Page 23 of Covert Temptation (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #4)

T he chemical scent of markers filled the air. So did a faint squeak as Kennedy drew a timeline of events on three poster boards she’d taped together and laid out on the small kitchen table.

The scent and sound were all familiar to Dante, except this wasn’t a mission briefing in a war room.

It was a safe house kitchen, filled with sunlight and a woman wearing jeans that hugged her ass like they’d been tailored for her. And his commanding officers didn’t wear barely-there lip gloss that drove him crazy.

And Kennedy’s red sweater… Christ, he wanted to run his hands all over it—then throw it on the floor.

Dante turned his attention back to the board.

Kennedy had laid out the groundwork of names, events and dates.

Without access to a printer, they didn’t have the ability to slap photos on the board for reference.

But she was extremely thorough, labeling each section with things like Motive and Unconfirmed Sightings.

In large, neat letters in the center of the board, she’d written DANIEL SHEEN .

Dante folded his arms, trying to focus on their task and not Kennedy’s sweet ass pointed his direction. A lurid image of stepping up behind her, peeling down the fitted denim and grasping those hips as he slid into her played on repeat through his head.

Listening to her gasp.

Feeling the tight grip of her pussy around his stiff cock.

Hell, he had to do something besides drown in this desire.

He grabbed a blue marker and uncapped it. He stepped up to the table and leaned over the empty corner to add to the character study.

Kennedy threw up a hand. “Wait!”

He blinked at her.

“Don’t write on that corner. I was leaving that open for more on his faked death. Possible aliases and that sort of thing.”

Now that he knew her intentions, her plan made more sense than his.

“You’ve done this before,” he stated rather than asked.

Tipping her head, she lifted a narrow shoulder and let it drop. “I’ve done Alyssa’s version of this. I call it chaos with color coding.”

Dante couldn’t stop the grin that stretched over his face. He reached across the board and wrote Cipher? beneath Daniel’s real name.

Kennedy straightened, and they stood side by side staring at the name.

“You really think it’s him?” she whispered as if the man was nearby and would overhear.

“My gut says it is.”

“And your gut doesn’t lie.” It was a statement rather than a question.

Their gazes caught for a moment and held for even longer.

His gut was telling him a hell of a lot right now, and it was more than how Kennedy’s eyes pooled with deep brown softness whenever she met his stare.

“My gut says that I was wrong to suspect you had anything to do with the attack on Alyssa.”

She blinked in shock, redness climbing her throat to flood her face. As if his words dealt a physical blow, she let out an inaudible gasp and planted a palm on the table, head bowed.

He pitched his voice low. “Kennedy?”

“You really mean that.”

He nodded. “I can see how much you love Alyssa.”

Tears welled in the depths of her eyes, and she blinked more rapidly to keep them from tumbling down her cheeks. One slipped free, and she dashed a fingertip over the corner.

“That means so much to me, Dante.”

In a single step, he reached her. Gently, he took her by the shoulders and stared down into her eyes. The vulnerability she showed him every day awakened the protector inside him.

She lifted a hand and scuffed her fingertips over his stubbled jaw. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and she smoothed the pad of her thumb across his bottom lip.

He groaned.

She moaned.

At the same time she surged onto her tiptoes, he slammed his mouth over hers. The heat of their connection was a blow he wasn’t prepared for. Lust lashed at his insides, but the swollen sensation around his heart was different from anything he’d ever experienced before.

Angling his head, he claimed her mouth—owned it. He plundered her, gliding his tongue over hers in a slick sweep that had her nails biting into his shoulders.

He learned how her curves felt in that soft red sweater and was just easing a hand under the hem when a low vibration on his phone, feet away, tore them apart.

He stared down at Kennedy. She stared back, in a dazed state. Her lips looked plumper from his harsh kisses. Pink color streaked her jaw where his rough stubble had scratched her sensitive skin.

He made a grab for his phone and read the notification.

“That’s the delivery.” His voice sounded strained with a raspy edge.

Still dazed, she nodded.

“Wait here while I go pick it up. Lock up behind me.”

She gaped at him as if she’d forgotten that she was in danger.

