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“I haven’t seen you since you stood as best man at my wedding.”
Right. Gary had married that little redhead, AnaMaria.
“What’s that been? Two years,” Aiden calculated. “I wanted to make it back last year for Eric’s wedding but I was on duty.”
On a rescue mission gone miserably wrong, Aiden remembered. They’d lost one guy, almost lost another to the aftereffects. He ground his teeth at the memory, trying to shrug off the tight bands of stress gripping him. Brody Lane was back on duty, engaged to be married, even. The team was solid. Carrying the weight of missions past only weighed on a guy, Aiden knew. So, as he always did, he made himself focus on the here and now.
Which was his high school buddy, who was nodding, his grin widening as if he were thinking of just how good those couple of married years had been.
“Guess we’ll be celebrating your wedding soon, right?”
Huh? Aiden squinted, wondering if his old friend had taken a few head shots. He’d have thought Villa Rosa was a pretty mellow place, but you never knew.
“I’m impressed,” Gary said, shaking his head as if baffled was a better term. “If there was a pool over whom everyone thought was least likely to marry, I swear it’d have been a tie between the two of you. And now you’re getting together?”
Again...huh? A surreptitious sniff assured him that Gary hadn’t taken to drinking on the job.
So what the hell was he talking about?
Before Aiden could ask, the radio on Gary’s belt crackled. The sergeant responded, then gave Aiden a gotta go look.
“Congrats, man,” his buddy said as he headed down the aisle. “I know some people think she’s a little weird, with all the traveling and crazy jobs she’s had. But she and AnaMaria are tight, so I know how great she really is. And her father must be thrilled. He’s always had a soft spot for you.”
A thrilled father. Crazy jobs and traveling.
No longer needing to ask what everyone was talking about, Aiden’s gaze shifted to the front of the grocery store, where he could see the highest hill in Villa Rosa through the gleaming plate glass.
Sage.
As always, just her name invoked a gutful of mixed feelings. Exasperation, affection, lust.
Damn, what’d she done this time?
Handing the beer to a passing stock boy, Aiden made a beeline for the exit, not stopping to talk to anyone on the way to his car.
Professor Lee Taylor had been a lifesaver to a ten-year-old brainiac geek with more IQ points than social skills, who was too advanced even for the gifted program. Realizing that ten was just too young to take classes alongside college students, the Professor had created a special curriculum and tutored Aiden himself. He’d shown Aiden the thrill of expanding his brain, of accepting his mental skills. He’d welcomed him into his home, first at fifteen when Aiden hadn’t wanted to follow his parents to New York, then at seventeen when his parents had been killed in the Twin Towers. He’d provided a touchstone, been a mentor and always given Aiden a sense of acceptance.
And then there was his daughter, Sage.
Three years Aiden’s junior, she was about as opposite in personality of her father as the sun was from the moon. But like the Professor, she’d welcomed Aiden into their family with a no-strings open-armed sort of acceptance. Despite her father’s focus on his protégé, she’d never shown any jealousy. Rather, she’d seemed relieved that her dad had found someone like Aiden, taking the pressure off of her.
As a thanks for that, she’d spent a good portion of the last two decades driving him crazy.
So Aiden no longer questioned why people thought he and Sage were engaged. He knew the prodigal daughter must be home and for reasons probably only clear to herself, was up to something. He just had to find out what.
And then decide what he wanted to do about it.
Knowing better than to prejudge, or even try to guess about anything Sage did, he kept his mind clear of questions as he made his way up the hill to the Taylor house. He parked behind a handful of cars in the circular driveway. As soon as he opened his door the sound of laughter and splashing water hit him.
Not bothering with the front door, he made his way around the house toward the pool. Set a few hundred yards away from the house, the Professor had built the waterfall-inspired feature as a treat for his daughter when she’d decided she wanted to be a mermaid. Not to swim, or for sunbathing. That wasn’t whimsical enough for Sage.
And knowing his daughter’s love of socializing—something that baffled both the Professor and Aiden alike—he’d built it big, with ample room for entertaining and a large gazebo at one end.
It was around that white open-aired building that most of the crowd gathered.
