Navy SEALs Complete Series: 3 Books + 3 Novellas (Tempting Navy SEALs) (20 page)

It terrified her. Not because she was scared of him but because the strength of his defense mechanism had come the moment he lifted from her body hours before, stalking to the bathroom, where he had showered for what seemed like hours.

Long enough she was certain his skin was going to prune.

“Would you hurry and dress? We need to get out of here.” He was in SEAL mode, as she and Raven called it. Emotionless, all business.

Morganna adjusted the stocking before glancing over at the chair where he sat again. He was sprawled out in all
appearance of lazy abandon. Even the appearance of it sucked, though.

“I told you it took a while for me to get ready.” She lifted her shoulders in a negligent shrug as she rose to her feet, careful to keep her back to him.

She could feel his eyes on her ass. The intimate knowledge didn’t shock her, she had always known when Clint was watching her, but now she knew the difference in the varying intentness of it.

He was eating up the sight of her. Devouring it. Aching for it. And he was holding himself back from her. Pulling away the only way he knew how.

She reached back, adjusting the material that ran from the cleft of her rear along her hips. She heard his indrawn breath and chose to ignore it.

Turning slowly, she moved for the clothes Clint had somehow managed to find earlier. After that long-assed shower, he had disappeared for an hour and returned with the clothes he had informed her she would wear.

“Your taste sucks.” She lifted the minuscule black leather skirt and stepped carefully into it.

The edges of her stockings showed, but they looked reasonably sexy. The black silk camisole top wouldn’t have been her first choice, though she hadn’t argued when she lifted it from the bag earlier.

“It looks okay.” His eyes never left her as he rubbed his finger over his chin, his gaze going over her.

She knew what he was doing. He was calculating the best way to keep her out of danger, going over every detail of what they were about to do, and forcing himself to see her as a tool for the job rather than the woman he ached for.

SEAL mode. She hated it.

“Hmm.” She pressed her lips together before sliding her feet into her shoes. “I have to stop at the house for makeup. I should have waited till then to dress.”

“You don’t need the makeup.”

“Yes, I do.” She smoothed the skirt over her thighs before gazing back at him placidly.

A frown snapped between his heavy brows. “You don’t need it and there’s no time to stop for it.”

“Then there’s no time for the meeting with Joe,” she informed him calmly. “I don’t go anywhere without makeup, Clint; get used to it.”

“No.”

Okay, she’d had enough of this. She turned, grabbing the bag that held the clothes she had worn the night before, and headed for the hotel room door.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” His hand slapped against the panel as she reached it, reminding her way too much of the night in his apartment when he had backed her against the door.

She turned to him, feeling the brush of his jeans-covered erection against her lower stomach and trying to ignore the jump in her blood pressure. God, what he had done to her in that bed through the night. Pleasure shouldn’t be that good; it shouldn’t ride an edge so close to torment, to dreams never imagined.

“I’m going back to my house,” she told him softly. “I’m going to dress in my own clothes, and I’m going to put on my makeup. After that, we can make that meeting or you can go to hell. Your choice.”

She watched the battle that raged in his eyes, mesmerized by it as she watched anger and emotion struggle for dominance.

“Your clothes kick ass,” he finally said, his jaw clenching violently. “It’s not a case of what looks best. After we meet with Joe we’re going downstairs at Diva’s, to the heart of the club. If you don’t dress the part, you’ll never be accepted there. This isn’t about the challenge or control. It’s about getting to that drug. Defying me sexually is one thing. Defying me at the basis of the Dom-sub relationship is another.”

“And wearing these clothes and no makeup will help that
how?” She frowned back as the feel of his hard body against hers sent her pulse racing.

He breathed in deeply. “By stripping yourself of the makeup and your normal mode of dress, you’re showing the others, those not involved with the drugs, that you’re interested in submitting. It gains you acceptance, and acceptance gets you information. Where the suppliers or dealers are concerned, it pushes them closer to making a mistake, because they know it’s an act. They will know what you’re doing, even if no one else does. Men like this see it as a challenge rather than a ploy to force them into a mistake.

