Surrendering To Her Sergeant (17 page)

She chopped herself short. One side of
Ethan’s mouth quirked as he drawled, “Go ahead, say it. After Bella
added more bling to the tragedy queen crown? Spread on a new layer
to the melodrama pie? Made Sarah Bernhardt roll over in her grave
and barf worms?”

She covered her mouth and giggled.
“Something along those lines.”

Through another thick pause, he simply
stared at her. When his study dropped to her mouth, her lips
tingled with excitement, awareness. Oh God, how she wanted him to
kiss her…

He pushed away instead,
pacing to the dining nook and bracing his hands on the back of a
chair. “That welt on your face really makes me want to punch a hole
in the wall, but it gave back a little, at least. Punched my ticket
out of
Casa de Drama
. So now
I
owe
you
.”

“Oh, shut up.”

She finished rolling her eyes in time
to catch the teasing glint of his smile. But as their gazes locked,
his lips sobered. There were no other lights on except the little
one she’d just flipped, making his eyes look like a pair of
sapphire crystals. His nostrils widened, taking air deep into his
chest. He looked like he wanted to pounce on her any second. Ava’s
breath burned in and out of her lungs while she imagined him doing
just that. Like breathing was doing her any good right now. The air
between them now felt like soup. The hot, thick, stomach-warming
kind.

“I’d better call for that cab,” he
finally said. “Franz said something about going to the La Brea Tar
Pits tomorrow.”

“Y-yeah,” she stammered. “Sure. That’s
a good idea.”

Neither of them moved. Their silence
was so potent, a wave crashed on the beach and sounded like it was
a foot away instead of a block. And the soup pot went right back to
simmering.

“Ava?”

“Huh?”

“I need to use your phone.” He held
his cell up. The screen was black. “Mine’s dead,
remember?”

“
Shit.” She attempted a
little laugh. “Sorry.” On knees that felt like rubber, she crossed
to her bedroom door and pushed it open. The creak sounded like
cannon fire. Normally, she loved all the eccentricities of the
classic Hermosa bungalow but tonight, everything felt new and
strange, dipped in a bath of Ethan Archer’s presence.
“It’s—errrm—on the nightstand, under the magazine.” She felt safer
hanging out in the doorway as he lifted up last month’s
Vogue
and toppled the
fabric swatches that were resting on top of it. “Sorry,” she
repeated. “The, umm, other magazine.”

She forced herself to dash
in, fish the phone from beneath the latest issue of
W
, and jab it up at him.
Ethan accepted it, though didn’t do anything with the device. Once
more, he barely moved. Once more, the corner of his mouth tugged
up. And once more, he looked dangerously fascinated with her. And
so beautifully kissable.

Shit, shit shit. She tore
her gaze away, refusing to put together the
facts—
this man, my bedroom, hours until
dawn
—into a conclusion that gave her any
action plan except getting her ass into bed as soon as the cab came
for him. The fallen swatches were a good distraction. She dropped
to her knees and began piling them back on top of each
other.

Ethan still didn’t get the hint. There
was no telltale dial tone overhead, no beeping four-one-one to ask
for a connection to the cab company.

Instead, he crouched next
to her. Because
that
made a lot of sense. Ava kept the grouse to herself and
finished reassembling the stack.

“What is all that?” he
asked.

“Fabric samples of the dresses Bella’s
wearing to the haute couture shows in Paris in a few weeks. She
needs makeup and hair looks for each ensemble.”

“Which you’re supposed to
design.”

“Duh.”

“In your spare time.”

“Well, yeah.” She rose to set down the
squares on the nightstand again but made the move too fast, giving
herself a head rush. Wisely, she kept that tidbit to herself as she
plopped to the bed, next to where he lingered on the floor, shaking
his head with a peeved glower. “Okay, what?” she snapped, wondering
if she’d regret it.

“You seriously have to ask that?” He
stressed the point with a growl. “C’mon. Custom-designed makeup?
For some stupid oats show?”

Regret was definitely
crossed off the reactions list. Laughter, full and bright and
consuming, was another thing. She flopped backward, unable and
unwilling to stop the mirth. “Not oats.” She giggled.
“
Haute
. It means
‘high’ in French, as in ‘high fashion.’ She flicked her knee,
gently clipping the side of his head with it. “I can’t believe
foreign language fanboy doesn’t know that.”

He snorted. “Paid my dues to the
couture crowd during my polo years.”

“Hmmm.” She smiled at the ceiling from
the image that bloomed in her head. Ethan’s ass, hard and high,
shown off to perfection by a pair of those tight white polo pants.
His long legs tucked into a pair of rugged black boots. His
sculpted abs hugged by a shirt in royal blue, complementing his
eyes… “I’ll bet you were good at it.”

After a second, he answered wistfully,
“I liked my horse.”

She rose and rested back on her
wrists. After nudging him again, she flashed a little grin. “I bet
he liked you, too.”

Ethan turned his face forward. His
profile went tight, the noble lines only more beautiful with the
new definition. When he spoke, that quiet determination branded his
words, too. “I don’t want to talk about polo.”

“Okay. I can just teach you some more
French words.”

“I want to talk about
tonight.”

Tension shot its way back through her
muscles. “Wow. You know how to throw bombs of all kinds, don’t
you?”

That did nothing to loosen him. “Ava,
when those asswads found you in Bella’s bedroom, they didn’t…try
anything, did they?”

His tone, which clicked
from unswerving to unsettled in twenty seconds, at first confused
her. When his intimation finally registered, she blurted,
“Oh,
no
. God, no.”
She wanted to laugh again but saw he was nowhere near the same
mindset. “They were on a mission, Ethan. That goal definitely
didn’t include a sloppy seconds quickie with Ms. Lanza’s
stylist.”

