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“Do you have plans for tonight?” he asked, slipping smoothly out of best-friend mode and into low-scale, friendly seduction. The difference was subtle, but there was a difference. “Because I don’t have any plans for tonight and I’m starving. What do you say we go grab some dinner? I know this great seafood place right on the water in San Felipe. You can tell me about growing up in New York over grilled swordfish.”
“Oh,” she said, “I don’t think—”
“Do you have other plans?”
“No,” she said, “but—”
“This is perfect,” he bulldozed cheerfully right over her. “If we’re going to work together, we need to get to know each other better. Much better. I just need to stop at home and pick up my wallet. Can you believe I’ve been walking around all day without any cash?”
Hoo-yah, this was perfect. They were literally four blocks from his house. And what better location to initiate a friendly, low-key seduction than home sweet home?
Syd had to hold on with both hands as Lucky quickly cut across two lanes of traffic to make a right turn into a side street.
“Don’t you live on the base?” she asked.
“Nope. Officer’s privilege. This won’t take long, I promise. We’re right in my neighborhood.”
Now, that was a surprise. This neighborhood consisted of modestly sized, impeccably kept little houses with neat little yards. Syd hadn’t given much thought to the lieutenant’s living quarters, but if she had, she wouldn’t have imagined this.
Sure enough, he pulled into the driveway of a cheery little yellow adobe house. A neatly covered motorcycle was parked at the back of an attached carport. Flowers grew in window boxes. The grass had been recently, pristinely mowed.
“Why don’t you come in for a second?” Lucky asked. “I’ve got some lemonade in the fridge.”
Of course he did. A house like this had to have lemonade in the refrigerator. Bemused and curious, Syd climbed down from the cab of his shiny red truck.
It was entirely possible that once inside she would be in the land of leather upholstery and art deco and waterbeds and all the things she associated with a glaringly obvious bachelor pad. And instead of lemonade, he’d find—surprise, surprise—a bottle of expensive wine in the back of the refrigerator.
Syd mentally rolled her eyes at herself. Yeah, right. As if this guy would even consider her a good candidate for seduction. That wasn’t going to happen. Not in a million years. Who did she think she was, anyway? Barbie to his Ken? Not even close. She wouldn’t even qualify for Skipper’s weird cousin.
Lucky held the door for her, smiling. It was a self-confident smile, a warm smile…an interested smile?
No, she had to be imagining that.
But she didn’t have time for a double take, because, again, his living room completely surprised her. The furniture was neat but definitely aging. Nothing matched, some of the upholstery was positively flowery. There was nothing even remotely art deco in the entire room. It was homey and warm and just plain comfortable.
And instead of Ansel Adams prints on the wall, there were family photographs. Lucky as a flaxen-haired child, holding a chubby toddler as dark as he was fair. Lucky with a laughing blonde who had to be his mother. Lucky as an already too-handsome thirteen-year-old, caught in the warm, wrestling embrace of a swarthy, dark-haired man.
“Hey, you know, I’ve got an open bottle of white wine,” Lucky called from the kitchen, “if you’d like a glass of that instead of lemonade…?”
What? Syd wasn’t aware she had spoken aloud until he repeated himself, dangling both the bottle in question and an extremely friendly smile from the kitchen doorway.
The interest in his smile was not her imagination. Nor was the warmth in his eyes.
God, Navy Ken was an outrageously handsome man. And when he looked at her like that, it was very, very hard to look away.
He must’ve seen the effect he had on her in her eyes. Or maybe it was the fact that she was drooling that gave her away. Because the heat in his eyes went up a notch.
“I’ve got a couple of steaks in the freezer,” he said, his rich baritone wrapping as enticingly around her as the slightly pink late-afternoon light coming in through the front blinds. “I could light the grill out back and we could have dinner here. It would be nice not to have to fight the traffic and the crowds.”
“Um,” Syd said. She hadn’t even agreed to go to dinner with him.
“Let’s do it. I’ll grab a couple of glasses, we can sit on the deck,” he decided.
He vanished back into the kitchen, as if her declining his rather presumptuous invitation was an impossibility.
Syd shook her head in disbelief. This was too much. She had absolutely no doubt about it now. Lieutenant Lucky O’Donlon was hitting on her.
His motive was frightfully obvious. He was attempting to win her over. He was trying to make her an ally instead of an adversary in this task-force-coupling from hell. And, in typical alpha male fashion, he’d come to the conclusion that the best way to win her support involved full-naked-body contact. Or at least the promise of it.
Sheesh.
Syd followed him into the kitchen, intending to set him straight. “Look, Lieutenant—”
He handed her a delicate tulip-shaped glass of wine. “Please, call me Lucky.” He lifted his own glass, touching it gently to hers, as he shot her a smile loaded with meaning. “And right now I am feeling particularly lucky.”
Syd laughed. Oh, dear God. And instead of telling him flat out that she had to go and she had to go now, she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t have any plans for tonight, and—God help her—she wanted to see just how far this clown was willing to go.
He continued to gaze at her as he took a sip of his wine.
