Page 45 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

“You don’t have a choice, Em. You have to face it, and you have to handle it. Because you’re going to have to look me in the eye and tell me you feel nothing for me to stop this. Can you do that? Can you tell me that all you wanted was a one-night stand?”

Her lips parted, the need to tell him just that, to take the escape he was offering. But she was staring in his eyes, saw the pain in them, and the hope.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Her hands fisted in the sheet as her control broke. Years of control, the determination to never cry or ask for love again.

Her parents had always given her that vague pitying look whenever she cried, whenever she asked for hugs as a child. As though they weren’t quite certain what to do with her.

“Because I won’t watch you run away from me.” He moved too quickly for her to avoid, pulling her into his arms before she could retreat further.

“Put your arms around me, Em.” He lowered his lips to her ear as he held her against his chest. “Hold onto me. Let me hold onto you. Don’t you know, when you’re in my arms, I finally feel like I belong to one person rather than just having parts of me allotted out to family, friends and the Navy? When I hold you, Em, I’m whole.”

“Don’t do this to me,” she whispered against his chest, and wrapped her arms desperately around his neck, terrified of falling.

She was strong on her own, she knew how to do that. She knew how to be alone. She didn’t know how to be a part of a couple, she had proved that.

“What am I doing to you, baby?”

“You’re making me weak, Macey.” Tears slipped from beneath her lashes. “Don’t make me weak. I won’t survive when you walk away.”

“I won’t walk away, Emerson.” He leaned back, one hand threading through her hair to draw her head back, allowing him to stare into her eyes. “Don’t you know that about me? I never walk away.”

She did know that about him. Everyone knew Macey was stubborn, hard-headed, and he didn’t back down.

“Why? Why do you love me?”

His lips quirked. “Why do you love me?”

Because he was funny, flirty, strong and certain. Because looking at him made her soul ache and her heart hope. But she didn’t say that; she couldn’t say that.

“I love you, Em, simply because you’re you, and you belong to me. Your heart belongs to me. I want your kisses and your touches, your laughter and your fantasies to belong to me.”

They had belonged to him for years.

“Give us a chance, Em.” He touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers, brushed her lips with his thumb. “Just a chance for more than a one-night stand. Can you do that?”

She would give him her life if he needed it.

“I don’t know how to do this.” She swallowed, the movement difficult with the emotions clogging her throat.

His smile was rough, rugged, and filled with sensual, wicked certainty.

“We’ll learn together. Learn with me, Emerson. God, baby, learn with me.”

The kiss took her by surprise, as did the roiling emotions that fired in his eyes a second before he took her lips. It was fiery, demanding, hungry. So hungry it seemed to feed her own hunger, to stoke it with ruthless licks, rough nips and pure demand.

The sheet fell away from her body and within seconds they were back in bed.

TEN

DRACK WAS AN UNFEELING creature. She had no emotions, no loyalty, no sense of honor or dishonor. She didn’t care what day it was, what part of the day it was, and she had no particular feelings for the creature that she shared her space with.

She knew he was strong. She knew that pitting her own strength against his wasn’t advisable because he would only lock her into the cage when she wanted to be free to roam rather than giving her the freedom to come and go as she pleased.

She wasn’t a thoughtful creature. She didn’t think, plot, or plan. She didn’t particularly care about anything but where the next meal was coming from and the occasional need to mate.

But there was one thing Drack did hate. Drack hated guns. She hated the scent of them, she hated the feel of them, and she particularly hated the nasty wounds they had once torn into her body. She hated them to the point that even when the creature who housed her carried one, she felt nothing more than the overriding instinct to kill. To destroy. Pain was the one memory, the one instinct that held sway when she felt the vibration of the small door open in the bathroom.

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