Free Don't Let Go by Marliss Melton Page A

causing the fine hairs on her body to prickle.
    “What do you want?” she asked, feeling weak and shaken, especially on the heels of that phone call.
    “Well, Jordan, to get right down to the point, this is my son, Silas,” he said, confirming her thoughts. “It’s a long story, but he’s been missing for five years.”
    The son he’d lost in his poem? It was impossible to tell from the SEAL’s expression. “Hello, Silas,” she said, her gaze sliding to the boy.
    Wide, mercury-colored eyes stared up at her as he shrank behind his father.
    “Say hello back,” Solomon prompted, pushing Silas up beside him again.
    “Hello back,” the boy whispered.
    Jordan’s lips twitched. His two top baby teeth were missing. He was too cute, even given his resemblance to Solomon McGuire. “Congratulations,” she said to the man who’d ripped her from her own child. She glared at him, steeling herself from responding to his powerful torso, his muscle-corded neck, and especially those eyes that compelled—no,
commanded
her to do something.
    “I need help caring for him,” he added, snowing her with unexpected information. “His mother’s dead. I work from dawn to dusk, and even though he’ll go to school soon, he doesn’t know how to read.”
    And this concerns me how?
Jordan wanted to retort, only a glance at little Silas’s expectant and innocent face had her biting back the words. A feeling like jealousy snaked through her. “I’m sorry,” she said, gentling her words for Silas’s sake. “I can’t help you.” He had to know he was grinding salt into a wound.
    He narrowed his silvery gaze at her. “You’re a teacher, aren’t you?” he demanded.
    “Yes, I am. What’s that have to do with anything?”
    “So, you should have the summer off.”
    “I’m going back to Venezuela,” she retorted through her teeth. “To get
my
son.”
    His face reflected disbelief. “What, are you out of your mind? After everything my men and I did to get you out?” A V-shaped vein appeared on his forehead.
    “I never asked to be taken out,” she shot back. “But I did ask you to let me bring my son home.” Physically and emotionally exhausted, with very little food in her system, she was helpless to control the quaver in her voice.
    “And I’m sorry for that,” he answered, gentling his tone in response to her vehemence. “I had my orders,” he added, defending his actions.
    “I understand. But I’m still going back.”
    “It’s not safe,” he insisted, glowering at her. Silas had stepped away to cling to the porch rail.
    “You can’t stop me this time,” she couldn’t stop herself from pointing out.
    “Can’t I?” An expression that struck her as starkly sexual crossed his face as he ran an assessing gaze over her. Jordan endured the frank inspection, hating that her nipples peaked beneath his scalding look, and they were clearly apparent beneath her tight-fitting top.
    She flinched as Solomon lifted a hand. He merely reached into the breast pocket of his short-sleeved shirt and withdrew an expensive-looking pen and pad of Post-its. He scrawled his name and a series of directions in his old-fashioned cursive. “If you change your mind,” he said, tearing off the page and thrusting it at her, “here’s where you can find me. Silas, say good-bye to Miss Bliss.”
    “G’bye, Mith Blith,” Silas whispered, lisping her name.
    “Good-bye, Silas,” she replied, finding that it wasn’t difficult at all to smile at him. He was adorable.
    His father was another story. Watching him retreat to a big, black truck, she took in the khaki shorts that clung to his narrow hips, revealing taut buttocks and powerful, hair-dusted calves. What was it about him she found so attractive? He hefted the boy into the passenger’s side and rounded the truck to get in, holding her gaze captive.
    “By the way, you need to get him a booster seat,” Jordan called out to him. “And he’s supposed to use it till he’s