CHAPTER SEVEN
KENDALL HAD TO keep from running as they got close to the door of Holden’s apartment. She’d been eager to get him alone all day, and it was slowly driving her insane. She’d been turned on ever since making out in the park, and it had only gotten more intense as they waited around for the winner of Tacotopia to be announced. It turned out to be a chef from LA who’d gone with a surprisingly traditional approach with her beef and lamb filling. Something to do with aged meat and finely chopped peppers. Kendall didn’t understand the subtlety of the recipe, but then again, making coffee was complex for her. When Kyla laughed at Wes’s grumbling, Kendall realized why everyone had been so eager to find out who the winner was—they’d placed bets on it. Wes—who’d sampled twenty different tacos—lost while Kyla—who’d eaten only a single taco—had won.
They’d all hung around Golden Hill Park for another hour after the winner was announced, waiting for the crowd to thin. She’d stood wrapped in Holden’s arms as they talked, listening to the conversation with half an ear as his hard-on pressed up against her bottom, letting her know clearly how much he wanted her. Kendall wanted him, too. Not because sleeping with him would get her that much closer to finding the NSA’s tech toy, but because he was attractive, sweet, protective, and about as close to perfect as a guy could be…even if he was a criminal.
She’d already known some of the things he’d confided about to her at the park from the file the Bureau had compiled on him. That he’d been in a gang, but had never gotten arrested. That his dad had been a lowlife criminal who’d abandoned Holden and his mother when he was a kid.
She had been shocked when Holden said he’d left the gang to work for someone with ties to organized crime, though. There hadn’t been anything in the files about that. It was something worth digging into.
But as potentially seismic as that tidbit of information had been, it wasn’t the thing she found herself spending the most time thinking about. Instead, it was the pain that had filled those beautiful eyes of his the whole time he’d talked about his mother. It was an image she couldn’t get out of her head.
Though Holden hadn’t said anything about his mother’s death, his Bureau file suggested it had been a drug overdose. How the hell did a kid make it through something like that to become a decorated Navy SEAL…and with the personality of a prince? She couldn’t imagine taking care of her family at fourteen.
“You want to order pizza or something?” Holden asked as he closed the door behind them and followed her across the living room.
This was the most he’d said since they left the park. Was he sorry he’d revealed so much personal stuff earlier? Or had he simply been introspective on the drive back to his place?
Kendall turned, stepping into his arms. His hands settled on her waist, tugging her close. She could feel his semi-hard cock pressing against her tummy through their clothes.
“You’re kidding about eating something, right?” she said. “Because I’m still full from the tacos I had earlier.”
He flashed her a grin. “So, if you’re not feeling pizza, what else should we do to occupy ourselves?”
She returned his smile, grinding ever so slightly against his hard-on. “Oh, I don’t know. We could crash in front of the TV. I think the History Channel is showing a Barbarians Rising marathon tonight. We might have missed a little of the beginning, but I’m sure we’re not too late to catch Spartacus and Atilla the Hun.”
He lifted a brow. “Barbarians Rising marathon, huh? I got to admit, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“Really? What do you propose instead?”
“This.”
Slipping his hand in her hair, he tipped her head back and kissed her so hard she thought her toes were going to curl up. She abandoned herself to the feel of his lips on hers, opening her mouth to let his tongue in to play, moaning in pleasure at how good he tasted.
Kendall was so focused on the feel of those amazing lips of his she didn’t realize he’d slid his hands down over her hips until he cupped her butt. One gentle heave and her toes were off the ground, her legs coming up to wrap around his waist in a move that felt as natural as breathing. She locked her ankles together behind his back, his erection nestling against the crease between her legs. She ground against him, the urge to ride him impossible to resist.
Holden kept kissing her as he started walking. Kendall was sure they were heading straight for his bedroom, which would have been fine by her. She’d slept in his bed last night and knew it was comfortable. She had no doubt it’d be even more comfortable with Holden in it with her. But instead, the big SEAL carried her over to the couch and set her down on the back of it. Only then did he pull back to gaze at her intently, his eyes dark with hunger.
He yanked her shirt over her head at the same time she unbuckled his belt. This was insane but she was doing it anyway. And if a part of her questioned the ethics of her decision, she calmly told that part to shut the hell up.
Kendall had just gotten the buttons of his 501’s undone and was reaching in to get her hand around the hard-on she’d been rubbing up against all day when the chirp of a cell phone’s ringing cut through the lust thickened air of the apartment.
“Don’t answer it,” she murmured, still working to get his damn jeans open.
“Got to.” He stopped working on the clasp of her bra and reached around to pull his phone out of his back pocket. “As much as I can’t wait to get you naked, I’m always on duty.” He put the phone to his ear. “Lockwood.”
