Page 24 of Covert Temptation (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #4)

She already understood him better than most people ever had in his entire life.

His parents sure as hell hadn’t. The age difference between him and his siblings created a natural barrier.

And his foster families didn’t want anything to do with Dante—they just wanted the check that rolled in on the first of every month.

But Kennedy… In trying to understand the intel, she had somehow tapped into his mind.

And his damn heart too.

He pressed his fingers to that spot again, the one that felt the sharp pang when he thought about how much he’d wronged her.

Her whisper reached him at the same time her footsteps did. He twisted to watch her coming toward him, dragging the coffee table package, her lips moving as she counted her footsteps.

She might be starting to understand him, but there was a lot he didn’t know about Kennedy.

“We’re going to need the coffee table if we’re going to eat all this Mexican food I just ordered.” She tugged on the box, dragging it across the floor.

“Here—let me.” He hurried over to help.

She set a hand on the curve of her hip that tormented the hell out of him. “I’m stronger than I look, Dante. I take Pilates.”

“I have no doubt that you’re strong, Kennedy. In more ways than one.”

She turned those big brown eyes on him…and he didn’t want to be anyplace but here.

With takeout food and surprises to come…

And Kennedy .

* * * * *

Kennedy eyed the pieces of the coffee table spread out on the floor. Putting the furniture together was no big deal. Except it presented a problem for her.

Dante twisted from the desk. “Would you like me to help you?”

“I got it.” She set her hand on her hip.

“I can show you how—”

She gave him a flat look. “There are four legs and a top. It’s not hard to figure out.”

“So what’s the issue?”

“If we have a coffee table, I can’t prop my feet on you when you’re planking.”

He burst out laughing, and boy, did she feel the deep rumble clear down in her toes. Her belly dipped, her pussy flooding with want.

Watching Dante throw his head back in laughter, a grin stretching his hard lips, his eyes creased at the corners…was glorious.

“Kennedy, you’re too much sometimes.”

She smiled at him.

Just wait and see how much I am.

The secret still in the bottom of that box was going to put the biggest smile on his face, one that wouldn’t be wiped off anytime soon.

She checked the time on the wall clock and saw she only had about half an hour before their food was delivered. If they were going to have a place to put it all, they needed the table.

When she settled on the floor with a package of nuts and bolts and that silly little wrench she dropped every few twists, she felt Dante’s gaze fixed on her.

“I put together my own desk and bookcase in college,” she said as proof that she could handle this small project. “Once all the girls on the floor realized I was a master with this”—she held up the Allen wrench—“I spent a week putting their furniture together too.”

His gaze warmed, heating her insides even more.

She wanted Dante—a lot. It had taken all of her willpower the previous night not to climb into his bed again.

She didn’t know what stopped her really.

Maybe it was not wanting to place unrealistic expectations on their tenuous friendship.

Maybe it was hoping that he would come to her, proving that this relationship wasn’t one-sided.

Only he’d stayed in bed, and she slept fitfully alone.

He didn’t turn back to his screen, so she continued talking.

“After I graduated, I had a furnished one-room studio apartment. Luckily, I didn’t need to build anything else.”

“What’s your degree? I’m sure I saw it in your file, but I don’t remember.”

Her stomach dropped. He read her file. About college.

She was very proud of getting her degree…but she wasn’t proud of everything she did.

Fortunately, she’d found a way to make her past disappear—quietly, completely. That little rewrite landed her the job as Alyssa’s assistant.

“I have a degree in political science with a minor in international affairs.” She pushed out the breath she’d been holding and lined the leg up in the corner of the tabletop. Slowly, she tightened the first bolt with her fingers before using the tool.

“That’s pretty impressive.”

Her stomach did another flip. Dante was doing that to her a lot—when she caught him staring at her, when his fingers brushed hers at an odd moment.

When he was moving between her thighs.

Her insides gripped with fresh want. She only had to get up and cross the living room to be in his arms, in his lap.

Riding him.

Her new emotions tied to him stopped her from taking action. She should have known that she couldn’t just have sex with no strings. But she didn’t expect to ever like the big, grumpy SEAL either.

She finished one leg with a small noise of triumph.

Dante started clapping for her achievement, and she rolled her eyes.

“Don’t make fun.”

“I’m not making fun. Not all people can follow directions and put things together.”

“And you think I’m just some airhead running around the country with Alyssa, managing where we’re going to shop next.”

His brows drew low, pinching together. “That’s not what I said, Kennedy.”

She ignored the comment, and how punchy she suddenly was. Whether it was the talk about her college days or wanting a man she couldn’t have, she didn’t know.

Long, muscular legs clad in worn denim appeared in front of her, forcing her to look up…and up…to steely thighs and the bulge behind his fly. She cut her gaze over that large, impressive speed bump, to abs she knew firsthand were carved from pure granite underneath that shirt he wore.

When she settled on his rugged, handsome face, she sucked in a pull of air. Those dark eyes of his were pinned on her, and they were burning with want.