His eyes were a shade of blue she’d never seen before. It was impossible to gaze back at him and not get just a little bit lost. But that was okay, she decided, as long as she realized that this was a game, as long as she was playing, too, and not merely being played.
He set his wineglass down on the counter. “I’ve got to change out of my Good Humor man costume. Excuse me for a minute, will you? Dress whites and grilling dinner aren’t a good mix. Go on out to the deck—I’ll be there in a flash.”
He was so confident. He walked out of the kitchen without looking back, assuming she’d obediently do as he commanded.
Syd took a sip of the wine as she leaned back against the counter. It was shockingly delicious. Didn’t it figure?
She could hear Lucky sing a few bars of something that sounded suspiciously like an old Beach Boys tune. Didn’t that figure also? We’ll have fun, fun, fun indeed.
He stopped singing as he pushed the button on his answering machine. There were two calls from a breathy-voiced woman named Heather, a third from an equally vapid-sounding Vareena, a brief “call me at home,” from an unidentified man, and then a cheerful female voice.
“Hi, Luke, it’s Lucy McCoy. I just spoke to Alan Francisco, and he told me about Admiral Stonegate’s little bomb. I honestly don’t think this is going to be a problem for you—I’ve met the candidates he’s targeted and they’re good men. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is I’ve found out a few more details about this case that I think you should know, and it’s occurred to me that it might be a good idea for the grown-ups—assuming Bobby’s part of your team—to meet tonight. I’m on duty until late, so why don’t we say eleven o’clock—twenty-three hundred hours—at Skippy’s Harborside? Leave a message on my machine if this works for you. Later, dude.”
There was one more call—the pool cleaner wanted to reschedule her visit for later in the week—but then the answering machine gave a final-sounding beep. There was silence for a moment, and then Syd heard Lucky’s lowered voice.
“Hey, Luce. S’me. Twenty-three hundred sounds peachy keen. I haven’t talked to Frisco yet—did you actually use the word candidates? Why do I hate this already, before I even know what the hell’s going on?” He swore softly and laughed. “I guess I just have a good imagination. See you at Skip’s.”
He hung up the phone without making any noise, then whistled his way into the bathroom.
Syd quietly opened the screen door and tiptoed onto the deck. She stood there, leaning against the railing, looking down into the crystal blueness of his swimming pool and the brilliantly lush flower gardens as he made his grand entrance.
He had changed, indeed. The crisp uniform had been replaced by a pair of baggy cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, worn open to reveal the hard planes of his muscular, tanned chest. Navy Ken had magically become Malibu Ken. He’d run his fingers through his hair, loosening the gel that had glued it down into some semblance of a conservative military style. It now tumbled over his forehead and into his eyes, waving tendrils of sun-bleached gold, some of it long enough to tickle his nose. His feet were bare and even his toes were beautiful. All he needed was a surfboard and twenty-four hours’ worth of stubble on his chin, and he’d be ready for the Hunks of the Pacific calendar photo shoot.
And he knew it, too.
Syd took little sips of her wine as Lucky gave a running discourse on his decision four years ago to build this deck, the hummingbird feeders he’d put in the garden, and the fact that they’d had far too little rain this year.
As he lit the grill, he oh-so-casually pointed out that the fence around the backyard made his swimming pool completely private from the eyes of his neighbors, and how—wink, wink—that helped him maintain his all-over tan.
Syd was willing to bet it wouldn’t take much to get him to drop his pants and show off the tan in question. Lord, this guy was too much.
And she had absolutely no intention of skinny dipping with him. Not now, not ever, thanks.
“Have you tried it recently?” he asked.
Syd blinked at him, trying to remember his last conversational bounce. Massage. He’d just mentioned some really terrific massage therapy he’d had a few months ago, after a particularly strenuous SEAL mission. She wasn’t sure exactly what he’d just asked, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t wait for her to answer.
“Here, let me show you.” He set his glass on the railing of the deck and turned her so that she was facing away from him.
It didn’t occur to him that she might not want him to touch her. His grip was firm, his hands warm through the thin cotton of her shirt and jacket as he massaged her shoulders. He touched her firmly at first, then harder, applying pressure with his thumbs.
“Man, you’re tense.” His hands moved up her neck, to the back of her head, his fingers against her skin, in her hair.
Oh. My. God.
Whatever he was doing felt impossibly good. Fabulously good. Sinfully good. Syd closed her eyes.
“It’s been a stressful few days, hasn’t it?” he murmured, his mouth dangerously close to her ear. “I’m glad we’ve got this chance to, you know, start over. Get to know each other. I’m…looking forward to…being friends.”
God, he was good. She almost believed him.
His hands kept working their magic, and Syd waited to see what he’d do or say next, hoping he’d take his time before he crossed the line of propriety, yet knowing that it wasn’t going to be long.
He seemed to be waiting for some sort of response from her, so she made a vague noise of agreement that came out sounding far too much like a moan of intense pleasure as he touched a muscle in her shoulders that no doubt had been tightly, tensely flexed for the past fifteen years, at least.
