A SEAL's Surrender. Tawny Weber
Читать онлайн книгу.
feline. Paisley gave a meow of protest, and threw an injured look toward Eden, but didn’t try to escape. Eden waited until her friend and the cat were safely inside the car, treats and water dispensed, before she lowered herself to the next branch.
There. She smiled her relief. Almost down.
It was the smile that did it, she figured.
Because she went from enjoying an easy descent to being suddenly trapped in the space of a heartbeat. Like an anchor, something held tight, so she couldn’t move.
Breathless, Eden twisted to see what was wrong.
Then scowled when she saw that the strap of her shoe was caught on a branch. Eden tugged. The shoe stuck. She tried to slip it off, but the branch was too rough, scratching painfully against the soft flesh of her instep.
A minute later she added cursing to the mix.
“Haven’t we been here before?” a husky voice asked.
Oh, hell. Eden froze. She hadn’t even heard a car. Please, oh, please, let him be talking to someone else.
“That is Eden up there, right?” the voice asked.
Double hell.
She shook her head, hoping the move would shift the curtain of hair from blocking her view.
Her heart, already pounding like a freight train, sped up. What little was left of her breath escaped her lungs in a rush.
She twisted her torso, angling herself sideways to make sure the face matched the voice.
Gorgeous green eyes, a tanned complexion over sculpted cheekbones and a strong jawline. Wide, full lips stretched in a smile that bordered on laughter. And the sexiest man-dimple she’d ever seen.
Her eyes widened and she gave a long, lusty sigh.
Didn’t it just figure? At least she’d tucked her skirt in so she wasn’t flashing him. Sure, she might have a few dozen fantasies about sharing her undies with this particular man. But this position wasn’t featured in a single one.
So she did what she always did when caught in an uncomfortable situation.
She smiled and made the best of it.
“Hi, Cade.”
3
“DO YOU DO THESE THINGS just to keep me in practice?” Cade asked, grinning at his favorite perpetual-victim, her silky brown hair a dark curtain over a face he knew would be sliding into a sheepish smile.
Eden Gillespie always looked sheepish when she had to be rescued. Something, if he’d ever considered it, he’d have figured she’d have outgrown. He eyed her legs, smooth and bare all the way to the top of her hot-pink panties thanks to the way her dress was hanging. Her arms were wrapped around the tree limb and one foot dangled while the other was caught in a snarl of branches and leaves. Clearly he’d have figured wrong.
“Consider it my welcome-home present,” she muttered, blowing a puff of air so her hair cleared enough that he could see the resigned amusement in her big brown eyes.
That was one of the things he’d always admired about Eden. She could laugh at herself. So many of the girls he’d grown up with, and the women he’d dated for that matter, took themselves and life way too seriously. They were so worried about controlling the impression they made, they didn’t let themselves just live.
Without thinking, his eyes shifted back to Eden’s legs. Long and sleek, they wrapped around that big, hard branch. He frowned at the scrapes and faint reddening of her tender flesh, for the first time ever tempted to kiss away a boo-boo. All the way up to her panties. Practical cotton, he noted, his mouth going dry, but in a fun, sassy color. Since she was facedown on the branch, the curve of her butt was perfectly highlighted in that pink fabric. His fingers itched to touch, to see if her curves were as firm as they looked.
Whoa. Not cool, he lectured himself. Lusting after the sweet girl next door was walking an awfully close line to settling down. Nothing wrong with it in the big picture, but in his personal rulebook? Totally out of the question.
“Want some help?” he offered, wondering how many times now he’d had to hurry these rescues along because of a hit of inappropriate lust. After all, he was pretty sure he’d been hauling her out of scrapes since his pre-teen days. But it’d only been since that rescue, when he’d seen her naked, that the sight of her made him instantly horny. He sighed with relief. There, now he was only a standard guy, not a weird pervert with a superhero complex.
“I can do it,” she muttered, tugging her foot to try and loosen it from the branch. Her shoe, a cute little black strappy thing, was good and stuck. She sighed and slanted him a rueful look. “But maybe you could just unhook my shoe for me?”
Cade didn’t bother arguing. He reached up and pulled the twigs from her foot. Then he wrapped both hands around her surprisingly narrow waist, easily lifting her from the overhead branch. It was like doing a military press, he thought with a grin as he lowered her body toward the ground.
Except he hadn’t counted on her shocked reaction. She gasped, struggling a little as if wanting him to let her go. Since he wasn’t about to drop her three feet to the ground, he shifted. Her breasts skimmed his chin. He froze. Other than to gasp and grab on to his shoulders for support, so did she.
Cade had felt the same energy pounding through his body when he held a live grenade. Danger, excitement, all senses on full alert.
Wrong, his brain screamed. Eden was the sweet girl next door. The same girl he’d been rescuing for years. She wasn’t supposed to inspire this degree of lust. The kind that made him want to take her, right there against the tree. He didn’t care that they’d only said a dozen or so words to each other in years, or that her friend was over there, face pressed against the window of the wrecked car, watching.
It was neither of those things that had Cade ignoring the hot need in his belly, or his body’s demand that he taste her, touch her.
It was the flutter of Eden’s lashes. The way her pulse trembled in her throat. The tiny trembles of her fingers where they dug into his shoulders. He, and his wicked desires, were out of her league.
So, nope. Not giving in to the need.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy himself up to that limit line.
Grinning, he slowly brought his arms down. He didn’t let go of his hold on her waist, so her body had to slide, in one long glorious trip, down his.
His eyes never left hers. There was something heady, intense, in seeing the heat flare, then her gaze blur with passion.
As soon as her feet hit the ground, she pushed away like he was fire, too hot for her to touch.
“Thanks again,” she said as she stepped backward. Her foot caught on a root and would have sent her sprawling if he hadn’t grabbed her.
“Babe, I live for these moments,” he told her in a husky tone, only half-teasing. Because he really did. Eden always made coming home fun.
“Me, too.”
The look on her face, a mix of horror and chagrin, said loud and clear that she had, as usual, spoke without thinking.
He should let her off the hook.
It wasn’t like he was going to give in to the heat between them. Ever since his first romp at the tender age of fourteen, he’d made it a point to stay relationship-free and keep his sexual encounters easygoing and simple. There was nothing simple or easygoing about Eden.
Except looking at her. That was as simple and easy as breathing. And talking to her. He’d never had any hesitation there. Listening to her laugh was pure pleasure.
Hell.
“C’mon, I’ll give you a ride home,” he said, his words a little gruffer than he’d intended.