"Right." He wanted to touch her, to stroke her cheek, and to pull her close enough to breathe in the scent of her skin. But he felt dirty, and he didn't want to put his hands on her until he was clean.
"Well, she's not the one I'm in love with, so you made the right choice."
He heaved out a relieved little laugh, the tension draining from his body. "She had the taza, too, which is really fucking convenient since we're not going to make it down to Ensenada."
As she regained her composure, her chin lifted and her shoulders went back. "Should I get out the supplies?"
They'd been cautious and brought along a medical bag of emergency items. Their life together was a dangerous one and neither of them ever forgot that.
"Not here," he said. His injury recovery time was rapid compared to humans, but he'd discovered that a stitch here and there could cut several hours of healing down to one or two. "Let's head back toward the border. We'll stop somewhere private."
There was an Army-issue shovel in the trunk, part of a kit he'd picked up at the local military surplus store. He knew Lyssa was thinking of it, too.
"What about the statue for McDougal?"
"I'll tell him I was mugged and got injured, which cut our trip short."
Lyssa raised a brow. "You, big guy?"
Aidan shrugged. "He can't prove me wrong."
"Alright." She stepped back and opened the front passenger door for him. "Let's hurry."
Losing the battle to keep his distance, he pressed a kiss to her cheek before he gingerly attempted to get in the car.
"I love you," she said.
"Thank you." His gaze met hers. "I needed to hear that."
She blew him a kiss. "I know."
Within minutes, they were on the road heading north.
Stacey watched Connor spoon more Kung Pao chicken onto his plate. There were several mostly empty boxes of Chinese food scattered all across the coffee table. She set her chopsticks down and picked up a cream cheese wonton. "I have never seen anyone eat so much food in one sitting in my life," she said wryly.
He grinned that broad boyish smile that made her stomach flutter. "You're a pretty good eater, too,"
he said. "I dig it."
"My hips don't."
"Your hips don't know what's good for them."
"Ha."
Connor sent her a mock glare and expertly wielded chopsticks to convey a piece of chicken to his mouth. Her gaze dropped to his bared stomach and she admired the sheer masculine beauty of his six-pack abdomen. Even after eating enough food to feed her and Justin for a week, he still looked taut, lean, and hard.
Gorgeous.
She was still having trouble processing the fact that they'd had sex, although her body still tingled from the aftereffects. They were sitting cross-legged on the living room floor watching The Mummy, one of her favorite movies. She was a sucker for a blow 'em up action flick with a hot hero and a touch of romance. Connor said he liked it, too, but he spent more time watching her than he did the television. She'd have thought his interest would wane after the sex, at least a little.
Instead he seemed more interested than before.
She had to admit, she was intrigued by him, too.
"So why are you here?" she asked, setting her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm.
"I have some information for Aidan."
"You couldn't call?"
He shook his head with a smile. "I tried that. He doesn't remember a damn thing I tell him."
"How like a man," she teased.
"Watch it, sweetheart."
Stacey liked it when he called her that. There was something in the rich brogue that lent sincerity to the common endearment. "Are you ex-Special Forces like Aidan?"
"Yeah." There was a melancholy tinge to his response.
"You sound as if you miss it."
"I do." He reached over and snatched the half-eaten wonton from her plate and popped it into his mouth.
"Hey!" she protested, frowning. "There are fresh ones in the box."
"They don't taste as good."
Her eyes narrowed and he stuck a playful tongue out at her. On the screen, Rick O'Connell was battling against a mob of people with the plague.
She watched the scene for a moment, then asked Connor, "So what do you do now that you're out of the army or wherever?"
"Same thing as Cross."
She'd tried to get Aidan to name an actual branch of the military and country affiliation, but he was tight-lipped. Lyssa said it was super-secret covert stuff.
So, what? Stacey had said. If he tells me, he'll have to kill me?
Lyssa laughed. Of course not. 'Cuz seriously, Stacey muttered, the curiosity is killing me, Doc.
He might as well tell me. That would be a kinder way to go.
Of course, Aidan elected not to put her out of her misery. She knew Connor would be the same.
