Page 40 of Lethal Illusion (Six Points Security #8)

To riff on a quote from one of his favorite movies: Navarre had fallen victim to a classic blunder, on par with getting involved in a land war in Asia, by assuming one night with Sloane could possibly be enough to get her out of his system.

Even though the sex was nothing short of earth-shattering, it hadn’t been what ultimately doomed him.

It was all the other stuff that came in between: the talking, the laughing, the exchanging of stories.

They dragged him in deeper, strengthened their connection, and, for the life of him, he had no idea how they could ever go back to being nothing more than colleagues.

The first rays of morning light crept through a tiny gap in the curtains.

The worst of the storm had finally passed.

It was still raining, but it no longer sounded as though they might need to build an ark.

But with each agonizing tick of the clock, Navarre became increasingly aware that his time with Sloane was coming to an end.

He’d been a fool to think one evening with her would leave him sated. To the contrary, it made things worse. She’d ignited something deep within him, stirring his heart as well as his blood, and he struggled for a way to contain it.

For now, he chose the coward’s way out and forced the unpleasant reality from his mind, determined not to ruin their last precious moments together.

He skimmed one hand along the curve of her hip, and she made one of those husky sounds that never failed to turn him on.

“Funny, I always assumed you were inked.”

She tilted her neck to peer up at him. “Why, because of the piercings?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess you seemed like the type.”

She made a soft sound of amusement. “I’ve thought about it from time to time, but I never could decide what to get or where to put it. I mean, if it’s going to be on my body for the rest of my life, I don’t want to regret it in a year or two.”

“Makes sense.”

“What about you?” she asked. “I don’t see any tats on you either.”

“No, I figured Jackson had enough for both of us.” He’d considered it on multiple occasions, especially when Jackson or one of the other guys in their unit got inked.

Fear of missing out, and all that happy shit.

But he’d ultimately decided against it, because his job as a sniper had relied on his ability to blend in with his environment, to be able to fade into the background, and what was the point in getting a tat if it had to be in a place where nobody ever saw it?

She laughed softly as she nestled into the crook of his shoulder and rested a hand on his chest. “You guys have been friends for a long time, right?”

He nodded. “We met in the Army. Been friends ever since. He’s saved my life more times than I can count. As far as I’m concerned, he’s family.”

It had taken him years to work through the grief of losing his biological family.

Jackson’s friendship and unwavering loyalty had been a huge first step.

Then they’d left the Army and started working at Six Points, and his surrogate family had grown larger, filling the void left by his blood relatives.

They’d given him camaraderie, a sense of purpose, and a framework of support that he hadn’t experienced since his father disowned him.

To lose that for a second time would be catastrophic.

He’d do everything in his power to ensure that never happened to him again.

Sloane let out a sigh of contentment, and the urge to take her again rose in his blood. Actually, the urge had been there for quite some time, but now it had grown too insistent for him to deny.

Her fingers traced the motley assortment of scars along his shoulder, pale against his tanned skin. “How’d you get these?”

Navarre glanced down at the scars, and a few choice images from the worst day in his life flashed through his mind.

He still had nightmares about Wanesh, though their frequency had diminished over time.

“Insurgents attacked an outpost I was stationed at. One of their mortars blew up the ammo depot. Killed eight guys in my unit. If I hadn’t been wearing Kevlar, it would have been nine.

It took us eighteen hours of nonstop fighting to beat them back. ”

Her eyes widened. “God, that must have been terrifying.”

“It was at first, but you reach a point where you get too scared to be scared, and all of your training kicks into place and you do whatever needs to be done.”

She went quiet for nearly a minute as she processed what he’d said. Her fingers drifted lower, to the jagged line along his torso. “What happened with this one?”

“The Blackhawk helicopter I was riding in got hit by a rocket and crash-landed. I got knocked unconscious, so I don’t remember much after that, but somewhere along the line, I caught a piece of shrapnel.”

She moved to a series of puncture marks on his forearm. “And this one?”

He sighed, because those ones were kind of embarrassing. “Are you going to ask about the origins of every scar on my body? I can think of better things to do with our time.”

