“I’m packing,” she finally answered as she turned away, but not before he caught the flash of hurt in her eyes. “Is that all you wanted?”
Hell, no, it wasn’t all he wanted.
Soft, supple leather covered the couch and recliner that faced the wall-mounted combination televisioncomputer screen. A small lap table sat at one end of the couch, the wireless keyboard and computer accessories aimed for the screen.
A colorful western throw was laid over the back of the couch. A cup of tea sat on the coffee table, still steaming, as she moved back to it.
A bookshelf filled with books covered one wall. Interspersed with the books were small figurines she’d been given over the years for Christmas or her birthday. Tiny, collectible dragons. Pocket dragons, she called them. It was the only thing Tehya collected. Whimsical, fanciful, the complete opposite of her life.
She hadn’t packed them. The books were still on the shelves, boxes in front of them with only a few books enclosed.
“You have a ways to go,” he said as he looked around.
The room was incredibly neat. Even the packed boxes were stacked in neat little piles awaiting morning and the team that would load her belongings and transport them to the storage facility she had requested they be taken to.
“I’ll be ready on time.” She shrugged.
Those wild green eyes flicked over him, making his cock harder, reminding him of all the things he couldn’t have. All the things he refused to allow himself to have.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t have her. He could, and God knew he wanted her until his body felt on fire from the need. But he knew he would only end up destroying both of them if he took her, if he allowed the dominant possessiveness that rode him to have free rein.
“What do you want, Jordan?” she finally asked as she sat down on the couch, one leg tucked beneath the other as she wedged herself into the corner of the cushions. “You’re standing there as though you should be doing something. There’s nothing left to do anymore.” And the regret in her voice echoed through his entire being. As did the loss. He could hear it, feel it. The loss of something neither of them had been allowed to experience.
No, there wasn’t anything left to do.
He felt his jaw tighten as he fought back the need to go to her, to push her back along the leather cushions as he came over her.
Five seconds, he thought. He could have her laid out on the couch, that piece of nothing gown she wore pushed to her hips and his dick buried between those luscious thighs in less than five seconds.
And he would be making the biggest mistake of his life.
She was essentially a coworker. He was her superior, even though the Ops were, for the moment, disbanded. She was a woman that needed more than he could give her, more than he could allow himself to give any woman. She already had more of him than he was willing to admit to.
“Jordan, if you don’t stop standing there staring at me as though you’re ready to strangle me, then I just may begin to worry.”
She didn’t sound in the least worried. She sounded irritated, restless, a bit frustrated. But worried wasn’t in there.
“Do you need help packing?” he finally asked.
He wasn’t ready to walk away. Come dawn, the transport detail would be here to load her belongings and ship them out. She would be following behind in whichever of the expensive, fast little sports cars was still parked in the base garage. He’d given her a choice of the vehicles, something he hadn’t offered to the other members of the unit.
“I don’t need help packing.” There was a snap to her voice now, a sense of impatience and frustration that threatened to light a fuse to his already short temper.
“You’ll leave it to the last damned minute and have the transport detail packing boxes and running late while you bark out orders,” he ground out as that frustration began to eat at him, to get the better of him. “Dammit, Tehya, they’re on a schedule.”
“As if I’m ever late getting anything done.” Her eyes narrowed, an assessing, curious light glittering in them as she watched him. “Tell me a single instance in the past six years that I have ever been late.”
He hated it when she stared at him like that. As though she suddenly glimpsed something in his gaze or in his expression that was another piece of a puzzle she was putting together.
He wasn’t a damned puzzle. He was a fucking horny man and he was trying damned hard to keep a handle on the lusts raging through him.
What the hell did she expect from him?
“Do you want me to help you pack?” His arms folded over his chest as he glared at her now, channeling all the frustrated lust into irritated anger.
Anger was a hell of a lot easier to deal with than a redheaded little rogue determined to drive him insane.
“No. Actually, I don’t need your help.” She came to her feet slowly, like a cat unwinding from a favorite bed.