Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 9) (9 page)

Heat sprang into her gaze, and he had her. He could read the capitulation there as easily as if she’d scrawled it across her forehead with a marker.

“Why?” she asked simply, and it was clear she meant it honestly, like she couldn’t imagine a reason he might want to make her feel good without any return expectations. As if she’d rarely experienced selflessness when it came to sexual pleasure. Given the last man she’d slept with, he understood her confusion.

And all at once, he didn’t have a good answer as to why he was bent on getting his hands on her. Sure, maybe he’d started out to prove he could make her forget about Anderson, that every orgasm could delete a part of her memory. Then he’d moved on to closure and like four other excuses. But none of that was the truth.

His agenda evaporated as he drank in the raw vulnerability in her demeanor. He wanted to show her how beautiful she was, how much he enjoyed touching her. How fragile and precious these moments were when there was nothing else in the world but the two of them, locked in bliss only the other could bring.

He just wanted to sink into her, to be together like they’d once been. So
he
could forget the last eighteen months.

“Because your pleasure pleases me,” he said hoarsely. “You’re so gorgeous when you come. That’s when you touch me the most. Here.”

He tapped the center of his chest. And then all words failed him as she took his hand and then fell straight into his arms.

Without hesitation, he used the other one to swipe all the papers from her desk. They fluttered to the floor unnoticed as he met her in the middle, bodies crashing together at the same moment their mouths did.

The flawless splendor of Audra poured down his throat and clutched at his insides. God, he’d dreamed of her like this, prayed he’d have it once again, and cursed whatever roadblocks fate had thrown up that had kept them apart.

This was not what he’d been after, not what he’d expected to suddenly crave more than his next breath. This was supposed to be nothing but sex. It wasn’t supposed to be
meaningful
.

And then her tongue darted between his lips, claiming his in a demanding dance of heat. Groaning, he pivoted and backed her against the desk until her bottom hit it and he levered her up, nudging apart her knees until he could get between them. Her sweet center opened wide, and he ground his shaft against it, seeking relief from the ache all his dirty talk had created.

Fingers fumbling with her zipper, he got it all the way down and slipped the dress from her shoulder to bite his way across her exposed collarbone. Her bra strap was in the way, so he yanked it to the side, exposing her breast.

That worked too. Fitting his lips to her nipple, he sucked until she arched against his mouth with a little cry. God, that was amazing. The sound filled his lungs to bursting, among other parts, and if he didn’t hurry, there’d be a mess to clean up. But her flesh on his tongue enflamed him to the point where he couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything else but revel in the sensations.

But there was more of her he hadn’t had his mouth on yet.

As promised, he dropped to his knees and slid his hands up her thighs, spreading them wider and glanced up at her. His heart stumbled over a beat. She still filled him to the brim with nothing but her eyes. Her hair draped across her bare shoulder and breast, and her heavy gaze never left his as he fingered aside her panties to take that first lick.

Heaven. He groaned as her taste filled his senses. Her hips rolled, squirming toward his mouth as she silently sought more. He gave it to her, using the flat of his tongue in broad, short strokes across her center, and then he couldn’t stand how long it was taking to get more of those cries out of her. Bending one leg up to open her further, he plunged three fingers into her slick channel and twisted until she convulsed, rippling through an orgasm that almost triggered his own.

More
. He licked her to another one until she cried out. That was more like it.

Spent, she collapsed back on the desk, her legs still splayed, providing the ultimate temptation, so he pulled her skirt down over her drenched panties. But it did no good as a deterrent when he could still taste her on his lips.

He stood, and dear God, his knees were shaking. Collapsing into her chair, he seriously considered rolling it forward and starting all over again, but she slid off the desk and cleared her throat as she put her dress back to rights without looking at him.

Everything shifted, the mood, the atmosphere, her vibe. She regretted letting her guard down. Regretted letting him touch her. He could feel it, and it tripped a few wires in his head that he didn’t like. When she put her shields up, it reminded him of his own sins far too easily.

“I think you melted my bones,” she finally commented when she was all zipped up.

“Same goes.” Good. So everyone was on board with this having been nothing but sex. It wasn’t a reconnection, wasn’t anything but sex.

That was so much of a lie it was a wonder his pants weren’t on fire.

Someone had the audacity to knock on her office door. Guilt sprang into her expression and she jerked her head. “You should go.”

Leaving was a good idea. Distance might be the best plan when everything in his body strained to recreate the intimacy they’d just shared. In the course of attempting to erase Jared Anderson’s presence, he’d managed to do the exact opposite of finding closure. Instead, she’d cracked him open, and he feared he’d never dispel this bone-deep longing to fall back into the paradise they’d once created.

Impossible. Because he still wasn’t at a place where he could forgive her for Jared. Still wasn’t at a place where he could open his black box, which he’d realized somewhere in the middle of Audra’s orgasms also contained his heart.

A
udra bolted awake, her eyes automatically seeking the clock. Almost nine thirty a.m.

She cursed and dragged herself out of bed. Hannah and Carly would be arriving on a ten a.m. flight from Miami to spend part of their spring break in the Bahamas, and Audra had a three-day weekend free from work to spend with her sisters. She’d been looking forward to it, but the long night spent staring at the wall wondering what the hell she was doing with Charlie had eclipsed it.

She was weak. That was her problem. It should have been easy to refuse him, easy to remember he couldn’t be trusted to stick around. Instead, he’d broken every single wall she’d built up against him with one simple, poetic sentence:
That’s when you touch me the most.

And then he’d shattered everything else inside as if she were made of glass.