She waited for his relieved
sigh. It never came. His scowl darkened as he snapped, “You’re not
a sloppy second. Do
not
say shit like that around me, Ava.”

She scooted back against the
headboard. “Yes, Sir.”

That earned her a sharp
uptick of his left brow. After another moment of consideration, he
pushed up onto the bed with her. Ava tucked her knees in front of
her chest, hoping it bought her an instant to come up with a line
of such perfect wit, he’d have no choice about dropping his moody
scrutiny. But her brain had officially hit the Pause button, the
one with the user’s manual that came with an extra warning.
Engaging button will induce endless fidgeting and
suck all the air from your lungs. Use with caution.

Her head actually did swim
a little. Here she was, in her most personal space, watching him
fill it…as she’d dreamed of him doing so often. Here
he
was, dark and
glorious, a fantasy fulfilled against the backdrop of her very real
life in its yellow-and-aqua normalcy. How many times had she
thought of him with her head against these pillows…and touched her
most sensitive folds while imagining his hands on her skin, and his
long, thick cock inside her core…

“Those words roll so easily off your
tongue, Miss Chestain.”

There was no moment needed to
interpret his meaning this time. She dared to look into his eyes
for her response. “You’re the first person I’ve ever given them to,
Sergeant.”

He pivoted, tucking in a knee to face
her more fully. “Because you want to respect me with
them?”

She nodded slowly. Thanks to her
thudding heart, it was all she could muster. Dear God, what was she
doing? She couldn’t dance on this edge again with him. He’d invaded
her head once today. Filled her body. Made her scream with
exquisite pleasure. He’d given her incredible new fantasies for
nights in this room…to be revisited alone.

Alone was good. Was what she’d fought
for. Had moved two states and over a thousand miles from that damn
military base to achieve.

“But I don’t feel
respected.”

She gave him a double take. A real,
utterly lame double take. Luckily, she was too pissed to be
embarrassed. “Excuse me?”

“I’d rather not.” His
features took on the texture of golden marble. Smooth. Entrancing.
Beautiful. But deadly if used for force. Imagine
that
.

“Rather not what?” she
demanded.

“Excuse you.” He curled his hands over
the tops of her knees. His fingers, long and confident, spread and
stretched like flesh cages. He planted his chin on top of them,
which brought their faces within inches of each other. “I’d prefer
to keep you right here, so we can easily move to the next
subject.”

Before she could sputter a syllable of
protest, he reached and stroked her jaw then her cheeks. He used
just the tips of his fingers, with such soft purpose…the exact
touch he’d used to catch her tears in the wine room this
afternoon.

Mierda
. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? Remembered it likely
would
be coming after his
growled promise as he’d let her get dressed?
This is far from over, Ava.

“M-maybe we really should call it a
night.”

“Not until we discuss this
afternoon.”

“Ethan—”

“You said some troubling things,
Ava.”

She yearned to jerk away. And damn it,
she would have if he’d used any weapons other than those caressing
fingers, that intent stare. It was genius and devious in the same
move, and she was helpless against it. She fought a furious flush
at remembering the shit that had gone down after the magic in the
wine room.

“You said some troubling things, too,”
she retorted. “And it wasn’t fair.”

“Why?”

She squeezed her eyes
against the new intensity in his stare. Sucked in a sharp breath.
Her chest hurt. Her head hurt. He was storming her heart’s fortress
with a titanium battering ram, letting in light to corners that
didn’t want it. Making her cringe from the blaring heat and
paralyzing fear. She couldn’t let him do this.
I’m sorry, Ethan. I can’t.

“You know why,” she
whispered. A weak laugh escaped after it. “I made you feel ‘real’?
I ‘zapped your spirit’? We’ve been given a ‘treasure’?
Qué no
? What universe are
you living in, Ethan?”

Whew. She’d said it. Now she just had
to brace for his enraged male huff, followed by the wounded
kiss-off and the flight to the next room, where he’d make that call
for the cab before stomping out to the curb. Then she’d be able to
curl into these pillows, bawl her eyes into puffy slits, and start
the disgusting process of pulling up her heart’s drawbridge
again.

A moment passed. Another.

He didn’t move. Even his damn fingers
stayed put, catching the tears she couldn’t hold back
anymore.

“What happened, Ava?”

Just three words. They said nothing.
But they asked everything. “What the hell are you talking about?”
she retorted.

His tone was like his touch, tender
but unyielding. “I’m pretty sure your spirit didn’t always have
such a huge wall around it. So what happened?”

She gulped again. The sting in her
eyes was worse than a thousand bees. “Don’t.” The sound of her plea
was mortifying. “Please don’t.”

His silence wasn’t
reassuring. A moment later, as he curled his knuckles against her
skin, he proved her instinct right. “Maybe the better question
is…
who
happened?”

A crater opened in her
chest. It got filled with memories that were dredged like slime
from the bottom of a swamp, making her clutch his forearms for
purchase. Stupid; so stupid. He’d caused this agony; how could he
help drag her from it? But he did. His skin was warm, his grip
didn’t waver, his muscles were filled with surety. Of course they
were. They’d been trained to take down the baddest of the bad guys,
to keep this entire country safe. They’d keep
her
safe, right? They’d take care of
her, hold her, never leave her—

Never demand what he just had of
her.

“No.” She shook her head desperately.
“I—I can’t—” She stopped and blinked at him. “How the hell did you
even know—”

“I didn’t.” He tilted her face up to
scan every inch of it. “Not for certain. But I do now.”

She tried to jerk away. “Good for you,
Nancy Drew. Proud of yourself?”