Private Maneuvers (Wingmen Warriors 4)

Shock shut her mouth. For two seconds. "Run that by me again?"

"You heard me." He advanced one stalking step at a time, flowered swim trunks riding low on his hips, T-shirt stretched across broad shoulders that had saved her just twenty-four hours before. "I'm tired of apologizing for keeping you alive the past three weeks. Tired of apologizing for making sure you're safe now."

He stopped beside her bed, hands planted on the silver rails as he leaned closer. "Most of all, I'm tired of trying to keep my mind on the job while keeping my hands off you out of some damned misplaced sense of honor."

He wanted her. Still. For real. No cover act.

And in that burst of realization she acknowledged her secret fear—that he'd been pretending the attraction and she'd been too naive to know. That he hadn't wanted to finish.

Hadn't wanted her.

Forget backing down. He desired her and she reveled in the power.

She met him nose to nose, this stranger who evoked a now-familiar heat within her. "Nobody asked you to be honorable."

A flame lit his eyes a split second before his mouth met hers. Or did hers meet his? She didn't know and didn't care.

She just wanted closer. Deeper. More.

Her lips parted under his and he took her mouth. Took her senses. Took her ability to do more than hang on to his neck and kiss him back, explore the taste and warmth of Max, the part of him she knew well.

His hand reached to drop the metal rail, his body following as he sat on the edge of the hospital bed. He cradled her gently, slowed their kiss, savoring, so different but no less enticing than their devouring frenzy on the beach. Their hands explored each other with tender reverence, stealing reassurance that they'd made it through the day alive.

He lowered her back onto the pillow. Not that she put up much resistance, or let go. She wanted to hold on to this moment, to the remnants of familiarity between them. She'd barely let herself dream there could be something more. And it seemed so damned unfair she couldn't have it all.

Max brushed her lips once, twice, again before he rested his forehead on hers. "What the hell am I going to do with you?"

Familiarity faded, painful reality threatening to intrude. Her hand cradled his bristly cheek. "You don't get it, do you?"

"Apparently not, Darcy."

She held back the words for a second longer, held him. For one more selfish minute she wanted to pretend he was just Max Keagan, marine biologist with an attitude.

Her own James Dean rebel with a Ph.D.

Instead...she didn't know what or who he was, and as much as his kiss rocked her, his words chilled her.

"You're not going to do anything to me." She'd had enough of people controlling her life. She was willing to relinquish control when necessary in the professional world, but she couldn't settle for less than a partnership on her personal turf. "I understand why you hid your mission. There's nothing to forgive there. But the way you used what I told you against me... That hurts."

He stroked back her hair with tender, lover hands. "I'm so damned sorry. But do you know what it did to me seeing you bleeding in the water and your eyes fogging over?" he paused, his chest pumping with each ragged breath. "I'd make the same call all over again to keep you safe."

She swayed forward. God help her, she was weakening, her body wanting to believe the promise in his seductive touch, the pain in his eyes, and just ignore the harsh vow in his words.

The callused pad of his thumb rasped along her jaw, down her neck before his fingers slid into her hair to cradle her head. "You don't think I wish we could back up and be friends again? I don't want us to leave things this way any more than you do." He cursed softly. "There has to be a better way to say goodbye."

Goodbye? Darcy shook off the sensual daze threatening to drain her will faster than rapture of the deep. He wanted her to see the big picture? Fine. They needed to both be professionals and get over their hormones.

Apparently, Max didn't know her very well, either, if he thought she would simply pack up and head home. She swallowed back the surge of longing still shimmering through her. The time had come to take a stand. "Who said anything about goodbye? I'm not going anywhere, friend.''

"I swear, she's getting on that plane if I have to carry her there myself," Max groused to Crusty, and paced a bare spot in the industrial carpet of the base security police office.

He'd spent the past two hours watching Darcy scan images on the security police computer screens in hopes of identifying their attackers while DeMassi, Lowry and Perry compiled intel in the next room. He'd looked at the same pictures without any luck, and Vinnie still wasn't changing his story.

Crusty tipped back in the office chair, digging through a bag of mooched sunflower seeds. "Pitch her on the plane? That I've gotta see. The whole John Wayne woman-over-the-shoulder routine will definitely go over big with Wren."

"I don't care, as long as she's off the island." He watched her frown as she studied another photo. Only thirty-six hours after their ordeal and already Darcy's flight-suit-clad body hummed with restless energy. Vitality. No lingering effects slowing this woman.

Her finger crooked in her dog tag chain, sawing back and forth. What he wouldn't give to hook his finger in that chain and draw her closer.