The Complete Mackenzie Collection (31 page)

The material on fighter pilots was even more interesting.

She was in the office before dawn, dressed in a loose, lightweight jumpsuit. When she had been making her selection that morning, seduction had collided with comfort, and seduction had lost without even a whimper. The temperature hit a hundred and ten during the day, for heaven’s sake.

She hauled out the specs for the day’s tests and began rechecking them, making a mental note to ask Cal a few questions about the computer program. She had taken a second major in computer programming, which had seemed to be a good complement to physics, and it had in fact come in very handy on several occasions. She logged onto the computer and began running the tests through it, rechecking once again that everything was as perfect as they could get it.

“How long have you been in—”

She shrieked at the voice right behind her and came up swinging, overturning her chair in the process. Joe’s hand shot up and caught her right fist before it could connect with his face, and a split second later he caught the left one in his other hand, the twin movements like lightning.

“Don’t do that again!” she yelled, going up on tiptoe to glare at him, thrusting her jaw up to his. Her eyes were still dilated from fright. “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack? From now on,
whistle
before you get to the door!”

With a deft motion he twisted her arms behind her back, still holding her fists clasped in his palms. The action brought her breasts firmly against him and encased her within his arms. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said softly. “But if your first reaction is always to attack, you should learn how to do it right, so you won’t wind up in the sort of predicament you’re in now.” He saw interest sharpen the dark bluish-green of her eyes and knew that he had successfully deflected her attention from the fact that he was holding her captive.

Caroline considered the situation. She tugged briefly on her arms, but he held her firmly, and there was no way she could free herself from those iron hands. He was too tall for her to hit him in the face with her head. “Is till have the option of stomping your instep and kicking your ankle or knee.”

“Yes, but you’re too close to put much power behind it. You can hurt me, but not enough to make me let you go. If I were an attacker, sweetheart, right now you’d be in some serious trouble.”

She wiggled experimentally again, testing her limits of movement. His arms were locked around her, and she was pressed fully against his muscled body. She shivered a little at the unexpected pleasure of it, so surrounded by his warmth and scent. He smelled delicious; she had never noticed any other man smelling the way Joe did, and it wasn’t just the fresh scent of soap lingering on hiss kin. It was a hot, musky scent, subtle and powerful, making her want to bury her nose against him and drink it in. The effects were strong and immediate; her breasts began to tingle and ache as her nipples peaked, and hot tension tightened her loins.

She cleared her throat and tried to take her mind off her body’s reaction; they were in the office, for heaven’s sake. Just because she had changed her mind about wanting to experience more of this man/woman thing didn’t mean she wanted to do it
here.
“Umm…so what should I do when I want to attack?”

“You should learn how to fight first,” he replied, and pressed a quick, hard kiss on her mouth as he released her.

Her lips tingled from the kiss, and she licked them. His gaze slid to her mouth and darkened. She tried for nonchalance to hide the fact that she was shaking all over. “So, what do you recommend?” she asked as she set the chair upright and briskly backed out of the computer program, just to give herself something to do. She switched the machine off and faced him with a bright smile. “Martial arts?”

“Dirty street fighting would be better. It teaches you how to win any way you can, and to hell with fighting fair. It’s the only way you should ever go into a fight.”

“You mean like throwing dirt in the guy’s eyes and stuff like that?”

“Whatever works. The idea is to win, and stay alive.”

“Is that the way you fight?” she asked. She desperately needed to sit down, her legs were shaking so much, but he would tower over her if she did, and the thought of that made her nervous, too. She compromised by propping herself on the edge of the desk. “Is that what the Air Force teaches its pilots now?”

“No, that’s the way I was taught to fight when I was a kid.”

“Who taught you?”

“My father.”

She supposed it was a masculine bonding thing. Her father had taught her calculus, but that wasn’t quite the same.

“I’ve been researching the typical fighter pilot,” she said. “It’s interesting reading. In some ways, you’re the perfect stereotype.”

“Is that so?” He showed his teeth in a very white smile, though maybe it wasn’t a smile at all.

“Well, in some ways you’re atypical. You’re unusually tall, more suited to a bomber than a fighter. But fighter pilots are typically intelligent, aggressive, arrogant and as determined—maybe
stubborn
is a better word—as a bulldog. They want to be in control at all times.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, dark lashes shadowing his glittering eyes.

“Fighter pilots have keen eyesight and fast reactions. Most of you have blue or light-colored eyes, so you’re certainly typical on that. And here’s an interesting little tidbit…fighter pilots usually have more female children than male.”

“Finding out will be fun,” he drawled.

She cleared her throat. “Actually, I thought you might already know.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Why’s that?”

“I
did
notice that they called you Breed. I assumed it’s because you do it so well.”

One corner of his mouth moved in a slow smile. “My breeding productivity doesn’t have anything to do with it. They call me Breed because I’m a half-breed Indian.”

Caroline was so startled that she could only stare at him. “A Native American?”

He shrugged. “That’s what you can call it if you want, but I’ve always called myself an Indian. Changing labels doesn’t change anything else.” His voice was casual, but he was watching her closely.

She studied him just as closely. Hiss kin was certainly dark enough, with a deep bronze hue that she had assumed was a dark tan. His hair was thick and black and straight, those sculpted cheekbones high and prominent, his nose thin and high-bridged, and his mouth was typically clean-cut and sensual. His eyes, however, were an oddity. She frowned and said accusingly, “Then how can you have blue eyes? Blue is a recessive gene. You should have dark eyes.”