Holden stepped away from her a bit, like he was trying to put a little distance between his hard-on and the pulsing warmth between her legs. Kendall laughed and grabbed the waistband of his jeans, tugging him close again.
“I’ll be right there,” he said.
For some reason, the words sent an uncharacteristic spike of concern through her. The call had been work-related—and SEALs didn’t do work halfway.
“Do you have a mission?” she asked nervously, not sure why that bothered her.
Oh, yeah. Because he’s the prime suspect in the theft of a nifty piece of NSA spy gear, and if he leaves the country, we’ll never get the thing back.
Yup, that was why she was suddenly worried. Right.
“It could be a mission,” he said as he headed for the bedroom. “But it could be anything. A real-world mission, a deployment, a training exercise. Hell, it could be a piss test and I wouldn’t know it until somebody hands me a bottle. That’s just how it works. They tell me to jump and I don’t even bother asking how high.”
To a certain degree, Kendall understood what Holden was saying. Her job was a bit like that. But deployment and terrorist missions in some far-off country wasn’t something she ever had to deal with.
As she followed him into the room she’d slept in last night—and had planned on sharing with him tonight—Holden yanked his shirt over his head.
Hey, that was supposed to be my job.
“So, you don’t have any idea when you might get back?”
She leaned her shoulder against the door jamb, watching as he stripped down to his underwear. She let her gaze roam all over that awesome body without feeling guilty for even a second. Before that damn phone had rung, they’d been seconds away from getting naked and nasty. In her mind, that meant she had viewing privileges. Right?
Besides, Holden didn’t seem to mind her gawking.
He shrugged as he pulled on a blue camouflage uniform. If she wasn’t so disappointed about seeing all that exposed skin getting covered up, she would have asked why the Navy bothered with camouflage at all. It wasn’t like there were blue trees anywhere out there to hide behind.
“Chances are, it’s some kind of exercise. There’s generally a buzz around HQ when something big is brewing and I haven’t heard anything. If I’m lucky, it will only be a couple days.”
Sitting down on the bed, he pulled on a pair of well-worn boots, glancing up at her as he laced them up. “If you need anything while I’m away, Kimber’s number is on a recall roster pinned up on the wall by the phone in the kitchen. Felicia’s number is in there, too. But if you have a problem with Isaac, I want you to call Kurt. You remember him from the wedding, right? He’s retired and is always available. You even suggest a funny feeling in the back of your mind, and he’ll have a half dozen armed SEALs where you need them in ten minutes flat. Okay?”
She nodded, stunned he was focused entirely on her safety when he had no idea where the hell he was heading thirty minutes from now. He was genuinely worried that Isaac would come after her while he was off doing SEAL crap. What the actual hell? How was it even possible for a man to be so amazing?
“Will you be able to call?” she asked, not even realizing that was the question she was asking until the words were already out of her mouth.
He frowned. “Maybe. I will if I can.”
Finished with his boots, he grabbed his hat from the top of the dresser and walked past her, down the hall and into the kitchen. She followed.
Grabbing a pen from the counter, he wrote something on the notepad beside the phone. “Here’s the password for my Netflix account. And here’s the one for my computer in case Isaac messed yours up when he broke in.” He tapped the back of the pen on a take-out menu hanging on the fridge. “This place makes awesome pizza. I order from there so often they have me on a tab, so feel free to order whatever you want.” He gestured to a key on a hook near the phone. “And this is the extra key to the apartment.”
Before she could say anything, he stuck his hat on his head and moved into the small entryway to pick up his keys from the small table there. Breath catching in her throat, Kendall hurried after him, the urge to stop him from leaving more powerful than she would have imagined.
“Be careful,” she said.
Damn, why the hell was her heart beating so hard. He wasn’t her boyfriend. He was a criminal she was supposed to put in jail.
Holden’s mouth edged up. “I will. Try not to worry, okay? I’ll be back soon.”
Taking her hand, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She kissed him back, stunned to realize there were real tears welling in her eyes.
Then as fast as the kiss started, it ended. And Holden was out the door, leaving her to catch her breath and figure out what the hell she was doing.
Kendall wandered back over to the couch and sat down, her heart rate taking forever to return to normal. Maybe it was a good thing Holden had to leave. Yeah, it put a hell of a crimp in the case, but on a positive note, perhaps it was what she needed to get her head screwed back on straight. She was an FBI agent, not some military spouse agonizing over her husband going off to war. Holden was a bad guy. It was time she started acting like it.
She picked up the TV remote, picking a channel at random, snorting as she found herself watching a documentary on Attila the Hun. Yeah, that’s what she needed. A little alone time with her favorite barbarian.