Bang (B-Squad 2)

Oh hell no. He didn't know who in the world had fucked with her enough that she confused a sexy, just-been-fucked afterglow with being dirty, but he would very much like to shove his fist down the asshole's throat.

"Darlin', I like you just the way you are."

She giggled. "Are you stealing lines from Bridget Jones's Diary?"

"I do have five sisters." Taking advantage of her moment of distraction, he tugged her down to his side, letting go of a breath he didn't realize he was holding when she rolled onto her side and laid her head in the pocket of his shoulder. "I've watched every rom com there is."

"Oh, and you even know the lingo."

He could feel her smile against his skin. It felt good. Really good.

"Don't start with me, Tamara Post."

"Does that mean you’re finished already?" she teased.

"Not even close." He wrapped an arm loosely around her waist. "Sleep while you can. I'll be waking you up in the best of ways in an hour."

"Promises. Promises," she half sighed, half mumbled.

He turned his head and brushed a kiss across her forehead. "You know I always keep them."

Tamara said something, but her words were too faint to understand. Her deep, steady breathing told him everything he needed to know. Relaxing back into the pillow, his own eyes drooping, he picked up the tablet on the bedside table to triple-check that all of the security systems were engaged. He'd promised Tamara she'd be safe with him. He wasn't about to break that pledge. One glance at the proprietary app he'd designed confirmed that anything bigger than a gnat would trip the alarms. That plus the beautiful, complicated woman asleep in his arms was all it took to knock him out for the night, and with any luck, it would banish the recurring nightmare he'd brought back with him from Afghanistan.

Chapter 12

Tamara

The sun was still a soft pink line on the horizon when Tamara started carefully scooting out from underneath Isaac's arm. It was a delicate procedure. Waking him up wasn't a good idea. There were things in the duffle that needed her—and only her—attention. The B-Squad was plan A, but if that fell through she needed to make sure plans B and C were already in motion, and that meant solo access to what was in the duffle. Her lungs tight from holding her breath, she'd made it from being flush against his naked body to almost the edge of the bed that seemed as big as Texas when his strong fingers curled around her waist and tugged her back against his hard form.

"Going somewhere?" Isaac asked, nuzzling the back of her neck.

The husky, sleep-roughened gravel in his voice set off a flurry of kamikaze butterflies in her stomach. "I wasn't sneaking out."

"Really?" He nibbled his way down the column of her throat.

It was really hard to come up with a plausible cover story when he did that. It made her brain foggy and the rest of her soft and wet. "Okay, I was sneaking out of bed, but that's it. Most human beings do have to pee after they wake up."

"And you just naturally wake up at…" He let go of her and reached past her to swipe his phone of the bedside table. He squinted at the screen. "God, that can't be right. Do they actually make a time this early? That's wrong."

He put the phone back and brought her in tight against him again, close enough that there was no doubt that not all of him was still asleep. She shouldn't stretch so her bare ass rubbed against his fast-stiffening cock. It was wrong...he had other things to do...but it felt so good.

He groaned and cupped her breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers.

"Not a morning person?" she asked, as if she wasn't doing her best to wake all of him up.

"Darlin'…" He took a soft nip of her shoulder. "I'm more of a wee hours of the morning person."

The temptation to keep pushing, to just lay in bed and tease him until he couldn't take it anymore was so strong it almost made her forget everything that was at stake. Almost. Her mother may not have taught her the best lessons in life, but she'd given her an up-close and personal class on the most important one: Don't ever expect anyone to come to the rescue. Fate favored the hustler.

"Go back to sleep." She slipped his hold and scooted across the bed in the next breath. "We're not due at headquarters for another couple of hours. I'll just take care of a few things."

"Like what?"

Plane reservations. Buying a new piece of shit car to cross the border in. Hair dye. Working up some fake personas online to make her fake identities more realistic. "Shower. Get ready. Girl stuff."

He curled his body in one smooth motion so he was sitting up in bed staring at her, the sheets tangling in his lap and the morning sun touching the hard planes of his chest. "So why do you have the duffle?"

Damn, the man was persistent. "It's got a change of clothes."