“They won’t suspect my involvement simply because I am a part of the inner club. I’m also known for choosing women who resemble you. It will make my job easier.”

“Because you wanted me” she said roughly, hearing only the admission that his women resembled her. “You went to others when you wanted me.” And that bit.

He grimaced, the ice around him melting further.

“Until I couldn’t breathe for it,” he finally admitted as though the knowledge of it angered him. “I still can’t breathe for it, Morganna.”

“Clint—” She would have protested the admission, but the finger against her lips halted her words.

“You’re like a fire inside me,” he said, but the tinge of regret in his voice sliced through her heart. “You think I find you lacking, and that’s not true, baby. I’m the one lacking, and when you realize that, you’ll understand why I’ve stayed away from you.”

“Lacking in what? The ability to understand that your normally less than charming personality is not why I love you?”

He breathed out heavily as his head lowered, his lips brushing over her shoulder as Morganna fought the heaviness in her heart.

“If I could love anyone,” he whispered at her ear seconds later, “it would be you, Morganna. It would always be you.”

Another woman might be offended. A part of Morganna assured her she should be offended. Except she knew Clint. As stubborn, impossible to get along with, and arrogant and demanding as he could be, he wasn’t lacking in love.

He loved her; she was certain of it. Accepting it might be a different matter for Clint. He saw too many shades of gray sometimes and not enough of the rainbow hues that love could be.

“It is me,” she whispered back, refusing to allow him to hide, to lie not just to her, but to himself. “And we both know it, Clint.”

As his head lifted, Morganna stared back at him silently.

His lips quirked wryly. “You’ll be the death of me.”

“Or the life of you.” She let her hands fall to his shoulders as he released them, relishing the warmth and power in his broad shoulders.

“Don’t you know that you always were the life of me?” he said as he pulled her close, only to facilitate opening the door behind her. “Come on. It’s time to show what you’ve got, wildcat. Let’s go see if we can find the bad guys.”

She didn’t argue with him, but she did know him. Clint had never realized, and perhaps he still didn’t, just how well she did know him.

He was still hiding from her.

She frowned as he checked the hallway before drawing her from the room and leading her to the elevators. She had always wondered at the shadow of pain in his eyes, even when he was much younger. She and Raven had discussed it often.

Clint had always been distant with his sister as well, though Morganna and Raven had marked it down to the differences in their ages. He was ten years older than his sister, and his relationship with his parents had always been stormy.

Raven had still been a child the day Clint graduated from high school and joined the Army, and after that, Raven saw her brother only occasionally, when he was at the Chavez
home. He rarely appeared at his parents’ home. He hadn’t attended his father’s funeral.

After Raven moved out of her mother’s home Clint had seen her more frequently. Often staying at her apartment when he was in town rather than his own. But it was as though he had deliberately placed that distance between himself and his sister. A distance Morganna had always known he regretted.

She glanced up at him as they stopped at the elevator. He stared at the display marking each floor as it passed, his expression blank. Morganna bided her time. The elevator doors opened into the parking garage. She stood silently as he checked the area, then followed sedately behind him as they moved for the pickup.

The soft click of her heels on the cement flooring was the only sound between them as he led her to the truck.

“Stay here.” He held her back several feet from the truck before bending and beginning to work his way around it. “Clear,” he announced as he jerked open the driver-side door and stood back for her.

“You’re kidding.” She stared at the running board, several inches higher than her tight skirt was going to allow her to step.

His sigh was long-suffering. Tossing the pack into the backseat, he turned back to her, gripped her waist, and lifted her to the seat.

“You’re just going to make me shiver with all those muscles, Mr. McIntyre,” she simpered mockingly as she batted her lashes at him before turning and sliding to the middle of the seat.

“Nut,” he grunted as he moved beneath the wheel and slammed the door closed. “Scoot over.”

His thigh was plastered to hers, his arm lying over her breast, as he slid the vehicle into gear and pulled out.

“No.” Morganna wiggled against him, dragging her breasts over the underside of his arm as she felt him grow more tense.

