Revealing Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 4) (11 page)

She’d known this was difficult for him. How? He had no idea.

It wasn’t like no one else had ever paid that much attention. All the guys did, especially Charlie, who made a habit out of taking care of everyone. But that was the nature of a team. They looked out for each other, smoothed the way, took down anyone who got sideways with one of them.

But they’d been a team for a long time and had learned to care in brutal conditions. Rachel had no reason to expend such effort just to spend time with Evan. She deserved to understand why he couldn’t just take her to bed and unleash the heat and awareness that seethed between them.

She deserved to know the truth about why he needed Ilhota Rosa.

“I’m an alcoholic,” he rasped. “I should have told you soon—”

“Evan. I know.” Her fingers found his in the sand, lacing them together as she dropped that in his lap. “I’ve known since before we moved in together.”

Comprehension dawned. “That’s why you changed your mind.”

God, he’d wondered. Of course that was the reason she’d freaked and tried to back out. The big surprise was why he hadn’t thought of that. It would have been just like Dex or Charlie to catch wind of the situation and make sure Rachel had the right playbook.

“No.” She stared him down, refusing to let him blink. Refusing to let him pull away as her fingers tightened around his. “Never. And I didn’t change my mind. I’m here. Right now. That’s not enough to scare me away.”

“What would be?”

Blunt, sure. But he didn’t buy her quick capitulation, and the faster they hashed this out, the faster she could get her curiosity fed. Then they could go back to tiptoeing around each other at home while she figured out how to rip out Anderson’s jugular. That was the only reason they had anything to do with each other. She served a necessary purpose. That was it.

He pulled his hand from her grasp before she got the wrong idea, though he was pretty sure that ship had sailed a long time ago.

She just shook her head with a small laugh. “There’s not a thing you could possibly tell me that would scare me. I’ve seen it all, every nasty thing one person can do to another. The death of dreams, the death of love, families. Unfortunate by-product of being a divorce lawyer.”

“You don’t sleep a stone’s throw from a client.”

Rachel flinched and tried to catch it. “I suppose you have a point. But you’re not like the men I fight in court and you can’t convince me that you are.” Before he could stop her, she reached out, running sandy fingertips along his jaw, and the rough sensation coupled with her electric touch nearly jarred him out of his skin. “Tell me what Ilhota Rosa has to do with you being an alcoholic.”

“There’s no liquor store here,” he bit out, and clamped down on his sanity, which might have one or two thin threads keeping it together. “No danger of falling off the wagon. The dragon inside me burns for that next drink, and when I’m too weak to resist, I come to Ilhota Rosa.”

“Weak?” She snorted, and her scorn knifed through him. “When’s the last time you had a drink?”

“Three hundred and ninety-five days ago,” he muttered. Like tick marks on a cell wall, his consciousness kept track with ruthless efficiency.

With a casual half lift of her shoulder, she said, “Sounds like you’ve got a lot more strength than you give yourself credit for. Would be just as easy for you to steer the boat to Harbour Town than to come here. But you don’t. That’s the opposite of weakness, Evan.”

She wasn’t getting it. “Addiction is a weakness. Period.”

Calmly she studied him. “And you need a place to go where you can feel in control of your choices. A place where you can be alone so no one sees you being weak.”

Okay, so maybe she did get it.

“I see you,” she murmured. “And you let me. Why? You didn’t have to bring me here and confess all your sins.”

All
his sins? He hadn’t begun to scratch the surface. “You needed to know.”

“You told me because I asked,” she corrected. “You come here to be alone, yet you never hesitated when I insisted on intruding. I wonder if you even realize how often you push me away with one hand as you pull me toward you with the other.”

“I don’t do that.”

He did. He absolutely did exactly that, and holy crap where had that come from? Not just her insight but the fact that he’d fallen into such a ridiculous pattern with her. He never should have let her move in. Never should have indulged in even one harmless fantasy about Rachel—because nothing about her was anywhere in the realm of harmless.

“Let’s make a deal, shall we?” She cocked her head with a small smile and crossed her legs at the ankle, drawing his eye. “While we’re at home, you can lie to me all you want. Hell, lie to yourself for all I care. But on Ilhota Rosa, there’s nothing but truth.”

What, like he’d spent the past fifteen minutes spinning some fairy tale for her? His flaws were not fabrications. He sat up because that sounded an awful lot like a line being drawn in the sand. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Did I?” she asked with raised eyebrows that he had a feeling she meant to be as provoking as they were. “I don’t recall that. I’m pretty sure I just laid down a ground rule for how the next few minutes are going to go.”

His mind scrambled to replay her exact words and okay, yeah. She’d actually given him permission to lie once they left the island. Which he would not need because he’d lied plenty to God and everyone when he’d claimed no more alcohol for the forty-seventh time. Now that he was sober, it was a strict rule that he kept his word under all circumstances.

“Lawyer double-talk is not sexy,” he growled.

“What is?”

No lies
. The trap closed so neatly around him that he very nearly applauded because he hadn’t seen it coming. But he’d outsmarted the wiliest of terrorists on more than one occasion. Save the one that had put him in the hospital.

“Fishing, Rachel?” He stuck one leg out in front of him, right behind her head, and leaned on his knee. “Silence is sexy. I like a woman who knows how to close her mouth.”

Instead of whacking him for being a smart ass or calling him on what she’d surely claim was a lie, she sat up and leaned forward, pushing into his space. The coconut scent of her shampoo slammed through his senses, coupling with the tang of the ocean and earthy sand.

His groin stirred hungrily, and he ached to press against that soft spot near her belly button that he’d found the other day in the kitchen.

