“I suppose that makes sense.”
“Absolutely. And if it eases your mind, I promise to be on my best behavior.”
“Of course you will be,” she agreed. “Just because I was JAG doesn’t mean that I haven’t had military training. I do have a black belt in karate. And I am not afraid to use it.”
“Did you manage to find, anywhere in my files, that I find women who can break bricks with their bare hands really, really sexy?”
The ice princess was back. In spades. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the look she swept over him left him with frostbite.
“If that’s supposed to make my foolish feminine heart go all pitter-patter, it isn’t going to work,” she said coolly. “I just wanted to point out that I
am
capable of protecting myself.”
“I’ve not a single doubt of that, Lieutenant, darlin’,” he said in an exaggerated drawl. Okay, maybe he was jerking her chain just a little. But he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t known the lady could give as good as she took.
She folded her arms and stared straight ahead.
Although he hadn’t left the service with some of the PTSD problems many of his battle buddies had, it had still been a very long time since Dallas had found anything to smile about.
Or to look forward to.
Despite their situation having ratcheted up from interesting to serious, and even perhaps dangerous, Dallas was, for the first time in a very long while, enjoying himself. Enjoying her.
21
Julianne watched as Dallas checked for the hair he’d stuck to the outside of the door when they’d left. He’d asked for one of hers, since it was longer and, being blond, less likely to show up. It was very James Bond, and if she were to be perfectly honest, she couldn’t decide if she was unsettled by or excited about what was definitely not a run-of-the-mill investigation.
“Well?” she asked.
“It’s still there. Which suggests that we’re dealing with only that one guy, and maybe the woman, if she knew what, exactly, she was doing when she came over to distract us.”
“Only one guy here at the base,” Julianne said. “But events so far suggest a conspiracy.”
“Which doesn’t preclude suicide,” Dallas said as he opened the door. But not before blocking her body with his.
What, did he think he could stop some explosive device or bullet with his manly chest?
Given what she knew about Spec Ops guys, Julianne wouldn’t have been all that surprised to discover he believed exactly that.
“Did I mention that my mother is an artist?” she asked as they entered the room.
“I don’t believe it came up.” He looked a bit puzzled as he put the computer bag back on the table.
“She took up painting during one of my dad’s deployments. She dabbled around in various mediums, oils, collage, even photography for a time, until she settled on watercolors.”
“It’s probably important to keep busy.”
“That’s what she always said. And even with all the duties that were part of being an officer’s wife and taking care of us kids, she’s always been overly energetic, so painting—along with gardening—proved a good outlet for her.” She put her leather bag next to his.
“She tried to get me interested,” she continued conversationally. “But unfortunately, I seem to have the artistic talent of a chimpanzee with a fistful of crayons. But all the visits to the museums she’d take us to in whatever town we were living in at the time did teach me to recognize real art from the starving-artist paint-in-an-hour stuff.”
“Really?” He lifted a brow, but she could tell from his smile that he knew exactly where she was going with this.
“Really. And I have to say, this painting is definitely offending my artistic sensibilities. Such as they are.”
She ran her fingers over the glass fronting the watercolor. “I’m not even sure I’ll be able to sleep with it hanging over my bed.”
“Well, not that I intend for you to get all that much sleep.” His voice deepened to that slow drawl. “But I also wouldn’t want you distracted.”
He lifted the painting off the wall again. “How about I just go stick it in my room for the time being? Let housekeeping deal with it after we’ve gone?”
“I think that’s a perfect solution.” She didn’t have to fake the throaty tone that was a direct response to the sexuality in his voice.
Since they’d never bothered to unlock the door on his side of the room, he left just long enough to get rid of the painting, giving her a quick moment to duck into the bathroom to check herself out in the mirror.
Unsurprisingly, although she seldom wore more than a featherlight mineral powder, mascara to keep her pale lashes from completely disappearing, and tinted Chap-Stick, the moisturizer she’d worn on the plane to hydrate her skin had left her face shiny. Her lips were bare, and the mascara, which was falsely billed as not only waterproof but smearproof, had left smudges beneath both eyes.
“You’re a long, long way from Angelina Jolie,” she muttered as she tried to smooth the loose hairs that had fallen to hang down around her face back into their tidy knot. Her hair was her only vanity, which was why, when she’d headed off to Annapolis, rather than cut it, she’d learned myriad ways to keep it above her collar, as regs required.
“Don’t do that.”
Not having heard Dallas return, Julianne jumped at the sound of his voice and spun toward him. He was standing in the doorway, one broad shoulder against the jamb.
“You nearly scared me to death,” she complained, wondering how long he’d been standing there, watching her. Her heart, beneath the hand that had instinctively flown to her chest, was pounding like a rabbit’s.
From the sudden surprise, she assured herself. Not because he was too sexy for the faded jeans he’d changed into while he’d been in his room.
“Sorry.”
He didn’t look sorry. What he looked was interested.
“Do you always sneak up on women that way?”
“No. I’ve always found that being straightforward is the best approach.”
He entered the room, put his hands on her shoulders, and turned her back toward the mirror.
“Those little hanging-down things are really sexy,” he murmured as he played with the loose strands from behind. The wall of his chest was strong against her back, reminding her of the hot and edgy way he’d felt when they’d been playing pinball.
But this was even more dangerous, because then they’d been in public. Here, all alone, there was nothing to stop her from doing what she suspected they were both thinking of doing.
Nothing short of self-control. Which she’d always prided herself on.
“Makes a man wonder what would happen if he just pulled out all those pins.”
“I don’t remember inviting you to touch.” Her tone was cool; her blood was not.
“Tell me to stop. And I will.”
She could.
She should.
But it was only hair. It wasn’t as if he were about to take her clothes off.
