Page 94 of Dangerous Games (Tempting SEALs 2)

As Clint allowed her to turn from him, helping her to her feet, she faced the sorrow-filled expression in the other man's face.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Joe blinked back at her. "Why?"

Her gaze moved to the dead man stretched out on the floor, the blood staining his clothes from the wound to his chest. "He was your friend."

Joe paused, his gaze flickering to the body before returning to her. "He was no friend of mine," Joe said softly before turning away and moving toward the officers rushing into the club.

Chapter 26

GROWTH SUCKED. MATURING, SEASONING, GAINING experience, whatever the title, Morganna decided it was a pain in the ... soul.

As the investigation officers swarmed into the club, followed by the Atlanta Division of Internal Affairs, to take over the case of the betrayal and death of Agent Grant Samuels, she saw another side of the horror she was facing in the job she had chosen. And she could feel that seasoning, that growth, rising inside her. Just as she felt the hollow certainty that Clint was right. This wasn't the job for her.

It brought home a resounding crack of reality that she had been trying to avoid. The hard, cold look in Joe's eyes, minutes after he'd shot and killed his best friend, reminded her too much of the banked ice she often saw in Clint's gaze. The look of a man who had known betrayal, who had learned the price of trust. Of love. She didn't want to ever learn those lessons.

As she gave the investigators her report, she watched Clint. The customers who had filled the club had been released, leaving Joe and his remaining agents, herself, and Clint. Kell and Ian had slipped out with the crowd to preserve their cover. It wasn't over. Fuentes was still out there.

"You doing okay?" Clint moved next to her as the investigator took her signed report and moved to Joe.

She still wore Clint's jacket pulled close around her to ward off the chill she could feel moving through her very bones.

"I'm doing fine." She inhaled deeply, staring around the club with a sense of disbelief. "Any word on Fuentes?" "Nothing." Clint shook his head. "Jayne and her men apprehended a bastard uncle, Jose, and the nephew Santiago attempting to make their way into the private elevator that leads downstairs. They're in custody now. Manuelo managed to slip away, but Kell and Ian are looking for him."

Morganna propped her arms on the table she was sitting at and lowered her head to push her fingers through her hair.

"So what do we do now?" She stared around the club again, hearing the eerie echo of the officers' voices as they cleared up the final investigative process.

Grant had been placed in a body bag and taken away, while two officers had been sent to his home to notify his wife of his death.

"Now we wait." Clint sat down in the chair opposite her, stretching his long leather-clad legs in front of him as he watched her quietly. "And watch. He'll move again soon."

Morganna pressed her lips together as she clenched her teeth against the curse that wanted to pass her lips. She wanted this over with, now. She wanted Fuentes caught, wanted him off the streets and behind bars. She wanted to curl into Clint's arms and assure herself that the ice lurking in the back of his gaze would melt, it would thaw, and he would find a way to stay in her life.

Maybe it was just adrenaline overload, she thought, lifting her eyes back to him, staring into the midnight orbs and feeling her chest clench at the cold that shadowed the concern. He cared, she knew he did, but not where it mattered, not where it would keep him with her forever. And she knew it. When this operation was over, Clint would be gone, and it was breaking her heart.

"So what next?" She pulled her eyes from his, hating the clenching pinch of pain in her chest.

"Next, we head downstairs, eat dinner, and-"

"I'm not hungry, Clint."

"That's just too bad, darlin'," he drawled with silky warning. "Because I am, and I'm going to insist that you share a meal with me. Then we'll have a nice hot shower and go to bed. Where hopefully I'll get a chance to fuck the fight out of you so you can sleep peacefully in my arms."

She stared back at him. A grin edged at his lips, crinkled the corners of his eyes, but the hand that lay on the table was tense, almost curled into a fist.

"Don't put yourself out." Morganna rose jerkily to her feet, glaring back at him in ire.

"Morganna." He followed suit, moving to his feet to block her way. "What's wrong?"

What was wrong? She had watched a friend betray her, watched another's life destroyed, and it had brought home the glaring fact that the dream world she was living in was going to come crashing down around her feet any day.

It was in Clint's eyes. In the careful deliberation he used when he "handled" her. He wanted her; he craved her physically; she was woman enough to know this. Hell, it was more than that. He loved her. He loved her so much that he would never allow himself to stay with her. The house of cards she had been building in her own heart was crumbling around her.

"Nothing's wrong." Nothing except the truth.

Clint wasn't a man who changed his mind often. The vasectomy she had forced herself not to think about was a nail in the coffin of her dreams.

---