt tighter. “Have you even asked her how she feels about it? Because if you did, I’m sure if you gave her the choice of having a life with Dario or not being with him at all, she’d choose reliving every day she had with him despite knowing the outcome.”

  He snorted. “You honestly believe that?”

  “Yes, I do.” Determination lit up her eyes. “We can’t predict what’s going to happen, but having love is worth the
risk. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to go back inside and ask Bill and his wife.”

  Ethan clamped his mouth shut. He didn’t have to ask. If anybody understood risk, he did, and he’d survived this long because he knew when to take a risk and when to walk away to save his life or to spare the people he cared about unnecessary pain. And who was she to talk about risk? Didn’t she realize that because of her experience with Greg, she’d created her own set of rules to live by when it came to relationships?

  He moved in closer. “And what about you, Jasmine? What type of risks are you willing to take?”

  She visibly swallowed and some of the light went out of her eyes. “I’m willing to risk another wonderful week with you.” She’d probably meant it to sound like a gift, but instead it came out like more of a loss.

  He could argue with her about it, but just as she felt like she was the wrong woman to answer his question, he was the wrong man to pass judgment over her decision. None of it was fair, but he didn’t want to spend the short time they had left together debating about it.

  He took her by the hips and pulled her flush against him. “I’ll take it.”

  She wound her arms around his neck, and as soon as his mouth touched hers, need spiked through him. He ground his lower body into hers, torturing himself as his cock hardened almost to the point of pain, but he welcomed it. He deserved to ache for bringing up the memory that put that haunted look in her eyes. She wasn’t spending two weeks with him to deal with his personal shit. He’d offered her more of what they’d shared in Miami.

  One more week…

  A different kind of ache opened up in his chest, and he mentally dodged it. Threading his fingers into her hair, he held Jasmine even more firmly in place, and glided his tongue through every space, curve, and hollow of her mouth.

  No, he couldn’t have her forever, but for now, she was his. He’d find a way to make up for hurting her and give her all the happiness he could for one more week.

  Chapter Fifteen