Rescue Me

gas-guzzling truck wasn’t free, and looks got a person only so far in life. Even him.
    “Pardon?” He returned his gaze to her face and watched her mouth as she spoke, which, she had to admit, she found kind of sexy. When she repeated her question, he laughed. “No. Before I left Seattle a few months ago, I worked as a security consultant at the port of Seattle. Part of my job was to identify holes and weakness in the system and report them to Homeland Security.” His thumb brushed her waist through the smooth silk. “Which meant that I dressed like regular security guards or maintenance workers or truck drivers and looked for security breaches in the container terminals.”
    Knowing that someone was looking out for America’s ports made her feel safer, and she told him so.
    One corner of his mouth lifted. “Just because I filled out some paperwork doesn’t mean anyone paid attention or anything changed.”
    Great.
    “Working for the government is a lesson in frustration.” He brushed her waist again, back and forth as if he was testing the smooth fabric against the print of his thumb. “Doesn’t matter the branch. Same shit. Different wrapper.” He folded her hand against his chest and slid his free palm to the small of her back. While the band dug into another slow song by Trace Adkins about every light in the house turned on, the unexpected pleasure of Vince’s touch spread a tingling warmth up and down Sadie’s spine. He brought her a little closer and asked, “When you’re not dressed in a Bubble Yum dress like a prom queen, what do you do for a living?” His warm breath touched the shell of her right ear, and the crease of his khakis brushed her bare thigh.
    Maybe it was the wine, or maybe the exhaustion of the day, but she settled into his chest. “Real estate.” She’d had only a few glasses of merlot, so it probably wasn’t the wine. “I’m an agent.” And she wasn’t all that tired. Certainly not tired enough to have to rest against a hard, muscular chest. She should probably take a step back. Yeah, probably, but it felt good to be held in a pair of big arms against a big chest. His hand slid up her zipper, then back down, spreading all the tingling heat across her skin.
    He turned his face into her hair. “You smell good, Sadie Jo.”
    So did he, and she breathed him in like a tingly drug. “The only people who call me Sadie Jo have Texas accents.” She liked the way he smelled and felt against her and the way he made her heart pound in her chest, making her feel young and alive. With just a touch on her back, he did things to her body that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Things she shouldn’t be feeling for a stranger. “Everyone else on the planet just calls me Sadie.” She slid a hand to the back of his neck and brushed his collar with her fingers.
    “Is Sadie Jo short for something?”
    “Mercedes Johanna.” The tips of her fingers slipped across the top of his collar and touched his neck. His skin was hot, warming up the tips of his fingers. “No one has called me that since my mama died.”
    “How long ago did she die?”
    “Twenty-eight years.”
    He was silent for a moment. “Long time. How’d she die?”
    So long she hardly remembered her. “Heart attack. I don’t remember a lot about it. Just my daddy calling her name and the sound of the ambulance and a white sheet.”
    “My mother died almost seven years ago.”
    “I’m sorry.” Her knee bumped his. “Your memories are fresher than mine.”
    He was quiet for several more heartbeats, then added, “I was in Fallujah at the time. My sister was with her when she died.”
    Her fingers on his collar stilled. It had been a while, but she remembered the nightly news reports and pictures of the fighting in Fallujah. “You were a soldier?”
    “Sailor,” he corrected. “Navy SEAL.”
    She guessed she’d been schooled. “How long did you serve?”
    “Ten years.”
    “I dated a Ranger once.” For about three weeks. “He was a little crazy. I think he had PTSD.”
    “Happens to a lot of good guys.” She was nosy enough to want to ask if it had happened to him, but she was tactful enough not to.
    Her fingers slid into the short dark hair at the base of his skull. There was just something about a strong, capable man. Something appealing about knowing that if a girl fell and broke her leg, he could throw her over his shoulder and run twenty miles to a hospital. Or hell, make a splint out of a