Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT Caribbean Nights #9) - Kat Cantrell Page 0,60

the path to getting it seemed so murky. She and Charlie desperately needed some clarity, and she had to figure out how to get it.

Charlie woke from a nightmare-free night’s sleep with Audra’s hair tangled around his fingers and the rest of the woman tangled around his body. That was a nice way to greet the morning indeed, especially given that they had the whole day off and no plans to do anything more strenuous than steam up the shower with some well-placed body parts.

He could do this a lot more often. Like maybe on a more permanent basis. But given how she’d reacted to the discussion of marriage, he wasn’t so sure Audra was willing to jump into that. He didn’t blame her for being gun-shy given their history. But oddly, the more time he spent with her, the more he could envision the possibility of trying long-term. Sheer will went a long way toward keeping his cool when weird things started firing off in his body.

But whether he got his own roadblocks to this relationship straightened out or not, that didn’t automatically turn Audra into someone who liked the idea of commitment. She had never been needy, which honestly had always been her most attractive quality. Who the hell was he to be thinking about long-term anyway, especially with a woman who had turned independence into an art form?

Of course, if she was pregnant, the discussion would be very short. Pick a date to get married and where you want to live. Selfishly, he’d prefer not to have to force the issue and for her to think the idea was wonderful. But today was not the day to hash all of that out.

Audra stretched her lithe little body, and her butt brushed up against his groin with exactly the right pressure to get his attention.

“Looking for me?” he growled and spooned up against her back to nudge her with his instant erection. She smelled like woman and sex, and it put a slow burn in his midsection that he intended to nurture into a hot flame.

Instead of wiggling into place so he could push inside her slowly and firmly like he’d had in mind, she rolled away, springing up out of the bed with way too much energy.

“Get up,” she instructed, clearly not interested in the irony of how “up” he already was or she would have stayed in bed to take care of his needs. Not one of which was to be out of bed at nine o’clock in the morning.

“I would rather you not get up,” he grumbled. “Why are you way over there? And putting clothes on?”

Her gorgeous rear disappeared behind a bikini bottom, and she turned, unashamedly half-naked and unconcerned about displaying her bare breasts that had abrasions on them from Charlie’s whiskers. “Because we have places to be.”

He shoved his hands behind his head in order to get comfortable as he watched the show. Her breasts were a work of art that should be admired with all due respect.

But then she ruined everything by covering her erect nipples with the triangles of a swim top and tied the strings. Shame. Now he was going to have to move in order to get her naked again.

“I’m an expert at untying that,” he informed her. Obviously she required an education on how a “day off” worked.

“I’m counting on it,” she informed him back with a saucy swing of her hips. “I’m taking you to Ilhota Rosa. This is my day off, and I want to have fun. Dolphins, salt water, and your magic fingers are all on my list. Unless there’s something else you want to add?”

Okay. So maybe she did have a grasp on the concept.

“An entire box of condoms,” he quipped and didn’t miss it when she flinched.

They’d kept using protection despite that one misstep; not enough time had passed to figure out if it mattered. Or rather, whether or not she was pregnant. Clearly, the broken condom mattered, or she wouldn’t have visibly blanched when he brought up getting married.

Every other woman on the planet would appreciate a man who stepped up to his responsibilities, who did the right thing every time without fail. And marrying the mother of his baby counted as the right thing. Always.

Even if he’d never considered the idea of marriage before. To anyone. Marriage had little to recommend it, and it was permanent. What if he fell apart again, like he had in that horrible little hospital