And there, like the most exotic flower in the garden, was Sage. Aiden had a special radar when it came to her. Call it an eye for trouble, or the fact that despite his best efforts to keep her out, she always snuck into his sexiest fantasies. It didn’t matter that she looked nothing like the last time he’d seen her, or that her back was to him, it didn’t take him more than a glance to pick her out of the crowd.
Rather than pitch-black and edgy, her hair was back to her natural blond, waving halfway down her back. Even from behind, her tall, slender frame was as familiar to him as his own. And her laugh rang out, the welcome home he hadn’t realized he was waiting for.
As usual, she was surrounded by people. A few he recognized from the social events he’d attended from time to time while home on leave. A few he knew from school.
None of them mattered.
It was hard to pay attention to anything, anyone, since Sage was wearing a bikini.
A couple of teeny, tiny turquoise scraps of fabric that covered little, but did a great job of drawing attention to the curves between the material.
When whoever she was talking to gestured, Sage quickly turned.
Aiden desperately hoped his moan was only in his head and not aloud. Because oh, baby, she was gorgeous.
Her breasts filled the bikini top with a generous bounty, her curves an ode, he knew, to her yoga discipline and not any sort of diet. Already pale gold, despite it only being spring, her skin seemed to glow. To beckon. His fingers itched to touch.
His desperate need for her always took him by surprise. As was his habit whenever he saw her again, he had to warn himself to keep his distance. No touching, no lusting. He knew from experience that it’d only take a few minutes, an hour tops, before the message sank in.
All that SEAL training for command over his body came in handy for this kind of thing.
Because Sage Taylor was strictly off-limits.
As if hearing and mocking his thoughts, she clapped her hands together with her usual exuberance at the sight of him and hurried barefoot across the lawn.
The crowd followed.
At least, Aiden thought it did. There was a blur of bodies moving behind her bikini-clad form. But he was so busy trying not to drool and commanding his erection to stand down that he wasn’t positive.
Damn, she had gorgeous legs.
“Aiden,” she called when she was a few yards away. Her smile as wide as her legs were long, she threw out both arms as if to hug him from across the yard. “I didn’t realize you were coming home.”
There was something there beneath the bright smile and enthusiastic tone. But before he could figure out what, she was close enough that her scent wrapped around him. A mix of fresh grass, some sort of incense and the faint aroma of flowers.
“I hear you’re causing trouble again,” he said in lieu of a greeting. “Isn’t that always more fun if I’m here to appreciate it?”
“Me?” she asked with a laugh, pressing one hand against her lush chest and making him want to whimper. “When have I ever caused trouble?”
“When haven’t you?” he responded with a grin of his own.
“I’m innocent, I tell ya,” she claimed as she reached him.
“Right. Like I’m dumb enough to believe that?” He fell into the easy, teasing banter, knowing the faster they reestablished those friendly boundaries, the faster his body would get the message.
“Aww, you sweet talker, you.” Her eyes, a few shades lighter than her swimsuit, danced with glee. But they were shadowed, hinting at worry and stress. Two things he’d never associated with Sage.
“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly, glancing behind her at the people slowly making their way toward them.
“Like I said, I didn’t realize you were going to be home so soon,” she told him, frowning a little as she too looked at her posse.
Since he hadn’t realized he was coming home either until that morning when he’d changed his flight from Aruba to San Francisco, he was sure that was true. But that wasn’t what was bothering her.
“Sage?”
“I’m sorry, babe,” she said, a hint of something in her husky tone that put his senses on full alert. “I know you wanted to keep it a secret. But I’m so bad at that kind of thing, and when Dad asked, I just had to tell him our news.”
“What news—” Before he could finish his very reasonable question, Sage threw herself into his arms with enough force to catch him by surprise.
Not over the move.
He’d come to expect anything and everything from his mentor’s daughter over the years.
But over the desperation that had her body tight and her hands shaking as they curved over his shoulders. She was in trouble. And not simple trouble, this time. His body tensed, his hands going to her waist as much to comfort as to hold her in place so he could inspect her face.
