Page 37 of Dangerous Mission
He’s gorgeous. Everything about him. The scars, the tooth that’s a little bit crooked, the dark scruffy beard along his jaw.
How can a stone-faced killer have a smile that knocks the wind out of your lungs?
He lays his head back against the headrest as he drives, casting looks at me with humor softening his expression. His eyes are bright, clear and pale as the morning sky in Iceland. His dark-blond—almost caramel—hair, just a little longer than military standard, is ruffled from his hat and sleeping. The beard is neatly trimmed though and is a dozen shades darker.
It’s also much rougher to the fingertips.
“I can see your brother in you. But on you it’s not just straight up smarts, you’re cheeky.”
I shrug and smile at him, with my fingers tingling from the memory of touching the thick forest of his hair, feeling the heat of his skin below. “I don’t know, I just say it like I see it.”
I just hope I don’t slip up and say exactly how much I like what I see.
He takes a drink from the water bottle, looking at me over the top as he does.
When he’s done, he licks his lips.
A shiver races down to my squeezed legs.
Oh, boy. That was hot.
He rasps, “Guess we have that much in common, at least.”
I snatch one of the packages of Twinkies out of his hat, which is sitting on his lap.Cream filled treat anyone?
Choking, I try to play off the heat that sears across my cheeks. “That and we’re going to have a sugar high this morning.”
Desperate for a change of subject, I rip open the package with my fingers—not my teeth. “I’m starving. But I’m ready for something that doesn’t come out of a vending machine.”
His gaze flicks to mine. There’s something hot in the way he’s looking at me. When he glances at my lips, I get so overheated I wonder if I’m sitting on a bed of coals.
“Oh, you!” I toss the plastic wrapper at him. “Stop. I wasn’t talking about sex.”
“You sure?”
I’m the one trying to swallow now. “I’m sure. I gave up that particular sport.”
As he drives he cuts his eyes to me a few more times. “That’s the strangest thing a beautiful young woman has ever said to me.”
I stop mid bite and clear my throat.
Beautiful?
“Not really strange. I mean…” I let my words die.
“You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to.”
No, I should say something.
“I had a bad relationship.”
After making a gruff sound he looks at the road again. This time his eyes are narrowed. “Haven’t we all? It doesn’t mean you have to stop having sex.”
What?
That remark makes no sense from a man that doesn’t like to be touched.
His phone picks a great time to ring. For both our sakes it stops us before we open a can of worms that neither of us want to deal with.