Free SEAL Of My Heart by Sharon Hamilton Page B

at any moment. “You want something to cover up?” she added without looking over his bare legs and chest.
    “Would you like me to cover up?” He didn’t know why he asked that, and worried it would offend.
    “Not on my behalf.” She cleared her throat. “Girls, let’s let Aunt Kate speak with her friend here in private, okay? Let’s get him some coffee.”
    The youngest daughter brought Tyler a beach towel. “Mother doesn’t like sweaty men to sit on our couch.” It was delivered with stern reprimand just as the towel was shoved into his groin.
    “Thanks,” Tyler said. “So noted.”
    He followed Kate to the living room until she whirled around abruptly. Good thing he’d maintained a two-foot distance in case he’d misread her earlier body language. She was about to say something when he reached into his pocket and produced the letter he’d written last night.
    “I thought I’d deliver this in person, since I was in the area.” She took the note and their fingers touched but didn’t move away. He hooked his forefinger over hers and pulled her hand to his chest, crinkling the letter between them. “And the truth is, I couldn’t wait to see you again.”
    Her glance down to his hungry mouth was all the encouragement he needed. He closed the gap between them quickly and pressed his lips to hers, drawing in her sweet softness. He involuntarily moaned when he felt her open to him. His next move was going to be to reach around her waist and pull her against him, but a voice to the side called a halt.
    “Okay, I didn’t see that. If Mom asks, I’m going to say I didn’t see that. Thank you, Gretchen. You’re welcome, Kate. And here is your coffee, sir.”
    Tyler loved Gretchen already. She reminded him of some of his Team buds. He secretly loved women with big mouths who were not afraid to dish out their opinions, sometimes inappropriately. He liked them fearless. Gretchen was all that and more.
    He held his hot mug in both hands and for a second felt a little self-conscious as Kate examined the coffee like it was entrails that revealed her fate. He set the mug down.
    “Where were we?” he whispered to the side of Kate’s face.
    “You were going to kiss me again,” she said as she kissed his neck, ran her tongue under his chin, no doubt tasting the salty sweat that had collected there. He wished he’d had a shower, but it didn’t seem to matter to Kate. He placed his palms on her cheeks, eased her back a bit so he could examine her face.
    “Kate. Kate. Kate. What are we going to do with you?”
    She stood there with her blue eyes searching his and said not a word.
    “I have to ask. What are we doing here?”
    “You came to deliver a letter to me,” she said again in a throaty voice. “I didn’t expect the kiss, but now that I’ve had one, I want another. Would you mind?”
    “Not at all.”
    He wasn’t going to let any heat escape between them. He drank from her lips and, even as he wondered how she could be the kind of woman who was engaged to another man and be answering his kisses with her own, he pushed his worries aside.
    But then he just couldn’t ignore that dull thud in the pit of his stomach. He dropped his hands and stepped back.
    “I’d like to talk a little, Kate, if you don’t mind?”
    “Sure. No problem.” She brought the towel over and spread it on the couch for him, gave him his mug of coffee and took a seat perpendicular to him.
    Tyler took a sip of the delicious home-brewed elixir and studied her again. “So, I have to ask you. You said yesterday you were engaged.” He studied his coffee. “You know, where I come from that means something. And it means I have no business being here, and probably shouldn’t have come in the first place.”
    “But you don’t understand.”
    “Okay, then help me understand, Kate.”
    “I’ve been plagued with second thoughts for a month now. When we talked on the plane yesterday, the world somehow shifted for me. I mean, I