Luckily, the pickup point wasn’t far away. The most difficult part of fetching the packages was dealing with his erection. When he reached the location and found three boxes, he could only shake his head at the woman. What did she buy?

After loading them all into the car, he returned to the safe house.

The first box was large but light—it definitely contained the whiteboard Kennedy ordered. The second was small and light as well. It rattled when he placed it on the kitchen floor. But the third box was big and heavy. He shifted the heavier box to lean against the cabinets.

When he closed the door, Kennedy was already reaching for a box, a pleased smile on her lips. “I feel like it’s my birthday.”

He grunted. “I thought you were just buying a whiteboard and some markers. What is all this?”

“You’ll see.” She moved to the knife block and pulled out the kitchen scissors, but he already had his pocketknife in hand and slit the tape on one box.

When they pulled out the whiteboard, they both stood back to admire it.

“It’s better quality than I expected,” she said.

“I hope we don’t just leave the board here when we leave.

The team can use it on base.” The way she stated that, so offhandedly, surprised him.

As if she liked the idea of helping the team—the same team that had interrogated her until they broke her spirit.

While he watched it happen. Hell, believed it should happen.

Until he’d spent real time with Kennedy, he hadn’t seen her depth. He’d only noticed the surface—a pretty face and a knockout body wrapped in designer labels. But over the past few days, he’d started to glimpse the woman beneath all that polish.

He hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface, not really.

But when a single tear slid from the corner of her eye after he told her he could see how much she loved Alyssa—

That moment?

That was real.

As she tore the cellophane off the whiteboard, he studied her happy expression.

The kitchen table was butted against the wall, and she leaned the board there. It was a blank canvas just waiting for them to dig in and draw more connections between the terrorist and the grieving son who had all the motive in the world to seek revenge on those he believed failed him…wronged him.

Kennedy placed the smaller box on the table. When she pulled out a set of colorful markers, she chirped a happy noise. Following that, she extracted another pack of posterboard.

“Ooh! It came!” She held up a pack of white discs.

His brows drew together. “AirTags?”

Bobbing her head with enthusiasm, she rushed out of the kitchen. He heard her footsteps moving down the hallway to her bedroom. After only a minute she returned carrying her boots.

“What are you doing?”

“You’ll see.” She opened the package. To his astonishment, she dropped one of the tracking devices into the bottom of her boot. She looked up at him with a big smile. “Now you don’t have to worry about me leaving. Now you can trust me.”

Hell. The fact that she ever thought she had to earn his trust like this twisted something sharp in his chest.

“Kennedy—”

She was distracted by whatever she saw in the bottom of the box. “Um…I’ll just put this in my room.”

“Kennedy.” This time her name came out as a warning.

She rolled her eyes at him. “It’s a surprise. I promise you’ll get to see what it is later.”

After making her feel so unworthy, how could he say no to her now?

He tapped the last box with his toe. “And this?”

“That’s the coffee table.”

He sputtered. “You’re joking. You bought a table ?”

“We need a place to put our midnight snacks when we watch hockey.”

He ran a hand over his face. “And you bought all this on the government card. Con’s gonna kill me.”

“I hate to tell you this, but we need to break out your card again.”

“For what now?”

“Food. The pizza’s gone, and I’m not going to trust some canned meat out of the pantry.”

He sank to the vacant chair and pulled out his phone. “You want pizza again?”

“I saw a menu for fusion food in the desk.”

“No way am I eating fusion. Mexican?”

“Tacos?” she asked hopefully.

“Done. Get it delivered. I’m going to check my email.”

“Deal.” She seemed lighter than he’d ever seen her. Maybe it was shopping. Maybe now that she had the tracking device in her boot, she felt he no longer had any reason not to trust her.

That small twist of pain in his chest was back, and he lifted a hand to the spot as he returned to the living room. As he took a seat at the desk, Kennedy called out, “Do you eat guacamole?”

“Love it,” he called back.

She was silent again, placing the order. He could barely focus on the few emails in his inbox. One caught his eye, and he sat up straighter.

Blackout got him full clearance and a login for the CIA’s secure system.

He had an in. A database to dig deep and find out as much as he could about the link between Daniel Sheen and Cipher.

He needed Kennedy to help him sift through all this information. She managed to take the workings of his mind and organize it into a visual aid.