Cover Me (Elite Force #1)(48)
Author: Catherine Mann

Either he would pity her, which she couldn’t bear, or even worse, he would realize she’d never wanted anyone even close to as much as she wanted him.

And what about Brett?

Would he move her as much as Flynn? Could she really bare her body, much less her heart, to a man she’d never even met face-to-face? Suddenly she felt so very foolish.

She needed someone to talk to and there was nobody to turn to other than Flynn. She wanted a computer, not just to reassure herself Brett was real, but to find her sister. For the past four years she’d been so focused on hating Flynn, convinced she’d numbed herself to what she once felt for him. With one kiss, he’d blown that out of the water.

A chilly burst of air cut through her steamy haven. Someone had opened the door. Squealing, she yanked the shower curtain to her naked body, peering around.

Flynn closed the door again, his hands behind his back. “You forgot a towel.”

Chapter 13

Shower curtain clutched to her chilly body, Misty resisted the urge to smack the smirk off his face. If she ordered him to leave, she wouldn’t get a towel. If she took one from the stack, she would have to step out of the claw-footed tub.

Anger spiked inside her, fueled, no doubt, by a hefty dose of sexual frustration. “If you think you can just waltz back into my life and pick up where you left off simply because of one silly”—amazing—“kiss, then you’ve been smoking some of that crap your brother grows in the attic.”

“You know about that?” His eyebrows shot up into the hank of blond hair hanging over his forehead.

“Everybody knows.” She snorted dismissively. “Stand underneath Ryker’s open window and you can almost get high off the smoke.”

Or maybe it was because her sense of smell was so much stronger these days. Regardless, she was so angry and confused, she couldn’t even focus.

“Ryker will be crushed.” Flynn leaned a hip against the sink, towels tucked against his chest. “He likes to think he’s a badass.”

“Flynn?”

“Yes, beautiful?” he answered, without taking his eyes off her for even a second.

“Put the towels down and leave.”

“Right.” He dropped them on the sink before reaching for the doorknob.

“And turning your head away may keep me from understanding what you say, but I know you can hear me. You shouldn’t have come in here.”

He glanced over his shoulder, his smile cranking back up to killer wattage. “So you want me to look at you?”

Squealing, she yanked the shower curtain in front of her again. “That’s not fair. Now go.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turned to leave, his hands behind him, twitching.

Signing.

“I have missed you.”

***

With the first rays of sunrise spoking in the distance, Wade strapped the backpacks into place on the snowmobiles—or as Sunny and other Alaska natives called the vehicles, snow machines.

His calls to McCabe and the OSI last night had netted nothing new that would be pertinent to them. McCabe had said the murders were actually being shuffled over to civilian police as the base went on high alert on another security matter altogether. He hadn’t been able to go into detail over the phone, but Wade had gotten the gist. Spy satellites were picking up a new flurry of activity in Russia.

Meanwhile, it was up to Wade to keep Sunny safe. “All right, then, everything’s locked down tight. We should make the most of the daylight.”

From what she’d told him, they should be able to make good time with the snow machines. As long as the weather held. At least the skies looked clear, vast and brilliant blue like he’d never seen anywhere else in his travels around the world. No wonder Sunny loved her home state so much.

She gripped his wrist. “I know this is going to sound crazy after how hard I pushed for you to come with me. But you don’t have to go the rest of the way. I’ll tell you where I live. I realize that can’t be a secret anymore. I know I’m going to have to fill in the blanks, but you don’t have to do this for me.”

“You’re a little late with your willingness to pony up your life story, Sunshine.” They were in a kind of limbo land here now, between her world and his, and once they finished? Likely it would signal an end to things between them.

“I believe it’s never too late to make things right. You can go back now.”

Not true. Some things in life were irrevocable. There was no going back for his mother. And there was no way he could walk away from Sunny, with her life in danger.

He was fast wondering how the hell he was going to walk away from her at all. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

She exhaled a long puffy cloud into the chilly air. “I don’t want to bring trouble down on your head at work because of my brother.”

“Because of your brother, the deserter.” He couldn’t resist shooting straight to the heart of what they were talking about. It loomed between them like a purple elephant dropped right into the middle of the parking lot alongside the moose loping past.

She jammed her hands into her pockets. “The words sound so stark when you say them out loud, but I understand you’re right. That doesn’t stop me from loving my brother.”

“Then you’ll do whatever it takes to make sure nothing bad happens to your sister or brother, and right now, I’m your best bet for a bodyguard. So let’s go.”

Cupping her waist, Wade dropped her onto her seat. He kissed her once, hard and fast and not daring to linger longer, or they could end up inside again.

He pulled down the faceplate on his helmet and tapped the mic. “Test, test.”

“I’m here.” Her voice caressed his ears, velvet smooth like her hands on his body.

Sleeping with Sunny complicated things. Seriously. He should be honorable and call a halt to all sex between them until this was settled. Except he couldn’t see his way clear to a solution for two such mismatched lifestyles. The end of the road for them waited somewhere up that mountain, and Sunny seemed to realize that as well. Knowing that—even if he couldn’t bring himself to accept it—fueled the need to make love to her, touch her, claim her every chance he got.

And those chances were fast running out unless somehow they could pick their way through a path to each other, a path far more treacherous than anything Mount Redoubt had to offer up.

He revved the engine and lurched forward full speed. He maxed the machine, peeling out of the parking lot.