Page 11 of Twister

“You making new friends or enemies?” Dagger asked, not looking at Sadie.

Geezus, that was a stripper name. He gritted his teeth, then consciously relaxed his jaw. “Petty Officer Sadie Tompkins, no less.” He took a long drink of the bottle. “Where the hell are we?”

“Yeah, you were asleep. We’ve been rerouted to Bali. A Navy diver was murdered by student activists calling themselvesTujuh Tuntutan, or in English Seven Demands.”

“Was the diver on vacation?”

“No, he was diving a submarine wreck, a World War II sunken boat.” The USSKittiwake, named after a small gull with a light body, dark wingtips, and a yellow bill. Notable for nesting on sheer cliffs.

“They went missing in 1945, right at the tail end of the war. Never recovered. They had a small earthquake here, and oceanographers found a life ring with the USSKittiwakestamped on it, badly faded, but clear enough. That got relayed to Washington, and after negotiations with Indonesia’s government, they were granted permission to salvage the boat. They had just gotten underway when the attack happened. We’re here for security to protect the divers.”

“And she’s a diver?” He barely held in the moan. Just his fucking luck.

“Yep. She’s our mission.”

Goddamnit, Twister thought. That meant they would be in close proximity, and the thought of dealing with Sadie on a daily basis made that tight-chest feeling return. She was too observant, too beautiful, too sweet, and too perceptive by half. His only course of action was surliness and avoidance. He didn’t want her as a friend. No goddamn way.

But as his eyes drifted over her against his will, he felt an odd rush, a surge of protectiveness and resentment. His eyes went over every curve and swell of her body.Oh, no. You’re not going down that road.He had to stay away from her if he wanted to avoid torturing himself. He would make everything unpleasantto hide the dangerous state he was in—between anger, terror, and, now, lust.

There was a new kind of fear in him, a kind of fear that ached, longed for understanding, answers, unburdening himself. Maybe if she hadn’t been in the Navy, he would have been more civil, even tried to be friendly, but she was dangerous in more ways than one. He didn’t know her or trust her. How could he trust anyone with this torment? Even his teammates would try to help, and he had no freaking answers or solutions, and that rankled the most.

He’d been independent his whole life and liked it that way. He was the healer in this group, and he was the one who needed healing. It added to that burning anger that he thought he had conquered a long time ago.

But he’d been wrong. It had been dormant but still alive, simmering, just waiting for a moment to ignite. He couldn’t afford that. Operating, being a SEAL, was everything to him. He would protect himself from all enemies, especially ones with big, beautiful brown eyes, an enticing body that was just as dangerous, and all the means to get him to show any weakness.

Sadie sat in her seat,suddenly feeling shivery. She pulled up her hood, not understanding why that only made her feel too hot. Had to be the embarrassment of that man’s rejection. She had no idea who these people were. Most of them had been asleep, and she was directed to a seat when she boarded the plane and told that she was a strap hanger and the rest of the compartment was off-limits.

She was okay with that. Her trip had been arduous. The flight from Hawaii landed somewhere, and she went where shewas told to go, so tired she wasn’t sure about the other stops and takeoffs. She finally found herself in Seoul, Korea hours and hours later on the same uncomfortable vehicle, only to be placed on another one exactly like it. Then on to Bali with all these fit, handsome men who were dressed in military camo. She’d slept very little, so when the guy who was sitting next to her, apparently on the other side of the strap-hanging territory, slipped his head onto her shoulder, she’d found it very difficult to drop off.

It was no wonder. He was…magnificent. And he wanted nothing to do with her. She had watched him sleep. She couldn’t help herself with his body heavy against hers. She could have tried to shrug him off, but he was so tired, she didn’t want to wake him, even when her shoulder started going numb.

She’d wanted to touch him, and she didn’t know why. She wasn’t really a sexual person and didn’t really swoon over men. They were so abundant in the military, and open to just about anything, but they also gossiped, and she had no intention of living up to her provocative name. She was too focused on her job, especially after that relationship with Dylan.

He sat ramrod straight in his seat, and she felt him watching her. She made herself look at him. He appeared distant and unapproachable. And solitary. Very, very solitary. His absolute stillness, his steady, level gaze, his unsmiling expression, did funny things to her insides…things that didn’t make sense—and she looked away, nerves making her heart race. She wondered what lay hidden beneath that inscrutable exterior.

He continued to stare at her for an instant longer, something controlled and menacing in him, and something else she couldn’t quite figure out.

But her fascination with him was all-consuming, and she flushed again at the thought. His skin was dark and gold and smooth and mysterious. His biceps were roped with muscle evenat rest. It was enough to get even her juices flowing, if she was exceedingly foolish, which she’d learned the hard way not to be.

He was in good shape, that was all. Incredibly good shape, just like what she would expect of operators. Now that she was aware, she realized all these guys were special forces…most likely SEALs. And of course, he would look like that, the kind of men whose lives depended on them always being smarter, faster, stronger all the time. Ripped muscle, raw strength, and merciless disposition. She’d felt it in him each time he moved against her, the sleek power, and when he woke up, the intensity in that brown oh-so-burnished gaze pulsated.

SEALs, yeah. It kind of hit her when he’d gotten up to get away from her. There was an efficient grace to his movement, a swagger and balance that seemed to effortlessly gauge the ground beneath him, to interpret and exploit terrain instead of merely traversing it.

Her throat got tight, and she pushed back the feeling of being rejected for her kindness.

He was out of her league.

His face was boyish, despite the hardened edges of his features, and the biker-inspired cropped beard and mustache as black as his short, buzzed-on-the-sides hair, but no one would ever mistake him for a boy, not in any sense. She found it beyond her ability to look only at his attractive face, her glances skipping downward, to his shoulders, his chest, the base of his throat, and all those muscles. It almost hurt, and apparently, like the off-limits compartment, he was absolutely untouchable. Then, as a tingle went through her, she realized that’s what was causing the shivering…him.

He was staring at her. That intense, bronze-hued gaze zapped her with electricity, bored into her, searing her with that burning look.

Her face flamed again, and she looked down, closing her eyes. She was relieved when the plane finally touched down.

She needed to remain cool, firmly in control, and that was exactly the way she needed to keep things. She was here to do a job, a job she was damn good at. That was all.

4

As they were deplaningat Indonesia’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai Air Force Base adjacent to the Bali International Airport, Sadie worked at keeping her eyes to herself. It wasn’t easy with all that flexing movement. What the heck was wrong with her? She was around these types of men all the time, and they weren’t as distracting as her grumpy sleeping beauty.

---