probably on to something?” He snorted. “Hell, I’d trust your hunches over FInCOM’s any day.”
He wasn’t laughing. He actually believed her.
As Syd followed Lieutenant Lucky O’Donlon out into the brilliant afternoon, she realized that over the past few days, something most unlikely had occurred.
She and Navy Ken had actually started to become friends.
SYD OPENED HER EYES and found herself gazing up at an unfamiliar ceiling in a darkened room. She was lying on her back on a couch and…
She turned her head and saw Dr. Lana Quinn’s gentle smile.
“How’d I do?” she asked.
Lana made a slight face and shook her head. “A ‘dark, old-model sedan’ was the best you could come up with. When I asked you what make or model, you said ugly. You didn’t see the plates—not that anyone expected you to—but I have to confess I’d hoped.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Syd tiredly pulled herself up into a sitting position. “I’m not a car person. I’m sorry—” She looked around. “Where’s Luke?”
“Waiting room,” Lana said as she pulled open the curtains, brightening up the room. “He fell asleep while he was out there—while I was putting you under. He looked so completely wiped out, I couldn’t bring myself to wake him.”
“It’s been a tough couple of days,” Syd told the doctor.
“I heard another woman was attacked last night.”
“It’s been frustrating,” Syd admitted. “Particularly for Luke. We haven’t had a whole lot of clues to go on. There’s not much to do besides wait for this guy to screw up. I think if Luke had the manpower, he’d put every woman in both of these cities in protective custody. I keep expecting him to start driving around with a bullhorn warning women to leave town.”
“Quinn’s in DC this week,” Lana said. “He’s worried, too. He actually asked Wes Skelly to check up on me. I left for work earlier than usual this morning, and Wes was sitting in his truck in front of my house. It’s crazy.”
“Luke keeps trying to get me to stay overnight at the base,” Syd told her, “and for the first time in his life, it’s for platonic reasons.”
Lana laughed as she opened the door to the waiting room. “I’m sorry to have to kick you out so soon, but I’ve got another patient.”
“No problem. Dark, old-model sedan,” Syd repeated. “Thanks again.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
Syd went into the waiting room, where a painfully thin woman sat as far away as possible from Luke, who lay sprawled on the couch, still fast asleep.
He was adorable when he slept—completely, utterly, disgustingly adorable.
The skinny woman went into Lana’s office, closing the door tightly behind her as Syd approached Luke.
“Time to go,” she announced briskly.
No response.
“O’Donlon.”
He didn’t even twitch. His eyes remained shut, his lashes about a mile long, thick and dark against his perfect, tanned cheeks.
No way was she going to touch him. She’d read far too many books where professional soldiers nearly killed the hapless fool who tried to shake them awake.
She clapped her hands, and still he slept on. “Damn it, Luke, wake up.”
Nothing. Not that she blamed him. She was exhausted, too.
All right. She wasn’t going to touch him, but she was going to poke him from a safe distance. She took the copy of Psychology Today that was on the end table, rolled it up and, trying to stay as far back from him as possible, jabbed him in the ribs.
It happened so fast, she wasn’t completely sure she even saw him move. One moment, his eyes were closed, the next he had her pinned to the waiting-room floor, one hand holding both of her wrists above her head, his other forearm heavy against her throat.
The eyes that gazed into hers were those of an animal—soulless and fierce. The face those eyes belonged to was hard and severe and completely deadly, his mouth a taut line, his teeth slightly bared.
But then he blinked and turned back into Luke O’Donlon, aka Lucky, aka her own living Navy Ken.
“Jeez.” He lifted his arm from her throat so that she could breathe again. “What the hell were you trying to do?”
“Not this,” Syd said, clearing her throat, her head starting to throb from where it had made hard contact with the floor. “In fact, I was trying to do the exact opposite of this. But I couldn’t wake you up.”
“Oh, man, I must’ve…” He shook his head, still groggy. “Usually I can take a combat nap and wake up at the least little noise.”
“Not this time.”
“Sometimes, if I’m really tired, and if I know I’m in a safe place, my body takes over and I go into a deep sleep and—” his eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re supposed to be hypnotized,” he remembered. “How come you’re not hypnotized?”
As Syd stared up into the perfect blueness of his eyes, she wasn’t sure she wasn’t hypnotized. Why else would she just lie here on the floor with the full weight of his body pressing down on top of her without protesting even a little?
Maybe she’d gotten a concussion.
Maybe that was what had rendered her so completely stupid.
But maybe not. Her head hurt, but not that much. Maybe her stupidity was from more natural causes.
“Dark, old-model sedan,” she told him. “Lana didn’t want to wake you, and it’s just as well. I’m an idiot when it comes to cars. That and calling it ugly was the best I could do.”
Was he never going to get off her ever again? She could feel the muscular tautness of his thigh pressed between her legs. She could feel…Oh, God.
“Are you okay?” he asked, rolling away from her. “Last time you were hypnotized it was something of an emotional roller coaster. I’m sorry I fell asleep. I really wanted to be there, in case…” He laughed sheepishly, giving her what she thought of as his best Harrison Ford self-deprecating smile. It was as charming on Luke as it was on Harrison. “Well, this sounds really presumptuous, but I wanted to be there in case you needed me.”
She would have found his words impossibly sweet—if she were the type to be swayed by sweet words. And she would’ve missed the warmth of his body if she were the type to long for strong arms to hold her. And if she were the type to wish he’d pull her close again and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her…
But she wasn’t. She wasn’t.
Having a man around was nice, but not a necessity.
Besides, she never took matters of the heart and all of their physical, sexual trappings lightly. Sex was a serious thing, and Luke, with his completely unplastic, extremely warm body, didn’t do serious. He’d told her that himself.
“I was okay,” she said, desperately trying to bring them back to a familiar place she could handle—that irreverent place of friendly insults and challenges, “until you hit me with a World Wrestling Federation-quality body slam, Earthquake McGoon.”
“Ho,” he said, almost as if he were relieved to be done with the dangerously sweet words and their accompanying illusion of intimacy himself, as if he were as eager to follow her back to the outlined safety of their completely platonic friendship. “You’re a fine one to complain, genius, considering you woke me up by sticking a gun barrel into my ribs.”
“A