He had a similar air of wariness about him, as if he was dreading the questions he knew were coming.
"You know," she said, "in romance novels the Special Forces heroes usually become high-tech security experts when they retire. Not…
researchers… or personal shoppers."
Connor wiped his hands on a napkin and leaned back, supporting his weight on his arms behind him. He wore only loose-fitting striped pajama bottoms, leaving his torso bared to her perusal.
His body was a finely honed machine, able to hold up her weight as if it were nothing. The impressive breadth of his shoulders rippled with muscle and his biceps…
Her mouth watered. Dear god, he was savagely beautiful. There was nothing tempered about him. Nothing refined. Even at rest, as he was now, she sensed an alertness to him, an inner coiling of power that left him always ready to pounce.
"You're staring," he purred, his blue eyes watching her with predatory intensity. She knew if she gave him even the tiniest bit of encouragement, he would have her on her back in a minute or less.
The image made her shiver.
"I know," she said, mimicking his earlier statement.
The corner of his shamelessly luscious mouth lifted in a half smile. "So… are you telling me that I'm not romance hero material because I don't install security systems?"
He was romance hero material, all right. At least on the outside. And in bed.
"I didn't say that." Stacey shrugged lamely and dragged her gaze back to the television. It was torture to look away from all that golden skin, but it was self-preservation, too. "I'm just saying that I wouldn't expect guys such as you and Aidan to be interested in hunting down old stuff for old guys with too much money. I'd think you would be bored after all the… excitement of what you used to do."
"The Black Market isn't without danger," he said softly.
"Anytime different people want the same thing, it can get ugly. If they want it bad enough, it can get deadly."
She glanced at him. "Doesn't sound like a dream job."
Connor's lips pursed a moment, then he said, "In my family, we all join the military. It's a given."
"Really?"
His shoulders lifted in a small shrug, which did wonderful things to his pectorals. "Really."
"So you never had something else you wanted to do?"
"I never considered anything else."
"That's sad, Connor."
The sound of his name spoken in her voice shocked them both. Stacey could tell it affected him, because he blinked rapidly and looked a little confused. For her part, she knew that the way she was thinking about him was far from friendly. It was obscene. She wanted to lick and nibble on all his yummy looking skin. His dark honey-hued hair was a little too long, curling over his nape and around the tops of his ears. She wanted to touch it. Run her fingers through it.
"What's your dream?" he asked, his intimate tone drawing her deeper under his spell. He gestured with his chin toward the dining table where her ridiculously expensive textbooks sat ignored. "Are you working toward it now?"
She almost said "yes" as part of her positive thinking overhaul she was working on. Instead, she revealed something she'd never even told Lyssa. "I wanted to be a writer," she confessed.
Twin brows raised in visible surprise. "A writer?
What kind of writer?"
Stacey felt her face heat. "A romance writer."
" Really?" Now it was his turn to sound shocked.
He did it really well, too.
"Yep."
"What happened?"
"Life happened."
"Huh…" He straightened, then startled her by stilling her fingers, which were restlessly spinning a fortune cookie around. The feel of his touch was warm and comforting. His hand was so large; it dwarfed hers. The man was at least twice her size, and yet he could be so gentle. "That's the last thing I would have guessed you would say."
"I know."
"You're so practical."
"I wish."
"Did you give up your dream?"
She stared at their physical connection, his skin so much darker than hers, the knuckles dusted with barely discernable golden strands of hair. "Sure. It was silly anyway."
Connor couldn't think of what to say to Stacey's dismissal of something that was obviously important to her. He wasn't a Nurturer or a Healer, and he wasn't a man who spent time talking to women. At least not words that weren't for the purposes of seduction. When women came to him, it wasn't conversation they wanted.
The best he could manage in the way of comfort was to stroke the center of Stacey's soft palm with his callused thumb.
The chaste contact aroused him. When he brushed lower, across the pulse point in her wrist, the rapid beat of her heart betrayed how it aroused her, too. Neither of them acted upon the attraction, despite their quickening breaths. He was content to simply enjoy the soft thrumming of desire in his blood. Then the phone rang and broke the moment.