His heart was hammering as he pulled away, his chest heaving with harsh deep breaths. The realization of what he’d just done washed over him with a mix of ice and flame that was as disorienting as a flashbang grenade.
Her head tipped back, Sky stared up at him, her perfect mouth soft and slightly open and so tempting that it was all Cullen could do to stop himself from taking her right then and there.
“Cullen,” she breathed, her eyes dropping to where he was still holding her wrist tightly enough to cut off circulation.
He couldn’t have let go quicker if he’d touched molten lead. “I—” He stopped, words failing him, together with his common sense. Cullen didn’t know what to say, and was slightly afraid that his pulsing erection would make anything he did try to utter sound high-pitched.
Sky bit her lip, her beautiful and all-too-intelligent eyes seeming to see right through any shield Cullen put up. The tip of her tongue flicked out to moisten her now-swollen lips.
“Everything all right?” Eli stuck his head out the backyard gate fence. “You lot coming in?”
“Yes,” Sky and Cullen said at the same time.
Eli raised a brow and quickly retreated.
By the time Cullen had found his voice again, Sky was straightening out the material of her pale yellow dress and walking with purpose toward the party. Hanging back a moment, he couldn’t stop himself from watching how the fabric hugged her curves, gliding over the kind of ass that made a man hard from one glance. He shuddered, took one step to follow, and then turned on his heel and marched himself into Eli’s house instead.
He needed an ice-cold shower.
When he rejoined the party fifteen minutes later, he surveyed Eli’s backyard to find his Tridents gathered together at one end, while Jaz, Catherine, and Sky chatted inside a gazebo. With its octagonal cedar construction, the building complemented the other structures on the property. The evergreen scrubs and flowering trees along the perimeter of the backyard were as well designed as everything else in the mansion—all perfectly calculated as a fuck-you from Eli’s mother to the son she never wanted.
“What the hell happened to you?” Eli asked as Cullen grabbed a local craft beer and joined the group, positioning himself with his back toward Sky. “Did our new recruit rip you a new one like I told you she would?”
“It’s fine.” Cullen took a sip of his beer to buy himself another moment. He still couldn’t explain the kiss to himself, so he sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to explain it to the Tridents. All he knew was that somewhere in the middle of his fury, an irresistible pull from Sky made him lose all common sense. “We’re fine.”
“Famous last words,” said Liam.
Cullen flipped him off.
Liam rubbed the back of his neck, studying Cullen with an intrusive gaze he usually reserved for play partners. Liam was the only one of the Tridents who came from poverty, and he’d learned to read everything about body language at a young age. That type of scrutiny made Liam invaluable in interrogations and, from what Cullen gathered, in his recreational activities. But it made him damn uncomfortable as a friend.
“What?” Cullen demanded.
“You’re allowed to like Reynolds,” Liam said.
“I don’t like Reynolds.”
Liam shrugged one shoulder. “Fine. You’re allowed to be sexually attracted to Reynolds. She may not be my type, but the woman is smoking hot. Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve not noticed.”
“I’ve noticed that Jaz is at the Rescue barbecue,” said Cullen, knowing it was a weaselly way to avoid the subject. “Did someone hire her and forget to tell me?”
“Eli invited her,” Kyan said, flashing their host a venom-filled gaze that set the conversation off in a new direction that Cullen pretended to follow.
After half an hour separated by gender groups, Eli declared his party wasn’t a middle school dance and lured everyone together with a promise of burgers. Jaz, who was in the middle of describing her adventures backpacking through Europe the summer prior when Cullen and the others came up to join them, stepped back to widen the circle.
“I’ve climbed in Frankenjura, Germany; Finale Ligure, Italy; Osp, Slovenia; and on the sea cliffs of the Formentor Peninsula in Spain,” Jaz’s eyes sparkled with each memory. “Looking down to watch the waves crashing below is like nothing else.”
“I’m adding that to my bucket list.” Sky’s musical voice shot straight into Cullen’s chest. “In fact, I’m earmarking my savings for it now.”
“Do you travel a bit for journalism?” Jaz asked.
“Not yet, but I’m on track for investigative reporting, so I hope to in the future.”
Investigative reporting? Cullen filed away the thought, remembering Sky’s original line of questioning when she’d first come up on him and Eli.
“Why Denton Valley? I can’t imagine there’s much here. Is there?” Jaz dropped her voice, leaning closer; Cullen fighting the urge to do the same.
“Actually, there is something,” Sky told Jaz. “Or might be. Yesterday, when I went to the scene, Channel Thirteen was already there, but the cops weren’t. It’s come to my attention since that Denton’s emergency assistance comes much more quickly to those who live in these types of neighborhoods…” She gestured around Eli’s opulent abode, “than to the Lincoln Drive-type dwellings. If that’s true, it’s not okay.”
“Agreed.” Jaz nodded vehemently, and Cullen made a mental note to check in with the chief of police to see if there was something to the claim.
“The first part, though, is actually checking the facts and the environment, both in terms of records and local sentiment. Seeing whether things match. It could be a self-fulling prophecy. For example, Lincoln Drive residents might be so demoralized with prior police response that they no longer call. So the police don’t know to come, and it all reinforces the neighborhood’s belief that cops never show up. Point is, a problem can’t be solved unless its causes are fully understood. And that’s what I’m going to do, starting with interviewing Lincoln Drive residents.”
“Like hell you are.” The words slipped from Cullen’s mouth before he could even consider putting them in more diplomatic terms. Hell, fuck diplomacy. The woman was less than twenty-four hours out of the ER and she was already talking about going back into a drug den.
“Opining on my business again, Cullen?” Sky shot him a fire-filled gaze that made him go hard all over again. “This is becoming a really bad habit of yours.”
“What part of ‘stay out of danger, Sky’ don’t you understand?” he demanded.
“Likely the same part that confuses you in ‘stay out of my decisions.’” Sky’s jaw tightened, and, though she was much smaller than Cullen, she met the whole storm of his wrath without backing away one step. Most SEALs couldn’t do that. And yet here she was. “You don’t own me.”
“Never said I did.” Cullen felt the air around them heat several degrees, the others staying quiet as he and Sky faced each other in a duel. Cullen’s pulse quickened, and he had to remind himself to breathe several times before trying for a reasonable tone. “But it seems Frank Peterson does. If you want to be an investigative journalist, why are you working for a piece of shit of a human running a glorified tabloid?”