She stood there defiantly, staring back at him, daring him to say or do something about her display of general hotness.
Keep your eyes on her face.
Yeah, right. He could no more stop himself from letting his gaze wander down her body and back up than he could stop his body from leaping to attention at the sight of a woman like her standing half-naked in the middle of his hotel room practically daring him to do something about it.
His traitorous gaze traveled slowly and thoroughly down her body once more, taking in every juicy detail of her. Ho. Lee. Cow.
Okay, then. If that was how she wanted to play it... He reached for the back of the neck of his T-shirt and hauled it off over his head. He unbuckled his belt and shoved his pants down, as well. His Spandex sports briefs didn’t do much to conceal his raging hard-on, but if she was going to play with the boys, she would have to get used to their reaction to her.
“Shall we?” he said casually. It took every last drop of his self-discipline to manage that light tone of voice.
Her bravado seemed knocked back a few notches by his matching strip-down. Good. She might as well learn early on just what a bad idea it was to dare an operator to do anything. Filters were not part of their mentality.
He reached for the light switch, and the room was abruptly swathed in darkness. The warmth and humidity of the night wrapped around him. The hum of the window air-conditioner and the thin stream of cold air coming from it teased his skin. The night was made for heavy breathing, sweaty skin on skin and the mindless plunge into hot, tight, female flesh—
Her silhouette slipped under the covers and the bed springs creaked under her weight, breaking him out of his fantasy. He felt brittle. On the verge of exploding. Cripes. And he hadn’t even touched her yet.
Yet. Which implied intent to go there with her.
No can do, buddy, he told his raging erection. Not only was she off-limits, but he would also be damned if he would let her manipulate him into anything. Even if he wanted that thing worse than he wanted to keep breathing.
He moved over to the bed, lifted the covers and lay down beside her, an image of her body swimming in his mind’s eye. Hell’s bells. Her warmth radiated across the narrow strip of mattress separating them, along with simmering sexual tension that made him want to jump out of his skin.
It was a double bed, and they were not tiny people, which meant it was a tight fit. And he was neither a dead man nor a dummy. No way could he miss the fact that her nostrils flared whenever she looked at him and thought he wasn’t looking. Nor could he miss how her pupils dilated anytime he had leaned close and smiled at her during dinner.
She was as hot for him as he was for her. Which was going to pose a massive problem on this op. Almost as massive as the woody tenting the sheets over his groin.
What would it be like to make love with a woman nearly as strong as he was, with stamina to match? A woman who could absorb everything he had to give and give as good as she got in return? If even half of his imagination was accurate, sex with Tessa would be epic. He was sure of it.
Of course, military fraternization rules prohibited instructors from sleeping with trainees. But he wasn’t officially her instructor yet. Not until tomorrow. Besides, he was going to wash her out at the first opportunity, and they would each get on with their regularly scheduled lives. So there was nothing standing in the way of them scratching the itch between them. Right?
He couldn’t find any flaw in the logic. His body jerked eagerly in response.
Nope. There was no reason at all they couldn’t engage in a little extracurricular hanky-panky.
Other than the fact that she was going to hate his guts within the next twenty-four hours or so. And if he washed her out of the program like he planned to, she would hate his guts even worse. He tended to avoid sleeping with women who were going to become homicidal in the near future.
Disappointment coursed through his entire body.
I know, buddy. I know.
The scent of her shampoo drifted across the narrow space between them. It was sweet and floral and caressed him like a lover’s hand, as seductive as hell. His body begged him to change his mind, and he clenched his teeth against its coaxing.
For her part, Tessa lay stiff and silent beside him. Tense, too, huh? Was she as turned on as he was? He would bet his next paycheck she was. He could practically smell her arousal.
The standoff stretched out between them, and with every passing minute, he became more determined not to be the one who broke first. But he couldn’t remember being this uncomfortable since junior high when a hole in a wall had been enough to turn him on.
Their shoulders bumped every time one of them shifted even the tiniest bit, sending him off into a new round of horny speculation, molar-grinding pain and reluctant refusal to give in.
This bed was entirely too small for the two of them.
Finally, in frustration, he muttered, “Turn on your side facing away from me.”
“Why?” she blurted.
“That was an order. Just do it,” he snapped.
She huffed and the mattress shifted beneath him. He rolled onto his side facing her and scooted forward until her warm, sexy body was tucked against his.
“What the hell are you doing?” she squawked.
“Getting comfortable so we can both sleep. Now you’ll know where I am, and you won’t lay there all night wondering if I’m going to jump your bones.” He tucked his knees against the backs of hers, threw his arm over the inward curve of her waist and pulled her back against his front. Wow, she felt magnificent against him. They fit together like two spoons in the same set of silverware.
Of course they did. The torture wouldn’t be complete if they didn’t.
His male parts bulged against her in no uncertain terms, but there was no help for it. He was not going to have sex with her tonight, but neither was he going to treat her feminine sensibilities with kid gloves. If she planned to live and work with men like him, this was part of the deal.
She felt amazing in his arms. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done this platonic cuddling thing with a woman. Normally, he didn’t stop to pay much attention to the finer details. The groupies just wanted to be bedded and then go on their merry way.
Maybe not so platonic, truth be told. His hands ached to roam across her satin skin, to test her curves, to make her moan. He needed to lose himself in her body, to plunge into her mindlessly, to find bliss and then oblivion. His jaw clenched. He could do this. He could sleep with her without having sex with her. It was a hell of a fight not to act on his craving, but he corralled his lust.
“Go to sleep,” he told her tightly.
By inches over the next few minutes, she gradually relaxed against him, which added a whole new set of temptations to his misery.
Get a grip, dude. He’d slept in war zones with mortars flying over his head and the deafening reports of shelling exploding around him. He’d slept with enemy forces closing in on him, and when completely surrounded by hostiles. He could bloody well sleep in a dark, quiet motel room in his hometown.
But he followed Tessa into sleep with great difficulty, ultimately having to resort to his sniper training to force his breathing to slow and deepen, to will himself to slide toward unconsciousness. She felt like a slice of heaven in his arms, soft and warm and relaxed. All the things his life was not.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with a woman—actually slept with one. Most of his interactions involved horny, half-drunk sex and him leaving the woman’s bed immediately after, before anything more could begin to develop. No attachments, no feelings. Just physical release.