Revealing Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 4) (22 page)

“I have to get out of here.” Evan stood so fast that the chair tipped back and hit the ground with a crash. Where he was going, he had no idea. But the swirl of uncertainty under his skin meant he had to do
something
.

The problem was that he didn’t know if he had the strength to do the right thing.

The new entertainment center fit perfectly against the wall across from the couch. Rachel curled in a ball and stared at it. There was no TV. Instead, she watched the finished boards and imagined Evan’s hands in motion as he crafted it.

She’d rather his hands be in motion on her body. But that option wasn’t available to her anymore. The longer Evan stayed at Charlie’s, the more numb she got. The meeting this morning had been torture, but she couldn’t have missed it over a stupid broken heart. Professional to the core. That was the Blume family motto, and she’d apparently gotten the correct DNA after all.

She wished Evan had delivered the entertainment center himself. But he’d gotten Jace and Miles to do it, robbing her of the chance to ask what this piece of furniture was supposed to mean. Whether Evan planned to come home and use it, or it was a lovely parting gift.

So of course that’s why he’d asked his friends to lend their brawn. They’d joked around with her and made her laugh. Which she appreciated more than either of them could know. But two SEALs were not better than one, when the one she wanted wasn’t available to her.

Evan had made “I can’t” his own personal maxim, and she was tired of beating her head against that wall. Now was as good a time as any to fix her fatal flaw and give up.

Somehow the hour grew late, and Rachel’s stomach grumbled. She hadn’t eaten all day.

Wandering to the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator, but it wasn’t much better stocked than the first time she’d done so. Because she had no interest in cooking. Or much of anything.

The air shifted, and she turned.
Evan
.

He filled the entryway of the kitchen, tall and beautiful, and her gaze gobbled him up because
oh, my God
. He was here. Unexpectedly, because she hadn’t dared dream—

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said inanely. Why hadn’t she heard? Her ears had been straining for the sound of the front door for hours upon hours. Had she already subconsciously given up?

His dark eyes sought hers and held, like so many times before. She swayed toward him as her muscles tensed to leap into his arms. But she didn’t because he might be here to get his stuff. Permanently. Or to tell her to get out because this was his house.

Instead, he cleared his throat. Entranced, she watched as his muscles worked.

“My name is Evan Silva.” He raised his hand and waited until she grasped it, then closed his fingers around hers so tightly she couldn’t pull away.

She should pull away. This was one more sashay down the path to madness, another way for him to yank her toward him while he threw up barriers, knowing good and well she’d smash into them.

“I’m an alcoholic,” he continued and swallowed hard. “I’m divorced. I send my ex money to care for my daughter via a wire transfer because it’s the only personal information she’ll give me.”

Oh, God. He was introducing himself. Because he never had before. But not only that, he was telling her all the most important things about himself, using his voice, his words, like she’d begged him to. Opening himself up to expose all his secrets.

Her heart went into a free fall, landing somewhere near his feet. Of course, because it had belonged to him for so long she scarcely recalled what it felt like to not be in love with him.

And still, he wasn’t done. “I have nothing to offer you and no right to be here.”

“But you can’t stay away,” she whispered.

He shook his head, his body vibrating with tension.

“I should,” he choked out. “But I can’t live without you. I thought if I made myself do it, it would prove something. That I don’t need you. I proved the exact opposite.”

His voice soaked into her Evan-starved soul. “Oh, honey. Why in the world did you think you had to prove you don’t need me?”

“Because.” His fingers tightened around hers. “I’ve got an addictive personality. It’s not a good thing to want you so badly that I can’t think, can’t sleep. To need you to fill that hole inside.”

That was the final straw. The tears spilled over as she absorbed what he was telling her. He’d denied what he wanted because he’d mistaken it for a problem. “But I want you to want me like that. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

That’s why it had hurt so badly when he walked away. She’d handed him her heart, and he’d bobbled it back at her like a hot potato.

“I hurt you,” he murmured, reading her expertly. Like he had so many times before. “I’ve hurt others. Myself. I don’t deserve absolution.”

Her eyelids flew shut involuntarily as she processed that. He was beating himself up, suffering willingly because he didn’t think he was allowed to be pardoned.

For so long she’d operated under such a similar belief. How fitting that even in this, they were cut from the same cloth. How fitting that in that moment, she saw exactly why despite trying so hard to atone for her sins, she’d never gotten there. Because there were no sins to forgive.

“Evan,” she croaked and opened her eyes to see him staring at her with all that emotion she’d fought against for so long, when in reality it was absolution in every sense of the word. For both of them. “Don’t you see?”

To make sure he did, she took off her glasses and laid them on the counter.

“You made mistakes. Of course you did. You’re human.” As she said the words out loud, they reverberated in her soul, blowing away twelve years of anguish over her own mistakes. “But you have a right to be happy. A right to reach out for what you want. I’ll be here. Reaching back, every time because I love you. I’m way too hardheaded to give up on you, no matter what you throw at me.”

Something that looked suspiciously like a tear glistened in the corner of his eye. “Say it again.”

“I love you.” No question which part he’d meant, not when everything inside of him was radiating from his face, bleeding through the atmosphere and curling up in her heart. “I love you, Evan. I love that you don’t judge me for my mistakes. I love how you love me.”

