Zoe hummed to herself as she got ready for bed. She hoped if she sounded calm and relaxed, she’d look calm and relaxed, as well—instead of completely, teeth-jarringly, heart-janglingly nervous.
Jake had watched her all through dinner. She’d sat at the table with the other women, and he’d sat next to Christopher Vincent. And every time she’d looked up, Jake was gazing at her.
She’d laid everything she was feeling out on the table this evening on the old recreation deck.
Well, nearly everything. She hadn’t revealed this feeling of intense warmth she got every time the man smiled at her. She hadn’t revealed the feeling of pulse-pounding, dizzying free fall she got from the desire she sometimes saw in his eyes.
She had told him how much she wanted him.
And Jake had turned her down. Again.
Yes, he was a man, and yes, he was attracted to her, but he didn’t want her. Not really. Not desperately. Not the way she wanted him.
Normally, she didn’t require being hit over the head with a hammer to receive a rejection. She didn’t know why with Jake she insisted upon embarrassing herself again and again.
She put on her nightgown, wishing desperately that she’d brought something a little less revealing, wishing she’d brought her bathrobe. She’d purposely left it in the trailer, thinking it didn’t quite seem like something Zoe the waitress would own. It was a little too demure, a little too classy for the part she was playing right now.
Jake sat on the edge of the bed, untying his boots, the muscles in his powerful arms and shoulders flexing beneath the cotton of his T-shirt and standing out in sharp relief in the low-watt light.
He’d told her no in every possible way. He wasn’t ready for a physical relationship. He’d made that clear. He’d told her he wanted to be friends. And up on the deck, they’d been doing really fine as far as friendship went—or at least they had been before she’d gotten all stupid and started holding his hand.
She knew that was a mistake right from the moment her fingers had touched his, but she’d tried to convince herself that friends sometimes held friends’ hands. Same thing when she suddenly found herself holding him in her arms.
But then she’d lost it. And she’d kissed him. Again.
And then, stupider and stupider, she’d had the gall to feel hurt when he’d let her know—again—that he truly wasn’t interested in their relationship going in that direction.
Oh, if she hadn’t stopped them, he might’ve let his good intentions slip. He might’ve let himself be carried over the line, bulldozed by the intensity of her passion.
She watched Jake’s reflection as he pulled his T-shirt over his head and unfastened his jeans. He glanced over, and Zoe quickly looked away, but not before he’d met her eyes in the mirror. Great. Now he’d caught her watching him undress.
But instead of turning away, he moved toward her, toward the mirror. “If this bothers you, I can wear a shirt to bed.”
It took Zoe a few long seconds to realize that he was talking about the latticework of scars on his chest.
“No,” she said. Was he nuts? Was that really why he thought she’d been staring at him? It would have been hysterically funny if her sense of humor hadn’t been stretched so thin. “Really, Jake, that doesn’t bother me at all.”
He was looking critically at himself in the mirror. “Funny, isn’t it, that I survived Vietnam virtually unscathed, only to have this happen when I was supposedly safe at home?”
“I look at those scars,” Zoe said softly, “and I can’t believe you survived. It was some kind of assassination attempt, right?”
The killers had come into his own home, past his security guards. They’d gained entry by pretending to be part of a team of Navy SEALs sent to protect the admiral from death threats he’d been receiving. After he’d been shot, the Navy had taken him to a hospital safe house and had publicly released news of his death, both to protect Jake and to catch the man who’d sent those killers.
Zoe had been in Kuwait when she’d heard the news on CNN, and she’d sat on the balcony of her hotel for hours that night, just looking at the lights of the city, deeply mourning the loss of a man she’d never met.
Jake met her eyes in the mirror. “It happened two years ago, Christmas. It took me a long time to get back to speed, physically.” He turned and tossed his shirt into the laundry pile in the corner of the room, then took his wallet and keys and change from his jeans pockets, lining them neatly up on the dresser as he spoke. “You know, in a way getting shot wasn’t so bad. I mean, with a physical injury, recovery goes in stages. It’s all laid out for you. The doctors have done it before, there’s no real mystery to the process.
“First the bullets are removed, and then the doctor stitches you up. Then the wound is bandaged and drained, and you lie in a hospital bed, and you focus on surviving, one day at a time—one hour at a time if you have to. Then the bandages get changed, and the injury is cleaned, and you fight infection and sleep a lot so your body can heal. Then finally after you’re out of the ICU, you stop merely surviving and start rebuilding your strength, still through bed rest. Then, even though it hurts like hell, you get mobile. You get out of bed and take first one step, and then two until you can make it over to the bathroom and back without falling down. Then there’s physical therapy, more restrengthening.
