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“It was ’bout time then,” he panted beside her.
His hand moved lazily to her stomach, his fingers splaying across her flesh as he turned to her then.
“I love you, Joe.” There was no containing that love, or the happiness blooming inside her.
“I worship you, Maggie,” he whispered. “For your sake, I hope you can live with it.”
“Always, Joe.” She smiled back at him tearfully. “Always.”
atlanta heat
prologue
some women a man knew to stay the hell away from. It was a self-preservation thing. Survival instinct. The lone wolf that reveled in its independence and sexual freedom knew when it was staring in the eyes of a sensual trap. A woman capable of making the male animal stand up, take notice, and tremble in his military boots.
Mason “Macey” March was a man who liked to live on the edge, though. He was all about the challenge, the risk, the excitement, whether it was a mission or a woman, or a terrorist out to destroy the world. He was a man who stared out at life with a defiant snarl and dared it to take first blood.
He was a man staring at his own destruction, and he had enough sense to recognize it, and to be equally terrified and drawn to it. Like a spectator to a train wreck. It was going to be bloody. It was going to be a mess. But he couldn’t look away because she had him by his soul and he knew it. One kiss. That was all it was going to take. One touch and he was going to be a goner. He was aching to touch.
Hazel green eyes twinkled mischievously over lightly freckled cheeks. Lush lips curved enchantingly, and made a man wonder about the things that mouth could do even as it threatened the fit of his dress whites.
Softly curved, temptingly delicate, and trouble with a capital T. Messing with this woman was the ultimate insanity, but no one had ever accused him of being sane.
“You know, Lieutenant March,” she drawled in a seductive Southern accent. “You could always slip out the back door. I bet the admiral won’t even realize you’re gone.”
He stared down at her, eating up the vision of her below the neck even as he kept his gaze steady on hers. Wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to let the admiral catch him leering at his goddaughter’s ample breasts. The way the sapphire blue silk clung to them, held over the luscious mounds with the tiniest of straps. Her long chestnut hair fell down her back in thick soft waves, making his hands itch to touch it.
“Sweetheart, the admiral would fry important portions of my anatomy if I dared.” He attempted to smile, but he was damned close to swallowing his tongue as he caught sight of those sweetly curved mounds lifting in a sigh. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a sheen of moisture popping on his brow as he fought to control the hard-on threatening beneath his slacks. This wasn’t the best place to prove to the admiral that he really was nothing more than a dog panting after a pair of pretty tits, as the bastard had recently accused him of being.
He didn’t pant after tits. He revered them. Worshiped them. He was nearly drooling over them. Maybe that did make him a dog.
He watched Miss Emerson Delaney smile. A playful curve of her lips that was a warning in and of itself. And beneath that silk was the faintest hint of nipples hardening.
“You know, I could help you sneak away,” she whispered playfully. “Admiral Holloran is, after all, my godfather. I’ll make your excuses. You aren’t looking well, you know.” She was laughing at him. Playfully. In amusement. But she was getting a kick out of the fact that he didn’t dare piss the admiral off at this point. He’d already been busted down in rank for one misdemeanor; he didn’t need to get brought down again becau
se Emerson was in the mood to play.
“Don’t do me any favors, imp,” he growled.
She pouted back at him playfully. “But Macey, doing you a favor would just make my day complete. Didn’t you know that?”
He snorted. Likely story. If he didn’t get the hell away from her the admiral would barbecue his ass.
“Do me a favor then and find someone else to harass, kid,” he told her. “I’m in enough trouble.”
He caught the narrowing of her eyes as he made his escape, quickly. Before he lost control and let his gaze drop to those incredible breasts.
Okay, so he was a tit man. He couldn’t help it, and she had the most incredible set he’d ever seen.
He drew in a quick, fortifying breath as he made his way through the ballroom, the foyer, and then quickly entered the silent, empty study that the admiral made available to his men during these jackass parties his sister insisted on throwing in his name. Holloran should get married or something, to a nice shy little wife who didn’t like parties, instead of letting his sister run his social life.
He stalked across the room to the bar, pulled a glass from the shelf, and splashed in a healthy dose of whisky as he heard the door snick open behind him. And he knew. Hell, he knew who was back there.
He tossed back the whisky. “Go back outside and play, little girl.” He grimaced as he caught sight of her in the mirror over the bar. “You’re biting off more than you can chew this time.”
He’d known her for years. Known her and avoided her and lived in dread and in anticipation of the chance to touch her.
“I had a message for you.” Her voice wasn’t teasing this time, it was a chilly snap. A proper, aristocratic, holier-than-thou, kiss-my-ass whiplash of sound.