His forehead drifted down until it touched her, but not before she glimpsed the wave of genuine pain twisting his gorgeous mouth. “It feels like such a weakness that I need you so much.”

“Darling, that’s the best part,” she murmured. “You stripped me to the core, revealing things I didn’t even know were there. Wanna know what you uncovered? An intense longing to be the woman you needed. It was so easy to become that and felt so right it scared me. But not anymore.”

“You weren’t supposed to be so forgiving.” His voice broke, but he didn’t retreat. “God above, Rachel, I love you so much. But it may not be so easy to be with me in a few months. A year, when I’m so addicted to you that I won’t be able to breathe if you’re not around.”

“Well, if that’s bad, then I’m an addict too. Instead of fighting that, here’s an idea. We’ll form a two-person support group. The next time you feel like you can’t resist me, I promise I will run. You’ll have to chase me, and I will not make it easy for you to catch me. Let’s try it now.”

She yanked on their joined hands and launched into his arms, pulling him down for a scorching kiss that he instantly responded to. She lifted her head for one fraction of a second and murmured, “Oops. I guess you’re too much for
me
to resist. I’m afraid I’m going to be a very bad influence on you.”

By way of an answer, he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom, where he rolled them together until she could hardly tell where he ended and she began. Which was perfect.

“I hope you’re planning to be a bad influence for a long time,” he advised her. “Because I kind of like it.”

“Kind of?” she sputtered. “You clearly don’t understand how truly wicked I can be.”

His eyebrow quirked, and it clearly said
put your money where your mouth is
.

So she kissed him and fell into being Evan Silva’s addiction with everything she had.

T
he team quit ReefCo on a sunny Monday, with incredibly fortuitous timing. It meant Evan could stay in bed with Rachel. And take a shower with her. Eat breakfast together. Then go back to bed. The lightness that filled his heart could only be described as pure joy, and he embraced it wholly as the best happy place on earth.

Rachel rolled toward him, resting her head on his crooked elbow like she often did when they laid in bed. It was close enough so she could see him without her glasses. But it was also close enough that he could kiss her whenever he felt like it, which worked out pretty well for him too.

“I like this lack of employment deal,” she remarked. “Maybe we can sell coconuts on the beach to unsuspecting tourists.”

Evan laughed and threaded his fingers through her hair, and he liked that too because she was always within reach. “I have a feeling you’d turn that into a million-dollar enterprise in nothing flat. But I’m not going to be unemployed for long. I’m going by Miralinda today to talk to Brayden Lucas about a job.”

His lack of funds needed to be a thing of the past very quickly. Because he wanted to put a ring on Rachel’s finger, and he wanted to do it now. But couldn’t, not until he could support her.

“Oh.” Her mouth screwed up in a cute pout. “How will I spend all day in bed with you if you’re working?”

Shrugging, Evan tangled his legs with hers, pulling her tight against his body. “Guess we’ll have to make what time we have as deadbeats count.”

“Well, if you’re going to be a responsible adult, I should do the same,” she muttered against his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll get my license to practice law here. Which means a lot of freaking work is in my future. Thanks for nothing.”

Her sarcasm made him grin. “I like you being at home, waiting around for me. Cooking me dinner. Maybe you could even be barefoot and pregnant.”

Where had
that
come from? But instantly the image of Rachel rounded with child invaded his mind and he could not erase it. Didn’t want to. He wouldn’t miss a second of her pregnancy, could be there for the birth, hold his newborn in his arms from the first moment. The joy he carried inside expanded tenfold.

Rachel stiffened, and he cursed his stupid mouth. They hadn’t talked about anything even remotely resembling that and obviously he’d messed up by mentioning it. Neither of them had any business talking about having kids, and it was frankly an emotional landmine that he hadn’t even considered before speaking.

But then she lifted her head, and one tear tracked down her cheek. “I can’t tell you what it means to me that you’d want that. I was prepared to stay childless in order to be with you, but Evan, I can’t lie. Nothing would make me happier than to have your babies. Yeah, plural.”

He hadn’t even had a chance to quirk his eyebrow at that. She could, and hopefully always would, read him like a book, and he loved that about her.

“But,” she continued and caught his gaze so he knew she meant serious business. “We still have a big problem we have to contend with first.”

“I know,” he murmured. “I need to find Carrie and hash it out with her. If I can’t be a father to Jordan, I can’t be a father to our kids. And I want to make things right.”

The thought didn’t scare him like it once might have. Rachel’s warm hands on his skin encouraged him, filling him with strength, and somehow he’d gotten lucky enough to be in the position to get a new infusion every day. They loved each other, and it was an amazing, solid foundation for the first day of the rest of his life.

“Oh, honey.” She shook her head, and a few more tears leaked out. Sometimes he thought he should hate it more when she cried, but when Rachel let herself be vulnerable, that was when she was the most beautiful. “That’s not something I would have ever asked you to do. But I love that you thought of it. I’ll help if you want me to.”

“Wait a minute.” He pulled back to look at her more fully. “If that wasn’t the problem, what is? The barefoot part? Because you can wear shoes. I’m generous like that.”