Exposed (30 page)

She nodded. “You know you would have. But after all this, I’m not wasting another second hiding what I feel for you. I know what I feel. It’s not me having rose-colored glasses on, and it’s not because I went through something traumatic today. I love you and that’s—”

He leaned in to cradle the back of her head and cover her mouth with his. He kissed her hard and slow and then deep, sliding his tongue in to taste her. She shivered and grabbed his shoulders for support while her body melted.

All too soon he pulled away. It shocked her to see his eyes were wet. “Love you back, kitt’n. I should’ve told you last night but I was too chicken shit to say it. I’m sorry.”

Joy and warmth flooded her, a tremulous smile spreading across her face. “You mean it? You’re not just saying that because I did?”

He huffed out a laugh that ended in a low, possessive growl she felt all the way to her toes. “No. Bet your fine ass I mean it.”

A sharp knock sounded on the rear door, then it swung open. Schroder stood there with a mock scowl on his face. “DeLuca said you guys were both giving him a hard time about going to the hospital, so it’s your own fault that I’m now your escort.” He hopped in, took a seat next to Ethan and raised his eyebrows in a falsely innocent expression. “Am I interrupting something?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Ethan answered, giving him the same look.

“Well, too bad.” He took a blood pressure cuff from the hook on the wall and proceeded to take her vitals. Pulling the stethoscope buds from his ears, he smiled at her. “Good news is, you’re gonna make it.”

She snorted. “Yeah, I know, that’s why I don’t think this is neces—”

“Shh.” He turned to Ethan, reached for his arm as though he meant to take his blood pressure too, but Ethan ripped the cuff away from him and slapped it on the bench beside him. Schroder blinked. “Wow. Someone’s cranky.”

He settled back against the wall and crossed his arms, looking comfy as could be. “You need your head checked out,” he said to Ethan, “and you,” he threw her a pointed look, “need to get your core temp back up along with being rehydrated. The sooner we get you both checked out, the sooner you’ll be rid of me and you can get back to whatever it was you were doing.” Grinning at them, he winked at her as the driver started the engine.

****

Alone in the elevator, Sawyer blew out a hard breath and scrubbed a hand over his face. It had been a long fucking day already and he still had more debriefings and paperwork to do before he could call it a night and crash back at the hotel. They’d been burning the candle at both ends for so many days now that he could easily sleep all night and tomorrow.

The elevator slowed as it reached the lobby. A soft ding sounded and the doors slid open, bringing with it a wave of stale coffee and staler air.

Instantly he fought back a shiver, a visceral reaction to being in a hospital. God, he hated them. Reminded him too much of when he’d lost guys overseas back in his SF days.

In desperate need of coffee, he headed for the cafeteria. He was nearly to the front entrance when the automatic sliding doors whooshed open.

He halted in his tracks when he saw Carmela fly through them, looking uncharacteristically disheveled in a long T-shirt and sweats. Her hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail and she wore no makeup. She glanced left then right, and spotted him.

He opened his mouth to call out to her but closed it when she suddenly tore toward him, sandals slapping on the linoleum floor, her face a mask of stark fear. Whoa, she was terrified.

“Hey.” He caught her by the upper arms but she latched onto his shoulders and started firing questions at him.

“What’s happened? Where’s Ethan? And Marisol?” She scanned his eyes anxiously, her entire body vibrating with tension. “The agents at the Lorenzo’s said there’d been a firefight and that they’d both been injured. It was all over the news but no one would tell us anything. Where—”

“Whoa, slow down,” he said gently. In her flip-flops the top of her head barely reached his chin. She was gripping his shoulders so hard he could feel the bite of her perfectly French-manicured nails through his shirt. In his fantasies she’d done that to him in the throes of passion, not out of fear. He didn’t like seeing her so upset.

Her eyes widened for a split second, then narrowed in outrage. Her nostrils flared and she leaned in to snarl right in his face. “Don’t you dare do that ‘speak softly and don’t make any sudden moves’ thing with me. I want to know what the hell happened to my brother.”

