Karen Anders - Special Ops Rendezvous

He started and spilled water down his chest, grimacing and gasping as the cold liquid hit his hot skin.

She blinked in the light from the kitchen, her expression apologetic. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Olivia?” Her hair was tousled around her face with a half-lidded sleepy look that said she’d just rolled out of bed. The thought of her all warm and soft against him arrowed right into his groin. She looked luscious in his oversize shirt. It fit her like a dress. He liked that she wasn’t at all self-conscious around him.

That heated fantasy came back to him and he reached for a towel, dragging his eyes away from her.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m sorry I woke you. Just a nightmare.” He wiped off his chest, displacing his dog tags as Olivia’s eyes followed his movement. Was she looking at him or what he was doing? His blood surged.

“I thought I heard running water.”

“I took a shower.”

Her eyes traveled over him and he got his answer. She was looking at him. Definitely. In the past, he wouldn’t have hesitated in making time with a woman. But this was Dr. Owens’s sister and...well... He rubbed the back of his neck. Hadn’t he just jacked off thinking about her? He was an idiot and, on top of it, he was so messed up. All he could allow himself to do was think about it. But his mind went there anyway. He knew that reality would be much better than his fantasy.

“Did it help?”

He hid his smile. “Yes, it did.”

He rolled his shoulder to try to alleviate the dull throbbing there.

She came into the kitchen when she saw the expression of pain on his face. “Is your shoulder bothering you?”

If he said yes, she would probably offer to help, and he couldn’t quite hold on to his resolve. His family was great as usual, but with all the turmoil in his professional and personal life, it was nice to think about a beautiful woman giving him some measure of comfort. The fact that it was Dr. Owens’s sister was ironic.

“Yes, it’s 24/7, honey.”

She gave him a wry look at the flippant endearment. “Come into the living room and I’ll work it for a bit.”

Without giving him any time to answer, she took his wrist and pulled him into the living room. He’d met some forceful women in his life, and his mother was at the top of the list, but he’d had yet to meet one he’d let drag him around by the nose or his dick.

But he was beginning to reassess that whole thing since not only was Olivia steal-his-breath beautiful, but her assertiveness was a turn-on.

She sat down and with her hands on his hips, turned him so his back was to her. “Sit.”

He chuckled as he complied. “Yes, ma’am.”

She slipped one of those silky bare arms under his armpit and around his shoulder joint to hold him steady as she began to knead the muscles connecting to his shoulder.

He breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed.

“You can lean back if you want, Sam. I’m not a delicate flower.”

She pulled him toward her and he sank into her, her chin just over the shoulder she was working, her breath warm against his skin. The wisp of her exhale sent a shiver of pleasure along his nerve endings. He was glad he took the edge off in the shower, because this was pure sensual torment.

“Wow, you’re still a bit tight. Have you thought about seeing a chiropractor?”

Reclining against her now, listening to her voice, which managed to be both soothing and no-nonsense, and breathing in her enticing scent, he could barely register what she was saying.

“Sam?”

“Huh.”

“Chiropractor?”

“Um, no. I hadn’t,” he said, sighing again as the pain lessened with the pressure of her warm, insistent hand. “How do you know all about this therapeutic massage?”

“I was actually a massage therapist. In fact, I’ve had a number of jobs that have now come in quite handy as a P.I. A jack-of-all-trades makes it easy to fit into any kind of job you might need to carry out your client’s wish. I did once have certification but faked it this time to get the job. They might have discovered it eventually, but it was only a temporary situation. Or so I thought.”

He dropped his head back against her shoulder and looked up at her, into eyes that easily held his own when challenged.... Yeah, he was finding his rationale a little harder to hang on to.

His body was finding it even more difficult. He had to chalk that up to being a man, one who didn’t hesitate to take what he wanted most of the time. Her hair smelled good and he breathed deeply of her scent, the strands tickling his cheeks.

“You need to do it.”

Those words immediately evoked the image of him on top of her doing it. “Huh?” he said, feeling drugged and sluggish with the intoxication of her.

She laughed softly, “The chiropractor? Are you getting sleepy?”

No, he was getting turned on even more. This close he could see that her eyes were a deep brown, like melted chocolate. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Was that a yes to the chiropractor or yes to being sleepy?”

“You are very pushy.”

“Ha! Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black, Sam?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a hard look. “Don’t patronize me.”

He chuckled and her face softened, her eyes roving over him. Ah, damn, he didn’t need her looking at him as if she was thinking any of those same things in return or getting turned on by him. Temptation, in this case, was not a good thing. He had enough to handle just trying to keep his head on straight—make that both his heads.

He couldn’t afford to be noticing things, or noticing her noticing things, either.

But her gaze stayed on his face and then dipped boldly down to his mouth.

* * *

Olivia had never been one of those coy women. She had always dealt with men just the same as she’d dealt with women. They needed to be handled differently, of course. Men were action-oriented, relied on logic and concise communication. Say exactly what you meant around a man and he would get your meaning every time. Even Olivia found that read-between-the-lines crap some women liked to peddle annoying.

So her reaction to Sam was intense. Much more intense than it had been with any man she’d dated. His looks aside, he was intelligent, compassionate, tough, obviously courageous and had a good sense of humor.

She liked so many things about him, which was good and bad. Like where she was right now, taking his weight against her, touching all that tanned, gorgeous muscle.

She pressed harder into him and he groaned softly, and that had a very volatile effect on her, sizzling her nerve endings. “It will feel better in a minute,” she promised.

“No pain, no gain?”

“Something like that.”

He closed his eyes and sighed, his dark, impossibly thick eyelashes like half-moons on his cheeks. “That feels great,” he said. “You might not do this for a living, but you’re good at it.” The stubble shadowing his jaw accentuated his mouth. She really, really needed to stop looking at that mouth. But the stubble gave him a rugged edge, emphasizing all the more those beautiful lips of his.

She shifted and he tensed. “Don’t move,” she said as she slipped out from behind him, leaving him to recline against the cushions. “Let me work it from the front.”

She dug in again and her hands trembled. She braced her hand beside his head, intending to use her elbow to get at the muscle in his joint, but she lost her focus and her damn mind in the beauty of Sam. Instead of continuing with the massage, she leaned all the way down, bracing her hand on the other side of his head. Fleetingly, she thought this was such a bad idea for so many reasons. But the impulse came over her and she couldn’t seem to help herself. He seemed so alone, so isolated, she wanted to comfort him in a more intimate way. She brushed her lips across his.