Page 43 of Cowboy SEAL Christmas

Slowly, he crossed his arms over his chest. “We seem to be talking at cross purposes.”

Which sounded like something she would say. That calmness was supposed to be her, and it made her all the angrier that he was employing it. So she decided to take the Gabe role. She smiled. “Is that SEAL talk?”

His expression flickered from stoicism to something dangerous. Her heart kicked against her ribs and nerves fluttered in her chest, and yet she stepped toward him. She wanted to dive into thatdangerous.Poke it until something got through his stoicism or fake charm.

She wanted to poke at him until the mask came off. Until she got behind the barriers. She wanted to reach whatever genuinemanexisted under that facade. Sheknewit existed because he was a kind, good man in action.

She just needed him to express that goodness in words, too. Why? She hadn’t really figured that out, but maybe if she provoked him enough, she would.

His eyes still glittered, but she watched as he very purposefully relaxed his shoulders, his jaw. A grin curved his mouth. “You know, I bet we can find a purpose not to cross on.” His gaze flicked to Colin’s sleeping form. “If we were alone.”

“You like to throw your innuendo around an awful lot, but you’ve never once acted on it.”

He was suddenly so much closer, and she wasn’t sure how he’d done it so fast, so quiet. He was looming over her, all sharp edges and so many emotions she couldn’t sort through them all.

She didn’t want to. She wanted to absorb them rather than dissect them. Reach out and stand through the storm with him.

“Is that a dare, Monica?” he asked in that silky, dark voice that slithered along her skin. Part nervous fear, and then deeper, a kind of want she didn’t know what to do with. Except move away from it.

“N-no.”

He cocked his head as if he’d scored some point. “Then what is it?” he asked all innocence and utter bullshit.

She lifted her chin. Maybe she’d blush or stutter, but she wouldn’t slink away like a coward. “An observation.”

“You haven’t taken me up on any of my innuendo, Monica. Why would I act on it if you didn’t want me to? Because I’ve routinely asked if you want me to, and your answer is always no. So, until it’s yes…”

He shrugged, and it was as if the smart, rational part of herself died—or at the very least passed out completely—because she moved forward. As close as they’d been when they’d been dancing, and she tilted her head, so she could meet his dark, glittering gaze, and she said the craziest word she’d likely ever said in her life.

“Yes.”

Chapter 11

A simple, one-syllable word, and it cracked through him like an explosive.

Yes.

He wanted to taste theSsound on her mouth, wanted to hear that yes a few more hundred times, and he wanted her.

But her kid wasthere, and she’d guessed too much with all her obnoxious questions. She’d brought up old ghosts, no matter how half-formed, and there was some awful, dark piece of him that wanted her to hurt the way that he did.

“You think I’m going to make you a real girl?”

She didn’t wilt or wither. She held his gaze, and though the color was still high on her cheeks, everything about that expression was a shade too close to patronizing for his peace of mind.

“I said yes, Gabe. What’s the excuse now? First it was my profession, then it was my consent. So, what’s the next one?”

He could use the kid. Probably effectively too. Colin might be the soundest sleeper in the world, but what mom wanted her kid to accidentally wake up in the middle of anything, well… But she was making his excuses—even valid ones like Colin—feel cowardly.

He wouldn’t let her turn him into a coward. He wanted her, and maybe there were a million reasons not to have her, but what did they matter? She was close and challenging and, hell, something like a kiss might even get this whole needling, persistentwantout of his system.

Seemed like a long shot, but sometimes long shots worked out.

He reached out to take one of those flyaway strands of hair between his fingers, and her breath caught. He forgot all about caution or cowardice or long shots. There was only the silky feel of her hair between his fingers, the reddish tint to her mouth, the way the dark green of her silky dress made her skin look like untouchable marble.

He was so tired of all the things in his life he wasn’t supposed to touch, to get.

So he touched. His fingers tracing the line of her neck, up to that stubborn jaw that somehow haunted him even before he’d admitted to himself he could be haunted.

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