Commanding Her Seal (Plus Bonus Novella)(18)

Instantly, his expression blanked, the blue in his eyes going icy. The chill in the air was nearly tangible as he nodded.

“Then forget I asked. We’ll be two strangers who are hot for each other, just like we were five minutes ago.”

She should be all over that, nodding along eagerly. He was agreeing with her, repeating exactly what she’d just said. But for God knew what reason, the possibility of “things” with Charlie had just slid away, and she felt the loss of it keenly. The ice in his expression? Her fault. She hated it.

“Maybe we can meet in the middle,” she suggested impulsively. “We’ll talk, and if someone crosses a line, we just add that to the list of things that are off-limits. How’s that for a deal?”

“I do like lists.”

As capitulations went, it wasn’t huge, but the mood lightened and her lungs expanded in the first real breath she’d taken since he’d commanded her to talk to him. Better.

“Should we have a code word?” she said instead of fleeing for the exit like she probably should. What the hell was she doing? They hadn’t even had sex yet and already she was breaking one of her safety rules.

Well, okay, they’d had sex. Kind of. Just not at the same time, a fact she hoped would be rectified ASAP. The sooner they moved on to more physical activities, the better.

He laughed. “Sure. How about butt out?”

“I think that’s a phrase.” His laugh was infectious and she smiled. “It’ll work.”

“Stuffed animals,” he prompted with raised eyebrows. “Surely that’s an innocuous subject.”

Somehow, all of this felt strangely inevitable. As if he’d gotten his way without lifting a finger and yet had managed to make the conversation benign enough for them both. All without divulging one blessed clue about his own secrets. It was as impressive as it was disconcerting.

“I had a lot of stuffed animals, but I was a very unimaginative child. They were all called Bear or Dog. Maybe there was a Cat.” What else had he asked? “I have two sisters. Isaac, Carly, and Hannah are triplets.”

“Wow.” His gorgeous lips pursed and she watched them unashamedly, imagining them wrapped around a nipple. “That must have made for a difficult childhood for you.”

“It was.” Curiously, she eyed him. People usually homed in on the oddity of having triplet siblings, asking questions like whether she could tell them apart—duh, they were fraternal—and whether her parents had been trying to have three babies at once. Typical ignorance. “But I was eleven when they came along and reveled in my big sister role. I got to change diapers and babysit.”

The difficulties had come when their dad got tired of the realities of four kids.

Charlie smiled, his attention completely on her instead of the menu. The waiter was going to have a coronary if they didn’t order soon. But she didn’t care, especially since the maître d’ had reserved the booth for their exclusive use.

They had all night, which was about how long she wanted this to last now that Charlie’s almost colorless blue eyes held the most amazing heat—especially when he looked at her like he was having a hard time keeping his hands off her. The ice she never wanted to see again.

“You like Isaac the best though,” Charlie said, and it wasn’t a question.

He saw far more than she’d intended. It was a little scary, but all she had to do was say butt out, and the niggle in her stomach would vanish.

She shrugged. “Carly and Hannah are two peas in a pod. They bonded from an early age and Isaac felt left out. So I’m his pod. This is the third time I’ve invited him to the Caribbean to hang out. We both love it. But he’s getting into the stage of his life where he’ll find a serious girlfriend, eventually go to college. Our relationship is changing.”

Bad subject.

Her heart panged as she recalled how eagerly he’d shoved her out of their room earlier, after she’d come back from Ilhota Rosa. He’d elicited her promise that she wouldn’t come back until at least eleven. She could do the math. He planned to sweet talk the French girl into watching movies with him while they made out behind closed doors. Without supervision.

Did that make her a bad sister that she’d skipped off to spend the evening with her own hot date?

Since she’d made it clear that she reserved the right to pop in occasionally, she had her fingers crossed it wouldn’t go any further than teenage necking. Her baby brother was growing up, and it made her sad sometimes that he wasn’t still a chubby little thing that she could pick up and hug. Isaac topped her by two inches now and probably wasn’t done shooting up into a young man.