“Sure, no two injuries are ever exactly alike,” Jake continued, “and I had individual challenges each step of the way, but even getting around those challenges was pretty clear-cut. If I do A, then I’ll improve. If I do B, I’ll improve that much faster. If I do C, I’ll hurt myself, so don’t do C.”
Zoe understood. He was talking about far more than his physical trauma. He was trying to explain himself, explain what he was feeling and why exactly he had turned her down again this afternoon.
“Emotional recovery isn’t as easy.” All his coins were in perfect little stacks on the dresser, and he knocked them over with a sweep of his fingers and went to sit on the bed.
He glanced at her, one hand on the back of his neck, as if it ached. “You’re not dealing with muscles and bones. You’re dealing with something far more fragile and far less identifiable. Something that doesn’t have as clearly a defined list of steps to do, you know, to go about fixing the problem. See, like, if you do A, you might improve, but if I do A, I might end up in a worse place than where I started. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Zoe nodded, holding his gaze. He was talking about losing Daisy, about his dealing with his loss. “I do understand, and Jake, really, you don’t have to—”
“On the other hand,” he said with a crooked smile, “since it’s all trial and error in terms of what works and what doesn’t, it seems crazy to just never try A or B or even C, out of fear it’s going to hurt worse. Because what if it doesn’t hurt? What if it helps?”
What was he telling her?
“I’m tired of being afraid, and I’m tired of feeling so damn alone.” His voice shook slightly, and he stood up swiftly, using both hands to push his hair from his face as he laughed in disbelief. “Jeez, this is perfect. Can I make myself sound any more pathetic?”
Zoe took a step toward him but stopped herself. Dammit, she wasn’t going to do this again—offer comfort and then get horribly embarrassed and hurt when her deep-burning desire for this man overpowered her self-control.
But this time, Jake reached for her.
And as he drew her into his arms, she felt herself melt. Oh, God, she was the pathetic one.
His hands were against her back, her shoulders, her neck, running through her hair, the sensation enough to make her cling to him mindlessly. Dear God, what would happen if he kissed her?
He did, so sweetly, so gently, she had to close her eyes against the rush of tears that came. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it—she opened herself to him, and he kissed her harder, possessing her mouth with absolutely no uncertainty, completely and unquestionably in command.
This was all for the cameras. Zoe knew that their conversation must have been cryptic and confusing to anyone listening in, but this embrace was completely obvious. To anyone watching, anyone who didn’t know better, it would look as if Jake wanted her. And as if she wanted him.
They’d be half right.
It was all she could do to stay on her feet, and she wasn’t aware that he’d pulled her with him into the bathroom until he closed the door behind them.
He broke their kiss to lift her up as he stepped into the bathtub. Zoe was slightly off balance, and he held her with one arm as he yanked the curtain closed and turned on the water with a rush.
Jake still wore his jeans and she had on her black nightgown and they both were instantly soaked. The water was cold, it hadn’t yet heated up, but maybe that was a good thing. God knows she was way too hot.
She tried to pull back from Jake but then stopped, extremely self-conscious about the fact that her silk gown was glued to her body, extremely aware that she was still touching him and he was still touching her.
But instead of letting her go, he pulled her close and kissed her again.
It was a kiss that meant business, a kiss loaded with passion and need and a wildly burning hunger.
It was a kiss no one but Zoe and Jake could possibly know about.
She looked at him in surprise, unable to believe what he was telling her.
“I want to make love to you, Zoe,” he said softly, touching her hair, her face. “But there are four billion reasons we shouldn’t. The cameras—”
Her heart was pounding. He wanted. She was in his arms, her body pressed against the very solid length of his, her hands against the taut, slick muscles in his arms, his shoulders. It was finally okay to touch him. He wanted her to touch him. “No one can see or hear us in here.”
“Our age difference—”
“I don’t have a problem with that.”
He smiled slightly at her vehemence, his fingers still in her hair. “How about the fact that I’m your team leader—”
“Technically, I’m here as a consultant for your team. You’re not my boss. Pat Sullivan is. Believe me, I’ve already checked the rules. This isn’t fraternizing. I’m a civilian.”
He exhaled a short burst of laughter. “Well, it’s good to know the shore patrol isn’t going to rush in to arrest us.”
“I can think of only one reason we shouldn’t make love right this second,” Zoe said, “and that’s that all my condoms are in the other room, in my purse.”
Jake took a small square of foil from his back pocket and tossed it into the soap dish that was attached to the tile wall. “I’ve got that part covered,” he told her. He smiled crookedly, sweetly uncertain. “Or at least I will, if this is still what you want.”
