Saving Amber - Zoe Dawson Page 0,21
stay there for a long time.
She was a reminder that he might have missed something with James, her very presence at the base called into question his ability to do this job and it reminded him too much of Banyan. He took a swallow of the bourbon and it burned in his mouth and in his throat, going down as smooth as the amber liquid appeared in the heavy cut of the glass.
Unbidden, Doc Cross’s words penetrated his inebriated brain. I think you’re harboring pain about that consulate incident, and you’ve closed yourself off, so you never have to feel it again. The corps has become your crutch and you use it like a goad to punish yourself. It’s not just your relationships in the corps. It’s all relationships.
He closed his eyes again. Damn him. It wasn’t true. He’d spent fifteen years with the corps. It just wasn’t true!
He’d dedicated his life to the corps, but he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be free of the strict rules and regulations and come home to a woman like Amber every day. He distracted himself with her. Desperately needed something to erase Doc Cross’s words. He thought about this morning and the way she’d bent herself into those provocative poses, limber and slender. He clamped his jaw.
Even with the alcohol, he hardened in his pajama pants at the thought of that sweet, smiling mouth beneath his. And the minute he thought about kissing her was when it was all over. Time for lights-out. He went to rise, and his hand slipped on the edge of the table where some of the bourbon had spilled. His out-of-control hand then clipped the glass and it careened off the table, hitting the floor with a loud, popping sound.
He groaned when Amber’s door slammed open and she pelted down the stairs. She arrived in something too skimpy for his libido at this moment. Then it registered, she had a gun.
“Tristan?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”
“It’s the middle of the night and you’re locked and loaded?”
She dropped the gun. “It sounds like you’re just loaded.”
“Yeah, I’ve been drinking. Mind your own business. You’re not my mother or my commanding officer.”
“I didn’t…I wasn’t reprimanding you, just mad because you didn’t offer me one.”
Goddamn, he didn’t want to like her.
He swore at his clumsiness, bent down to pick up the visible shards and hissed, dropping the broken pieces in a tinkling storm as pain sliced into his palm and blood welled.
She took a few more steps closer and he lunged at her, catching her around the waist and lifting her off her feet. “Stop! There’s glass on the floor, you’ll get cut.”
And just like that he found himself in the one position he didn’t want to be in—anywhere close to her soft skin. It was customary for him to sleep without a T-shirt, but he wasn’t even sure the cotton between them would have helped. He hefted her easily and took a few steps away from the possibility of glass and set her down.
Her eyes narrowed in on his hand and she set her gun down on the coffee table. “You’re bleeding.”
“Get. You’ll cut your feet.” He was trying to ignore how soft and creamy her skin looked.
“My God, you are so bad tempered. I’m just trying to help.”
“It’s not helping.”
She made an exasperated noise and grabbed his wrist and dragged all six feet four inches, 260 pounds of his reluctant ass into the small downstairs bathroom, while talking the whole time.
“I swear, Tristan. I have never seen a man who is so damn contrary all the time.”
Still talking, she opened the door to the medicine cabinet. “All I’m trying to do is help, but you have this chip on your shoulder about NCIS agents. Don’t even give me the benefit of the doubt, just jump to all kinds of conclusions…”
“Amber,” he said, desperately trying to get her to stop, using up his last ounce of willpower to ignore the roar of chemistry between them, which was as difficult as hitting the tail end of a flea from a thousand yards. But she just kept talking, her soft lips dragging him closer to her. He thought about begging her.
“…and getting your Semper Fi skivvies all in a twist when this is my job—”
“Amber, for Christ’s sake.” He grabbed her wrist, trying to hustle her out of the bathroom and back to bed. Ah, damn why did he have to go and do that? Think