Karen Anders - Special Ops Rendezvous

“I’m not exactly a team player. But you’re not the only one who owes something to your brother.”

She told herself she was agreeing to stay with him for safety reasons. But that might have been the biggest lie she’d ever told herself. Even though this man stirred her blood, she wasn’t a pushover. But it was clear he was dangerous in so many ways—to her equilibrium and maybe to her very life. She was going to have to be vigilant about both. A cocky loner wasn’t exactly her type. They didn’t usually play nice with others.

“This Lone Ranger act doesn’t work well within a team.”

“Would that be Team Owens?”

She tilted her head. Okay, he was quick on the uptake.

“I’ll show you to my guest room. The bathroom has an extra toothbrush in it and I can find you something to sleep in.”

She nodded, her heart fluttering just thinking about being under the same roof as Sam. He headed toward the back of the house and she grabbed her purse and followed him. He opened the door to a modest room with a bathroom.

“I’ll be right back.”

He disappeared through the doorway across the hall, and Olivia set her purse on the bed. She would have to go to her apartment and pick up some things tomorrow. She also still had arrangements to handle with her brother’s funeral, which was the day after tomorrow.

For a moment, the loss of her brother overwhelmed her and she closed her eyes against the sudden stab of pain, her arm banded around her waist.

“Olivia?”

She started. She hadn’t heard him come up to her.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded. “I was just thinking about John. Were you planning on coming to his funeral?”

“Yes, I was.”

“It’s the day after tomorrow.”

“I know.” He looked sad and guilty all over again.

She couldn’t even tell him it wasn’t his fault, because she didn’t really know if it was. All she knew was that her brother was dead after hiring her to watch one of his patients. That patient was in some kind of trouble that Olivia couldn’t even fathom. After the attempt on his mother’s life and the involvement of one of his army buddies in the shooting, it was clear it was on a much deadlier and wider scale than she’d ever dealt with.

She couldn’t imagine what Sam was going through. He looked stressed, but that wasn’t a stretch. He was seeing her brother for therapy. Whether that had to do with his military service, the turmoil in his private life right now, or something else, Olivia couldn’t guess. She was determined to get answers regarding John’s death.

But she wasn’t going to back off and let her brother or Sam down.

“Let’s get some sleep,” she said. “We’ll tackle it in the morning when we’re fresher.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” He held out a camouflage T-shirt that was large enough that it would come to her about midthigh.

She accepted it and their hands brushed. His were as warm as she remembered his skin had been. There she was again, thinking about him totally naked. When he’d gotten that hard-on, she couldn’t help wondering if it was because she’d been touching him...okay, not in a therapeutic way. She probably was the one who caused it. She couldn’t seem to feel sorry about that. She liked the fact that she turned this man on.

But it would be smart to keep her distance now that she didn’t have to pretend to date him. They could do away with that altogether. Well, she could pretend, couldn’t she?

“Good night, Olivia.”

“Night, Sam.”

He left and closed the door behind him. She set the shirt on the bed and went into the bathroom, finding the spare toothbrush and toothpaste. She washed her face and brushed her teeth, still pondering Sam’s mental state.

Once that was done, she stripped down to nothing but her undies and pulled the shirt over her head. The soft cotton settled against her body, and her skin flushed as she thought of this fabric having at one time been against Sam’s hard chest, broad shoulders and thickly muscled back.

She slipped beneath the covers and wondered how she was going to even get to sleep. So much had happened in just two short days.

She’d have to watch herself and try to find her professionalism somewhere in all that melting she did around Sam.

Any way she sliced it, Sam Winston was trouble.

Chapter 4

Sam started awake, standing in the middle of his room again. His chest was heaving as if he’d been running. His skin was slick with a cold sweat, his shoulder throbbing. He felt sick with fear, the taste of it like bile in his mouth. He was shaking as if he were freezing, but it was warm in the room. Waves and waves of pain, that’s all he could remember. Unending. When he reached for some remnant of the nightmare, there was nothing there.

There should have been.

Plenty.

These bits and pieces of what had happened to him were almost more torturous than actually remembering. Maybe.

The blank place where his memory should be was a wall of darkness.

A black freaking hole.

He walked on shaky legs back to his bed and sat down. Sam eased in a steadying breath, reaching down deep inside himself for calm.

He hovered on the edge of panic and he didn’t know why.

He wanted to call Dr. Owens. He had even risen to go look for his cell when he stopped and...felt that panic inch a bit closer.

“Damn!” he said into the quiet room. Maybe it was because his defenses were down or it was because he needed Dr. Owens, but tears pressed on the backs of his eyes. He wanted to rip out the heart of the person who had stolen Dr. Owens’s life. If he ever found out who that was...and if it was because of him...that was something he would regret for the rest of his life.

The panic intensified and Sam thought he was going to jump out of his skin. Then deep brown eyes flashed in his memory. Then that caramel hair and that soft, kissable mouth. He took a deep breath and the panic receded a little bit more. Olivia’s curves. How she had felt against him, her shapely butt pressed against his groin, the warmth of her skin beneath his forearm. He took another breath and more of the panic retreated.

He went into the bathroom. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His pupils were dilated and he wasn’t sure if this was from the fear, the memory of Olivia or his nightmare.

He turned on the shower and stripped off his shorts, soaked with sweat. The warm water felt amazing. As amazing as Olivia’s hands running over him, giving him relief from the pain. His skin was sensitive as he soaped up and rinsed himself off, the memory of his reaction to what he couldn’t remember being replaced by thoughts of Olivia, thoughts about her wet and soapy against him, her delectable mouth on his, his hands all over her.

He got hard and lost in the fantasy, desperate to push his failure to find peace, to understand what had happened to him, and to make a damn difference away from him. Unable to help himself, he cupped his raging erection and leaned one hand against the wall as he imagined himself deep inside Olivia. He bit his bottom lip as the pleasure built, wondering, imagining how she would move, how she would feel, slick and warm. He came hard, grunting with the spiraling pleasure. Damn, that woman turned him on and she’d been what he needed to push back the darkness.

Outside the shower, he toweled himself off, still vibrating from his powerful orgasm. He went to his dresser and pulled out another pair of army-green cotton shorts with Army Strong stitched into the hem.

He walked out into the hall and then into the kitchen. He pulled a cold bottle of water out of the fridge and unscrewed the cap and downed the whole thing in a few gulps, then grabbed another one.

“Sam?”