A SEAL's Salvation

“You’re underage.”

Eyes rounded in amusement, she gestured to the one he’d cracked open an hour ago, then forgot about after one swig.

“Pot, meet kettle?”

Brody’s lips twitched. Damn, she had a smart mouth.

A very sexy, pouty-lipped smart mouth.

One he spent way too much time fantasizing over.

One he’d worked damned hard to ignore.

“I’m not aiding and abetting underage drinking,” he said with a shrug. He didn’t mind the hypocrite label. He’d sported worse. And he didn’t think Genna, with any fewer inhibitions than she had already, was good for his peace of mind.

“So why are you here again?” he asked with his darkest glower. “Because we both know you’re not the seducing kind.”

He wanted to shove her out the door. Except that’d require touching her. So maybe he could mean her out instead. It always worked for his old man. The guy opened his nasty mouth and cleared a room in less than a minute.

“Why am I here?” she repeated, clearly buying time as she wet her lips and took a nervous breath. The move sent the ruffles of her halter fluttering in a way Brody had no business noticing. “I’m here because of a dare.”

Figured. Brody crossed his arms over his chest.

“You’re here to use me?”

Her lower lip dropped, then jutted out in a pout. He didn’t figure she had the experience to realize just how freaking sexy that move was.

He did, though.

His rapidly hardening dick echoed its agreement.

“I wouldn’t use you.”

“No? So you came in here to talk to the bad boy of Bedford because you were craving my scintillating conversation?”

She started to giggle, then pressed her lips together, her face so amused she looked as if she were going to burst at any second.

“What?” he prodded with a growl.

“You said scintillating.”

“Yeah? So? I know how to read, too.” Damn, he hated this town. Everyone—even the sexy wannabe seductress in front of him—thought they had him so figured out. Labeled and dismissed, they never looked past his last name.

Hell, Genna’s own brother, Joe, was way worse than Brody when it came to trouble. But people looked at his Harley, a brand-new, off-the-showroom-floor graduation gift, and smiled. They looked at Brody’s, bought after years of scrubbing dishes in the back of the bar, pumping gas and wrenching at Lou’s Garage, and saw trouble.

“I didn’t mean to suggest you were stupid,” Genna said with honest bluntness, her expression somewhere between indignant and horrified. “I just think it’s a funny word.”

“Right.”

“I do. Like grandiose.” Brody grinned at the way she seemed to relish the word, drawing it out in a tone worthy of a royal princess.

“You like things really big?” he mused before he could stop himself.

Her eyes lit, the worry leaving her face and her smile returning like a ray of sunlight. It made him want to smile back. Almost.

“Participle?” She offered the word like a hostess offering a drink. As if inviting him to indulge.

“Does it dangle?”

Her laugh gurgled out, about the lightest, happiest sound to ever ring through this murky garage.

Brody couldn’t help himself. He grinned. He just had to.

“You’re cute,” she decided, still smiling.

“Yeah?” He’d never been called cute before. Any number of other four-letter words, but not that one.

“Yeah,” she said, stepping closer. Too close. Her scent wrapped around him, light and tasty, like the daiquiris he mixed in the bar on nights his old man passed out before closing.

Brody’s smile disappeared.

Shit. She thought they were having a conversation.

He should have stuck to grumpy and silent.

“You need to leave.”

Please.

“I don’t think so,” she murmured, her words so quiet they were a whisper on the heavy night air.

He could actually feel his brains start to slip away. Bad news, since he needed them. They were there to remind him to stay away from her. To caution him to keep his hands to himself. To warn him about those male relatives of hers. The ones he was supposed to watch out for. Whatever the hell their names were.

But she was close enough now for him to see the band of midnight encircling her pupils, all the more vivid against the pale blue of her irises.

“You really need to go.” Desperate, he reached out to move her aside. Because if she wasn’t leaving, he was.

But the minute he touched her, all thought of either one of them leaving fled. His fingers curled over the smooth, deliciously soft skin of her upper arms. She was so slender, but he could feel the muscles there. She was so warm, he felt like a tiny piece of him, forever frozen, was melting in his chest.

It was terrifying.

Those fascinating eyes huge and locked on his, she reached out to trail her fingers over his chest. Her touch was so soft and tentative, as if she were petting a wild animal. Or a rabid dog.

Brody wondered if he bared his teeth and growled, would she run?

He should try it.

But those fingers had shorted out his ability to think.