Hot Zone (Elite Force #2)(58)
Author: Catherine Mann

She swatted his stomach. “You’re so sensitive it’s a wonder all those women divorced you.”

Ouch. That one stung a little. But he liked the way she didn’t pull punches. And no, he wasn’t known for his sensitivity. But he was known for his ability to make a person smile in the middle of a crisis.

He stopped at the Red Cross supply station, holding up two fingers for the worker dispensing boxed lunches, complete with the little half-pint cartons of orange juice. Liam took the two stacked meals and looked at the crumbled street around them. The chaos of a few days ago had shifted into a steady grind of tackling a cleanup that would easily take years.

There weren’t exactly a lot of places to hang out by the beach and eat, so he steered her back toward their cottages. One of the porches would be as good a place as any to park it for now.

“Rachel, to be honest, I don’t get the vibe from you that you’re looking for sensitive.”

“Hmmm… True enough, I guess. Comes from the way I was brought up. Around my house there was lots of love but no coddling. My mother was an ACO—animal control officer. Like those shows you see on the animal channel.”

“Was? What does she do now?” He fell into the ease of their conversation much as they fell into sync walking side by side.

“Nothing. She’s dead now.” She looked at him quickly, then away. “She was breaking up a dog-fighting ring. The owner didn’t take kindly to having thousands of dollars’ worth of assets seized.”

Holy crap. “He didn’t turn his dogs on—”

“No! Heaven, no.” She sighed heavily, rubbing her bare arms. “The man was the killer animal—not the canines. The bastard came after my mother with an aluminum baseball bat and cracked her skull. She never regained consciousness.”

She went silent with the kind of thick quiet that couldn’t be broken with a smart-ass comment, the kind of pause that was best to wait out while she put her thoughts together on what she wanted to say next.

“I got my love of animals from my mom, but I can’t do what she did.” Rachel kicked a chunk of concrete ahead with the toe of her boot. “All of those people who hurt animals? I would go after them with a baseball bat myself.”

The fire in her voice made it clear she would have done just that, for the dogs and for her mother. Rachel Flores was the kind of woman who brought everything to the table in life. No wonder he’d missed the fact she was a foot shorter than him. Her personality, her force of will, was off the charts.

“God, woman, I think I love you.”

She snorted, rolled her eyes, and pretty much did everything to punt him in the ego except laugh at the size of his Johnson. “Okay, that line was your funniest one yet.”

“You don’t think I’m serious.” He looked forward to proving it.

“Not for a minute.” She shook her head and the topknot went a little loose and lopsided. “You can’t really be trying that high school move to get in my pants? ‘I love you, baby, really, I do.’”

“Who says I was trying to get into your pants? Okay, wait. I did say that. Getting you to sleep with me is way high up on my list of personal goals, but I can wait. Something tells me you’ll be more than worth the extra time and effort.”

She clapped a hand to her chest with the melodrama of a seasoned soap star. “You’re willing to wait to have sex with me? I’m devastated. I may never recover from the crushing disappointment that I won’t get to have you as my naked love slave tonight after work. Because heaven knows, there’s nothing more romantic than an earthquake zone.”

He stopped in front of the cottage where her team was staying. “You know you’re only making me love you more when you get all feisty like that. Oh, and in case you were wondering, when I fall in love, I most definitely want to have sex. Love? Big-time aphrodisiac in my book.”

He’d stunned her silent. She was watching him with those sexy smoky eyes of hers as if trying to figure out how much of his bullshit to believe.

“The love thing, though? You should probably take it with a grain of salt, since I’ve been married three times and I was just responding to your sparkling wit.” Liam sat on the steps, boxed meals resting on his knee as he patted the spot next to him for her to sit. “Would you like the rice and beans? Or the rice and beans?”

“Uh, guess I’ll have the beans and rice.” She sank slowly to sit beside him, taking the supper from his hand and flipping open the lid. “Seriously, I don’t want you to get any ideas about us as a couple.”

“Are we sitting on the same step?” He pinched open the carton of juice. “Because I thought we kissed the other day, and I distinctly remember there being tongue involved.”

“You’re right.” She grinned. “And you’re actually funny. I mean it. But I’m not in the market for a relationship. I already told you why. And yes, I do date. I’m not a nun, but I just got out of a really messy breakup—”

“Sweetheart, I’m the king of messy breakups. Just read my divorce decrees. All three of them.” He toyed with a loose strand of her hair, sliding it behind her ear. “You made it clear you’re not interested in more.”

“I’m afraid that’s the way it’s got to be,” she answered, her voice going a little husky.

“Fair enough. I can honor that.” He pulled his hand away, stroking her shoulder along the way. “You’re smart to know I’m a bad risk at the white-picket-fence gig.”

She swayed into his touch, only a little but enough, her tongue dampening her top lip. “Uh-huh.”

His fingers trailed down the length of her arm, but his eyes never left hers. “However, if you want a man who will try his damnedest to give you a mind-blowing orgasm, then I’m your guy.”

Blinking once, slowly, she swallowed hard and backed away, scooting over a couple of inches on the step. “How could I turn down such a romantic offer?”

Chuckling, he reached into the boxed meal for the wrapped plastic cutlery. “Now I’m the one who’s crushed.”

“Somehow I think you’ll survive. You’ve had quite a bit of practice after all,” she said dryly.

“Your sympathy for my heartbreak is overwhelming.”

“If you want warm and fuzzy consolation, go talk to someone like that grandmotherly looking lady over there.” She pointed to a woman with silvery blonde hair, a baby on her hip as she talked to one of the relief workers.