Claiming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

admitted. “Rachel, my friend, wants to do some vacation stuff, and I’ve been dragging her down. I’m trying to get over it so she isn’t stuck in the room.”
    Her confession settled into his chest, filling it in a way he hadn’t expected—with tenderness. Anyone who could admit to fear in the same breath as a plan to fix it deserved a friendly ear. “What kind of stuff does she want to do?”
    “Snorkeling.” Emma shot him the side-eye. “I swear I didn’t know you did that. I’m not making that up just to get in your pants.”
    The genuine laugh burst from his throat before he could check it. “Thank God. I wouldn’t want to feel all violated and taken advantage of and stuff.”
    She whacked him on the arm, which didn’t decrease his amusement in the slightest.
    “You know what I mean. We’ve got a weird thing going on here where I’m trying to get you naked and you’re pretending like you don’t notice that I’m mentally undressing you.”
    “You are?” He processed that as his lower half got in on that action in a big way. In about two seconds, his board shorts would have enough clearance to camp under. “Did I get a gold star when you finished imagining my clothes hitting the sand?”
    What was so arousing about the fact that she was thinking about him naked? He spent 90 percent of his day half-dressed and in the presence of a lot of women, some of them smoking hot. It was no stretch to assume she wasn’t the first to wonder what he looked like under his clothes. But she was definitely the first to say it to his face.
    She snorted. “I didn’t think you were allowed to flirt with me. And who says I finished undressing you in my fantasies? Maybe I wanted to wait to see the real thing before I had something fixed in my mind.”
    There was no scenario where this conversation was going to end well. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. “I’ll make you a deal. You go in the water, and I’ll strip for you.”
    Her eyebrows shot up. “What?”
    “You heard me.” He wiggled his fingers at the crashing surf. “Go on. Wade out to chest deep, and I’ll be the star of your private show.”
    Seemed like a sucker bet based on her Hokey Pokey routine thus far. Except he’d vastly underestimated the chemistry factor. Heat gathered in the crackling space between them as she glanced down at his shorts.
    “And then what?”
    That snap in his brain could only be the sound of his will being broken in two as he internalized what could conceivably come next. What would inevitably come next when two people who were hot for each other found themselves in a secluded area and one of them started removing clothes.
    But that was so not the thing that should come next. And besides, he’d never expected her to bite. “What do you mean, and then what? I’ll be naked, and you’ll get an ending for your fantasy. What more do you want?”
    Without blinking, she shot back, “That’s enough. How long do I have to be in the water?”
    Not only was she seriously contemplating this offer he’d been smugly certain she’d reject out of hand, now she wanted parameters. Since he’d stupidly throw it out there… “Five minutes.”
    “Do I have to stick my head under the water?”
    “Yes,” he insisted instinctively, guessing that was the exact thing she didn’t want to do, and sure enough, something flitted through her blue eyes, darkening them. He had her in the palm of his hand. It wasn’t the water itself that scared her, but the act of diving below the surface that had her freaked.
    He had her right where he wanted her.
    “I’ll do it,” she said decisively.
    The upper hand slid away along with a good bit of his composure. What the hell had just happened? Had he just signed on the dotted line to do a striptease in exchange for helping her over her fear of the ocean?
    Her lashes dropped for a beat, and when she glanced up, the darkness had been replaced by something altogether crafty. “But you have to