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Ophelia froze at the sound of his deep voice, her gaze riveted to the warm metal and the texture of his skin. Her chest went tight, and she could hardly catch her breath. She barely registered Mrs. Ketchum’s response. “I’m fit as a fiddle thanks to you.”
ThatwasMaster Chief Dean Teller, and every feeling she’d had, every mistake she’d made with him, came roaring up behind her, threatening to take her down.
Mrs. Ketchum looked up at her and frowned. “Ophelia? You are going to let him go, aren’t you?”
Dean’s whole body stiffened. “O?”
She fumbled the key into the cuffs and twisted, telling herself she was sweating because of the heat of the night. With his hands released, he pushed up off the hood of the cruiser, his biceps thickening and his forearms rippling with muscle. Turning to face her, he rubbed his wrists.
“You know each other?” Mrs. Ketchum asked with a smile. “One of your work colleagues?”
“No. We’ve known each other since high school,” Ophelia said, unable to shake the way her emotions slipped and slid all over the place. O, that’s what he called her, his voice filled with an affection that was palpable. Not even seventeen years was enough to diminish this…attraction they had between them or disguise the lean angles of his face, the coal-black silk of his hair, or the midnight eyes that had promised her heaven—and delivered. This was no boy any longer. He was bigger, leaner, and ripped to muscled perfection by the very job he performed.
As seventeen years melted away, the time-lapse only brought back her doubts, the way she felt about him. Dean was a closed book, and it would be even worse now that he was in a job that classified everything he did. He’d been absent from her life for a long time, but all it took was the touch of his skin against her fingertips and the sight of him to make her world tilt on its axis. Her pulse was racing with an awful mixture of shock and wariness, and a truly crazy excitement at just seeing him again.
This hadn’t happened with any other man. Ever. Not even with the man she was seeing now, Officer Randall Cunningham. Randy, one of her fellow SWAT teammates. They dated here and there, screwing for the release. She liked him…but he so wasn’t Dean.
“How are you, wayward traveler?” Ophelia asked, working hard to make sure her voice didn’t betray her excitement at seeing him again.
He grinned and it was wide and genuine and so full of bad boy, she couldn’t help grinning back. Then she saw the blood on his T-shirt and the gash on his arm.
“You’re injured?”
“Just a flesh wound. It’s nothing.” He waved his hand, but she caught his arm and peered at it. It looked like more than a flesh wound. She also couldn’t help noticing the other scars showing white against his tanned skin.
“You’ll have it checked out.”
He looked down at his arm, at her fingers encircling his wrist, and she released him as if she’d been burned.
“Okay.”
“Damn right,” Mrs. Ketchum said, giving her a knowing look. Ophelia narrowed her eyes and shook her head.
Thankfully he was still looking down at his arm and missed Mrs. Ketchum’s attempt at matchmaking. He looked back up and chuckled.
“I’d say that scum was lucky I came along. I think this feisty lady would have chewed him up and spit him out. Am I right, ma’am?”
She blushed to the roots of her iron-gray hair and gave him an indulgent look. “You are a silver-tongued devil. I’ll get the EMT.” She trotted off and immediately accosted the nearest paramedic.
“She’s a pistol,” he said, turning back to her.
“She is at that. Her husband calls her a sassy handful. They have some of the cutest fights. But she is kind and generous, quite the green thumb, and plays cards like a Vegas shark.”
“Good to know.”
He held her in silent regard for a long moment. He seemed quite relaxed, but Dean had always been so damn confident. She’d heard he’d made it as a Tier One operator, elite of the SEALs, the best of the best. It didn’t surprise her one bit.
He stepped closer, and before she could step back, he’d invaded deep into her personal space.
“Yup, Mrs. Ketchum is something,” Ophelia said.
“Thanks for saving my ass, O. Jail, even for a few hours wouldn’t have been fun.” A smile flirted at the corners of Dean’s mouth, a damn fine mouth
A mouth she shouldn’t be studying like she had a test.
There was a tremendous pull in that tiny space between them, the kind of pull that made it almost impossible not to lean forward and do the most natural thing. Except she’d promised herself she would never hurt him again or contribute to her own heartache. She’d made a clean break, opted for her own path in life instead of following his.
This close, she was reminded that his eyes weren’t black, but a brown so dark they almost matched the black of his pupils, but with just enough color in them to create that gleam, that twinkle. His skin was incredibly smooth, despite the hint of five o’clock shadow, with such a gorgeous golden tone to it, always warm as hell. And yet the angles of his jaw, the hard line of his nose, his chin, the thin white scar that ran lengthwise just above one eyebrow, all combined to make him more rugged than pretty.
