Free Ruined by the SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 2) by Zoe York Page A

I heard you on the stairs and thought you were a monster or something.
    “You should’ve gone home for the night.”
    She frowned. He was lecturing her now? “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
    His mouth fell open. “I honestly wouldn’t give a fuck, Cara.”
    If he’d said anything else, she’d maybe have continued to be polite, even grateful to see him, but whatthe hell had she done to him…at least tonight? “Great. Continue not giving a fuck somewhere else.”
    He glared at her, then pushed himself off the doorframe with a curse and turned, disappearing into the wind-churned downpour.
    Well, shit. She hadn’t meant that literally.
    “Come back here, you idiot,” she cried, shoving her feet into her sandals and running out onto the verandah.
    He turned aroundas lightning cracked overhead, casting him momentarily in bright blue light. “Go back to bed,” he called out as they were plunged back into stormy darkness.
    “It’s not safe!”
    All of a sudden he was in front of her again, like he didn’t care at all that he was running back and forth in a ticking time bomb of a storm. “You’re perfectly safe inside the house.”
    “I didn’t mean me.”
    “Don’t worryabout me.”
    “You couldn’t hear my shouting from the servants’ quarters,” she whispered. Her pulse jacked up. “Were you coming to see me?”
    “In the middle of a hurricane?” He gave her a long, hard look and shook his head. “That would be crazy.”
    Absolutely insane. She reached for him. His shirt was soaked right through to his skin. He felt warm for now, but he’d get cold soon. He needed a hot shower.“You strike me as only having a moderate claim on sanity anyway.”
    He laughed. “Sounds about right.”
    “I don’t have a bed,” she said, moving closer. Now the rain was whipping at her, too, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting close enough so their barbed words didn’t have any space to land between them.
    “What?” His voice was rough and husky as she tipped her face up to his. Raindrops fell from his hair, plopping on her cheeks, her lips…trailing down her throat. He wiped them away with his fingertips.
    “You said, go back to bed. I just have a sleeping bag inside a tent.”
    His hand stilled at the base of her throat, then his fingers curved and he collared her neck, lightly. Just for a second, then he let go. “Go back to it.”
    “I don’t want to.”
    “I have a bed.”
    “And ahot shower, right?” She licked her lips. “You need that. You’re soaked to the bone.”
    “You think I need a shower and a bed?”
    She nodded.
    “I only need one thing right now,” he said, his words ragged and torn as he hauled her against him. “And it can happen in a bed, or in the shower. Hell, it can happen in the middle of a hurricane for all I care. You just need to say the word, Cara.”
    “Whatword?”
    “Yes. Say yes, kitten.”
    “Yes,” she breathed, and before he could kiss her, she launched herself into his arms.

    ~

    M ICK HAD BEEN LYING ON HIS BUNK , WIDE AWAKE WHEN THE STORM HIT . As the wind raged, all he could think of was Cara alone in the house. How fiercely attached to the plantation she was, that she wouldn’t even leave during this vicious gale.
    He’d gotten up and paced backand forth, looking at the manor house every time it was lit up by the crack of lightning. As it sat in the middle of the clearing, at the top of the rise, it was getting the worst of the winds. Shingles were peeling off the roof. Shutters were shaking.
    Before he knew it, he was out the door, storming across the garden. He was only halfway aware that he was feeling panic—it pricked at the backof his mind, behind the rational thoughts he tried to order in front of it.
    Perfectly reasonable to go and check on a woman alone in a big house.
    They were neighbours of a sort.
    He was strong and capable.
    But while those were all true and valid thoughts, none of them were as true as the fact