“That’s what you’re going with? A mousy, quiet little woman who sits in the corner and never speaks to you? That might be what you’d prefer, but it’s not what you need,” she countered and traced a fingertip across her lower lip as she contemplated him.

“That’s not what I said.”

“It is! You practically ordered that off the menu. Silence is sexy,” she mimicked with a cartoon voice. “If you hung around with a mute, that would make everything all better, wouldn’t it? Maybe you should join a mime dating service—”

“Rachel.”

He could not take it one moment longer, and all at once his hands snaked into place around her shoulders practically before he’d registered moving, and he yanked her closer, within an inch of his body, startling her into blessed speechlessness as he caught her in his gaze.

“Close your mouth,” he repeated. “So I can do this.”

His lips settled on hers, and the world froze in place.

For an eternity he held the kiss, eyes shut, until heat flared where their flesh connected, spurring him to take more. Tilting his head, he changed the angle, nipping harder as his pulse throbbed.

Rachel opened under him, blooming instantly, her hands warm against his back. She was so responsive, meeting him with equal fervor, with little cries that made him so hard he’d burst a blood vessel if he didn’t come inside her very quickly. Groaning, he released her arms and embraced her greedily, hot to have her body flush against his. That’s when her tongue darted out to mate with his and fire arced between their mouths, sensitizing him to the point of pain.

No lies.
It was the hottest kiss in his memory. The first sober kiss he’d experienced in ages, and it soared through him, more potent than a shot of whiskey downed in one swallow.

Lithe fingers toyed at the hem of his shirt, then danced across his bare back, exploring at will. Sparks burst against his skin in a long trail where she touched him. He ached for her hands to wander south, every fiber of his body shaky with unleashed need.

Until her fingertips slid into the valley of one of his many shrapnel wounds… and stilled, as if memorizing the shape.

“Evan,” she murmured against his mouth, effectively halting the kiss. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

And the mood slid away as he lost all interest in having this conversation.

“It’s not braille,” he snapped, and she flinched. “I’m fine.”

“Um, clearly you’re not.” His flesh cooled as her hands drifted away, out of his shirt and into her lap. “Was I not supposed to notice that you’ve been shot? I can’t not feel the wounds.”

Being shot might have been better. At least then he could have looked the bastard in the face as he shot back. In a flash of bright light, the moment when that IED exploded played over and over in his head. The pain. God, it had ripped through him with lightning force as his flesh burned. His stomach heaved with the memory. Like it always did, and it was too much.

“I can’t,” he muttered and stumbled to his feet. He had to find cover before he treated Rachel to the very unpleasant sight of a man tossing his cookies.

For so long he’d settled his nerves, his body, even his mind with as much alcohol as he could absorb into his system. Evan now had nothing to fight off his demons but his own sheer will and some very good guys who looked out for him. Rachel did not deserve to be dropped in the middle of his nightmare.

When Rachel relived that kiss on the beach, she liked to come up with different scenarios for the ending. Not one of them included her mentioning Evan’s war wounds.

Idiot
. She’d had Evan Silva in her arms, and he was kissing her. Nothing in her imagination had prepared her for what that man’s mouth could do to her. Instead of enjoying her well-earned victory, what did Rachel do? Kiss him back and keep her mouth shut?

Hell no. She’d ignored his very prudent advice to close her mouth and started babbling about the one thing that had the power to ruin the moment. There was a reason Evan didn’t go shirtless like every other ex-SEAL on this island. None of the guys he’d served with had that peppering of badly healed wounds, and of course she wondered why not.

Looked like she’d stay in the dark on that one because there was no way in hell she’d bring it up. If he ever actually spoke to her again. They’d returned to the house in heavy silence, and she didn’t dare broach it. He’d yet to break the barrier that had sprung up between them since.

She missed his voice. The conversation on the island—geez. When the man forgot to clam up, he sure had plenty to say. But he went to work and came home, his dark hair in longish damp strands around his face that made her want to smooth it back, all without acknowledging her presence. He didn’t emerge from his bedroom to eat, so she cooked him dinner and knocked on the door, only to end up eating alone. She wrapped his chicken potpie in plastic and left it in the refrigerator.

In the morning the food was gone and the plate was in the sink, so he clearly didn’t plan to starve himself. Since she was pretty sure this song and dance was the opposite of what Dex had meant by being what Evan needed, she’d have to figure out a way to fix the mess she’d made.

In the meantime, she put her energies toward the one thing she did have control over—Jared Anderson. Evan needed his island, as she’d seen firsthand when he spilled his tortured guts about how it was his refuge. And it was a beautiful, unspoiled spot that would forever be associated in her mind with the most amazing kiss of her life.

There would never be a resort on Ilhota Rosa as long as she had a pulse.

If Charlie expected her to play dirty, she needed to have a clearer picture of her opponent. So she scheduled a meeting with Anderson via his assistant and put on her war paint: an Escada suit that she’d last worn to face down a headstrong judge in a particularly messy divorce involving a dotcom CEO and a pair of Manalos that a man like Anderson would recognize as a don’t-underestimate-me combo. Her makeup went on flawlessly, what little of it she wore, and then she wound up her hair into a chignon that she secured with lacquered chopsticks from Shanghai.

Charlie took her to Abaco, and she hopped a commuter plane to Freeport, where ReefCo’s corporate office was. She hadn’t been to the main island since she’d returned from Boston over a month ago. Not much had changed. Most of the Caribbean looked the same. Gorgeous beaches, blue water that was so clear it seemed otherworldly, lots of tourists, cruise ships in slips at the commercial dock, smaller boats in constant motion around her.

She loved it. Never would she have pegged herself as a beach girl, having grown up in Boston and enduring the hellacious winters. But that’s where Blume Family Law had been established so she’d toed the line without ever realizing she hated the line.