Uncut Bundle

“Let’s not dance around it, okay? Hamilton requested you.”

Mia pulled her hand free. “What is this all about?”

“It’s not anything but friendly conversation. I’m just trying to figure out how a woman stationed in D.C. ended up on a plum detail in Latin America.”

“A plum detail?” She gave a sharp laugh. “Remember what you said about Colombia? It’s beautiful, but it’s terribly dangerous.”

“Cartagena’s a city on a coast where the main problem of the day is which club to visit at night.”

Mia pushed back her chair and got to her feet. Matthew shot to his.

“Where are you going?”

His voice was cold. So was hers.

“I told you, I don’t like your tone.”

“And I don’t like people thinking they can walk out on me.”

She swung away and started toward the house. He went after her, caught her by the shoulder and spun her to face him.

“Is there something between you and Hamilton?”

“I answered that before.”

“He thinks there is.”

“I can’t help

what he thinks.”

“You didn’t sleep with him?”

Mia’s chin lifted. “If I did, it wouldn’t be any of your business.”

His hand tightened on her shoulder. “It damned well would.”

“No, it wouldn’t. You and I spent a night together. That doesn’t entitle you to ask me questions about who I’ve slept with.”

Matthew stared at her. Her eyes flashed with rebellion; her chin was sharply angled. She was ticked off and she had every right to be.

She was right. Her past was her affair…but it killed him to think she’d been with a man like the colonel.

“You’re right,” he said roughly, gathering her tightly against him. “Your past isn’t my business. But from now on, you so much as look at another man…”

His mouth came down on hers. She held back for a second and then she went up on her toes and wound her arms around his neck.

He thought of what he’d just told her, of the insanity of staking a claim on a woman he didn’t even know.

And then he stopped thinking of anything but carrying her to a chaise longue in a secluded corner of the terrace, stripping them both of their clothes and burying himself inside her.

In the blistering heat of midday, they headed down a narrow trail that wove through a stand of white oaks, Matthew with a pack slung over his shoulder, Mia with a bottle of water dangling from a strap.

He wouldn’t tell her where they were going, except to say that it was a special place and that it was beautiful. Still, when they stepped from the trees into a small, lush green clearing, she gasped with surprise.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, Matthew… You were right. It’s wonderful.”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I figured you’d like it.”