As soon as he touched her, tiny explosions of need shot through him. Ignoring them, he tried to read her expression and figure out why she was pretending to be happy when she looked so deeply miserable.
Lucky for him his body was good at multitasking.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his words low.
He looked at the small crowd gathered behind her. Before he could ask why everyone was wearing a cheesy grin and staring like he’d just won a Nobel Prize, Sage moved even closer.
Plastered that sweet—oh, God, she felt so sweet—body against his in a way guaranteed to command his full attention.
Then, before he could push her away or even demand an explanation for the crazy public behavior, she planted that full, usually babbling mouth on his.
And Aiden forgot everything.
His demand for information.
His reasonable argument.
Her tongue slid, hot and tempting, over the seam of his lips.
And he straight-up forgot his own name.
* * *
YUM.
Aiden Masters wasn’t just hot to look at, Sage realized as she sank into the hard expanse of his chest.
He was hot to kiss, too. And tasty.
Her mouth moved over his with as much curiosity as delight.
How much had he learned in the last ten years?
And how much of that learning would he be willing to show her? Despite the way his body had stiffened—and not in a way that a girl hoped for—she still wanted to find out.
Mmmm. She let the sensations sweep over her, breathing in Aiden’s scent, crisp and heady over the smell of chlorine and fresh-mown lawn. Her fingers slid, just a little desperate, over the round hardness of his biceps, and she shivered a little wondering what else he had that might be just as hard.
This was Aiden. They were friends, which meant there were boundaries that should be respected. That she shouldn’t be thinking this kind of thing about him, or doing this kind of thing to him, didn’t matter. This was for show, and sometimes putting on a show meant getting into the role. Besides, her body was desperate for a distraction, her mind more than willing to shut down its freaked-out thoughts while she reveled in a little sensual delight.
Before she could revel too much, or find out what other hard things he had to offer, Aiden pulled away. She almost pouted at the loss of his mouth. The cool sweep of air made her shiver as he put distance between their bodies.
Before she could protest, or do anything else that would most likely embarrass them both, Aiden tilted his head behind her. As if freed from a spell, the murmurs and laughter of her guests hit her with a reminder of why she’d blurred that boundary.
“We should talk,” she said in a low, husky whisper, hoping anyone who heard would take it as sexy talk.
“Ya think?” His words were pure sarcasm, but the indulgent amusement in Aiden’s hazel eyes warmed her like a friendly hug. He might be irritated, and with good reason, but he’d go along.
She had to get him alone to explain, though.
Which wouldn’t be easy, she admitted as they were suddenly surrounded by people.
Nerves, something she’d rarely felt until this last week, gripped tight. Sage took a deep breath, trying to envision soothing energy pouring over her. But between the expression on Aiden’s face and the bodies crowding around, all she got was more nerves.
Didn’t it figure that the one day she’d been unable to handle the company of her own thoughts any longer, Aiden showed up. This meeting—and explanation—would have been so much easier without an audience.
“Hey, I’m gonna steal Aidan away for a while,” she said, turning to face the crowd with her fingers tightly wound around his. To everyone else it probably looked like they were holding hands. But Sage, and probably Aiden, knew it was to keep him from stealing himself away.
“Lovebirds.”
“So cute.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Sage rolled her eyes, gripping Aiden tighter when she felt him start to pull away.
“You guys don’t mind, do you?” she asked, her tone making it clear that it didn’t matter if they did or not. “Go ahead and enjoy the pool. We’ll join you later. Maybe.”
With that, and to a roar of laughter and suggestive words, she tucked her arm into Aiden’s and pulled—or yanked, rather—him around the house toward the lanai.
“Wonder who’ll teach who the most? The soldier boy or the party girl?”
She tugged harder on Aiden’s arm when his footsteps slowed, not sure if he were more likely to take offense at being called a soldier instead of a sailor, or the implication that she was a slut.
Probably the slut thing. Aiden had beat a kid up in the fifth grade for calling her stupid. Then there was the time in high school when some guy had thought there was a direct correlation between Sage studying art and her need to see guys naked.
“C’mon,” she murmured. “Just ignore them.”
