Tawny Weber - A SEAL's Fantasy

Phillip. Prince Perfect, as she’d called him growing up. She’d never have figured her uptight, upright brother to inspire that kind of devotion, but who knew. It’d been a lot of years since she’d seen him. Maybe he’d developed warmth, or oh, inspired miracle, even a little compassion in the last decade.

Or the gorgeous messenger was simply a card-carrying member of the penis brigade, loyal to any and all who sported the same equipment.

Men were funny that way.

Lara knew the only person worthy of her loyalty was herself. It hadn’t taken long to figure that out—all she’d needed was for every single other person in her life to let her down before she’d clued in.

Climbing the steps to her building, she felt the weight of the day pressing on her shoulders. She’d danced the matinee and the early show, escaped a gorgeous mountain, then attended both class and lab.

She still had about twelve hours of homework before Monday night and eight shows to dance over the weekend. If she nailed this assignment, she’d have the top grade in the class. This cyberinspection program was the last of her course load and the school offered internships to the best graduating students with three top-flight security firms.

Six more weeks and she’d be working for one of those three. With a happy sigh, she rounded the hallway to her corridor. A year’s internship while she still danced on the side and she’d be ready to go out on her own.

Lara Lee, Cyber Detective.

She grinned, then blinked. Frowning, she noted the hall lighting was out. Weird. The super was a lech, but he was a conscientious one.

No biggie. She was the second door, so seeing her keyhole wasn’t a problem.

She’d just gotten her key in the lock when she felt him.

It wasn’t his body heat that tipped her off.

Nope, it was the lust swirling through her system, making her knees weak and her nipples ache.

Taking a deep breath, this time she did shift her keys between her knuckles as she turned around.

“Do you always lurk in the shadows?” she asked.

“Hall light is out. Shadows are all you’ve got here.”

“What do you want?”

“I already told you. I need to talk to you about your brother.”

“And I already told you. I don’t have a brother.”

Not anymore.

“Lieutenant Phillip Banks. Of the Maryland Banks’s. Parents were Randall and Ellen. Dad owned an investment firm and dabbled in politics. Ring any bells?” His words were easy, the look in his eyes as mellow as the half smile on his full lips. “Brother went to Annapolis right out of school. Top honors, joined the Navy as an ensign.”

Her eyes narrowed, noting the slight change in his tone. His expression didn’t change, but he didn’t sound as though he admired those accomplishments too much.

“My last name is Lee.” All her legal documents said so. It’d cost her a quarter of the small trust her grandmother had left her to make sure of it when she’d run away. Then, before she could stop herself, she asked, “Why are you running errands for this guy, anyway?”

His dark eyes flashed for a second before he gave a lazy shrug.

“Sweetheart, do I look like anyone’s errand boy?” he asked, leaning his shoulder against the wall. He still blocked her exit. He was that big. But at least he wasn’t looming anymore.

She couldn’t resist.

She let her eyes wander down the long, gloriously hard length of his body. Broad shoulders and a drool-worthy chest tapered to flat abs, narrow hips and strong thighs. His boots were black, worn and very, very big.

She wet her lips and met his eyes again.

He didn’t look mellow now.

He looked hot.

As if he’d like to strip her down and play show-and-tell.

Tempting, since she’d bet that’d be worth seeing.

“Sorry,” she said truthfully. “I’m not the woman you’re looking for.”

* * *

DAMN.

Not for the first time in his life, or even the first time today, Dominic cursed Banks. The guy was a major pain in the ass. Even while captured by a psychopathic drug lord, he was still causing trouble.

Didn’t it figure that long, lean and sexy was gonna be just as bad.

He wanted to grab her, haul her off to the nearest horizontal surface and show her exactly what he was looking for.

Which meant they’d both be naked, there’d be a bottle of warm body oil and a bowl of whipped cream nearby, and he’d be showing her with his mouth.

Insane.

He was on a mission. It might not be recognized by the brass, but it’d been handed down by his superior officer. So to Castillo, it was a duty.

She was his duty.

He’d never lusted after a mission before.

Not in the rock-hard-dick, blood-pounding-desire kind of way.

He didn’t like it.

He wished he could say the same about the woman in front of him.

Her chestnut hair swept over strong cheekbones like a heavy curtain, ending at the sharp angle of her chin. She was tall, at least six foot in those heels, and all leg. All long, delicious leg encased in tight denim.

Tall meant he could gaze straight into her eyes. She’d looked like a sexy goddess on stage, her eyes heavily made up, false eyelashes glittering with rhinestones and her lips a candy-apple red.

But here, now, she looked even sexier.

He knew women. Oh, boy, did he know women.

So he knew that the only thing she had on her face might be a layer of moisturizer. No matter, she was great without it. Her skin glistened with just a hint of gold, her full lips were rosy and her huge green eyes were fringed with thick dark lashes.

“So if you’re nobody’s errand boy, what are you doing here, bugging me with some message I don’t want to hear?” Those sloe eyes bland, she gave him a long look up, then down, as if she were assessing the goods. Since her expression didn’t change, it was hard to tell if she liked the view or not.

Dominic didn’t know why that fascinated him so much. It wasn’t as if he expected to appeal to all women, but for the most part, they pretty much fell at his feet. Most offering any variety of promises—everything from sex to bearing his children to general worship. So this cloaked indifference was an interesting change.

Intriguing.

“I serve with Banks,” he told her, figuring that said it all.

“Serve? Like, what? Drinks?” she asked, leaning against the wall and batting her eyelashes.

First an errand boy and now a waiter? She was either lousy at reading people, or she was hot on giving him a bad time.

His research said that their grandfather had been a Navy commander, that she’d grown up in Annapolis’s backyard and that her brother had been well on his way to graduating the Naval Academy with honors when she’d run away. So he figured she was all about the bad time.

“Look...” She paused, arching one slender brow in question.

“Castillo,” he filled in.

“Look, Castillo. I don’t know what you want with this Banks guy, or what info you think you can get from me about him.” As if sensing that he’d been about to interrupt, she held up her palm and shook her head. “Whatever it is, I’m not interested.”

“I’m not here to get info, sweetheart. I’m here to protect you.”

Damn. Dominic grimaced. What was with his mouth? He shouldn’t have said that. He was just here to keep an eye out, not to scare the poor woman. Then he thought of the message he’d gotten while waiting outside her building.

Bad Ass says bad juju. Ugly on the move.

It didn’t take much to decode that Brody was warning that things were going bad in Guatemala, they hadn’t gotten Banks out and Valdero’s men were likely to grab Banks’s sister as leverage.

So maybe she should be a little scared. If that made her cautious, it was worth the info breach.