“It’s what I want. Oh, God, it’s what I want.” Zoe pushed his wet hair from his face, her heart in her throat, completely aware of what he’d just told her by having that condom ready and in his pocket. He’d planned this. He’d come to terms with all of his reservations and he’d consciously made a choice. This wasn’t accidental. It wasn’t about reacting to high emotions and high passion. He wasn’t being bulldozed. He truly wanted this to happen.
Still she had to be sure. “About those other three million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand reasons we shouldn’t—”
“The hell with them. They don’t hold up to the one very solid reason we should,” Jake told her, kissing her hard but much too briefly on the mouth. His voice was husky, his eyes filled with heat. “Dammit, I want to, and you want to, and life’s too bloody short. We’re both grown-ups and—”
He kissed her again. Longer this time. Pulling her even closer and covering her breast with his hand. Touching, gently kneading, exploring the tautness of her nipple, his thumb rasping against the thin wet silk that covered her. The sensation was nearly unbearable, and she moaned aloud.
Jake did, too. “God,” he gasped pulling free from their kiss. “I’ve wanted to touch you like this since you walked into that meeting in the Pentagon.”
Zoe had to smile. She had him beat. She’d clocked many, many fantasy miles with Jake Robinson—starting all the way back when she was a young teenager. He’d been her hero nearly half her life as she’d thrilled to stories of his bravery, his ability to command and his loyalty to those men who followed him.
But it was his soul, his very humanness—his confessed imperfections—that moved her in ways she’d never dreamed she could be moved.
Time seemed to slow as he looked at her, as he touched her, still gently, through the black silk of her gown. The fire in his eyes was incredible as he caught one finger in the slender strap and tugged it down her arm. The clinging triangle of fabric peeled away from her breast infinitesimally slowly, and Zoe felt her desire-tautened nipples tighten under the heat of his gaze.
Jake sighed his approval, smiling into her eyes before he lowered his head and kissed her breast. His lips and tongue were so soft against her, she felt herself sway.
The shower was drumming down on them both, steam swirling around them as Zoe helped Jake peel off her gown. He was no longer taking his time, and as he looked at her, standing naked before him, she felt nearly burned by the desire in his eyes. And then his hands were everywhere, his mouth—hungry now—everywhere else.
Dizzy with need, she reached for the waistband of his jeans, and he helped her, pushing down the zipper, tugging at his pants.
But the wet denim was plastered to him, and it stuck to his skin. Jake slipped on the slick surface of the tub and caught himself, laughing as he desperately tried to rid himself of his jeans. Zoe tried to help, but she suspected she was making the entire process even more difficult.
She was giddy with laughter, too, as they wrestled with this final barrier that lay between them. The irony was incredible. Jake had finally given in, yet he couldn’t have made it more difficult for them to make love if he’d tried.
He sat on the edge of the tub and, with Zoe pulling and Jake pushing, they peeled his jeans off, one leg at a time.
Zoe pushed her wet hair from her face as she knelt on one knee in the tub, laughing at him. She was even more beautiful than Jake had imagined, and God knows he’d spent quite a bit of time imagining.
He wanted nothing more than to look at her, and as he did just that, her laughter faded, leaving behind only heat. The desire in Zoe’s eyes was incredible, and Jake knew that he was looking right back at her in exactly the same way.
She moved toward him, slowly, still on her hands and knees.
His mouth was dry. He was sitting there, soaking wet, water drumming down upon him, yet his mouth had gone bone dry.
She reached for him, and he lunged for her, pulling her with him, tightly against him as he stood up.
This was the right thing. Despite all his reservations, holding her like this, being with her like this felt so good, so right. His fears fell away, too. Silly fears like, that after three years, he might’ve forgotten how to do this, that after three years, he’d embarrass himself completely. More intensely complicated fears, like he wouldn’t be able to go through with this, wouldn’t be able to keep from thinking about—
But he could only think about Zoe. Zoe, who smiled into his eyes and made him feel hope again. Zoe, who held his hand and understood why he’d given his entire life to the Navy, to the SEALs, because she’d been, perhaps not precisely there, but to very similar places.
Zoe, naked in his arms, soft and wet and smooth. It was beyond heaven. He ran his hands across her body, unable to get enough of touching her, her skin like silk beneath his fingers. He groaned aloud as he cupped her rear end, pulling her closer to him, feeling her so soft against his hardness, dying—just a little—as she reached between them and closed her fingers around him.
He kissed her, and she gasped into his mouth as he touched her just as intimately. She was so warm, so ready, and she opened herself to him, sliding her leg up and around his.
