Page 18 of Due Process

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“What?” He leaned forward and ran his lips along her jawline.

“My friends challenged me to a dare. Get you in bed and get a souvenir to prove that I actually slept with you.”

That confession jerked his lips away from her skin. One corner of his mouth kicked up and a wicked glint appeared in his eyes. “A dare. I like that.”

“You would,” she said, her voice unnaturally weak.

The glint intensified. His gaze still riveted on her, he rubbed his thumb slowly on her jaw; then he gave her another one of those heart-stopping smiles.

Those cobalt blue eyes riveted to hers, not giving her any indication of his next move. So, he took her totally by surprise when he framed her face with his hands, tipped her head back, and covered her mouth in a full, no-holds-barred kiss.

Shaken and weak, with her heart hammering so hard that she could not catch her breath, Sienna extricated herself from him and backed away.

“After my response to that kiss, it would be lame for me to say you don’t affect me. Let’s get on with this investigation and you cool your jets.”

He grinned at that, his eyes dancing with mischief.

“Truce. You go shower and change and we’ll go from there. Deal?”

“That’s a deal. Although you look good in that uniform, you might want to change. It’s a bit conspicuous.”

His grin never wavered.

“I’ve got a duffel with civvies in my car.”

She looked up into his face and couldn’t dredge up any animosity. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she stuff all those feelings in a mental closet? She was normally a levelheaded, practical person, but she knew this for what it was: a losing battle.

* * *

Once in the locker room, she indulged herself for one moment by closing her eyes and letting out a long breath.

She’d been right the whole time. A.J. was a dangerous man. What she’d experienced was complex and confusing.

It wasn’t like her, she told herself as she took the time to gather her wits. Losing control in the arms of a man felt strange to her. If a man even tried to push her buttons, she put him in his place and received no argument in return. A.J. obviously wasn’t just any man.

It was no secret she liked being the button pusher. Rules and regulations dictated her life, and she kept that one hard-and-fast rule: stay in control. But her interaction with A.J. told her he could break that one.

She’d worked so hard to shape herself into the person she was, laying her life out in very deliberate stages. With inner strength, she’d overcome the chaos in her life. With courage and determination, she’d beaten it back. Shecouldchange the blueprint when it was necessary. She wasn’t rigid. But nothing, absolutely nothing, jolted the vision.

All that should be on her mind right now was the fact that there was a truckload of guns—including grenade launchers—out on the streets of San Diego and it was her responsibility to keep the city safe. That meant tracking down A.J.’s brother and seeing justice was served, regardless of the private toll it might take on her or A.J.

She wondered how she was going to keep her professionalism, not to mention her sanity, when it was all over.

* * *

Raymond Merchant, weapons manager for San Diego Naval Base, parked his car outside the offices for Taylor Import and Export and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. H wouldn’t normally come here to talk to Jack Taylor. It only served to make Jack’s summons more ominous.

Damn Buckner for panicking and taking the weapons shipment with him, a carefully assembled shipment that had been very difficult to amass right under the Navy’s nose.

Getting a job on the huge naval base located in Coronado had been Jack’s idea.

But it had been Ray’s idea to hire Buckner, who’d been willing to take on the job for money.

When he knocked on the door and was told to come in, Jack was sitting casually behind his desk.

“Ray, make yourself comfortable,” Jack said pleasantly as if Ray was there for a social call.

Jack gave him a friendly smile. It made his skin crawl. Ray knew that Jack could not stand incompetence. He knew that because he’d worked for Jack for three years. People who crossed Jack stopped breathing.


Tags: Zoe Dawson Suspense