"Enjoying a taste of tequila." He closed his computer and spun his chair away from the desk.
"Tequila?" Lucas straightened. What the hell? "We have a flight tomorrow night—"
"They know when crew rest starts. It's one bottle that both crews are sharing with a couple of Cartinian crews, which doesn't come out to more than a shot each. They're celebrating Seabrook's safe return. They're due that."
Hunt stroked his blond mustache while he studied Lucas as if waiting for something...like his reason for stopping since Lucas wasn't known for making polite chitchat.
Lucia was right. He was a hard—sometimes grouchy—commander. "Good job taking care of things while I was away."
Hunt quirked a brow. "Thank you, sir. You've trained us all well."
"Have I?"
Both brows shot up this time. "Excuse me?"
Sara and Lucia both had him thinking, looking deeper and reevaluating. "Part of leadership is mentoring. Quite frankly, I suck at all that warm-fuzzy teacher stuff. I'm more the hard-ass instructor type."
"Maybe so," Hunt conceded slowly, as if waiting for the explosion, and when it didn't come, he continued, "but when it came time to pick folks for positions like mine, you chose mentor types to round out the picture. Together, we get the job done."
"I hope so." He certainly hadn't gotten the job done when it came to a relationship with Sara, then or now. What the hell was he looking for here? Apparently he didn't know much of anything tonight. "Well, that's all I wanted to say. Good night, Major."
Lucas started to pivot away.
"Sir? Would you like a cup of coffee?"
Damn. He would. What was up with that? Still, it would give him a chance to pull his thoughts together before going to bed with Sara.
Lucas turned back. "Yeah, thanks."
Hunt filled a second mug beside the coffeemaker. "Nothing like a good Colombian roast.">"You're... That's... Amazing." Heat shooshed through her veins, melting away tension. "Truly, though, you do not owe me a thing. You already gave me the most precious gift ever—Lucia."
A precious gift that snored, but what a reassuring sound.
"Do you want me to stop?" He kneaded muscles between her shoulder blades.
Her head lolling forward, she groaned.
"I'll take that as a go-ahead to continue."
She managed a nod with the next moan, wondering if she was selfish for lapping up the glorious feel of his hands that knew her body so well. "Are you sure your arm's all right to do this?"
His thumbs worked down the edges of her spine. "Totally okay."
Of course. He was invincible.
Although now that he was letting her see the human side of him as well with confidences, she found herself more drawn than ever. "I'm sorry to have added another scar to your beautiful body."
"You've already apologized. But, uh, beautiful?" He hesitated rubbing for a heartbeat, then slid to cup her waist. "That's not a word men prefer to hear describing them."
"You work out, don't you?"
He grunted.
"You're fit. But you don't strike me as a team sports sort of man, so I assume you work out."
"I still run." His hands massaged up her waist, his fingers grazing the sides of her breasts. She shivered. "Usually at the beach. I like open spaces."
"Plus the solitude?" She struggled for words to keep from falling too deeply under the spell of his hands. "For a loner, you chose a strange profession. Even your plane is a crew aircraft. I would have expected you to fly a single-seat fighter jet."