Read Online In Too Deep by Tracey Alvarez - Free Book Online

edged around the table. “And
your hissy-fit when I ordered you up? Childish, even for
you.”
    Hissy-fit? Heat flamed her cheeks
and spread, hazing her vision red, loosening her tongue. “After
three-and-a-half grueling weeks on the Navy training course, a
little thing like a shark or a lost regulator would not make
me panic. I was in no danger, so your power trip was uncalled
for.”
    “ Just had to prove how big your
balls were, didn’t you?”
    “ I don’t have to prove anything to
you.” She turned to make a grand exit to her cabin but West blocked
her path, wrapping his fingers around her upper arm.
    “ You’ve got something to prove to
everyone with that giant chip on your shoulder. But I’m not playing
your juvenile pissing game again. Next time I signal you out of the
water, you get out of the fucking water.”
    Piper gaped at West like he’d
suddenly sprouted horns and a forked tail.
    They always squabbled growing
up—usually the kind that ended with someone getting dunked in the
ocean—and the easy rivalry between her and her brother’s mates had
been a fun way to blow off steam.
    That’s what she expected this
time. A nice, harmless shouting match that would bury the real
reasons for her irritation. They would wind each other up, yell a
bit and then everyone would feel better. But she hadn’t anticipated
the ice in West’s blue eyes as they examined her without a glimmer
of remembered affection.
    She swallowed back a bitter dose
of hurt. “Get your hands off me.”
    His palm burned her cool flesh,
each finger branding a stripe on the soft skin of her inner arm.
West moved closer, the few inches of height he had on her blocking
out the sun. Hell, his size had less to do with blocking out the
sun than just standing close to him. He dazzled her. And that alone
made Piper want to punch him.
    But she refused to shrink back, to
allow him to see how his hand on her bare skin affected her. She
latched onto her anger, pulling a memory from her days in police
training college to reinforce it.
    “ More aggression!” her instructor
bellowed at her when she’d participated in training exercises
tackling suspects who were really other cops in jumpsuits. “You’re
a cop arresting a suspect who could have a concealed weapon. Don’t
give him a frickin’ cuddle and kiss!”
    More aggression, that’s what she
needed. Definitely not thoughts of cuddles and kisses with the man
who hadn’t blinked from examining her in the last ten seconds. She
moistened her suddenly dry lips, and froze when something changed
in his gaze at the flick of her tongue. Heat flared, heat that
melted the ice of only a moment ago.
    Piper narrowed her eyes so she
wouldn’t see his gaze track down to her lips again. Because she was
mad, not thinking about the reasons why he might find her mouth
interesting. “Remove your hand before I start breaking
fingers.”
    Aggressive enough? Better than the
alternative of, “Kiss me you crazy fool.”
    His smile was insolent as he slid
his fingers along the sensitive underside of her arm, finally
pulling them away. “I remember you begged me to touch you, once
upon a time.”
    Yet another cringe-worthy moment
in her past. “Aw, you still think about me sometimes? That’s sweet.
But that was before I became a stone cold bitch.”
    His eyebrows rose. Yeah, she’d
heard the whispers after her father’s memorial service when she’d
stood at her mother’s side, dry-eyed and stoic. More like catatonic
with guilt and grief, but hey, that wasn’t quite as
juicy.
    “ You want to order me around at
Due South, go ahead, if it makes you feel all alpha. But you don’t
get to tell me what to do in the water.” She jabbed him in the
chest. “And you sure as shit don’t get to put your hands on
me.”
    West wrapped his larger hand
around hers, gently forcing her finger back into her fist. “Since
being near me is so damn unbearable, why don’t you hop on the next
ferry and run back to the city.