CHAPTER 4
THE peal of an obnoxious cell phone ringtone startled P.J. into wakefulness. She’d been having the most awesome, erotic dream, and it irritated her to be so rudely yanked from it.
She stretched and yawned, feeling oddly rested, and promptly bumped into a hard male body.
Her eyes flew open. Oh shit.
David Coletrane was in her bed.
She’d had hot monkey sex with Cole.
They’d also made tender, sweet love, and maybe that was what bothered her the most, because she couldn’t just brush it aside as a one-night stand. Couldn’t chalk it up to blowing off some steam and walk away from it, pretending it never happened.
She was so f**ked and now she had to face the awkward morning-after stage.
The phone quit a moment and then started up again as she lay there admiring Cole’s beautiful physique. He muttered something and then promptly leaned over, blindly grabbing for his fatigues that had been discarded the night before.
She got a prime view of his ass, and oh Lord, what an ass it was. Every part of him was delicious, and she continued to stare dumbly as he grabbed the phone and put it to his ear.
Reality had a way of dumping a cold bucket of water over her head. She was positively numb over what she’d done. What they’d done. It was quite possibly the dumbest thing she’d ever done, and she’d made some pretty stupid decisions in her life.
This was going to f**k up everything.
“Cole,” he said shortly. “Yeah, Steele, what’s up?”
P.J. froze. Goddamn it. They were being called out on a mission. Today of all days? The one time she’d given in to temptation and had crazy, insane, all-night sex with her teammate, not to mention pouring her guts out to him, and they had to be called out now?
Cole’s expression was grim, and then he said simply, “I’ll be there.”
He ended the call and then turned slowly to meet P.J.’s gaze. On cue, her cell started ringing and she was contemplating the most modest way to sprawl over his body to reach her phone when Cole reached down and snagged it for her.
“P.J.,” she said crisply, not wanting even a hint of what she’d spent the night doing to come through that phone call.
“P.J., this is Steele. We’ve been called up. How fast can you make it back out to Tennessee?”
She glanced over at her clock to see it was quite early. “I’ll head to the airport and see what I can get standby on. Should be able to get out this afternoon.”
“Let me know fast. If you can’t get on the first flight, we’ll send a Kelly jet for you.”
“Will do,” she murmured, peeking at Cole from the corner of her eye.
She hung up and then took a deep breath, preparing to deal with the awkwardness.
“Guess we should go,” she said lamely.
“Yeah, we can hop a ride to the airport together,” Cole said.
He lay there completely unbothered by his nudity while she was sitting up, covers pulled to her chin as mortification swept over her.
She shook her head forcefully. “No. We go separate.”
Cole frowned. “That’s stupid, P.J. We’re here together. Why on earth should we leave separately when we’re going to the same damn place?”
“I don’t want anyone to know we were together.”
His frown deepened.
“Look Cole,” she said before he could protest further. “We have to work together. I don’t want there to be any speculation on our . . .” She choked and almost said relationship. “Our association. This isn’t some office job where we flirt and play cutesy. People’s lives depend on our concentration and I don’t want to become the butt of jokes by Dolphin or Renshaw or Baker and I don’t even want to know what Steele would do if he found out we hooked up. He’d probably toss one or both of us off the team.”
“Are you saying I’m a distraction?”
The smug look on his face made her want to hit him. He was grinning and he’d stretched out his considerable length and rolled to his side, propped up on his palm as he stared unabashedly at her. She could swear he was plotting to yank the sheets from her, so she tightened her grip just in case.
She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. When she reopened them, Cole was still staring at her like he wanted to have her for breakfast. A flutter began deep in her belly and worked outward until her skin was warm and flushed. Damn but the man was good. Everything about him was good. His mouth, his tongue, his hands and his cock. Most definitely his cock.
“Look, can we just agree that last night was a mistake? A huge mistake. One we need to promise never happens again. We can’t afford to f**k up our jobs or the team. It’s best we go our separate ways and pretend this never happened.”
Suddenly he loomed over her, big, all badass. She hated how small she felt beneath him, and she loved it all at the same time.
With a low-sounding growl, he pressed her down to the bed and covered her mouth with his, kissing her until she was panting for breath.
Even as he was pressing her downward, his hand tugged at the sheet until it slid to her waist. One hand came up to cup her breast, his thumb rolling over the rigid peak of her nipple.
God, she loved his hands on her.
His tongue slid past her lips and filled her mouth, tasting her, rubbing over her tongue and exploring every inch. He had a mouth made for sin, and she wasn’t a good girl by far. She’d done her share of sinning. If last night didn’t send her to hell, she didn’t know what would.