Read Online Damage Control (Valiant Knox) by Jess Anastasi - Free Book Online Page A

can get away with screwing the rules.”
    Though a sane person might have taken his assessment of her character as a warning—an assessment that was probably spot-on, despite the fact they’d only met less than twenty four hours ago—for some reason his words made her feel too warm.
    She cleared her still-raw throat and tilted her chin up a little. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”
    “Plausible deniability?”
    She didn’t answer, but she did hold his intense gaze for a long moment, making her pulse rate kick up.
    His expression relaxed a little into what could have passed for contemplation. “However long you last in this training program, I have a feeling it’s not going to be boring while you’re around.”
    Now that she didn’t think he meant as a compliment at all, which only served to spark her temper. “Sir, I’ll do my utmost to be as dull as dishwater, sir.”
    She clenched her teeth after the words slipped out. Damn it . Apparently she’d lost her common sense and her self-control since leaving the Farr Zero yesterday.
    Luckily, Captain Alphin didn’t seem pissed off. In fact, she could have sworn she caught a spark of amusement in his gaze before he glanced away from her. However, by the time he looked back, any hint of what he’d thought of her ill-considered words had gone.
    He shifted a step closer until she had to tip her head up slightly to keep her gaze fixed on his face. His hand landed on her shoulder, and then he urged her into a pivot to face the door.
    “Get some rest. You’re going to need it.” His low voice trickled over her like warm syrup and sent a tremble tripping down her spine.
    She froze, cursing herself because he had to have felt that, since he was holding on to her shoulder. For a second he stilled and she caught her breath, waiting for him to release her so she could flee to her bunk and hide under her covers.
    “Leigh—” She didn’t know why his name slipped out on a whisper, that one word filled with far more than she should have revealed to him. But apparently it was enough to break the spell.
    “ Christ .” He let her go abruptly, leaving her off-balance.
    Before she’d regained her equilibrium, he’d turned away and stalked off down the passageway, leaving her with nothing but cold shivers tracking under her skin.
    Whatever his intentions in escorting her up here, she had a feeling that hadn’t been it. And instead of resolving the little infraction between them, somehow they’d gone and made it worse.
    She covered her heated face with her hands for a long moment. Disaster didn’t begin to cover it. She had to get over this little burgeoning infatuation and start acting like the recruit she’d trained to be. She had plans for a career, and getting involved in an inappropriate relationship with a superior officer definitely didn’t factor into that.

    J esus Christ . What had he been thinking?
    Leigh sat up, damp sheets pooling in his lap, sweat cooling on his body and breath too hard to catch. He glanced at the clock in the wall beside his bunk. Oh four hundred. Shoving a hand through his hair, he swung his legs off the bed and set his feet on the cold floor.
    After he’d fled the recruit dorms last night, he’d locked himself in his apartment, too wound up and pissed off to be fit for company. He’d thrown himself into a cold shower, loathing himself every second. How could he have succumbed to such a moment of weakness that could put a short, humiliating end to the career he’d put his whole thirty-six years into? Never once in all the time he’d been training potential new pilots had he been attracted to a single one of them, not even the slightest bit. His position as their commanding officer had made it easier to view them impersonally.
    Maybe the stress of knowing he possibly had a mole under his command had screwed with his head, and Mia presented as a convenient distraction.
    Except that wasn’t fair on her, and made him