“What do you mean no?” She liked the way his voice throbbed with lust. Oh yeah, he knew what they had, knew what he found with her he wasn’t going to find with another woman, and he wanted it. Bad. Again.

“I mean, I’m comfortable. If you want to dress me in clothes guaranteed to invite sex, the least you could do is give me a thrill.”

“Last night wasn’t enough of a thrill?”

“I liked this morning better.” She flicked him a glance from the corner of her eye as he pulled from the parking garage.

“I’m sure you did.” His voice cooled marginally.

She barely restrained her sigh. “I actually noticed something vaguely bothersome, though.” She lifted her hand, surveying a chipped nail, before looking up at him as he glanced over at her quickly.

“What?” His voice was suspicious.

“You didn’t use a condom, big boy,” she pointed out sarcastically. “Did you think of that?”

She had.

“Don’t worry about it.”

She hadn’t mistaken the tightening of his body or the way his hands clenched on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

“Don’t worry about it?” she asked in amazement. “Clint, I’m not stupid here. I might be on birth control, but it’s not one hundred percent effective, as you know. And that’s not even considering STDs. How could you so calmly believe I wouldn’t eventually worry about it?”

“I used a condom with other women,” he growled, flicking her a half-angry look. “You don’t have to worry about STDs.”

She rolled her eyes mockingly as she scooted to the side enough to click her seat belt and turn to him. “And how can you be so certain I’ve been safe?”

“Because you weren’t raised to be stupid.” His jaw bunched as his eyes stayed glued to the road.

She stared back at him, confusion nudging into anger.

“You can be certain of this how?” she asked.

“Drop it, Morganna,” he forced past tight lips.

“I’ll
get
an appointment with my doctor next week.” She knew that expression on Clint’s face. It was the one she usually saw when she learned that he or Reno had put the fear of death into a boyfriend.

“You’re not pregnant, Morganna—”

“You can’t be certain.”

“I’m certain, dammit.”

“Prove it.”

“Because I had a fucking vasectomy five years ago. I can’t get you pregnant.”

Morganna stared back at him in shock. An angry snarl curled his lips as he glared over at her briefly, his blue eyes alive with anger.

“Satisfied?” he snapped when she had nothing else to say.

A heavy weight settled in her chest as she stared at him. It wasn’t just anger that filled his expression or his gaze. Shadows of bitterness, haunting demons swirled there, and Morganna realized she was only now seeing them for what they were.

What had happened? For whatever reason Clint had held himself back from her, this proved that it wasn’t simply because she was a “party” girl. There was something deeper, some darker reason.

“For now,” she whispered, turning back in her seat and staring ahead as Clint navigated the Sunday afternoon traffic toward Atlanta and the meeting with Joe.

What the hell had happened to him? Morganna frowned, wondering if Clint had always been this hard, this cold. Had it evolved? In ways it had, but she realized that as long as she had known him, she had realized there was a core of steel-hard strength, not just physical but mental. And there had always been shadows. They had drawn her when she was a child. Made her ache to comfort him the few times she had glimpsed the pain in his gaze.

He had hidden from everyone he had ever known, she thought. So effectively that she had never suspected that the man who had been so tender, so gentle, with others’ children would never want one of his own.

Every head in the main room of Diva’s Downstairs turned when the elevator opened and Morganna stepped into the elaborately furnished room. There had to be fifty pairs of eyes suddenly trained on her, surveying her naked face, the short length of the leather skirt, and the collar at her neck.

The collar had surprised her. It wasn’t the traditional leather or studded belt that many of the submissives wore. Clint had surprised her instead with an inch-wide silver choker chain that fitted her perfectly and showed up clearly against her dark skin. Hanging in the center of the chain was a small deep blue sapphire, almost the color of his eyes. A pendant to mark her as his alone.

They paused at a wide, curved dark wood reception counter where Morganna signed the confidentiality statement Clint had warned her would be waiting for her. The six-page agreement involved everything but her firstborn child if she dared divulge the activities seen, practiced, or heard of within what they called Diva’s Downstairs, Merlin’s Down Under, or the Roundtable Caverns. As Drage had stated before, he covered his ass well.