“They’re a tapestry of your life. I can’t help but be curious about them.”

Okay, he couldn’t get annoyed by that, but he was pretty sure she was going to be disappointed with the story behind them. “Dog bite.”

As expected, she gave him a puzzled look. “Come again?”

“It was one of the first ops I worked for Six Points. This spoiled rich kid had gotten mixed up with some very bad people. His parents paid a lot of money for us to extract him from the situation. Getting him out was easy, but when we delivered him to his parents, their dog expressed its appreciation by biting me.”

Her brows drew down with a hint of suspicion. Not that he blamed her. It was a big deviation from how he got the rest of his scars.

“Are you messing with me?”

He drew an X across his bare chest with his finger.

“Cross my heart and hope to die. I swear that’s the truth.

It was a tiny, fluffy white ball of fur—couldn’t have been more than ten pounds, with little blue bows in his hair.

His name was Mr. Doodles. He trotted on over, tail wagging, tongue hanging out, looking friendly as can be.

But when I bent down to pet him, that little bastard latched onto my forearm like a cheetah trying to take down a gazelle.

Surprised the shit out of me. I didn’t even think his jaws could open that wide. ”

Sloane laughed, and he joined her. It hadn’t been funny at the time, but now he could look back and appreciate the absurdity of the situation.

“That dog held on for a good five minutes before his owners finally convinced him to let go by offering him a piece of bacon. Which was good, because I really didn’t want to drive to the hospital with Mr. Doodles still attached to my arm.

” He paused. “Every time I catch a whiff of bacon, I think of that little demon.”

“Oh God, stop,” Sloane said between fits of laughter. “You’re killing me.”

Navarre gave her a wry look. “I’m glad to see my near-death experience brings you such amusement.”

She snorted. “I’m picturing Mr. Doodles as a canine version of that killer bunny in the Monty Python movie.”

The reference caught him by surprise. He arched one eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little young for Monty Python?”

“Oh, come on, Monty Python is classic.” She idly toyed with the hairs on his chest, and arousal heated his blood. “My mother loved them. We used to watch reruns of their show every Saturday morning on one of the cable networks.”

“Do your parents still live nearby?”

“No, they moved to Upstate New York about four years ago. My grandparents aren’t doing well health-wise, and they wanted to be closer so they could help.”

“It’s good they’re in a position where they can do that.”

“Yeah, a lot of people aren’t that fortunate.

Dad was able to find a new job pretty quickly, and Mom works remotely so she can pretty much move anywhere.

” Her fingers drifted to a mark on his hip that was made by the graze of a bullet, low enough to send the blood from his brain straight down to his groin.

“Enough about my parents. I want to know more about these scars.”

“Later.” He shifted his weight, pinning her to the mattress, and kissed the daylights out of her. Their mouths joined in a tangle of tongues, and the more he tasted, the more he wanted to taste, until the need for her coursed through his blood as though it were a living thing.

Navarre couldn’t put a name to the way he was feeling. Okay, that was a lie. He knew exactly what it was, but he knew better than to acknowledge the soul-deep emotions that came with making love to Sloane.

He carved a path of kisses along her jaw and neck, relishing the throaty moan she made when he grazed his teeth along the tender muscle connecting her neck and shoulder. Lower still, and he’d almost reached the swell of her breast when her muscles tensed beneath him.

“Oh, my God.”

He froze. “What’s wrong?”

“Something just moved past the window.”

His senses snapped to full alert as he looked over his shoulder to the window. “Are you sure?”

“No, I’m making it up.” Sarcasm bled into her voice. “Of course I’m sure.”

“What did it look like?”

“I couldn’t tell through the curtain. All I know is that it was big.”

Navarre reached for his weapon on the nightstand and rolled off the bed.

Quickly, he crossed to the bathroom and grabbed his clothes.

They were still a bit damp, but if shit was about to hit the fan, he’d rather not be naked when it happened.

On the way back to the room, he snatched one of the robes off the floor and tossed it to Sloane.

“Go into the bathroom and lock the door. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you to fend for yourself.”