Page 94 of Damaged Desires

“You and your SEAL ego. Even if Ididwant to ask, I don’t have time right now. I have things to do. I’m already hours behind,” she said.

“Fine, give me your laundry, go get things done, and then we’ll work on your self-defense skills. Afterward, you can ask me all the things you need to ask.”

“Excuse me? Did you say self-defense skills? Because I will have you know my father taught me plenty of self-defense skills. I’ve even drawn blood a few times.”

She did have moves. She’d escaped Fenway in an elevator when he was twice her size, but thoughts of the asshole senator only made me more determined to teach her.

“Trust me, I’ll be able to show you things he didn’t.”

Her eyes flared. “Challenge accepted.”

I laughed, and she left my room in nothing but a T-shirt. I followed, glancing both ways down the hallway to make sure that neither Carson nor Maribelle were there to witness her nearly naked body walking three doors down.

When we got to her room, she grabbed a hamper from the closet that matched the one in my hand. As she passed it over to me, she said, “No one has done my laundry except me since my mom taught us all as teens. Is this some strange way of trying to charm me more? You already got me in your bed.”

“Maybe Iwantto continue to charm you,” I said as I took her hamper and stepped back into the hallway. She looked both directions down the length of it like I had moments before.

“What?” I asked.

“I was just wondering what you’ve done with the real Nash Wellsley. If you find him, can you remind him I’d really like him to repeat that thing he did with his tongue and my?”

I kissed her, dropping the hampers and pushing inside her mouth to let her know I remembered exactly what I’d done with my tongue. I stabilized her before stepping away, removing all my body parts from hers. I grabbed the hampers and headed down the hall.

“Remind Dani that this real Nash expects her to be ready for class in exactly three hours.”

“You can’t time me. I have actual work to do,” she hollered after me.

“Three hours,” I said and whistled my way down the stairs as she slammed her door in response. There was a grin on my face that hadn’t been there in much longer than a year. Maybe never. Maybe since I was thirteen.

???

Exactly three hours later, I walked up the veranda steps from my check-in with the security system in the basement and opened the French doors off the library. She was sitting at Carson’s desk in my T-shirt, but she’d partnered it with a pair of leggings she hadn’t given me to wash. She was barefoot, one foot curled up under her on the desk chair, the other tapping away to something she was listening to in her earbuds.

I slid up behind her and kissed her on the top of the head.

“Holy shit,” she said, jumping a mile and banging my lip into my teeth hard enough to draw blood.

She turned, hand to her heart, and watched as I stuck my finger on my lip.

“Well, damn, youwerethe first one to draw blood,” I teased.

She put her finger on my lip as well. “I’m so sorry, but Jesus, you need to stop scaring me like that.”

I held her finger, kissing it.

“Self-defense rule number one: always be prepared for the sneak attack.”

She rolled her eyes, and I looked back to the book she had open on her computer screen. I smirked. “That doesn’t look like work.”

“Well, someone gave me a time limit, so I hurried through everything and finished early. If I get fired for doing a sloppy job, it’s on you.”

“You’re never sloppy,” I said. She shrugged away the compliment.

I pulled the computer closer to read the title, and she tried to swipe it away before I got a look at it, which only increased my curiosity. I pulled it over her head and laughed upon seeing the words.

“Why are you reading this?”

“Research,” she said, one hand on her hip, the other stuck out for the laptop.