Locked, Loaded and SEALed by Carol Ericson

Author:Carol Ericson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

The following morning, Sophia emerged from a sound sleep, one twitching muscle and one thought at a time. With her body fully stretched out and her mind fully aware of last night’s horrific events, she lifted her head to peer at Austin splayed out on the sofa bed.

A tickle of guilt played out across the back of her neck as she eyed Austin on his stomach, his leg hanging off the side of the bed, his arm flung over his head and the sheets tangled about his body as if he’d been wrestling with them all night. He probably had.

She scooched up to a sitting position, her eyes gradually becoming accustomed to the gloom of the room. With the sheets shrugged from his broad shoulders and twisted around his waist, he looked like a Greek god who’d fallen to Earth for a nap between battles.

On her hands and knees, she crawled to the end of the bed to get a better look, and got an eyeful of his smooth, bare back, strong enough to carry the weight of the world’s safety—or at least her own.

He cleared his throat and thrashed his legs, the sheet bunching and scooting farther down his back.

She released a small sigh when she saw the edge of his black briefs. Not that she was hoping for a glimpse of his bare backside, but it would’ve considerably brightened her morning after a bad night in a series of bad nights.

Her gaze traveled from his buttocks, teasingly concealed by the sheet, over his smooth back and across those muscled shoulders until it collided with a pair of green eyes. She couldn’t see their greenness in the dim light, but she knew the color by now. She’d gotten lost in that color a few times.

The heat surged in her cheeks, but he wouldn’t be able to see the blush any more than she could see the color of his eyes. “Oh, are you awake? I—I thought I heard your phone go off.”

“My phone’s over there.” He rolled onto his back and flung his arm out to the side. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Why?”

“Isn’t it early?”

She twisted around to see the glowing numbers of the alarm clock. “It’s seven twenty. Is that early?”

“I guess not.” He rubbed his eyes. “It’s so dark in here.”

“Those drapes do a pretty good job of shutting out the light, and I think we’re facing west.”

Closing his eyes, he made a halfhearted kick at the sheets wound around his legs. “Seems earlier.”

“I’m sorry. You didn’t have a very good night’s sleep, did you? Bed’s too small for you.”

“That’s not why. I can sleep in any condition, and have. This sofa bed is heaven compared to some of the mattresses I’ve endured—and some of the rock ledges that have doubled as mattresses.”

She held her breath waiting for him to explain why he’d had a restless night. Could it have been because she was in the bed two feet away from him? No. A man like him? A woman like her? Just no.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.