Jake reached for the condom in the soap dish, and his hand closed around Zoe’s fingers.
He had to laugh. Zoe was many things, but reserved wasn’t one of them. Beads of water sparkled on her eyelashes as she smiled at him and gave him the wrapped condom.
She slid down his body, kissing her way down his chest and his stomach and…Jake nearly crushed the little package in his hand.
God, he wanted a bed. He wanted to take Zoe into the other room and love her all night long. He wanted to take his time. He wanted her to lie back for him just to look at, her beautiful hair spread out on the pillows. He wanted to spend a solid hour just kissing her breasts. He wanted to explore every inch of her body with his mouth and the very tips of his fingers. And he wanted her to look into his eyes as he filled her completely.
He laughed aloud. The things she was doing to him were taking him dangerously close to the edge.
But this wasn’t really what he wanted. He pulled her up, into his arms, and kissed her hard as he fumbled with the foil wrapper. He stepped slightly out of the stream of the shower and covered himself.
Zoe slipped behind him, and he could feel her breasts against his back, her stomach against his rear end as she rubbed herself against him. She wrapped her arms around him, her hands cool against the slickness of his chest and stomach. And lower.
“Am I helping?” she asked.
Jake laughed. “Oh, yeah.”
“You know, you are,” Zoe breathed into his ear, “without a doubt, the sexiest man I’ve ever met.”
Jake turned toward her, that half-embarrassed, half-sheepish look in his gorgeous blue eyes, and she had to laugh. “You honestly don’t think of yourself that way, do you?” she asked him.
“What way?” He pulled her hips against him as he lowered his head to touch the tip of her breast lightly with his tongue.
Zoe closed her eyes, pushing herself against him, farther into his mouth. He drew her in, harder, and then even harder, and she moaned her approval.
“As the complete hottie that you are,” she told him when she finally could speak.
He lifted his head and laughed at her. “Wow, and all this time, I thought I was an admiral in the U.S. Navy.”
“Admiral Hottie.” Zoe laughed at the look he gave her.
His hands had taken up where his mouth left off. There was no doubt about it. Zoe knew he liked her body, too. She sighed as he caught her nipple between his thumb and fingers.
“I’m not even sure what that means,” he said. “Hottie.” He laughed. “Jeez.”
“Check yourself out in the mirror sometime.”
His eyes half closed as she pressed herself against him, as she started to move against him in a slow rhythm, and his hand tightened on her breast. “Is that all I am to you? A hottie?” His voice was still light, playful, but Zoe looked into his eyes and answered him honestly.
“The fact that you’re a hottie is just a bonus,” she told him, touching him, unable to keep herself from touching him. “I want you inside me, Jake, because I think that when I get you there, I’ll have a little taste of everything really good and right that I’ve been missing all my life.” She forced a smile. “Whoa. That was too intense, huh? I’m—”
“No,” he said. “Don’t apologize for being honest. I love the way you look, too, but we’re also friends. Good friends. And that’s what’s making this so damn good already. Even though I’m still not inside you.” He lowered his voice. “I’m dying to be inside you.”
Zoe couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. She couldn’t do more than let herself be kissed.
Jake’s kiss was proprietary. It was completely possessive, controlling and commanding, but for the first time in her life, Zoe truly didn’t mind.
He lifted her up, breaking their kiss so he could look into her face, into her eyes, as he slowly, slowly—screamingly slowly—entered her. He pushed her against the slick, wet tile wall, but there was nothing to hold on to, nothing to do but let him keep control.
With her legs around his waist and her back against the slippery wall, her mobility was limited. But with Jake still holding her gaze, with all the pleasure he was feeling clearly written on his beautiful face, it was an incredible turn-on.
And for the first time since Zoe could remember, she placed the complete control of her immediate future into another person’s hands.
Into Jake’s very capable hands.
He pushed himself a little bit farther inside of her, smiling slightly as she moaned just a little too loudly.
“Sh,” he breathed, still holding her gaze as he took his sweet time.
His next thrust was just as slow but twice as deep, and Zoe caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep from crying out again.
Jake’s smile widened. “That looks like something I should be doing.” He leaned forward and gently tugged on her lip with his teeth. She moaned again—she couldn’t help it.
He laughed as he kissed her, filling her with his spirit as well as his body. The pleasure was so intense, Zoe couldn’t do more than whisper his name.
With the shower raining down on her sensitized skin, with his mouth doing things to her breasts that she’d never imagined possible, with the cold tile against her back and Jake, hot and heavy, moving so infuriatingly, wonderfully slowly inside of her…
It was beyond perfect.
