Page 20 of Honk if You Love Real Men (Tempting SEALs 1)

palms up, then dropped them back to her lap.

Jesse didn’t speak until she looked at him and saw the patience in his face. “Let me show you,” he said, getting up to sit beside her.

He reached for his sleeve. She held herself very still. “This one I got in Japan, on my first overseas job. Most of the guys had some nautical theme going. I went for the more artistic version.”

“It’s faded.” The inked outlining was all in blue with a faint shadow of gray. With his tan, the tattoo might have been only a tracing of veins just beneath his skin. Her hand rose, then stopped midair.

“Go ahead,” he said.

She put her palm over the wave drawing, like a child playing peekaboo, though there were no feelings of fear. That moment had passed. There was only a quickening desire. Her fingers played scales against the firm muscle, then drew down the inside of his arm, where the real veins rose to the surface. She wanted to take his hand, but he was pointing to his other tattoos.

“Here, a hula girl from a crazy weekend on Oahu.”

She almost laughed. Could there be a less ominous tattoo?

His thumb rubbed against his forearm. “And this one.”

A small blue star. And silence.

“No story?” she prompted.

“Prison,” he said. “The guy used pen ink.”

She pulled air through her teeth. “You’re lucky you didn’t wind up with hepatitis. Why did you get it?” Imagining gangs and threats.

“Boredom,” he said first, then corrected himself. “I missed the sky at night.”

She lifted his hand, pulled his arm into her lap. Outlined the star with one finger. “That’s my name, you know. Estrella means ‘star’ in Spanish.”

Jesse smiled.

Coincidence or not, the revelation seemed significant. She leaned toward his arm, her hair falling forward to veil her face as she closed her eyes and kissed the tattoo. Tony’s not here, he’ll never be here, I got away and I will be safe, she said in her head, a promise that had been repeated many times since her move and the painful break with her family, but that finally, finally seemed real.

She realized her lips were still pressed to Jesse’s arm. And he was breathing hard. He stroked her hair, smoothing it away from her face. She let her gaze slip sideways. Wetly opening her lips until suction pulled his skin against her teeth, she kissed again, a slow dragging caress that plucked at the tattoo. His hand curved around her cheek, and although he applied no pressure, she couldn’t have resisted the magnetic pull into his arms even if she’d wanted to.

She reached her face toward him. He dropped his forehead against hers and their mouths met. The first small peck became sensuous licks and searchings of his velvet tongue. Their hair interlaced, their fingers too. She smelled his earthiness, tasted his tickling breath, shared the sweetest desire, underlaid by coals that needed only a poke to flare to spark and hot flame.

A pressure—hot electric tension—had built in Estrella’s chest. She pulled back, biting her lip. If she opened her mouth, more of the bright shiny balloons would appear, ones that might say absurd, romantic, far too hopeful things.

“I’ll go,” he said.

“No!”

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have come by like this. We can see each other some other time.”

She imagined him showing up unexpectedly, when she was in uniform. Or worse, Eve opening the door. Who would probably point him toward cleaning an air filter or unclogging a sink before he could get Estrella’s name out. Impossible.

“What if it’s now or never?” she asked.

“Is it?”

“It might be.”

He raked his hands through his hair. “You’re hard to resist.”

Then why are you trying? she wanted to ask, but he stood to walk away and she felt a thudding defeat. She put her head in her hands, berating herself for the irrational fears that had let him go—made him go—earlier. But she had to follow her instincts, didn’t she, even when they were reacting to remnants of the past? She had learned the hard way that listening to herself, believing in herself, saved many a mistake.

The sound of the sliding door to the balcony interrupted her reproach. He wasn’t leaving!

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