Claiming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 1) (11 page)

He was babbling. Which was usually the opposite of how he handled a woman fishing for tidbits he hadn’t shared on purpose. Yet another reason he should be saying
sayonara
. Emma had spelled danger from that first moment he’d seen her testing her will against the surf and not backing down, yet he’d ignored the sound of conscience screaming at him. He’d invented excuse after excuse to let her keep drawing him back into her orbit.

“That sounds nice. I don’t have many good friends. Just Rachel. I lost contact with most people after… well, anyway.” Her voice had taken on a wistful quality. “How did you all meet?”

“We served together in the navy. In Iraq,” he said flatly.

And that marked the first time he’d uttered those words aloud to a woman since Malika. This occasion wouldn’t end any better.

“You were in the military?” The surprise in her voice told him everything he needed to know.

“Three tours.” He couldn’t help the frost that had crept into his tone. Didn’t want to help it. She’d started this fishing expedition. She should have considered more thoroughly what she might hook with her bait.

“That’s fascinating.” She wheeled around to face him and the walk part of this encounter seemed to be over. “Did you see any action?”

“This is not a date. We’re not getting to know each other over drinks. If I wanted to advertise the highlights of my military career, I would have put them on my Facebook profile.”

“Dex.” Her throaty voice held a hint of amusement. “I’m just curious about you. If you don’t want to tell me, you say, Emma, butt out.”

“I thought I just did.”

Instead of decking him for being such a jerk, she laughed, and it tugged a small smile from somewhere in the depths of his miserable soul.

“Touché.” Her blue eyes locked on his as she reached out to caress his shoulder with her slim fingers. “So what do you talk about on a date then?”

His shoulder burned under her touch. He leaned into it ever so slightly because he couldn’t stop himself from responding to her, from seeking more. From recalling the way she’d kissed him so eagerly last night in the moonlight, and how desperately he wanted to keep moving toward her.

In his current state, the slow simmer of attraction had a bite of temper mixed through it, and the resulting experience for Emma would not be very pleasant. He had a tendency to be punishing when his mood veered into territory more suited for violence than sex.

She didn’t know any of these things about him, and the less she learned, the better.

“I don’t date.”

Dating had far too many implications that he didn’t like. Such as an expectation that there might be more dates in the future. He’d never spoken to a woman postencounter, not since Malika. Not since he’d learned that the world was very unforgiving of the bodies that littered his past.

“Dex.” She cocked her head. “Where do you go when you withdraw? In the water, you’re a different person, more open and happy. I’d like to get to know that man and spend some time with him. This guy,” She slid her palm to his chest and tapped it once with her forefinger. “Has a bad attitude and tendency to foist his assumptions on me, and I don’t like it.”

His temper slid off a cliff, and he tried to grasp it, digging in before he lost it completely. “You should go back to your room now. You’re playing with something you don’t understand.”

“But I want to. That’s the point.”

She huffed out a little noise of frustration, but the rise and fall of her chest drew attention to her peaked nipples, which betrayed her constant state of arousal.

The simmer under his skin began to percolate the longer he internalized her desire. It wasn’t fair that she was allowed to have such a simple, unvarnished reaction to someone she found desirable, and he’d been constantly forced to temper his.

Story of his life. Maybe it was time to invite someone else into his hell.

“You think you can handle it?” he challenged as he deliberately leaned into her palm, deliberately dropped every last internal barrier he employed to keep his beast under control.

“I think I proved today that I’m stronger than you thought.” Her blue eyes glittered with something he couldn’t look away from. “You didn’t think I was going to get in the water, but I did. Maybe I can handle more than you seem to assume.”

And maybe she could. The thing she didn’t seem to understand was that he didn’t want to be the kind of man who would force her to. He’d tried to send her away, and that hadn’t worked. Obviously he needed to pull out the big guns.

“You’re pushing, Emma, and I think it’s time to give you a taste of what happens when you shove open that door and barge in without permission.”

