Page 33 of Delta Force Defender

She forced herself to gaze around a bit theatrically then. And to keep a scornful, very nearly disdainful, expression on her face while she did.

Like that could make her pulse settle down.

“This is very disappointing,” she said, finally. “I was led to expect a Batcave.”

“Captain America doesn’t have a Batcave,” Isaac said from behind her. “If you’re going to make comic book references, you should really get them right.”

“Who reads comic books?” Caradine retorted. She sniffed. “I’ve watched a few movies, like a normal person.”

Her neck itched, so she looked at him, and he was staring at her as if she’d kicked Horatio.

“You’re everything that’s wrong with the world,” he said. “Pick up a comic sometime. Maybe you’ll learn something.”

And she needed to stop, because she wasn’t here to banter with him. She certainly shouldn’t have found herself biting back a grin.

This wasn’t foreplay. She was fighting for her life.

And for his, too, though she doubted he would appreciate that if she told him.

He moved past her, and she let herself release a breath. The cabin was neither done up like a frat house nor a monument to his redneck roots, and she couldn’t decide if that disappointed her or not. The room she stood in was large and airy, with a high ceiling that suited a big, tall man like him. There was a roomy fireplace on one wall, windows that overlooked the cove, and comfortable, masculine furnishings. She’d seen the satellite hardware on the roof and wasn’t surprised that there was a study off the main room that looked to be entirely stocked with high-tech electronic equipment, monitors running and lights blinking even now. She could see the kitchen toward the back, through a wide rectangular opening.

Isaac walked across the main room and down a small hall, and she trailed after him, because it was that or stand in the front room staring at Horatio. Who was guarding the door. Literally guarding the door, like Cerberus, and she didn’t care to test him.

Caradine followed Isaac to his bedroom, but stopped in the doorway, trying her best to ignore the way her chest ached. At the sight of the place he slept.

If Isaac Gentry actually slept.

He threw the bags he carried onto a bench at the end of the big bed. The bed was made but looked rumpled, and she knew two things instantly. He was still military enough to get up and make his bed every morning, which shouldn’t have made her throat feel sotight. And the rumpled indentations on the dark quilt were Horatio’s.

When Isaac didn’t frown at those indentations or even seem to notice them, she understood in a flash that this man, this remarkably dangerous, lethal individual who as far as she could tell was afraid of nothing—including her—slept cuddled up with his dog.

Once again, there was no reason at all that should make her want to cry.

“I get it now,” she forced herself to say, in that edgy, insinuating tone of voice that was starting to make her skin feel too tight, like she was poisoning herself. “This is a sex thing. You’re pretending to save me, but actually, it’s really all about your penis.”

Isaac fixed her with that steady gray gaze that made her feel about half an inch tall.

And deeply, horribly ashamed of herself.

“You can sleep where you want,” he said, with a quiet dignity that made her stomach knot up into something gnarled and hopelessly tangled. “You can lock yourself in the bathroom for all I care. But you’re staying in this cabin.”

“Kinky,” she said, because she couldn’t stop. Because she didn’t know what would become of her if she stopped. “Everybody loves a captivity narrative.”

He stalked toward her, and she wanted to run. But she didn’t, of course, no matter what her pulse was doing. And then he was on her, crowding her where she stood in the doorway and sliding a hand around to grip her by the nape of her neck.

She was stuck between a rock and a hard place, as always with him, because if she wrenched herself away, that would tell him things she really didn’t want to tell him. And if she stayed still, she had to suffer his touch.

Which wasn’t suffering at all.

That was the problem.

“But to clarify,” he said, his voice a rough silk, andhis eyes bright like silver, “you know where you’re going to sleep. Because you can pretend all you want, but we both know what really happens when we’re naked together. It isn’tmebeggingyou, Caradine. It never has been.”

She thought he would kiss her again. She was ablaze with heat and that terrible longing, and she craved the taste of him. Better still, the way he claimed her so easily and made her forget she could never, ever be the woman she was pretending to be, who had nothing weightier on her mind than the ingredients for the next day’s meals....

But all he did was brush his thumb over her lips.

A different, more dangerous claiming.

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