Page 58 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

Maybe a lot more.

“I think I’ll clean up a little,” she said after washing both their plates and forks and handing his back to him. “Thanks for dinner.”

He watched her dig around into her backpack for soap and a washcloth then pick up an extra water container. “My pleasure,” he said quietly as she walked toward a s

mall stand of scrub growing around a boulder. “Don’t wander off too far.”

He cleaned up too while she was gone. Wished he’d brought a bottle of wine. God. Listen to him. Thirteen hours ago he’d been dreading spending time with her and now he wanted to put the moves on her.

Things change.

Things changed a lot more when she came back.

The sun set like a curtain coming down. There was light. Then there wasn’t. Only a purple-blue sky in a dark gray dusk playing against the craggy silhouette of the vast North Rim stretched out for miles across from them. Suddenly the evening turned as cool as the day had been warm.

Seth snagged his wind-up flashlight, turned it on and set it in the middle of their campsite for a little light. Then he shrugged into his long-sleeved shirt. As he tugged it down over his head, he saw her. A graceful silhouette walking back to the campsite. Tall, lean, curved in all the right places.

“Thought I might have to send out a search party,” he said, surprised by the gruffness in his voice.

“Sorry. Didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”

He watched her carefully. She seemed tense. Even a little jumpy.

“Something wrong?”

Looking preoccupied, she glanced at him. Shook her head. “No. I don’t know. It’s … probably nothing.”

“What’s probably nothing?”

She rubbed her arms against the sudden chill. “I’ve just had this creepy feeling on and off all day. Had it again just now. Like someone’s watching me.”

“Have I been that obvious?”

He’d wanted her to smile and she did, but it was a reluctant smile. “Someone other than you, Detective. You haven’t … noticed anything?”

“I’ve noticed that you are an amazingly beautiful woman.”

She rolled her eyes but she smiled. “Do you ever quit?”

“Quit?” He shook his head, held her gaze. “Not so much, no. Not until I’m absolutely, positively, indisputably certain that I’ve been beaten.”

Another reluctant smile. Then she turned serious. Thoughtful. “Beaten? So what game are you playing, exactly?”

He watched her for a moment, judging her mood—assessing his own. “That’s the thing,” he said, surprised by his own reaction. “I’m not so sure it is a game.”

That was God’s honest truth.

Something was happening here. Something he hadn’t planned, hadn’t counted on and didn’t quite know how to handle.

Her gaze held his for a long moment before she looked away, shaking her head. “Look. This … You and me. It’s not such a good idea. You know that.”

Ah. No beating around the bush. He liked that in a woman. She knew where this was headed and she’d decided to call him out. Fine. He was ready for the challenge.

“A little early in the … game … to make a decision that important, isn’t it?”

“Yeah … see … there’s that word again. Game. It keeps coming back to that. And that’s the problem.” She reached up and pulled a few pins out of her hair. He held his breath and felt the impact deep in his gut as she shook her head and all that chestnut-colored silk untangled around her face and shoulders.

He knew she had no idea what effect letting her hair down had on him as her dark eyes met his.

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