“No, listen, he’s okay.” He squeezed her upper arms gently to reinforce his words.

She shook her head, her eyes flashing angrily. “He’s
not
okay. If he was okay he wouldn’t be here, and they would’ve told me what happened.”

“Just calm down a sec and—”

“No, I won’t stop!” Tears flooded her beautiful eyes and the sight gutted him. “Why won’t you just tell me what happened? He must be hurt badly, otherwise—”

Out of ideas about how to calm her, he shut her up the only way he knew how—he took her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers.

She gave a tiny jerk, her eyes flying wide in surprise. But she didn’t pull away and an instant later her mouth softened beneath his. Her eyes fluttered closed.

Sawyer swallowed a groan of pure longing.
God
.

This had disaster written all over it, in huge, bolded red letters. He’d just crossed a line he knew to stay the hell away from. He
knew
the perils of getting involved with her, had already learned them the hard way with his ex. And apparently even that wasn’t enough to make him do the right thing and step back.

She smelled delicious, a tropical mix of sweet coconut and tangy lime that went straight to his head. He’d wanted to kiss her for so long and he was still keyed up from the chase earlier, it was all he could do not to devour her. Ethan would fucking kill him for doing this, but Sawyer couldn’t help himself. Not now.

He slid his hands into her hair to cradle the back of her head and slanted his mouth over hers. She made a small mewling sound and leaned into him, pressing those soft breasts against his chest while her lips parted. He slid his tongue along her lower lip, felt her shiver before stealing inside the warmth of her mouth.

Just a taste. Not nearly as much as he wanted, but more than he should have taken. God, he’d wanted to do this for so long now.

When he lifted his head a long moment later they were both breathing faster and her eyes were heavy-lidded. But then her gaze cleared and she narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion. “Wait. Did you just kiss me to shut me up?” she asked, sounding completely insulted.

Well partly, yeah, but he wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole. That quick taste of her was all he’d ever get. It had been selfish of him to kiss her at all, but it had done the trick. She wasn’t crying and on the edge of hysterics anymore.

“No, now listen to me.” He slid his fingers through the thick, cool fall of her hair and held her gaze. She was still angry with him, bright flags of color staining her cheeks, but he ignored that for now. “Your brother’s okay, and so is Soli. Ethan had to have a routine CT scan to make sure the bump on his head didn’t cause any damage, and Soli had some minor cuts that needed to be cleaned up. Mostly they wanted to bring her here to get her hydrated and bring her core temp back up. She got thrown into the water for a bit. That and the shock of everything that happened meant she needed a doctor to check her out, and they both had a lot of questions to answer.”

Carmela blinked at him as she absorbed all that, her thick black lashes making the gold-flecked amber of her irises even more startling. “So they’re both okay,” she repeated, watching him warily. “You’re certain.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Swear on my mother’s life that they’re both okay.”

“I swear.”

Her eyes closed and she heaved a sigh of relief as she reached for him. The sweetest pain flared in his chest when she wound her arms around his neck and pressed close to him, seeking the comfort and reassurance he was only too happy to give. He hugged her close, savoring the feel of her.

“Okay now?” he murmured against her hair a minute later. She was so soft, and now he was hard all over. He could hold her forever but right now he was trying his best to keep her from noticing the erection straining against his fly.

She nodded against his shoulder. “Yeah, better. Thanks.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and reluctantly released her when she eased back.

She cleared her throat and looked at the floor, seeming suddenly unsure of herself. Or maybe even embarrassed. Her cheeks were still flushed and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “So, can I see them both?”

Unsure what he was supposed to read into her reaction and knowing he shouldn’t touch her intimately again, he nodded. “Yeah. But come with me to grab a cup of coffee first.”

She shot him an uncertain look, seeming agitated. “I don’t know, I’d rather be upstairs in case they need me…”

“They’re both talking with investigators right now anyway, and honey, I’m so tired I’m about to drop face first onto this no-wax floor. So come with me while I get some caffeine into my system and then I’ll take you up to see them both in a little while.”

