Tall, Dark and Devastating: Harvard's Education

“Was there anything else you wanted?” She knew as soon as the sarcastic words were out of her mouth it was the wrong thing to say.

Undisguised heat flared in his eyes, heat tinged with an awareness that told her he knew quite well his attraction was extremely mutual. He wanted her. The message was right there in his gorgeous brown eyes. But all he did was laugh, a soft chuckle that made her heart nearly stop beating and the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

All she had to do was step into her room and hold open that door, and he would come inside and…

And what? Mess up her life beyond repair, no doubt.

He was not on her side. He’d flatly admitted that he didn’t like working with her, he didn’t want to work with her.

P.J. moistened her dry lips, holding her head high and trying to look as if she were totally unaffected by the picture he made standing there. “Good night, Senior Chief.”

She closed the door tightly behind her and drew in a deep breath.

Dear God, how on earth was she going to make it through another six weeks? She needed an ally, and she needed one bad.

CHAPTER FIVE

HARVARD KNEW THE MOMENT P.J. walked into the bar. He turned and sure enough, there she was, looking everywhere but at him, pretending he didn’t exist.

Today had been a classroom day for the finks, and Harvard had had other business to take care of. He’d gone to the mess hall at lunchtime, hoping for…what? He wasn’t sure. But when he got there, Wes told him P.J. had gone to the firing range.

The afternoon had passed interminably slowly, the biggest excitement being when he spoke to Kevin Laughton’s assistant’s assistant, who had told him there was no way the FInCOM rule book was going to be altered to allow for two- or three-day-long exercises. And hadn’t they already compromised on this issue? And no, Mr. Laughton couldn’t come to the phone, he was far too busy with important matters.

Harvard had wheedled and cajoled, reasoned and explained, but he’d hung up the phone without any real hope that Laughton would call him or Joe Cat. He’d cheered himself up some by calling the friend of a friend of a friend who worked at the Pentagon and who faxed him the layout of FInCOM headquarters, where Kevin Laughton’s office was housed. He’d spent his coffee break pinpointing the areas of FInCOM HQ that would be most vulnerable to a direct assault by a small, covert group of SEALs. He’d managed to put a smile on his face by imagining the look on Laughton’s face when he walked into his high-level security office and found Harvard and Joe Cat sitting there, feet up on his desk, waiting to talk to him.

Harvard headed for an empty table in the bar, keeping P.J. securely in his peripheral vision, trying to figure out the best strategy for approaching her.

It was funny. He’d never had to work at approaching a woman before. Usually women fell right in his lap. But P.J. wasn’t falling anywhere. She was running—hard—in the opposite direction.

The only other woman he’d ever pursued was Rachel.

Damn, he hadn’t thought about Rachel in years. He’d met her during a training op in Guam. She was a marine biologist, part of a U.S. Government survey team housed in the military facilities. She was beautiful—part African American, part Asian and part Hawaiian—and shyly sweet.

For a week or two, Rachel had had Harvard thinking in terms of forever. It was the only time in his life he’d been on the verge of crossing that fine line that separated sex from love. But then he’d been sent to Desert Shield, and while he was gone, Rachel had reconciled with her ex-husband.

He could still remember how that news had sliced like a hot knife into his quick. He could still remember that crazily out-of-control feeling of hurt and frustration—that sense of being on the verge of despair. He hadn’t liked it one bit, and he’d worked hard since then to make sure he’d never repeat it.

He glanced at P.J. and met her eyes. She quickly looked away, as if the spark that had instantly ignited had been too hot for her to handle.

Hot was definitely the key word here.

Yes, he was the pursuer, but he wasn’t in any real danger of going the Rachel route with this girl.

She was nothing like Rachel, for one thing.

For another, this thing, this current between him and P.J. came from total, mindless, screaming animal attraction. Lust. Pure, sizzling sex. Two bodies joined in a quest for heart-stopping pleasure.

That wasn’t what his relationship with Rachel had been about. He’d been so careful with her. He’d held back so much.

But when he looked into P.J.’s eyes, he saw them joined in a dance of passion that had no civilities. He saw her legs locked around him as he drove himself into her, hard and fast, her back against the wall, right inside the doorway of her hotel room.

Oh, yeah. It was going to be amazingly good, but no one was going to cry when it was over.

Harvard smiled at himself, at his presumption that such a collaboration was, indeed, going to happen.

First thing he had to do was figure out how to get this girl to quit running away for long enough to talk to her. Only then could he start to convince her they’d gotten off to a bad start.

He should have been cooler last night.

He’d stood there outside her hotel room and he hadn’t been able to think of anything besides how good she looked and how badly he wanted her and how damn glad he was that she hadn’t been bringing Lucky back to her room with her.

He wasn’t sure he would have been able to make small talk even if he’d tried. But he hadn’t tried. He’d just stood there, looking at her as if she were the gingerbread girl and he was the hungry fox.

At least he hadn’t drooled.

He caught the waitress’s eye as he sat down. “Iced tea, no sugar,” he ordered, then glanced again at P.J.

This time, she was looking straight at him and smiling. Damn, she had an incredible smile. On a scale from one to ten, it was an even hundred. He felt his mouth curve into an answering smile. He couldn’t explain what caused her sudden change of heart, but he wasn’t going to complain.

“Hey,” she said, walking toward him. “What are you doing here?”

As she moved closer, Harvard realized she wasn’t looking at him at all. Her focus was behind him. He turned and saw that Joe Cat had come into the bar through the back door.

“I thought I’d stop in tonight before going home,” the captain said to P.J. “What’s shaking?”

“Not much,” Harvard heard P.J. say as she gave Joe Cat another of those killer smiles. “Everyone’s glued to the TV, watching baseball.” She rolled her eyes in mock disgust.

Excuse me, Harvard felt like standing up and saying, but everyone isn’t watching baseball. The waitress put his drink on the table in front of him, and P.J. still didn’t glance in his direction.

Joe shrugged out of his jacket. “You’re not a baseball fan?”

“Nuh-uh. Too slow for me. The batter wiggles around, getting all ready for the pitch, and the pitcher does his thing, getting ready for the pitch, and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Just throw the ball!’” She laughed. She had musical-sounding laughter. “And then the ball is fired over the plate so fast that they’ve got to play it back in slo-mo just so I can see it.”

“You’re probably not into football, either, then. Too many breaks in the play.”

“You got that right,” P.J. said. “Do you have time to sit down? Can I buy you a beer?”

“I’d love it,” Joe said.

“Then grab us a table. I’ll be right back.”

P.J. headed toward the bar.

“If you don’t sit with me, sir, I may have to seriously damage you,” Harvard said to his friend.

Joe Cat laughed and pulled out a chair at Harvard’s table. “You didn’t think I couldn’t see you lurking here, eavesdropping, did you?”

“Of course, she may not want to chill with you after she comes back and sees the excess company,” Harvard pointed out. “She’s been running from me all day—she’s bound to keep it up.”