Opal by Helen Hardt

Author:Helen Hardt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hardt & Sons

23

LEIF

Please? Did that word truly just come out of Kelly Taylor’s mouth?

I study her.

I look hard. I desperately try to see something beyond her physical beauty and her fight-or-flight attitude.

Is she attractive?

God, yes. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve always liked redheads, and though her hair is a little darker, she still qualifies. She’s wearing blue leggings and a large white T-shirt. Hardly the stuff of wet dreams, but she makes it look like it came straight out of Victoria’s Secret.

My dick responds to her, which I’m not happy about. She’s my charge. I’m supposed to protect her, not fuck her.

But although I find her physically attractive, her personality? Not so much.

“What do you want?” I ask her.

“I’m just…scared. I’m so tired of being scared.”

“I understand. I’ve been scared myself.”

She scoffs. “When were you ever scared?”

Really? Did she just go there? “I was a Navy SEAL, Kelly. My life was in peril on the daily when I was overseas. I lost friends over there. Buck and I came back, but four of our friends didn’t.”

She swallows. I don’t hear anything but I see her throat move.

Good. That got to her. It’s about time she realizes that she’s not the only person who’s ever been through bad stuff. She’s not the only person who’s ever been to hell and back. I feel for her. I do. I feel for every one of those women who was violated on that godforsaken island. But the other ones that I know? Katelyn? Aspen? Jenna? Carly?

They’re all healing. They’re taking a proactive attitude.

Kelly? There’s nothing proactive about her. She’s all reactive, pure and simple, and she reacts by striking.

“So…good night.” I head back toward the door.

But again she grabs my arm. And damn… Her touch. My cock is already hard.

She’s a beautiful woman, for sure, but I don’t like her.

Still… It’s been a while for me, and I am a man, after all.

“Can I tell you?” she asks.

I breathe in, let out slowly. “Tell me what?”

“What it was like.”

“On the island?” I shake my head. “I can’t hear that, Kelly. My imagination is bad enough. I hate what was done to you women. And I understand more than you know.”

I expect a sarcastic or smart-ass comment to come from her, so I’m surprised as hell when—

“Tell me about the war.”

“I wasn’t in the middle of a war,” I remind her.

“I suppose not. Where were you?”

“Afghanistan. A couple tours.”

“And Buck was with you?”

“He was.”

“You came back and he came back,” she says. “Who didn’t?”

“You really want to know?”

“I do. I think I really do.”

“Okay.”

I unbutton my shirt.

She gasps. “Now wait a minute.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” I say. “If I wanted something more from you, I’d have tried it before now. But this is the best way for me to explain to you who I lost over there.”

I continue unbuttoning, and her cheeks turn red. Will she like what she sees? Most women do. But I’m not unbuttoning my shirt for her to ogle me.

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