She breathed his name again, and even though she didn’t say it in so many words, he somehow knew she was close to the edge.
“Come on, Zoe,” he murmured, his lips on her ear, on her face, on her throat, her breasts. “You’re gonna take me with you. I want to go right with you….”
Zoe kissed him. As wave upon wave of pleasure exploded around her, she kissed Jake so she wouldn’t cry out. He inhaled her in return, driving himself even harder, even more deeply inside of her. She felt him explode, felt him shake with his release, just as he’d promised.
And still Jake kissed her.
He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, holding her there pinned against the shower wall, still buried deeply inside of her.
His mouth was so sweet, his lips so gentle, Zoe should have been in complete and unquestionable heaven. But she couldn’t stop thinking. Now what? Jake had done it. He’d made love to another woman for the first time since his wife had died. What was he thinking? What was he feeling?
Was he kissing her because he was trying to avoid facing himself another few minutes longer? Was he overwhelmed with regret? Did he hate himself? Did he hate her?
But then, “I wish I could kiss you all night,” he murmured, his breath warm against her ear. “I wish we could make love again, tonight, in a bed, no covers, lights on….”
Relief made her laugh. He sounded all right. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? “As much as I’d like that, too, I think the fact that our entire SEAL team would be watching might be a little distracting.”
Jake laughed, too, as he gently lowered her to the tub floor, as he turned away and efficiently cleaned himself up. “We’re almost out of hot water,” he said. “Want a shot at it before it’s completely gone?”
“Thanks.”
What had once been an awkward switching of positions in the crowded tub was now an opportunity for full body contact. Jake kissed her, and as she quickly lathered herself with the soap, he helped. He helped her rinse, too, his hands skimming her body, his touch so deliciously possessive. Who would’ve ever thought that would turn her on so completely?
He held her close, her back against his front, his arms wrapped around her, his hands caressing her breasts.
“I can’t seem to get enough of you,” he said softly. “I think I might need two solid weeks of leave, a hotel with room service, a heavy-duty lock on the door, a king-size bed and you.”
Zoe closed her eyes as he weighed her breasts in the palms of his hands, as he kissed her neck, as she felt his body start to grow harder, already, against her rear end.
But then he caught her hand. Her fingers were waterlogged, the tips starting to wrinkle. “Uh-oh, we’ve been in here too long.”
The water was starting to run cold, and Zoe turned to look at Jake. “Are you ready to get out?”
“No.” But he reached past her to turn off the water. And then he stepped back from her, reaching outside the shower curtain for a towel. He opened it as he handed it to her, wrapping it around her shoulders.
“Thanks.”
He started to step out of the shower, to get a towel and dry himself off in the bathroom—he didn’t care who saw him naked—but Zoe caught his arm.
“Really,” she said quietly, looking into his eyes. “Thanks.”
He laughed slightly, shaking his head as he looked away from her, at his feet, before he leaned forward to kiss her. “Thank you.”
He stepped out of the shower, and Zoe realized he hadn’t quite managed to look her completely in the eye.
He’d had no problem holding her gaze while they were making love, but afterward…She realized that after, he’d done everything possible to keep from having to let her look deeply into his eyes.
It was all an act. The sweet words, all of it. He wasn’t okay with any of this—he was just pretending to be so as not to hurt her feelings. He was kissing her so he wouldn’t really have to face the truth.
Zoe shook herself. That was absurd. Jake was quite possibly the most honest man she’d ever met. Why would he start hiding the truth from her now?
Unless maybe he was hiding that truth from himself, as well.
But now that the water was off, there was no way she could confront him.
The shower curtain opened slightly, and Jake leaned in. He held something out to her—one of his T-shirts. “I figured you wouldn’t want to put that nightgown back on.”
It was impossibly sweet and completely considerate, but Jake definitely didn’t hold her gaze. He quickly backed away, letting the shower curtain drop.
“Thanks,” Zoe whispered.
Okay, so he wasn’t completely happy about this. She’d expected that, hadn’t she? She had absolutely no right to feel upset, no cause for this sudden ridiculous rush of tears that pressed against her eyelids and threatened to escape.
What did she expect? That Jake would make love to her once and fall instantly in love with her? That he’d forget all about his life with Daisy?
Zoe scrubbed her face with her towel, fiercely willing her tears away.
But as she slipped Jake’s T-shirt over her head, as she breathed in his familiar clean, warm scent, the tears returned.
And she knew with a clarity that was unquestionable that although Jake hadn’t fallen head over heels for her, she was completely, indisputably, impossibly in love with him.