Mission: Impossible to Protect (The Impossible Mission Romantic Suspense Series Book 6), стр. 29
“Why wouldn’t you tell your brothers? They’d be so proud of you.” She tried to sound calm and cheerful, but her insides were twisting into tornado proportions.
He snorted. “Are we speaking of the same Neanderthals that I grew up with?”
“Did Sten disapprove?”
“No, he thinks it’s great. But he appreciates my reasons for not telling the family. Growing up, Sten would try to protect me from my brothers when I’d get lost in my own world.”
Lars gave her a rueful grin, but he couldn’t mask the hurt in his eyes.
“An imagination is a dangerous thing?”
“If you’re a Jenkins male… You value focus, goals, and discipline.”
Danni felt a sudden tenderness for the little boy who couldn’t be imaginative and, most likely, had been ridiculed for not being manly enough. She wanted to hear about his flights of fancy. What did he imagine? Sailing on pirate ships? Exploring jungles? Or was he only allowed to be a marine at the Jenkins house?
“There sure are a lot of rules for being a Jenkins male.”
In the last seventy-two hours, she’d experienced a reality shift bigger than the San Andreas fault. She never considered him as remotely intellectual or sensitive, just another oversexed, macho Jenkins male. But she had learned that Lars Jenkins, swaggering stud, was capable of sensitive feelings. And if that wasn’t enough for one girl to digest, he also was RJ Phillips, a bestselling author whose imagination wasn’t allowed to flourish in his family, but, somehow, he succeeded on his own.
Damn him for shattering her well-defended assumptions. She didn’t want to like him. Double damn. It definitely was problematic and far more complicated than lusting after his hot body.
“But when do you find time to write? You said you’ve been busy as a soldier.” She refused to look away from his perceptive gaze. “You have time to write but not enough time for a long-term relationship.”
“To clarify—what I’ve always said is that I’d never ask a woman to endure the stress associated with an operator’s lifestyle. I’m sure you’ve heard about it from Sophie. What woman wants a man who disappears with barely any notice? And when he returns, he can’t share where he’s been or what he’s been doing? It takes an incredible woman to tolerate the stress. And we always had the example of my mom, who lost Dad when he was on a mission. She did a fantastic job, with Uncle Harry’s help, but I’ve seen the tears and anger and pain from the loss. I’ve never met anyone strong enough to believe I’ll always come back, and yet know there’s a chance I won’t.”
For a second, their eyes met. His eyes filled with longing, like she might be that woman, before he quickly looked away.
“There is a lot of downtime in the military, but you can only play so many video games before you burn out, but never tell Reeves I said that.”
Reeves was an insane gamer.
Like two playful conspirators, they grinned at each other. Their eyes locked in amusement when suddenly their gaze shifted to something more potent—a sexual current arcing between them like two ion rods. Danni found it hard to catch her breath or gather her strength to look away.
She finally lifted her ankle to distract herself from throwing herself at him. She wanted to experience being intimate with Lars Jenkins, despite knowing that she’d be joining hundreds of notches on his bed or belt.
“You need another ibuprofen? Getting uncomfortable again?”
She shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes. The man didn’t miss much. And he read her too well to miss the smoldering need in her eyes. She wanted to kiss him, undress him, touch every sculpted muscle, fill herself with him to prove that she didn’t need him, and this insane attraction was totally physical.
She fiddled with the ACE bandage, trying to convince herself why this was such a bad idea. She was too vulnerable. She needed to be more in control of her feelings to be able to walk away unscathed if she ever had sex with Lars.
“How did you get started on your first book?’
“You have to understand. Sten and I barely knew our father. My one clear memory is of our dad laughing so hard, holding his stomach, because Sten and I had picked all my mother’s flowers to give her a bouquet. We didn’t know they were her prized lilies. By the time I was nine or ten, I begged my Uncle Harry to tell me endless stories about my dad and his life as a marine. It was my way of trying to have a dad, to make him real to me.”
He ran his hand over his head. “I’d always liked English classes, and when I had some downtime on a mission, I started this story about an early marine recon team involved in a rescue mission. I took some of Uncle Harry’s stories, some from fellow marines, and turned it into a book. It was more of a lark to send it to an agent. I just wanted feedback, but he took me on, and I went on from there. But I was afraid that the stories would hurt Mom, or bring back pain, so I didn’t tell them at first. Then it got to be a habit.”
“It must have been so hard.” She reached for his hand to comfort him.
His eyes shot up to hers, sparks flying between them with the touch. He was an incredible man, and she had this one last night with him. She’d return to Seattle, and he’d be off to New York and then to rejoin