Claiming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 1) by Kat Cantrell Page A

he groaned as it seared his vision. Beautiful.
    He’d meant to suck it into his mouth, to take it brutally and punish her flesh with his temper and frustration. But he couldn’t move all at once as the perfection of her washed over him.
    And somehow his gaze on her breast hardened it further, and she moaned, her eyes fluttering closed as her palm slid down the side of her breast, cupping it slightly. Offering it up like a sacrifice, and something broke open inside him.
    With a sigh, he resettled her bikini top, hiding her nipple away again, though it didn’t matter if it was covered or not. The rosy tip would haunt his dreams.
    “I can’t,” he choked out.
    Her eyelids flew open and darkened with confusion. “Dex? Why did you stop?”
    He shook his head because how the hell should he know why he had such a ridiculous sense of honor that wouldn’t allow him to take advantage of her fresh innocence? The last thing she needed after her triumph in the water was Dex’s version of a lesson in what happened when he was provoked—after all, she’d already had to work through one issue today caused by a man she’d once trusted.
    Instead of running away very fast, she stomped her foot and glared at him, hands on her hips. “You’re ruining my vacation fling, Dex, and it’s really starting to make me mad.”
    Her stance nearly made him chuckle, but there was nothing funny about this. “I’m no one’s vacation fling.”
    “But you could be.” She eyed him with a scowl. “That’s the part I don’t get. I’m not after something heavy and meaningful and significant. This is the Caribbean. Sun, sand, and half-dressed people. The concept isn’t new. You come here, you meet someone, you spend a few days naked and go home. Nothing more complicated than that. Why are you making it so difficult?”
    “Because you deserve to have that uncomplicated fling. I can’t give you that.” Before she could voice the denial in her gaze, he held up a finger. “No. Listen to me. You’re already emotionally compromised, and don’t lie to me and say you’re not. Worst of all, stop lying to yourself. You think because I chased away a creep on the beach and helped you do something as meaningless as snorkeling that we have some kind of connection. We don’t.”
    Her head snapped backward as she took his words like a slap to the face. “Meaningless?”
    Something sharp with razor teeth zigzagged through his chest as the light in her eyes dimmed. Of course she’d zeroed in on that one small word. He’d meant her to, meant for her to interpret it exactly as it sounded. Like it was nothing special. And now he had to heap even more coals on that fire and try like hell not to let on that it was hurting him far more than it should.
    “Yeah. It’s my job to help people with the equipment and stuff. I do it five times a week. You think you’re the first person to be a little intimidated? I work with all sorts of people who have never been in the ocean before.”
    And now he was the liar. There’d been nothing regulation about how he’d encouraged her, how he’d held her hand as she acclimated. She was certainly the only one he’d ever kissed—hell, she was the first woman he’d kissed twice in a million years.
    But he had to get that hero worship out of her gaze, even if he had to make her bleed to do it.
    That didn’t happen. At all.
    Instead, she stabbed her arms into a pretzel and glared at him. “Now you’re just being ridiculous. We have a connection whether you want to admit it or not. If I want to think you’re a kind, sensitive man, I’m allowed. If I want you to make love to me, there’s no reason for you to say no. Stop trying to make my decisions for me. I’m going into this eyes wide open. And if I’m a little sad when I get back to Boston because I miss you? My business. Not yours.”
    Dear God. It was his worst nightmare rising from the shadows as the sheer emotion in her voice crawled inside him. Greedily,