Page 46 of Tempted by a SEAL

Noah chuckled. “He got his girlfriend to meet him outside the gate—never seen a guy move so fast.”

“I didn’t realize he even had a girlfriend,” Emma said.

“More like the flavor of the month,” Hunter explained. “He went out with her once her twice—guess he thought he could take her home before we have to be back on base.”

“Lovely,” Emma murmured sarcastically.

“I guess he wasn’t as lucky in London as you,” Noah joked. “He didn’t come back with a beautiful woman.”

“Well don’t I feel special,” Emma said.

“Just ignore him,” Hunter muttered.

Twenty minutes later, Hunter was grabbing both their backpacks from the trunk of Noah’s car as Emma stood in front of his townhouse. “Debrief is in an hour. I hate to leave you right away, but that’s life in the military sometimes. I’m lucky I had time to come back at all.”

“Really, there’s no need to worry,” Emma insisted. “I’m safe here, and I can certainly occupy myself while you’re gone.”

“Right. Well, I need to grab a quick shower and change. I’ll give you the brief tour of my place.”

Emma walked around Hunter’s townhouse, taking in the neat, modern kitchen and living room, then hesitating outside his bedroom. “You can stay here with me,” Hunter said, eyes heating. “I have a guest room, but I want you here in my bed.”

She blushed, pausing in the doorway.

“Hell, I wish I didn’t have to go back to base,” he groaned, crossing the room to her. He tipped her chin up and kissed her, then looked around ruefully. “I’d tell you to unpack, but I know you don’t have anything. I’ll give a buddy of mine a call—Ice. He’s the leader of another SEAL team that’s based out of Little Creek, but his wife Rebecca will get you sorted. Actually, they have a couple of kids, but she’ll send another wife or girlfriend of one of the men over if she can’t help.”

“All right,” she said, blowing out a breath as she sank down onto the edge of his bed.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, this is just all so overwhelming. I barely enough made it back to London, and now here I am—all the way on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In your bedroom!”

“Now that, I don’t mind,” he said, crouching down in front of her to meet her gaze. His hand rested on her thigh, and he squeezed gently. “It’ll work out,” he said. “I’ll grab some clothes for you to change into. You can use the guest bathroom for now if you like. I need to take a quick shower, shave, and roll onto base, but there’s a large bathtub in the other bathroom. I don’t have any of that fancy rose-scented soap, but you can relax while I’m gone.”

“After that long flight, a bath does sound nice,” she agreed. “This jet lag has me really thrown off.”

“Go ahead and get started; I’ll grab some things. They say it’s best to stay up and get used to the time change, but if you want to rest, go ahead. Can’t promise I won’t wake you up when I get back though,” he said, winking as he stood up.

Emma padded down the hallway to the bathroom, seeing the dark circles under her eyes. Good heavens, she looked terrible. All this lack of sleep and moving around wasn’t exactly helping. A long bath was exactly what she needed.

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