Taking the Heat by Sylvia Day

As she heard the shower come on, Layla grabbed her salad and crawled between the cool sheets. Needing to slow her raging heartbeat, she picked up the remote from the nightstand and turned on the television. A few channel switches later, she found a showing of Navy SEALs .
    She started watching, her thoughts drifting to why a man would choose such a life. Jacob had chosen it because of their father, who had chosen it because of his father. But Brian never really had an answer to that question. He didn’t have those family traditions. He’d been raised by a single mother, who never told him who his father was. When Layla had asked him why he’d joined the military, he’d shrugged and said, “What else was I going to do?”
    But he was good at everything, from fixing transmissions to masonry to cooking. He could have done anything with his life that he wanted to.
    “You’d better eat quick,” he warned, when he turned the shower off. “I’m about to pounce.”
    Layla hit the mute button and feigned a loud snore.
    “Ha! I know how to wake you up.”
    “Bring it on.”
    When he stepped out of the bathroom in all his naked glory, she felt her heart stop. Tears welled and blurred her vision. She dashed them away with impatient swipes, unwilling to lose even a second of the sight of him.
    “God,” she breathed, loving him so much her chest was tight with it.
    He paused near the bed, letting her look her fill. He was leaner than she’d ever seen him, which told her he was working too hard, but his body was perfect in every way regardless. There was nothing she’d change about him, nothing more she could want. She closed her to-go box and set it on the nightstand without looking away.
    Brian caught the edge of the sheet and tugged it down, revealing her body in slow increments. “I feel the same way when I look at you,” he murmured. “Like I can’t catch my breath. Like I can’t blink, in case you disappear when I do.”
    He saw her. Truly saw her and who she was, knew her and cared about her with all her history and flaws. After feeling invisible for years, hidden behind a name and life that wasn’t really hers, it meant so much to be with someone who got her. It meant the world to be with Brian now, during the most dangerous and stressful period of her life.
    He set his palms down on the mattress, then his knees, crawling toward her in a luscious display of masculine strength and agility. His cock hung heavily between his legs, making her tummy flutter in anticipation. Her toes curled when he kissed the arch of her foot. His parted lips slid up to her ankle, his hand reaching for her other foot and squeezing.
    “Brian?”
    “Yeah, baby?”
    “Come here.”
    His dark head lifted, his gaze snaring hers. “No.”
    “I’m not stopping you,” she said huskily. “I just want to hold you a bit first.”
    He exhaled, then climbed over her, stretching out beside her.
    She rolled into him, burying her face against his chest. His skin was still damp and cool, his heartbeat sure and strong. His arm draped over her and she tilted her head back, pressing tiny kisses to his clean-shaven jaw, so damn grateful for the opportunity to hold him in her arms again.
    “Layla . . .” His voice was low and hoarse, with an aching note of yearning.
    Even with a raging hard-on and her willingness, he’d taken the time to shave his evening stubble so as not to scratch her. He was always thinking of her, in both big and small ways. Always ready to give her whatever she needed.
    Except when it came to his job.
    “Make me understand,” she whispered. “Why is it so important to you to risk your life?”
    Brian stiffened, then rested his chin atop her head with a sigh. “It’s not that.”
    “What is it, then?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve thought it over so many times. Lying in bed without you, wondering where you were, if you were okay, wondering why the hell I didn’t just say to hell with the fucking job when you gave me