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“Excuse me?”
“I said you could go to the family reunion with me.” His eyes narrowed on her. “You’d have fun.”
“I’m not part of the family.”
“You’re mine. That makes you family.”
Emerson felt everything inside her slow to a quick stop as time seemed to take on a heavy, sluggish quality. She stared into his eyes, seeing the determination, possessiveness, and total resolve in his eyes.
“You know better than that, Macey.” She had to force herself to breathe, to push back the need to believe.
“Do I, Em?”
“You should.” She eased from him, wrapping a sheet around her body and moving for the doorway. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Not now. I’m not a starry-eyed teenager that needs a proposal and professions of love to excuse a little sex. You’re off the hook. I won’t cry on the admiral’s shoulder or accuse you of taking advantage of me. So do us both a favor and don’t make more out of it than what it was.”
She needed her clothes, fast. She needed to shower, to wash the scent of his body from hers, and get dressed.
“Do you really think I’m going to just walk away from you, Em? For any reason?” Quiet understanding. It was in his voice, in his eyes as he stood up and walked over to her. “Did you think a one-night stand was all I wanted?”
“What else am I supposed to think?” Her heart was racing in her chest, her mouth dry with a sense of panic now. “You’re not exactly known for your monogamous lifestyle, Macey.”
“And you still went to bed with me?” He tilted his head, his gaze gentle as he smoothed his hands over her bare shoulders. “Why did you do that, Emerson?”
“I wanted you.”
“Do you just go to bed with every man you want, Em?”
No. She stared up at him, mesmerized by the softness underlying the steel in his gaze. He was a SEAL; she knew what that meant. Filled with purpose. Determined. Slick. He knew how to get what he wanted and he didn’t stop until he got it.
Emerson licked at her lips with trepidation. She could feel a trap, she just couldn’t figure out where that trap lay.
“I don’t sleep around.” She tried to pull away from him and put distance between them.
Macey wasn’t having it. His hands held her close to him, the warmth of his body enfolding her, making it harder to think, harder to resist.
“Then why a one-night stand with me? What made me so special?”
chapter 9
macey felt his heart melt, right there in the underground living room. His gaze locked with Emerson’s, seeing the conflicting emotions in her eyes that shadowed the rest of her features. Panic, fear, hope, and hunger. Not sexual hunger, though that was there as well, but a hunger for more. A hunger to see where the emotions building between them would go.
He knew where they would go. He knew that within the year he’d have his ring on her finger and her soul melded with his.
But he swore he could spank her for being so damned stubborn, so unaware of her own fierce heart, and so frightened of her own emotions.
“You’re not answering me, Em,” he pointed out, making certain he kept his hands on her. “If you don’t have one-night stands, what made me so special?”
“You don’t understand. It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like, sweetheart?” He lowered his head, touched her lips, kept his eyes on hers. “I love you, Emerson. Do you really expect me to walk away now that I’ve found the woman I’ve searched for my entire adult life?”
He loved her? How could he love her? She was gawky, accident-prone, and she didn’t know how to love. She would mess it up. Just by being her, she would exasperate him, frustrate him, until he didn’t love her any longer.
“You’re wrong.” Her heart was racing in her chest, making it hard to breathe. “It’s just sex. It’s always just sex with you. Everyone says it is. All your lovers—” She shut up, her hand clamping over her mouth as a wicked smile bloomed across his lips.
“You bothered to check me out with old lovers? I’m impressed, Emerson. I really am. Tell me, how close were you to clawing their eyes out?”
So close it had terrified her each time. But she wasn’t about to admit it. “You’re crazy.”