“Dante—”

In the kitchen, his phone buzzed with an incoming call.

It rang once. Twice.

She widened her eyes. Was he just going to stand there staring at her like he wanted to take off all her clothes and kiss every inch of her?

“The phone, Dante!”

Rocking as if she’d slapped some sense into him, he broke the connection and strode sixteen steps to the kitchen table where she’d left his phone after placing the food order.

She let another sigh trickle out and raked her fingers through her hair to regain some focus. She could hear him speaking in low tones, but she couldn’t make out the words.

By the time he ended the call, she finished the table. She was just flipping it over and setting it in front of the sofa when he walked back in.

“Everything okay?” she breezed out.

“Yeah.” His voice was tight.

She straightened to her full height and met his gaze. “You sound tense.”

“And this is why I want you so goddamn bad, Kennedy. You see me. The real me. You know when I’m on edge and when something is eating at me and I go quiet.”

Her jaw dropped. “I…I feel the same about you, Dante.”

She stepped around the newly assembled coffee table at the same time he lunged for her. She let out a moan as he yanked her against his hard body, his mouth coming down over hers in a claiming kiss that was possession and blazing need and something darker—something desperate.

His hands spanned her hips, fingers digging in like he couldn’t get her close enough. She opened her lips to him instantly, tasting the sharp edge of his hunger, the frustration and friction that had simmered between them for days now poured into the kiss like fuel on fire.

She wrapped her arms around his neck as he walked her backward, lips never breaking from hers, until her knees hit the edge of the couch. He tore his mouth away just long enough to whisper in a tone rough and wrecked, “I can’t keep pretending I don’t want you.”

She dragged in a breath, her heart thundering. “Then don’t.”

He kissed her again, deeper this time—less control, more everything .

This wasn’t a slow seduction. It was weeks of danger and loneliness, of finally feeling that she was worth his time when he told her she was worth his trust. Now this—whatever this was—was starting to feel not only possible, but real.

He slipped his hands under her sweater, trailing callused heat along her skin. She shivered, not from cold, but from the way he touched her like she was something fragile and vital all at once.

In that moment, she let herself believe he meant it. That this wasn’t just about escaping the mission he never wanted or burning off adrenaline.

That maybe…it was about them .

He lifted her and spun for the sofa in the same motion. The same motion that broke the coffee table the first time.

“Watch the table!”

He laughed against her lips, a sound of pure, reckless want. “I got it this time.”

He did, barely clearing the edge as they tumbled onto the sofa in a tangle of limbs and heat. She landed half straddled across his lap, her sweater pushed up, his hands already under it, palms searing against her bare skin.

Her lips found his again, bold with her hunger, tasting the curve of his smirk and the low groan that rumbled from his chest when she rolled her hips against him.

“Christ, Kennedy…” His voice broke against her jaw as he kissed his way along her throat. “You’re driving me insane.”

“Good,” she breathed, dragging her fingers through his hair and tugging just hard enough to make him growl. “You deserve it.”

His hands slid over her ribs, thumbs caressing the undersides of her breasts as she arched into him. The kiss deepened, growing hot, desperate.

They weren’t being careful now, dancing around each other as strangers falling into bed for the first time.

This was need . Weeks of opposition and irritation that morphed into barely there glances, then finally exploded all at once.

She felt it in the way his fingers dug into her hips and the way his mouth devoured hers like he was starved.

She slipped a hand under his shirt, trailing over hard planes of muscle. He was burning hot, his skin tight with restraint. She wanted to push him until he broke completely, until there was nothing between them but skin and breath and whatever the hell this thing was becoming.

He kissed her hard, one hand fisting in her hair, the other gripping her thigh to anchor her to him. She moaned into his mouth—right before the sharp rap on the front door shattered the moment.

They both froze.

Another knock. “Guac and Roll!” a voice called.

“Son of a—” Dante dropped his head against her chest with a frustrated groan.

Kennedy panted, still straddling him, her sweater askew, lip gloss long gone.

Dante’s breath rushed over her skin. “Did he say Guac and Roll?”

She giggled. Despite the desperate lust hammering her veins, and her frustration at being interrupted, she giggled. “It’s an awful name for a restaurant.”

He looked up, eyes dark and still glazed with heat. “You’re lucky I’m so hungry I don’t care where you ordered from.”

Dante stood, adjusted his stiff cock with a grimace and stalked toward the door as Kennedy straightened her clothes, cheeks hot and her lips tingling.

By the time he returned, bags of food in hand and a sheepish grin on his face, she was seated primly on the sofa, trying not to squirm at the throb between her thighs.

Trying to pretend her heart wasn’t still galloping.

He set the bags down on the table and gave her a long, heated look.

“We’re not done,” he warned.

She smiled, slow and teasing, as she opened the lid. “Not even close.”

And with that, they sat down—back to work, back to the mission—pretending that every touch of hands and stolen glance wasn’t still burning between them.