“Oh, yeah,” he breathed into her ear. “You know, I feel it, too. It’s crazy, isn’t it? We hardly know each other and yet…” In one smooth move he turned her to face him. “I’m telling you, Sydney, I’ve been dying to do this from the moment we first met.”
It was amazing. It was like something out of a movie. Syd didn’t have time to step back, to move away. His neon-blue gaze dropped to her mouth, flashed back to her eyes, and then, whammo.
He was kissing her.
Syd had read in her massive research on Navy SEALs that each member of a team had individual strengths and skills. Each member was a specialist in a variety of fields. And Lieutenant Lucky O’Donlon, aka Navy Ken, was clearly a specialist when it came to kissing.
She meant to pull away nanoseconds after his lips touched hers. She meant to step back and freeze him with a single, disbelieving, uncomprehending look.
Instead, she melted completely in his arms. The bones in her body completely turned to mush.
He tasted like the wine, sweet and strong. He smelled like sunblock and fresh ocean air. He felt so solid beneath her hands—all those muscles underneath the silk of his shirt, shoulders wider than she’d ever imagined. He was all power, all male.
And she lost her mind. There was no other explanation. Insanity temporarily took a tight hold. Because she kissed him back. Fiercely, yes. Possessively, absolutely. Ravenously, no doubt about it. She didn’t just kiss him, she inhaled the man.
She slanted her head to give him better access to her mouth as he pulled her more tightly against him.
It was crazy. It was impossibly exciting—he was undeniably even more delicious than that excellent wine. His hands skimmed her back, cupping the curve of her rear end, pressing her against his arousal and—
And sanity returned with a crash. Syd pulled back, breathing hard, furious with him, even more furious with herself.
This man was willing to take her to bed, to be physically intimate with her—all simply to control her. Sex meant so little to him that he could cheerfully use himself as a means to an end.
And as for herself—her body had betrayed her, damn it. She’d been hiding it, denying it, but the awful truth was, this man was hot. She’d never been up close to a man as completely sexy and breathtakingly handsome as Lucky O’Donlon. He was physical perfection, pure dazzling masculine beauty. His looks were movie-star quality, his body a work of art, his eyes a completely new and unique shade of blue.
No, he wasn’t just hot, he was white-hot. Unfortunately, he was also insensitive, narrow-minded, egocentric and conniving. Sydney didn’t like him—a fact she conveniently seemed to have forgotten when he kissed her.
The hunger in his perfect eyes was nearly mesmerizing as he reached for her again.
“Thanks but no thanks,” she managed to spit out as she sidestepped him. “And while I’m at it, I’ll pass on dinner, too.”
He was completely thrown. If she’d felt much like being amused, she could have had a good laugh at the expression on his face as he struggled to regroup. “But—”
“Look, Ken, I’m not an idiot. I know damn well what this is about. You figure you can keep me happy by throwing me a sexual bone—no pun intended. And yes, your kisses are quite masterful, but just the same—no thanks.”
He tried to feign innocence and then indignation. “You think that…? Wait, no, I would never try to—”
“What?” she interrupted. “I’m supposed to believe that crap about ‘isn’t it crazy? This attraction—you feel it, too?”’ She laughed in disbelief. “Sorry, I don’t buy it, pal. Guys like you hit on women like me for only two reasons. It’s either because you want something—”
“I’m telling you right now that you’re wrong—”
“Or you’re desperate.”
“Whoa.” It was his turn to laugh. “You don’t think very highly of yourself, do you?”
“Look me in the eye,” she said tightly, “and tell me honestly that your last girlfriend wasn’t blond, five-foot-ten and built like a supermodel. Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve always had a thing for flat-chested women with big hips.” Syd didn’t let him answer. She went back into the house, raising her voice so he could hear her. “I’ll catch a cab back to the police-station parking lot.”
She heard him turn off the grill, but then he followed her. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll give you a ride to your car.”
Syd pushed her way out the front door. “Do you think you can manage to do that without embarrassing us both again?”
He locked it behind him. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you or offended you or—”
“You did both, Lieutenant. How about we just not say anything else right now, all right?”
He stiffly opened the passenger-side door to his truck and stood aside so that she could get in. He was dying to speak, and Syd gave him about four seconds before he gave in to the urge to keep the conversation going.
“I happen to find you very attractive,” Luke said as he climbed behind the wheel.
Two and a half seconds. She knew he’d give in. She should have pointedly ignored him, but she, too, couldn’t keep herself from countering.
“Yeah,” she said. “Right. Next you’ll tell me it’s my delicate and ladylike disposition that turns you on.”
“You have no idea what’s going on in my head.” He started his truck with a roar. “Maybe it is.”
Syd uttered a very non-ladylike word.
The lieutenant glanced at her several times, and cranked the air-conditioning up a notch as Syd sat and stewed. God, the next few weeks were going to be dreadful. Even if he didn’t hit on her again, she was going to have to live with the memory of that kiss.
That amazing kiss.
Her knees still felt a little weak.
