Finding Carly (SEAL Team Hawaii #5)(24)

“Fuck no,” Jag said with feeling. “So…we’re dating?”

She gave him a small smile and lifted a hand, covering the one still resting on her cheek. “I guess we are. Jag?”

“Yeah?”

“Since we’re dating and all now…maybe you can kiss me?”

Jag felt his heart rate speed up. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t find the words to tell her how much this moment meant to him. Couldn’t figure out how to tell her how worried he was about her. That he might be encouraging her to get back to her normal routine, but he wasn’t going to leave her vulnerable to an attack. That she was quickly becoming the most important person in his life.

Instead of speaking at all, he shifted his hand so he was holding her nape, and leaned forward. The angle was awkward with the console between them, but there was no way Jag was letting this moment go by without getting his lips on hers.

The moment they connected, Jag closed his eyes, almost overcome with emotion. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as if electrified when she shyly opened her mouth under his. Jag felt as if he was a virgin. And in many ways, he was.

His hand around her neck tightened and Carly moaned, tilting her head so she could get closer. Her tongue licked his, and it was Jag’s turn to make a tortured sound in the back of his throat. What might’ve started out as a sweet, shy meeting of their lips instantly turned into more. Much more.

Jag couldn’t get close enough. He held Carly still as he devoured her.

How long they made out, Jag had no clue. When he finally pulled back, he was panting as if he’d just finished a ten-mile run on the beach with his thirty-pound pack on his back. He stared at Carly in reverence. He felt as if he’d smashed through a brick wall he hadn’t even known he’d built in his mind.

Never in his thirty-five years had he ever wanted a woman so much. His cock was throbbing in his pants and for the first time in his life, he understood why men got crazy over a woman.

“Um…wow,” Carly said, licking her lips.

He hadn’t taken his hand from her nape and his fingers tightened involuntarily at her breathless comment.

“Yeah,” he agreed, finding it hard to take his eyes from her lips. He had a vision of her on her knees, those lips around his cock as she looked up at him with her smoky blue eyes. It was so carnal. Jag couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“There are a lot of things that scare me,” Carly said as she tightened her hold around his wrist. “But you aren’t one of them.”

Fuck. She was killing him.

Jag forced his hand to loosen. He didn’t even realize that he’d latched onto her so tightly. “Good. The last thing I ever want to do is scare you,” he said.

Carly’s gaze bored into his own, and she said with uncanny insight, “I feel the same way about you.”

For a nano-second, Jag panicked. Had she guessed? Had she figured out he was out of his depth when it came to being intimate with a woman? He wasn’t a virgin—the thought almost made him snort out loud—but in all the ways that mattered, he might as well have been. Everything seemed different with her. Natural. Right. The way it always should be between two people.

Taking a deep breath, and inhaling Carly’s sweet cherry blossom scent, Jag pulled her toward him once more and gave her a quick kiss. He wanted to linger, wanted to explore their connection, but this wasn’t the time or place. Reluctantly, he let go of her as he sat back. “You still up for going to Food For All?”

It took a moment for Carly to get her bearings, and Jag couldn’t help but be flattered. He liked keeping her off balance. At least at the moment she was thinking about him and not about being scared that she wasn’t inside his apartment, where she felt safe.

She slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good.”

“Although I forgot to ask Alani if there was any extra food I could bring.”

“You’ll have plenty of time in the future for that,” Jag reassured her. He reached for the keys in the ignition and felt Carly’s hand on his arm.

He turned to her.

“I…thank you, Jag. For everything. If it was up to me, I’d still be sitting in a corner of my apartment, hearing and seeing monsters everywhere. I’m not saying I’m ready to skip around town without a care in the world, but it feels good to at least be starting to try to take control of my life again.”

“You’re welcome, angel. And no one’s saying you have to immediately forget about all your fears. I happen to think some level of caution is a good thing. You’ll get back to your old self, I know it.” He didn’t add that he hoped she’d still want him in her life when she did.

Not even wanting to think about the possibility of her outgrowing her need for his protection, Jag backed out of the parking space.

He was confident when it came to his SEAL abilities. On a mission, he was unbeatable. He didn’t accept defeat and would do whatever it took to be successful. But on a personal level, things were much different. Jag hated that about himself. He wanted to be the self-assured Navy SEAL all the time. But the truth was, he was too damaged to be able to carry that confidence over into his personal life. He could kill without a second thought, but thinking about being with a woman made him break out in hives.

Until Carly.

She was different. Special.