He caught the flash of sympathy in her eyes, knew he had her. And in that moment he wished he really
did
have her. All of her, whatever she’d give him.

But that could never happen.

“Okay,” she relented, but looked away, avoiding his gaze again. A warning buzz started up in his gut. “One quick cup of coffee.”

As he led her toward the cafeteria, neither of them broke the unexpectedly brittle silence between them. And Sawyer couldn’t shake the awful feeling that he’d ruined everything with that single, forbidden kiss.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ethan woke in the semi-darkness when Marisol whispered his name.

“Ethan.” She lightly shook him. “Ethan, wake up.”

God, again?
“I’m still alive,” he muttered back, stifling a groan. She’d been waking him up every two hours throughout the night as per the doctor’s instructions, just to err on the side of caution since they’d diagnosed him with a mild concussion. As a result they’d barely gotten any sleep.

He rolled to his back, hid a wince at the sudden pounding in his head the change in position caused. It was way better than it had been a few hours ago though.

Marisol reached past him to grab some more painkillers and the bottle of water from his bedside table. The Bureau had put them in a hotel room for the night, where she would stay until they cleared her to go back home. DeLuca had given him until noon to relax, then he and Marisol were both due in to the Miami office for more interviews and debriefings.

Ethan dreaded that. He wished he could make the entire world go away for her, but in light of how critical the Fuentes case was and two of the cartel’s most feared enforcers dying in the op yesterday, they needed whatever intel she could give them. Especially since she was the only one who could answer questions about the mysterious Julia, who appeared to have vanished without a trace.

“Here, it’s time for your next dose,” she murmured, handing him two pills and the water.

Ethan couldn’t help but grin at the way she fussed over him. But what he loved even more was that she was naked, and the way her bare breasts brushed across his arm and chest as she leaned over him. “I’m liking this whole naughty nurse vibe you’ve got going.”

She laughed softly and propped her head on one hand to watch while he took his pills. Her free hand trailed over his shoulder and across his chest, the light caress making his entire body wake up in the best possible way. His cock swelled, pushing against the sheet.

“I bet you do. How are you feeling now though?”

“Better.” He swallowed the pills, set the water aside and reached for her, dragging her half on top of him. There was no way she could miss how hard he already was. He wanted inside her in the worst way.

He heard her quick intake of breath, felt the way her hands tightened on his shoulders. But then she pushed up onto her hands, a worried frown on her face as she stared down at him. “I don’t think we should do anything until the doctor says you—”

“Soli. I’ve had my skull knocked a lot harder than this before, I promise you.” It had damn near killed him not to taste her all over, make love to her again last night, but by the time they’d arrived at the hotel it had been nearly midnight and she’d been exhausted. She’d needed comforting and some quiet time so they’d kissed for a while then he’d held her while they fell asleep.

Just as he had every two hours after that, each time she’d woken him. “Unless you’re too sore?” he asked. She had plenty of bruises and scrapes to show for her ordeal yesterday, including a cut on her calf from where a ricochet had sent something sharp slicing across her skin. He’d already kissed and stroked each mark last night.

“The only real pain I’ve got right now is an ache in here,” she said, placing his palm flat against the center of her chest. “I miss having you inside me. I want to feel that again,” she finished with a whisper.

Lust flared instantly, hot and urgent. “Come here, kitt’n.”

Cupping her jaw with one hand, he turned them so she was on her back beneath him, and kissed her. She let out a soft moan and twined her limbs around him, arching her back to get as much contact with him as possible. Her lips parted and her tongue touched his softly.

Ethan growled into her mouth and devoured her, his heart racing out of control. Her hands roved almost greedily across his body, putting a match to the hot glow of desire pulsing through him. He cradled her breasts, bent to suck each tight nipple, savoring the way she moaned and squirmed. She rocked against him in a silent plea for contact where she needed it most.

When he cupped a hand between her thighs he found her slick and soft. He groaned around her nipple, sucked at it before sliding two fingers deep into her body, stroking over the sweet spot hidden inside her.