Page 7

A J brushed his mouth over May’s, and the world tilted on its axis. Her lips were warm and demanding. Deepening the kiss, he swept over her mouth with a hunger that stole his mind.

Every thought fled as he brought a hand around her nape and drew her into the caress. With a soft moan, she let her head drop into his hand with an absolute trust that few ever gave a hard man like him.

Seconds melted into a minute as he learned how much pressure to apply to her lips and the way his fingers stretching along her scalp made her shiver.

With the tip of his tongue, he coaxed her lips apart. Her eager gasp had his cock surging against his fly. God, she tasted like the sweet soda she’d drunk and something else that drove him wild.

Angling his head, he swiped his tongue across hers…and plundered her. The dark need pulsing in his groin tripled with each pass of his mouth over hers. She anchored her hands on his shoulders, pulling her across the console he didn’t want between them for another damn minute.

He wanted her in his lap.

Naked.

Riding his cock.

Imagining how it would feel to sink into her slippery folds had him rock-fucking-hard. His groan slipped past his lips, and she answered with a stifled cry. Her sweet lips and the way she kissed him back wasn’t something he expected from May. She was so buttoned-up, almost uptight. The woman who carried herself with prim rigidity fled, leaving this ravenous vixen he couldn’t stop kissing.

If he didn’t stop now, he wouldn’t stop ever. He’d take her right here in the parking lot in front of the chicken joint and to hell with anyone who saw them tailing the truck.

With a sharp twist, he broke the kiss.

She dropped her head forward, breathing like she’d sprinted to Fort Leonard Wood and back. He didn’t drop his hand from her head, and she didn’t release her grip on his shoulders.

“Christ, May.” His voice wavered with an unsteadiness born of lust even as he stroked her silky hair.

“We shouldn’t do that again.” Her nails, points that had driven him crazy in the meeting, sank into his shoulders. The fibers of his shirt didn’t dull the sharp prick, and goddamn if it didn’t drive him crazier.

She lifted her stare to his. When she swiped her tongue across her plump lower lip—swollen from his kisses—his eyelids drooped.

“We shouldn’t do that again…but I want to.”

Just one more.

His chest heaved. Cupping her beautiful face, he slammed his lips over hers once again. If they were hungry before, now they were both famished. She dragged her tongue across his. He bit into her juicy bottom lip, giving it a little tug that made her rock forward in her seat.

Before he knew it, his prim little explosives expert was kneeling on the seat, wrapping her arms around his neck to get at him. The drugging kisses went on and on until he forgot that there was any world outside of the car they were sitting in.

The rumble of a nearby engine had her breaking the kiss this time. Still on her knees, her body bowed like a willowy blade of grass toward him, she raised her head and looked over his shoulder.

“The kids are in the truck! We have to get out of here.”

But she didn’t drop into the driver’s seat immediately. She stared at Henner for a long beat. “What’s going to come from those kisses?”

“Whatever you want to come from them, May.”

Fuck, he hoped whatever that was involved getting her out of her clothes and into his bed.

He leaned forward and brushed a parting-for-now kiss over her lips and felt the shiver rolling through her body to his core.

Slowly, she eased back into the seat and gripped the wheel. “I’ll drive until the next stop.”

He settled in his seat too. His stiff cock made sitting uncomfortable, but he didn’t want to scare her off by adjusting himself.

They snapped their seatbelts into place and May backed out of the parking space.

Up ahead, the military truck rolled along at a slow pace. She hung back a good distance until they got up to speed.

Neither of them spoke—not about him planting that tracker or that kiss. After he found himself replaying the kiss for the third time, he broke the silence.

“You drive better than most women I know.”

She turned her head slowly, fixing him in a look that spoke volumes. The way she tipped her head carried an edge of disbelief with a heaping helping of challenge.

He couldn’t refrain from grinning.

“You realize how insulting that is, right?”

“I complimented you.”

“Oh!” She threw one hand up in the air. “I’m supposed to be filled with gratitude.”

He chuckled.

“And what are ‘most women’ to you? Exes?”

He shifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I was actually thinking of my mom and sister.”

That doused some of May’s fire. “Oh,” she said quietly.

“I didn’t bring it up to upset you.”

Her dark eyes traveled briefly over his face before returning to the highway. “Doesn’t it upset you ?”

Again, he shrugged. “Used to. Now I like to think of my family occasionally, with fondness.”

She shook her head. Her dark, glossy hair slid over her shoulder, making his fingers twitch to touch the strands again.

“I don’t know how you do it. Break ties. Go without any special people in your life.”

He studied May’s face. He liked how her features seemed to battle to be seen despite her natural reserve about displaying strong emotions.

But after that kiss she’d let down her guard, and he’d watched turmoil flicker in her onyx eyes like flames touching dry kindling.

The curve of her cheek and her lips—still swollen from their heated kisses—tempted him to dive back in. In that moment as he searched her face for some trace of how she felt after what they briefly shared, he realized that somewhere between the small dangers they’d faced and their stolen moment, they were more than partners.

In a day, they’d achieved a level of trust it often took the men on Blackout Charlie years to build.

* * * * *

May tapped her fingertips on her thighs. In the driver’s seat next to her, AJ drummed the steering wheel.

In front of them stood the entrance of Fort Leonard Wood. They’d followed the military truck right up to the gate and watched the kids—and the bomb—disappear. AJ continued down the road for half a mile or so before he pulled off.

“What are we doing?” She shattered the quiet.

He swung his head to pierce her in his gaze. He looked tired, and no wonder. Neither of them had caught more than a cat nap while the other drove the long distance between the port in Virginia and the fort in Missouri.

“This,” he responded with emphasis, “is what the military calls getting our shit together.”