He had been alert to how she would receive his heritage, but at her reply something in him relaxed. How else would Caroline respond to something but with a demand for more information? She wasn’t shocked or repelled, as some people still were by his mixed heritage, or even titillated, as sometimes happened—though he had become accustomed to that because women were often excited by his profession, too. Nope, she honed right in on the genetic question of why he had blue eyes.

“My parents were both half-breeds,” he explained. “Genetically I’m still half Indian and half white, but I got the recessive blue-eyed gene from both my parents. I’m one-quarter Comanche, one-quarter Kiowa and half white.”

She nodded in satisfaction, the mystery of his eye color having been explained. She pursued the subject with interest. “Do you have any brothers or sisters? What color are their eyes?”

“Three brothers and one sister. Half brothers and sister, to be precise. My mother died when I was a baby. My stepmother is white, and she has blue eyes. So do my three brothers. Dad was wondering if he was ever going to have a black-eyed baby until my sister was born.”

She was fascinated by this glimpse of family life. “I’m an only child. I always wanted a brother or sister when I was little,” she said, unaware of the faint wistful note in her voice. “Was it fun?”

He chuckled and hooked his foot in the chair, turning it around so he could drop his tall frame into it. Caroline remained propped against the edge of the desk, still effectively pinned there, because he was in the way, but she wasn’t paying attention to that any longer.

“I was sixteen when Dad married Mary, so I didn’t grow up with them, but it was fun in a different way. I was old enough to appreciate babies, to take care of them. The best times were when I would go home on leave and they would swarm all over me like little monkeys. Dad and Mary always take off for one night alone while I’m there, and I have the kids to myself. They aren’t little anymore, but we all still like it.”

She tried to imagine this big, dangerous-looking man relaxed and surrounded by kids. Even just talking about them had softened his face. It wasn’t until she saw him that way that she realized what a barrier he kept between himself and everyone else, because there was no barrier between him and his family. With them he would relax the iron control that characterized his every move, lose the remoteness that lay over his expression and in his eyes. The relationship he had with his men was different. It was the camaraderie that is established with a group whose members work together and depend on each other for a long time. That wasn’t personal, and in a way it
required
him to retain his control. Suddenly she felt cold and a little lost, because she wasn’t inside his intimate little circle. She wanted him to relax that guard with her, let her see the inner man and get close to him. With her recent feminine awakening came another insight, one that hurt even more: she wanted him to want her enough to lose that frightening control. It hurt because he didn’t, and she knew it. What was frightening was that she knew it wouldn’t matter to her unless she was already far more involved emotionally than she had thought.

She became aware that she had been staring silently at him for several long minutes, and he had been just as quietly watching her, one eyebrow slightly quirked as he waited for her to say something. She blushed without knowing why. He came lithely to his feet, stepping forward, so close that his legs were touching hers. “What’s on your mind, sweetheart?”

“You,” she blurted out. Why was he standing so close? Her pulse was beginning to race again. What was it about him that being close to him put her brain into neutral and her body into overdrive?

“What about me?”

She tried to think of something clever and casual, but she had never learned how to prevaricate or hide her feelings. “I don’t know anything about men. I don’t know how to act around them or how to attract them.”

His expression was wry. “You’re doing okay.”

What did he mean by that? She was being her usual blunt self, which had always sent men running. This was more difficult than she’d imagined it would be. She found that she was wringing her hands and was vaguely astonished at herself, because she’d never thought she was the hand-wringing type. “Am I? Good. I’ve never seen anyone I wanted to attract before, so I’m at something of a loss. I know you said we’d just pretend to have a relationship so your men wouldn’t bother me, but would it be too much of a bother for you if I wanted to make it more real?”

“Just how ‘real’ did you have in mind?” he asked, amused.

Again she was at a loss. “Well, how would I know? I just know that I’m attracted to you, and I’d like for you to be attracted to me, but I’ve never done this before, so you’re asking me to play a game without knowing the rules. Would you hand a football to some guy who’d never heard of the game before and say ‘Here you go, buddy. Play ball’?”

His eyes danced at the astringency of her tone, but his voice was calm and grave when he replied, “I see your point.”

“So?” She spread her hands inquiringly. “What are the rules? That is, if you don’t mind playing.”

“Oh, I like a little game now and then.”

He was drawling again. She gave him an uncertain glance, wondering if he was making fun of her.

He put his hands on her hips and moved her a little farther back on the desk. Caroline grabbed his upper arms, her nails digging into his biceps. No one had ever touched her hips before, except for one eager beaver who had pinched her bottom and gotten shoved over a wastebasket for his effort. The steely muscles under her fingers made her doubt she would be able to shove Joe anywhere.

He moved even closer and somehow used his hard thighs to spread her legs. She looked down in shock. He was between her legs. Her head jerked back up, but before she could say anything he brushed a light, gentle kiss across her mouth. The contrast between that non-threatening kiss and his very threatening position between her legs disoriented her.

He cupped her face with one hand, slowly caressing her cheek, his fingertips moving lightly over the smooth, velvet texture of her skin. His other hand slipped around over her bottom and firmly pulled her forward until he was nestled intimately in the notch of her thighs. Caroline’s heart thumped violently, and she lost her breath, as well as her ability to sit upright. Her bones turned liquid and she sank against him, unintentionally deepening the embrace. The hard bulge of his sex throbbed against the soft yielding of her loins, and she felt an answering throbbing begin deep inside her.

He kissed her again, this time with a slowly increasing demand. Helplessly she opened her mouth to the probing of his tongue. His hips moved against her, between her spread thighs, in the same rhythm as his tongue moved in her mouth. The hard bulge in his trousers was even harder, even bigger.