Read [When SEALs Come Home 04] - Heated for Free Online

how to behave. He’d been flirting outrageously with her for weeks, but that had been a game. A fun game, but not something he’d expected would lead anywhere like a date. Sex. A relationship.
    Hell.
    When had he started thinking about Deputy Sheriff Hernandez and relationships in the same sentence? He stared at her braid some more, but not surprisingly, her hair didn’t have any answers for him.
    “Stop boring holes in the back of my head,” she said, not taking her eyes off the road. She drove like she did everything else, smoothly and confidently, sticking to the speed limit.
    He leaned forward. He liked her. They were both adults. Maybe he was overthinking this thing. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
    She flashed him that curious half smile of hers in the rearview mirror. “I’m not disagreeing with you.”
    He shouldn’t be flattered that she sounded surprised.
    “Are you free this weekend? I’d like to take you out.” There. He sounded like he was fifty if he was a day, but the question was asked.
    Her eyes widened, meeting his in the rearview mirror. “You can’t ask an officer of the law out on a date.”
    “I can. I open my mouth and say: Mercedes Hernandez, would you like to have a beer with me?” He thought for a moment. “Except you’re not a beer person. I’d have to think of something else for you.”
    “Right.” She drove silently for another mile, until she visibly lost the battle with her curiosity. It was good to know he still had that much. “What kind of date do you think I am? No. Wait.” She closed her eyes briefly, and that was another victory, because he wouldn’t have thought a sea tank chewing its way out of the ocean and onto the beach could have taken her eyes off the road.
    “That sounds bad,” she said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
    “Too late,” he said cheerfully. “You’ve given me ideas. You definitely have to go out with me now.”
    She glared at him. “The only thing I have to do is drop you off at a holding cell.”
    “Details.” He shrugged. Uncle Sam had taught him a half dozen ways to get out of the cuffs she’d put on him. He didn’t have to stay where she’d put him. In fact, if Rio learned of this, escaping would seem like the wiser strategy. “You know you’re dying to ask.”
    “Don’t mess with an officer of the law. It gets you arrested.”
    They were flirting with a dangerous line. He knew that. He also knew he wouldn’t do anything that would really make her uncomfortable or that would force her to choose between her sheriff’s oath and whatever this thing was that they had. Because it was a tiny thing and not even important to her, but somehow it had become his lifeline. He’d started out racing down the empty highway, trying to forget the not-so-empty road in the Middle East, and he’d discovered that this highway wasn’t empty either. It was better. It had had Mercy Hernandez. He had no idea what he’d done to deserve her—he suspected the answer was absolutely nothing —but he liked knowing she’d be chasing him. Yelling at him for pulling stupid stunts and putting his life in danger. He’d bet he’d like other things with her as well, if she’d just give him a chance.
    Unfortunately, being arrested by her was not a good start, and not only because Rio Donovan would blow a gasket when he heard. Which he would because, hello, Strong was a small town.
    “S’mores,” he said. “How do you feel about s’mores?”
    “Food is always good.” She flashed him a grin. “And who doesn’t like chocolate and graham crackers?”
    The last time he’d downed a s’more, he’d been on his last deployment. A couple of the guys had built a fire, sweating over the flames in the middle of the desert because their CO had tossed them a care package from an unknown donor. They should have written some kind of thank-you note and they’d fallen down on the job there, but they’d all thought it. They’d made do without milk