Lightning fast, he snaked an arm around her waist and hauled her up against him. Those peaked, hard nipples ground into his chest, exciting him. A growl rumbled in his throat as he wound his hand through her hair, snaring the locks with his fingers. Once he had a good grip, he pulled, exposing her throat to his ravenous gaze.

Pale, immaculate flesh begged for his mouth, and he didn’t hold back. Fastening his lips to her skin, he tasted. His lips molded to her skin, suckling it, violating it, marking it. She gasped under the onslaught, but didn’t pull away. Oh, no, his little mermaid pushed closer, sending a trail of heat down his back with her hands.

Clearly he hadn’t done enough to make his point. He ran his tongue along the column of her throat, up to her ear, and still he wanted more. He guided her face toward his and took her mouth in a hard, relentless kiss that was more instructional than it was passionate.

She needed to learn what he was capable of.

Her lips were pliant under his, open and inviting, and he groaned as her sweetness exploded on his tongue.
Deeper
. It wasn’t a choice, but a primal need that he suddenly couldn’t control as she scrabbled at his back for purchase with her fingers, as if she was just as overcome as he was.

The kiss did not end. Emma wound through his head like an opiate, fuzzing his mind to the point where he lost all sense of what he’d been trying to prove. She kissed like she did everything—no holds barred, jumping straight in without warning. It was enthralling to be the object of her attentions, as if by sheer virtue of being kissed by Emma, he was something more than he’d been a minute ago.

Somehow she shifted, and one of her legs wedged between his. His fierce erection found that soft, welcoming spot against her abdomen, where he could feel the faint line of her bikini bottom bisecting the flesh. It was the strangest thrill as it rubbed at him, and that only increased his fervor.

He shoved deeper into her mouth, seeking desperate relief from the swirl of lust, but the willing way she met him… his control nearly snapped.
No
. This wasn’t what was supposed to be happening. Emma’s innocence was not on the menu. This was not about his pleasure, slaking his animalistic thirst by using and abusing this woman, and it definitely wasn’t about her being a willing subject to his assault.

She clearly wasn’t scared enough yet.

A gull cried overhead as he hooked two fingers around one of the white triangles and yanked. A gorgeous, darkened nipple popped free, and he groaned as it seared his vision. Beautiful.

He’d meant to suck it into his mouth, to take it brutally and punish her flesh with his temper and frustration. But he couldn’t move all at once as the perfection of her washed over him.

And somehow his gaze on her breast hardened it further, and she moaned, her eyes fluttering closed as her palm slid down the side of her breast, cupping it slightly. Offering it up like a sacrifice, and something broke open inside him.

With a sigh, he resettled her bikini top, hiding her nipple away again, though it didn’t matter if it was covered or not. The rosy tip would haunt his dreams.

“I can’t,” he choked out.

Her eyelids flew open and darkened with confusion. “Dex? Why did you stop?”

He shook his head because how the hell should he know why he had such a ridiculous sense of honor that wouldn’t allow him to take advantage of her fresh innocence? The last thing she needed after her triumph in the water was Dex’s version of a lesson in what happened when he was provoked—after all, she’d already had to work through one issue today caused by a man she’d once trusted.

Instead of running away very fast, she stomped her foot and glared at him, hands on her hips. “You’re ruining my vacation fling, Dex, and it’s really starting to make me mad.”

Her stance nearly made him chuckle, but there was nothing funny about this. “I’m no one’s vacation fling.”

“But you could be.” She eyed him with a scowl. “That’s the part I don’t get. I’m not after something heavy and meaningful and significant. This is the Caribbean. Sun, sand, and half-dressed people. The concept isn’t new. You come here, you meet someone, you spend a few days naked and go home. Nothing more complicated than that. Why are you making it so difficult?”

“Because you deserve to have that uncomplicated fling. I can’t give you that.” Before she could voice the denial in her gaze, he held up a finger. “No. Listen to me. You’re already emotionally compromised, and don’t lie to me and say you’re not. Worst of all, stop lying to yourself. You think because I chased away a creep on the beach and helped you do something as meaningless as snorkeling that we have some kind of connection. We don’t.”

Her head snapped backward as she took his words like a slap to the face. “Meaningless?”

