Page 78 of Delta Force Defender

She pulled off her shirt and the sports bra she wore because a girl never knew when she might have to run for her life.

Isaac’s gaze went silver, then brighter still. She saw his chest move as though he were breathing hard as she tossed the sports bra aside.

But that was nothing compared to the way his facechanged when she unsnapped her pants and shoved them down over her hips.

“Caradine—” He shook his head. “You can’t distract me.”

She smiled at him then. Not a smirk. Not a scowl. Just... her smile.

She didn’t actuallysay,Watch me.

Because he did. He always did.

She got rid of her pants, kicked off her panties, and then, still smiling, headed for the pool and eased her way in. The water was cooler than the air, but it still felt more like a hug than anything else.

She didn’t look behind her.

She moved to the center of the pool, feeling the water beneath her palms as she eased her way over the rocks beneath her feet. When the water was up past her waist she sank down, submerging herself completely.

And when she came up out of the water, he was there.

“You drive me crazy,” Isaac said against her mouth as he swept her up into his arms.

Her smile widened, there against his mouth, as she wrapped her legs around his waist. “I know.”

And she spent the time they had left proving it, again and again, as if they were the reason the sun lit up the sky with so many bright, wild colors as it put itself to bed and ushered them into the dark.

Twenty-one

It was an overcast summer day in Boston, humid and occasionally rainy.

They had left Maui around ten o’clock island time so they could arrive here midday. And Isaac expected Caradine to be on edge. The way she had been in Maine. After all, they were closing a very long circle. Instead, she was disconcertingly calm.

Which meant Isaac was on edge instead.

They’d gone over various schematics and had plotted out different strategies during the flight, but the only sure information they had to go on was the call Caradine had made to Sharkey’s from that bed-and-breakfast in Maine.

And, once again, though Isaac would have preferred not to involve Caradine in this directly, he had no choice.

“Go over the plan with me one more time,” he ordered her now.

They were sitting in the front seat of yet another interchangeable SUV that had been waiting per his orderswhen they’d landed. Caradine looked serene, which had alarms going off in him like air raid sirens.

She even smiled at him. Almost. “We literally discussed the plan for eight hours straight on a small plane. In exhaustive and exhausting detail.”

“Walk me through it anyway.”

She let out a long-suffering sigh and shifted around in the seat so she could look at him straight on.

“Are you nervous, Gentry?” she asked.

He had parked a few blocks down from the bar in question in a busy section of a street where no one was likely to notice an idling vehicle. Everyone else was already in place. Jonas and Templeton were inside the bar already. Blue was on the roof across the street. Isaac would take command, but that didn’t make him any happier about the fact that he had to use Caradine as bait.

Anyone could wander in and say that they were Julia Sheeran, Caradine had pointed out on the plane.

If anyone can pretend to be you, then why should you go in at all?Isaac had retorted.We can send a decoy.

Because I look like my dad,Caradine had replied, with a matter-of-factness that made Isaac’s jaw hurt.He lives on forever in my face. And I have to live with that in the mirror every day, but in this case, why not use it?

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