Page 79 of Dangerous Games (Tempting SEALs 2)

"What were you doing touching my woman's ass to begin with, Mace?" Clint asked him carefully. "I left her here for you to protect, not to be handling."

"A woman only belongs to a man if it's what she wants." Mace grimaced. "I'm telling you, though. That woman." He pointed his fork in the general direction of the bathroom, "Ain't no man gonna own, but only one man is gonna touch. And that's at his own damned risk. You sure you didn't lose a few brain cells when you took up with that mini-volcano?" Maybe he had, because he'd be damned if he couldn't fee1 something inside his chest melting.

"Oh man, you are so sunk," Mace grunted. "Get that fool grin off your face before she comes back in here. I'm telling you,. that woman is dangerous."

'Yeah, she is," Clint murmured, shifting in his seat, realizing he was suddenly hard, engorged with lust. He was so dammed tired that just eating was a chore, but damn if he wasn't ready to show Morganna just who that pretty ass of hers belonged to. "Eat, Mace. She'll forgive you in a few weeks.

Mace choked comically. "She racked me, man," he moaned. "And you're making jokes. I can't believe you're making jokes. And I was just trying to be nice." Mace stuffed his mouth with pancake, sighed, and devoured his half. Evidently being racked didn't affect his appetite. It was affecting Clint's heart, though. He hadn't known a single woman who had ever rejected whatever attention Mace wanted to pay her. Women loved him, lusted after him, stood in line to be at his beck and call. To Clint's knowledge, no woman had ever kneed Mace in his sexual history.

Until Morganna.

Clint finished the pancakes Morganna had made, delicious, fluffy pancakes that damn near melted in his mouth, before he carried his plate and glass to the sink.

"Go get some rest. I'll get these dishes. I'm just running some intel on the computers right now; it will be an hour or so before I have anything worth mentioning."

Clint turned back from the sink, dragging in a weary breath before releasing the pack he still carried from his belt. The black pouch bulged with the four cell phones and a variety of matchbooks, little black books, and an assortment of receipts.

"See what you can get from these." He tossed the pouch on the table. "They came off the four men tailing me."

"Gave 'em up willing-like, did they?" Mace picked up the pouch and hefted it slowly.

Clint stared back at him directly. "It's hard to disapprove of something if you're dead, Mace," he told him softly. "Fuentes has a nice little message coming his way."

"Shit," Mace muttered. "You sure they were Fuentes' boys?"

Mace had a problem with killing first and asking questions later. Clint didn't.

"I recognized one of them right off." He shrugged. "The other three I had to study on. They were all with Fuentes. and four were looking to ambush the dumb little SEAL they were tailing. Their mommas should have raised them better."

"You're cold, man," Mace sighed. "Real cold."

"One of my men is dead and those bastards want to rape my woman," he snarled in reply. "Yeah, Mace, I'm real damned cold, and I can get colder, my friend. Don't you doubt that."

But first he intended to get warm. Real warm. He flicked a final glance at the pouch Mace was picking up before moving through the underground room to the bedroom. Mace had himself a cool little setup here. The bedroom was almost soundproof, the entrance sealed shut with another wall-like door that slid in place when he hit the switch on the inside of the bedroom.

From there, there was a trapdoor down in the bathroom that actually did lead to a sewer access tunnel. Mace was a paranoid SOB, even more so than Clint.

As the wall sealed shut behind him, Clint stripped off his shirt, then sat down in a surprisingly comfortable wing-backed chair to take his boots off. He could hear the water running in the bathroom. Bathwater rather than a shower. Mace had the biggest damned sunken tub Clint had ever laid his eyes on in there. Evidently Morganna was taking advantage of it.

The thought of that had him grimacing at the hard-on swelling beneath his leather pants. The thought of her

stretched out in that huge tub alone, all that sweet darkly tinted flesh, her Spanish ancestry evident just enough to tint her flesh, to give it a soft earthy glow that he loved so much.

It also gave her that damned temper, he thought with a smile.

He couldn't believe she had racked Mace. As Clint placed his boots and socks beside the chair, he rose to his feet, shaking his head at the memory of Mace's bemused expression and Morganna's furious one. If there was one man on the face of the earth Clint would swear could crack any woman, it was Mace.

Morganna had racked him instead.

Clint padded to the open bathroom door, the smell of sweetened vanilla reaching his senses. She was using the bath gel he had chosen from the all-night convenience store where he had found pj's. Warm vanilla sugar. That was the scent. The name had reminded him of Morganna and made his mouth water for the taste of her. So he had bought it. He had bought the bath gel and the pajamas, even though he had no intention of allowing her to sleep in them.

He stepped into the steaming room, intent on joining he: in the bathtub, until he saw her. The steamy water lapped around her slender form as she sat with her knees bent, her face buried against them as her arms covered her head.

Her shoulders were shaking, but the only sign of her sobs was the soft hitch of her breathing. Long, wet corkscrew curls floated in the water around her like a silken cape.

"Morganna." He knelt beside the raised side of the tub fighting his shaking hands as he pushed the long strands of her hair back, over her shoulder. "Baby, why are you crying?"

She shook her head, hiding her face.

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