Page 13 of Twister

“This isn’t funny, Kade.”

“It is to me. You are always so focused on everything to do with other people, especially the team. You’re allowed a life, Twist. What we do is integral, and anyone who gets involved with us has to understand that, but that doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice everything.”

Something about Dagger’s words stuck in his head. He couldn’t quite understand why they resonated with him just yet, but he would. There was so much noise from Sadie, and his volatile situation, and he was hungry, thirsty, and sleep-deprived.

“You know there’s a procedure you could do to alleviate these symptoms of regret.”

“Oh, what is that?”

“It’s called an apology. Go talk to the woman. She’s not going to bite…well, maybe not now, but later?—”

“Shut the fuck up.” He didn’t want to go there, but Dagger’s words unlocked the floodgate. He wouldn’t mind if she bit him, and other hot, sexual things. It was such a primal act, and it turned him on thinking about those beautiful white teeth nipping at his flesh. He’d never been in such sexual torment. If he felt something, he acted on it. He was a straightforward guy, but he found himself retreating from that aggressive part of himself when it came to Sadie. She spooked him with her compassion, her innate understanding, and her ability to soothe with just her voice and eyes. It made him shiver. She gave him the shivers again as he watched her talking to Easy, shaking his hand when Twister had rejected the overture so rudely, his regret clawing at him again. Easy was so damn easy to get along with. He was pointing them out, and when they got to him, he slammed into Sadie’s gaze.

She lifted her chin a little, and dammit he loved her spunk. She met his eyes unflinchingly, the instantaneous sparks of awareness between the two of them nearly tangible. He certainlyfelt the heat. The way she took several hard breaths made him think of exertion, the naked, panting, aching, fulfilling-fucking kind of activity.

His dick went hard as granite. Dagger was so right. She was freaking adorable, and that only added to his mental turmoil while his body was on full go alert, adrenaline pumping, giving him both a body and head rush.

He met her direct, almost innocent gaze that was as unnerving as it was on the plane. Her soft brown eyes, an extraordinary amber hue, seemed to see past the facade he’d erected to cover his problem, making him aware of how much Dagger had been right about him walling himself up over the years. Walls that had been necessary to keep his real emotions under wraps. Everything about her felt personal, as if she found him much too intriguing to allow her embarrassment to rule her. Something else he liked about her. He was telling the truth with Dagger. She was dangerous with her uncanny ability to unsettle him so effortlessly. She did scare the crap out of him.

His only saving grace was that she was unaware of how much she affected him. And she never would, he vowed, because he wasn’t about to let down his guard or allow her to rattle his control.

But instead of dropping her head, shuffling her feet, or looking awkward, she smiled at him as if she was dismissing his bad behavior in such an understanding way that quickly he was back to thinking about her in a way that was detrimental to his equilibrium. He wanted to see what those smiling lips tasted like…was there innocence there, or would she live up to that provocative name of hers? He wanted to show her with his mouth, hands, body, and dick exactly what she did to him, finding and consuming every hot, sweet female part of her.

“We have some time to get some chow,” Tex said. “Our ride won’t be here for forty-five minutes. Some mix-up withthe powers that be as to our arrival.” Shrugging off his too-stimulating thoughts, he lifted a brow her way, and damned if she didn’t tilt her head and smile in the wake of his scowl.

“Uh, we don’t have any money, LT,” Brawler said.

“I’ve got you covered,” their handler, Jason Baldrick said, pulling out a stack of Rupiah, the Indonesian currency, and handing it out like they were little kids getting their allowance. But it was a fact that they didn’t carry anything but their gear when on a mission.

Flash counted his five bills. “Master Chief, what can I buy with 500,000 Rupiah?”

“Not much more than a couple of burgers.”

“Well, there goes my dreams of retiring on a secluded island with a couple of long-legged babes.” The banter continued between the SEALS as they made their way through the airport, and they all joined in to razz Flash about his retirement plans, seeing that he didn’t have one long-legged babe, much less two.

Sadie stoodthere for a moment in a sensual cloud. The way that man looked at her…. Wow. A shiver shuddered through her, puckering her nipples against her T-shirt and sparking a tumble of excitement in the pit of her belly. Sometimes she cursed her ability to read people, and his reaction to her read like an exotic story. It could be attributed to the fact that she hadn’t had sex in a long time—her luck with men had been so bad, most of them didn’t even call her back. It could be that the chemistry that had ignited between them was just a perfect storm of diverging body and mind clashes. But she didn’t think so. She had made a connection with him, and it had unsettled him…and her…too. She was aching to know why.

Her stomach twisted hard with such a wave of hunger it distracted her from Twister.

This airport was the main one on the island and served something like twenty million tourists. It was mind-boggling. So when they reached the area where they were going to get a pick-up, Sadie and the team made a beeline for one of the coffee services. Her stomach rumbled again.

The shop was near a stairway, and as they all got in line, she noticed that most of the tourists were moving around the terminal in common tourist fashion: full out, dragging cases and small children with them.

Her hunger was momentarily forgotten as she noticed a man standing in the middle of the chaos, not moving, and just looking strange. After she got her coffee and egg-and-cheese breakfast sandwich, she noticed that he hadn’t moved. As she wolfed down her food and sighed at the creamy taste of her latte, she watched him.

She got a really uncomfortable vibe from the guy. Tossing her empty cup and wrapper in the trash, she approached Tex, the man that Easy had pointed out to her as their lieutenant.

He was talking to the bald, massive master chief. She tapped him on his broad shoulder, and he turned to her with raised brows. “Sir, I apologize for interrupting your conversation, but I think there’s something going on with that guy who hasn’t moved in like fifteen minutes. He’s giving me the creeps.”

Tex nodded, his eyes narrowing. “Good eye. We thought the same thing, and airport security has already been alerted.”

“Of course. You guys would be aware of that kind of thing.”

She retreated from him, especially after interrupting his conversation with the formidable master chief. Tired, she leaned against the stair railing and tried with all her might to keep her eyes off Twister. But she noticed he broke off from the groupand started toward her. Her stomach fluttered, and her chest compressed. Was he coming over here to talk to her?

Suddenly, someone shouted, “Bomb!”

People screamed and there was a mad dash toward the exits, the crush of panicked, fleeing bodies clogging all avenues of escape.

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