For some reason that made her giggle, but when she released it, the sound carried a note of hysteria. “Is that an official term?”

Now she was the one making wisecracks to lessen the tension thrumming in the air. AJ shot her a look of veiled amusement, but it was barely visible behind his solemn and stern countenance.

From here the fort sprawled in a series of buildings, a mixture of small and humble to large and imposing. Inside all of those walls, thousands of personnel lived and worked. Funny to think that rather than a home, the place was more of a fortress.

Yet a bomb had gotten through its gates.

“How do we get inside?”

“That’s what I’m trying to work out. We both have the clearances, but we need a good reason that will allow us the freedom to search for the bomb.” He turned his attention back to the road they were parked along, allowing her to study the sharp lines of his profile.

She could still feel how he felt when he kissed her. Rough cheeks and soft lips. When he delved his tongue inside her mouth, it was scorching hot.

She curled her fingers into her thighs to keep from reaching out and stroking her knuckles over his beard stubble. If she did, they would end up making out in front of the very base they were supposed to be finding a way into.

When he looked at her again, she saw that he wasn’t really seeing her. Behind those blue eyes was a computer that was analyzing, figuring out the next move.

Finally, they cleared, and AJ came back to the here and now. Back to her.

“This is as far as we go without some help. I’m going to call Con.”

She nodded. “I think it’s the only answer.”

He put the vehicle in gear and signaled to enter the roadway once more. Evening was falling fast, turning everything to muted grays. The sky was softening around the edges, darker in the eastern half than the western. Unfamiliar buildings and trees melted into one big dark shape, indiscernible until the headlights panned over them.

AJ’s call to Con went to voicemail.

“What now?” May asked.

“We’ll go to a hotel.”

“We still don’t have any clothes or even a toothbrush.”

“Shit.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. The rasp of those rough fingers on his rough beard had her clenching her thighs together.

“Find us a department store and we’ll grab a few things to get by.”

She took out her phone and searched for a store. At least it gave her something to do besides think about sharing another hotel room with AJ.

She plugged the coordinates into the car GPS. Neither of them spoke when they reached the store. Just inside the doors, they both grabbed shopping baskets and went their separate ways.

These cheap places didn’t offer much of a selection, but she was able to find a few basics as well as undergarments. Next, she found a toothbrush and toothpaste. As she hurried through the aisles, she turned her head and caught sight of the sexual health items.

She slowed her step, approaching the condoms on display. The thoughts going through her head weren’t like her at all . She didn’t just sleep with people. She’d been in long-term relationships with her sex partners.

But the way that kiss had heated her and AJ up, she didn’t want to take any chances.

She grabbed a box and stuffed it in the bottom of her basket under the clothes.

At the checkout, she spotted AJ already waiting by the exit for her.

She made sure to hide the condoms in between the items on the conveyor. After all, he was a SEAL. He had perfect vision, and he could probably spot the box from way over by the door.

She paid for the items and with a few bags in hand, she approached him.

He shot her a crooked grin. “Took ya long enough.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course—you’re a man. You probably only needed a toothbrush, a pair of socks and some beef jerky.”

“How’d you know?” He led the way back to the car, and they stowed the bags in the back seat. On the short drive to the hotel, AJ’s phone buzzed with an incoming call.

“Charlie 1,” AJ greeted the caller.

“Chickie. Talk to me.”

“We followed the truck with the cargo to the base. But we can’t just drive on without a damn good reason. We need you to grease the way for us.”

Con fell silent for only a beat. “Give me a bit. I’ll call you back.”

“We’re hitting a hotel.”

May’s mind darted to the bag in the back seat and the box of condoms there. She couldn’t believe her own boldness. Not that she wasn’t a strong, confident woman who knew how to take matters into her own hands.

It was just that…well, AJ was her partner, professionally speaking. She shouldn’t be having these thoughts about him at all, let alone go through with the hot and heavy thoughts whirling around in her brain.

By the time she caught up to the conversation, AJ had ended the call. He sent her a sidelong glance. “Everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

He directed a look at her hands in her lap. Her fingers were curled, and her thighs were clamped together against the surge of heat and need between them.

She hunched her shoulders. “Just a little chilly.”

“Want me to turn on the heat?”

“No, it’s all right. I’m sure it will be plenty warm in the hotel room.”

She didn’t imagine the slow dip of his eyes to her mouth. If he kept looking at her like that, she’d be lucky not to lunge for those condoms and take him in the parking lot.

Then he made a little humming noise in his chest that sent prickles up and down her arms. Her nipples pinched into tight buds too, and that set off a throb deep in her core.

He parked with haste and grabbed all of their bags in one hand before taking off at a fast clip to the lobby of the hotel. She rushed along beside him, aware that he was suddenly in a big hurry.

Of course, Con would be calling back soon. They needed to get behind closed doors for that conversation.

In minutes, they had a room rented and located it on the top floor. When AJ opened the door, May started inside.

He stepped into her path. “Wait. Let me take a look around first.”

She blinked up at him and nodded. Dear god, that protective streak in him was hot as hell.

He dropped the bags unceremoniously on the floor and reached behind his back, laying his hand on the weapon he carried in his waistband. She watched him stalk through the small room, switching on lights and checking under the beds and behind the shower curtain.

When he was finished, he came to a stop in front of her.

“Close the door, May.” His voice dipped to a low rumble, and his eyes hooded. Under the lids, the vivid blue sparked with the same lust she’d seen after their kiss.

She reached behind her and shut the door.

“Lock it.”

A shiver of desire rolled down her spine as she did something she never in a million years thought she’d do—she obeyed his command.

“Now…” He took a step closer and closed his hands around her waist. “Let’s finish what we started in the car.”