Something sharp with razor teeth zigzagged through his chest as the light in her eyes dimmed. Of course she’d zeroed in on that one small word. He’d meant her to, meant for her to interpret it exactly as it sounded. Like it was nothing special. And now he had to heap even more coals on that fire and try like hell not to let on that it was hurting him far more than it should.

“Yeah. It’s my job to help people with the equipment and stuff. I do it five times a week. You think you’re the first person to be a little intimidated? I work with all sorts of people who have never been in the ocean before.”

And now he was the liar. There’d been nothing regulation about how he’d encouraged her, how he’d held her hand as she acclimated. She was certainly the only one he’d ever kissed—hell, she was the first woman he’d kissed twice in a million years.

But he had to get that hero worship out of her gaze, even if he had to make her bleed to do it.

That didn’t happen. At all.

Instead, she stabbed her arms into a pretzel and glared at him. “Now you’re just being ridiculous. We have a connection whether you want to admit it or not. If I want to think you’re a kind, sensitive man, I’m allowed. If I want you to make love to me, there’s no reason for you to say no. Stop trying to make my decisions for me. I’m going into this eyes wide open. And if I’m a little sad when I get back to Boston because I miss you? My business. Not yours.”

Dear God. It was his worst nightmare rising from the shadows as the sheer emotion in her voice crawled inside him. Greedily, his soul latched onto it, hid it away, and started bargaining with his good conscience.

She’ll be okay. Take her home and do all the wicked things to her you’ve been dreaming of. She can take it. She wants it. Then she’ll leave, and you don’t have to think about her anymore.

“Emma,” he croaked.

“No, don’t
Emma
me. You’re the one who told me your name rhymes with your best talent,” she reminded him as if he’d somehow forgotten the fabricated explanation behind his name. “I’m not under any illusions that I’m the first woman you’ve used that line on, if that’s part of your concern.”

Not by a long shot. But she was the only one he’d ever backed off from after uttering it. And the only one who couldn’t be shaken loose, no matter what he did.

So he’d have to go with the truth, as much as he hated pulling out those skeletons. But the alternative didn’t bear thinking about, especially not the thin tendril of hope that if he told her everything—no holds barred—she might not react the way Malika had.

It was a vain hope. Because if Emma could forgive him for being a mass murderer, she wasn’t the bright, sensational woman he thought she was.

“Dex isn’t even my real name,” he muttered as his heart squeezed so tight it was fifty-fifty on whether it would flatten enough to slide right out of his chest, fitting easily between two ribs. “But it sure beats Dexter.”

“Well of course it does! Dex is far sexier. Though there’s nothing wrong with Dexter either.” She touched his lips with a forefinger. “You’re still you in there.”

“Yes. There is something wrong with Dexter.” His voice grew steady, calm as he squinted through the sights of the loaded rifle he was about to fire; he always did his best work under extreme pressure. “Because that’s not my real name either.”

For the first time in this whole conversation, she faltered. “It’s not?”

At last, the note of caution that should have been there all along surfaced in her voice, in her stance. And that caution needed to spread a whole lot deeper.

“Dexter is what they called me. In Iraq. You see, there’s a TV show about a guy named Dexter. Someone thought he and I had some remarkable parallels.”

“Dexter.” Her eyes widened. “Isn’t that the show about the serial… killer.”

She swallowed the last word, but he had no trouble filling in the blank. “Oh, you’ve seen it? Then you know how disturbed and twisted Dexter is. They try to make it seem like he’s a killer with a conscience, but at the end of the day, he’s got blood on his hands. The same as I do.”

“Dex, what are you…” She cleared her throat. “I don’t even know what to call you. What’s your real name if it’s not Dex?”

“It’s not important. I am Dexter, whether that’s what’s on my birth certificate or not.” And now she was the only woman who’d ever heard the real explanation for his nickname. He’d never even told Malika. But then, she’d never asked.

“I don’t understand. You were in the navy, right? How can you be a… a serial killer?” The faintest tinge of hope clung to her voice, like she might not be getting all the facts right, and somehow he was going to explain everything away until it was okay again.