“I’ve just been dying to know,” he said when she remained silent.
He plucked out one pin and tossed it on the counter.
Then another.
Four more followed, leaving a long, tied-at-the-nape ponytail that fell nearly to the center of her back.
Julianne was appalled to find herself holding her breath as he slipped the elastic band loose. Then he ran his hands through the freed strands.
“I knew it,” he said, as much to himself, it seemed, as to her.
“Knew what?”
“That it would feel like corn silk.”
“You’re such a smooth talker,” she accused, wanting to keep things light.
“And you’re stunning.”
“Actually, I’m fairly ordinary.” She’d never been one to lie, even to herself, and having never based her self-confidence on her looks, she’d been able to be objective about them. “Back in high school, Merry talked me into filling out a questionnaire in one of her teen magazines, and while she came out a cheerleader prom queen, I ended up the girl-next-door type.”
“God, have I been living in the wrong neighborhood all my life.”
After arranging her hair over her shoulders to his satisfaction, he turned her around so they were facing each other, Julianne looking up at him, Dallas looking down at her.
“You’re still just fixated on that dress.”
“Now, see, there’s where you’re wrong. The dress was dynamite, and I hope when she gets it on the market that it pays for your sister’s kids’ college. But what I’m fixated on is the woman who was wearing it so well.”
He studied her for a long, silent time, which was surely only seconds, but seemed like minutes. Hours.
Julianne could feel her breath catch in her throat as his warm brown eyes darkened so much it was difficult to tell pupil from iris. When he bent his head, she braced herself for another of those devastating kisses, but instead, he merely pressed his lips against her forehead.
“Work,” he said with a decided lack of enthusiasm as he backed away. “We need to track down that car that followed us.”
“Good idea,” she agreed, no more eager than he. Not when she knew they were both thinking of something else.
Something that had nothing to do with work. And everything to do with getting naked together.
“But how do you intend to do that?”
“I figured I’d start by running the license plate through the base motor pool record.”
She wasn’t surprised by his intention to hack into the MCB records. Tried to assure herself that they had been given as close as any investigators could get to carte blanche. But still . . .
“You have the plate number?”
“Sure. I got it while they were following us.”
“You may have spotted them. But as you said, they weren’t exactly on our bumper.” She’d managed to catch a glimpse of the staff car in the passenger-side mirror.
“True. But I guess I failed to mention my twenty/ten vision. Of course, that’s just a number—”
“Like your IQ and SAT scores.”
“Yeah. Like that.”
“And, of course, once you saw it”—she tapped her temple—“it was forever locked away in that computerized vault you call a brain.”
“Pretty much.” He actually sounded a bit apologetic, which Julianne found rather endearing.
Unsurprisingly, he hacked into the base motor pool records in no time flat.
“No go,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the car’s not from the MCBH.”
“Then it wasn’t that redhead’s Marine husband?”
“Could’ve been. Probably not.” He tapped a few more keys. “No problem.” More tapping. Julianne had always considered herself a fast typist; Dallas was faster. “I’ll just spread my net a little farther.”
“Are you sure they can’t track you?”
“Don’t worry. I know the codes as well as I know that little mole at the nape of your neck.”
She felt a bit of color rise again in her cheeks. Which was ridiculous. Having grown up on military bases, surrounded by sailors, Julianne never,
ever
blushed.
“Try the Pearl motor pool,” she suggested.
He flashed a grin. “Great minds.” He squinted as he studied the screen, scrolling down through a list of numbers. “Bingo.”
“We were followed by someone in the Navy?”
“Seems so.”
“Wow. I could tell we’d landed ourselves in a turf battle during our meeting with the commander, but I had no idea—”
She was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Speak of the devil. It’s two naval officers,” she reported, after looking through the peephole. One was in his early twenties; the older one had thinning hair, and the top of his head was badly sunburned. As was his face.
“Interesting timing.”
With a few clicks of the keys, he logged off the Net and turned off the laptop. Closing the lid, he stood up, snagged a beer from the fridge, and popped the cap.
By the time Julianne had opened the door, he was sprawled out on the couch, beer in hand, the TV turned to an Ultimate Fighting match.
“Officers,” she greeted them. “What can I do for you?”
“We’d like to talk to you, ma’am.” Lobster Face flipped out an ID. As did his partner.
“You’re from NCIS?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you here on behalf of Commander Walsh?”
“Well, that’s the thing we’re here to talk to you about, ma’am,” the officer said. He glanced around, as if looking for spies. “If you don’t mind if we come in?”
It was not a question. More an order. They all knew that in the rock/paper/scissors terrorism-fighting hierarchy, THOR topped both NCIS and JAG.
But not only did she not want to get involved in a pissing contest, if these were the men who’d been following them in that Navy staff car, Julianne wanted to find out why.
Dallas pushed to his feet as the two men entered the room, and while he wasn’t standing in exactly at-ease stance, since he was dangling the beer bottle in his hand by his thigh rather than putting his hands loosely behind his back, his legs were apart, his heels parallel, toes slightly out, shoulders squared, chest and jaw up.
Anyone who’d even seen a war movie could have immediately spotted him as military.
“Lieutenants,” he greeted them mildly, with just a touch of confusion that suggested yet again that while he might claim not to be as good at covert missions as SEALs or D-boys, he definitely was no amateur. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“We’re here about Commander Walsh.”
“That’s why you were following us?” Dallas asked.
“You spotted us?” the younger man asked with a deep frown.
“It wasn’t that difficult.” Dallas shrugged, then took a pull on the bottle, relaxing his stance. “It’s always good, if you’re tailing someone, to keep a couple cars between you and your target.”
“Thanks for the tip.” The older officer’s dry tone suggested he didn’t really care whether or not they’d been spotted. “We know you met with the commander.”