The intimacies she’d allowed between them had been a mistake born of vulnerabilities she hadn’t realized were still there. The last thing she could afford to do was count on a man, especially one who had smashed her heart once already. Charlie wasn’t volunteering to be that anchor she’d so desperately needed a year ago.

Which was fine. She hadn’t asked for any volunteers or reminders that she’d been so needy. Better that he hadn’t been offering anything more.

Men were good for one thing. She’d gotten two stellar orgasms out of the deal and kicked him out without letting on how much she’d wished they could keep going. What wasn’t to like?

Except it had taken all night to put all her shattered pieces back together, especially since she didn’t permit one single tear to fall. Crying might have been cathartic where the releases hadn’t been. She and Charlie were over. Why couldn’t she get that through her stubborn heart?

After taking the world’s fastest shower, she threw on a sundress and packed a bag, then flagged down a cab to Grand Bahama Airport, which was fortunately only about a ten-minute drive. She found the girls in the baggage claim area where she’d texted them to wait for her. Carly and Hannah were easy to spot with their matching strawberry blonde hair, which was so much lighter and prettier than the Ronald McDonald red of Audra’s hair.

Jeez, they’d both noticeably grown since the last time she’d seen them. Late growth spurt. Isaac had topped Audra by four inches at sixteen.

Grief caught her sideways, thanks to the two hours of sleep she’d gotten. Carly, Hannah, and Isaac were triplets, and she still wasn’t used to the empty spot where their brother should be.

Carly caught sight of her first, but then her gaze traveled over Audra’s shoulder, clearly scouting for someone. “No delish boyfriend?”

“Not today.” Audra smiled and left it at that. She hadn’t told her mom or her sisters that she’d broken up with Jared. They all loved him, mostly because he had money and charm in equal measure, and she’d always been very careful not to mention his bad qualities. The less she thought about them, the less real they were. The less she remembered she’d only stayed with him because she couldn’t bear to deal with life alone.

But at the end of the day, Jared was ruthless and had no conscience. The points Charlie had made about her role in his problems had lodged in her stomach, and nothing she did could budge them. Because he might be right. If only Isaac hadn’t died… But that was a sure path to ruining her three-day weekend, so she didn’t go down it.

“Why not?” Hannah pouted, flipping her hair over her shoulder in a move that Audra suspected was meant to attract the attention of the two teenage boys on the other side of the baggage carousel. “I was looking forward to riding in Jared’s limo.”

The last time they’d flown down, Jared had treated the girls like rock stars, and they’d obviously expected this trip to follow a similar agenda.

“Are we going to have to take a cab to the resort?” Carly asked as she shouldered her bag. “I hate cabs.”

The girls were seventeen and difficult. Since part of that difficulty stemmed from the fact that they’d lost their brother too, Audra let it go. Of course, she was the one who’d mourned Isaac’s death the most. Carly and Hannah had bonded almost from the moment they’d been born, leaving the lone male Reed child to fend for himself. Their dad had left when the triplets were nine months old, never to return, and their mother lapsed into the first of many periods of grave depression.

Despite an eleven-year age difference, she and Isaac became buddies. They’d been each other’s pod, like two dolphins who had gravitated to each other because no other pod would take them.

And then she’d lost him. Her fault. He’d been miserable in Miami, and she’d invited him to come live with her. But she’d just gotten her first job after receiving her doctorate, and FARC expected a lot from its employees. She’d had so little time to monitor her brother’s activities. Isaac had fallen in with some older wealthy, privileged types who liked fast boats and lots of alcohol.

Ironic that no one else had even been hurt when the boat flipped over.

Shaking off the morbidity, she herded the girls to the cab stand, shushing their protests. “A cab ride will not kill you.”

Her sisters glowered at the line snaking away from the cab stand, glowered at Audra, and then spent the fifteen minutes they had to wait either mumbling to each other or buried in their phones, likely texting each other despite being within touching distance. Audra rolled her eyes and almost asked if they had an international data plan, but they weren’t speaking to her. Let them figure out how to pay the astronomical phone bill then.

She’d forgotten how exclusionary they were, often ignoring everyone. It was why she and Isaac had gotten so close. But she still loved her sisters, no matter what, even if she had to grit her teeth to be around them sometimes.

Things went from bad to worse when they got to the resort they’d booked for their sisters’ retreat. Though Audra lived in Freeport, her apartment wouldn’t hold three people, and the girls had wanted to spend their vacation at the beach. With few acceptable public beaches in the area, she’d had to coax Jared’s admin, Trish, into a room at one of his resorts; otherwise, they’d never be able to afford it. Fortunately, she’d had the foresight to plan this well before she’d broken up with Jared.

The lady in the crisp maroon uniform at the front desk frowned and tapped far too long on her keyboard as they stood there with their suitcases.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have a reservation for Reed,” she said. “Could it be under another name?”

“Try Jared Anderson,” Audra suggested, hating to throw his name around, but Carly and Hannah were shifting from foot to foot and muttering under their breath to each other. This trip was supposed to be fun. She’d wanted to try again to bond with her sisters like she had with Isaac. Time was precious, and this was her family.

The clerk tapped some more and shook her head. “No, ma’am. But if you’re a guest of Mr. Anderson, we may be able to accommodate you. Just a moment.”

Carly and Hannah managed to look impressed with how dropping the owner’s name got three of the people behind the desk into a huddle. One of the new additions to the party made a call, spoke into the phone while glancing at Audra and her sisters, and then hung up. More furious whispering.

Another lady came over after a few minutes. “I do apologize, but we seem to have misplaced your reservations. Mr. Anderson’s administrative assistant has informed us that the fault is hers and also added her sincere apologies. However, we unfortunately have a convention in town this week and the entire hotel is full.”