“Cretin also means vulgar, and calling me a demon intent on seducing you in your sleep falls in that category, or didn’t you realize that?” she asked far too sweetly, her gaze still as sharp as his throwing knife.
“It’s still a hurtful thing to call a person.”
She laughed, the sound far from humorous, her expression one of angry mockery. “An exploding grenade under your pillow couldn’t hurt you.”
Maybe not, but a hundred and twenty pounds of female flesh under him was doing major damage to his nerve centers. His sex ached, and it was only going to get worse if he stayed where he was. A glutton for punishment, he didn’t move.
“The point is, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She sighed, her body going limp all of a sudden, her expression turning sad. “I’m sure you didn’t. You can’t help the way you feel about me.”
“That’s true, but I’m trying. Doesn’t that count for something?”
She shrugged as much as she could with her wrists still restrained. “You can let me up now. I won’t take your head off.”
He didn’t want to. He wanted to make love right there on the hardwood floor, but what he wanted and what he got with Josie were rarely even in the same hemisphere.
Sucking in air, he rolled off her, then stood up and felt the pain of unsatisfied desire arc through him with debilitating force. Turning away from her, he bent at the waist, breathing heavily.
She touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine. Just give me a sec.” He hated her seeing his physical vulnerability to her, but right now even his formidable mental control was no match for his body’s urges.
He’d never been like this before. No matter how much he wanted sex, he’d never been unable to curb the desire and hide his reactions when the situation called for it.
“Did I hurt you?” She sounded bewildered.
How was he supposed to answer that? He hurt because of her, but she hadn’t done anything harmful to him. “No.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.” He breathed in deeply, willing his body to calm, forcing his mind not to dwell on the memory of what it felt like to have her under him.
Finally able to stand straight without feeling like he’d rip the seam on his fly, he turned back to face her.
Her eyes scanned him and stopped at the hard-on that had not completely gone away. “Does that happen every time you fight with a woman?”
Offended, he glared at her. “Of course not. I’d be a damn poor soldier if it did.”
“But…”
“I told you. You set me off. Not all women. Just you.”
“Set you off?”
Did she have to sound so clueless about sex? That in itself was another turn-on, and the way she was looking at him wasn’t helping.
“My dick is only going to grow if you keep watching it like that.” And then he was either going to go back to being bent over double, or he was going to bend over her.
“I’m not…I can’t…You’re wearing pants!”
He rolled his eyes. “And you don’t know the log in my jeans isn’t wadded-up cotton, right?”
She looked askance at him. “It’s not, is it?”
“For crying out loud.” He’d had enough. If he didn’t get out of there, he was going to do something they would both regret.
Josie watched Daniel slam out the front door, her heart somewhere around her toes. What had just happened?
One minute, she’d been ready to kill him with her bare hands, and the next, he was telling her she’d turned him on. And then he’d gone. She eyed the closed door with a conflagration of emotions she couldn’t begin to decipher, but chief among them was a certainty she wasn’t ready for Daniel Black Eagle to walk out of her life.
Impulsively, she rushed after him. Swinging the door open, she saw him standing beside his big black SUV. He was leaning against it with one hand, his back to her.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.” He didn’t bother to face her.
“For good?” It’s what she’d said she wanted, so why did she feel so rejected?
He spun around then, his stance dangerous. “I said I’d help you find the people who tried to kill your dad, and I will. I can control my sex drive enough to work with you. I’m not a needy adolescent, damn it.”
“I didn’t say you were.” This conversation was getting bizarre, but then everything had been a little crazy since she went storming out of her bedroom to tell him what she thought of him for calling her a succubus.
“I’m going for a walk.”
“Oh. The park is peaceful. There are ducks…in the pond on the other side.”
“I’ll be sure and look for them.”
“Okay.”
He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and fore-finger. “Do you want to go with me?”
More than anything, but considering how he felt about her, she shouldn’t inflict her company on him. “That’s okay. I’ve got some stuff to do around here.”
“Is it anything that can’t wait?”
“No.”
“Then come with me.”
“Are you sure…”
He put his hand out. “Come on, Josette. I think we could both use the exercise to clear our heads, and I want to talk to you about what I read in your dad’s journals.”
“I…um…” She waved her hand down her body, indicating the pajamas she still wore. “I’ve got to get some clothes on.”
He nodded, his expression unfathomable now. “I’ll wait.”
Daniel called himself names much worse than cretin as he waited for Josie to join him. Idiot and dumbass came to mind. What had he been thinking? His body needed a break from her temptation before his dick exploded from unrequited lust.
So, why had he invited her to join him? Was his brain even connected to his mouth?
The problem was that when he was around Josie, logic was not the overriding factor in his decision making.
It would have been logical to leave her behind, but he’d gone soft in the head when he looked at her. She’d appeared so forlorn standing there in the doorway, her bow lips turned down in a frown. How did a woman who was easily as tough as any soldier he knew contrive to look that way?
Especially after she’d made it clear she didn’t want his company. But she’d looked as if his leaving somehow hurt her, and he’d been unable to leave it at that.
Idiot was right. She was the best-trained soldier he’d ever known. She didn’t need him to take her for a walk to make her feel better. She didn’t need him at all, but he couldn’t seem to keep that straight in his mind.
When he was with Josie, he forgot she was a soldier. All he could see was the woman, a vulnerable woman he wanted to protect. Which had been the problem from the beginning.
The trip across country together should have been another routine, straightforward mission for him, but it hadn’t been. He’d spent most of the time in the car in a state of painful arousal, fighting to keep his focus on the job of looking for a tail instead of sneaking sidelong glances at the female mercenary. The nights together in small hotel rooms with one bed in case Nemesis checked on their registry had been torture plain and simple.
He’d taken a lot of cold showers and still woken up more mornings than not wet and sticky in his BVDs…and pissed. At himself and at the woman who seemed oblivious to what the sight of her pajama-clad body did to him.
He’d had wet dreams about her, for crying out loud. He hadn’t dreamt like that since his voice had completed
