Unexpected by Lori Foster Page B

“yes” just so he could stay and watch her cook. Every movement was agile and flowing without deliberate effort and she seemed to get a great deal done without rushing.
    That was something he’d noticed about her. She seldom hurried, but she was always productive. At one point, she stopped stirring the eggs to give an elaborate stretch. Eli nearly strangled on his coffee.
    Though she’d assured him Jeremy would be fine, and he trusted her experience in the matter, he wouldn’t relax completely until he had his brother home safe and sound. He should have been concentrating solely on that, not on Ray, not on the firmness of her ass or how sweet her belly looked and how he’d like to kiss her there . . .
    She glanced up, saw where he was looking, and rearranged her undershirt so it again covered her stomach.
    Her expression was devoid of emotion.
    Because he normally went after what he wanted, and he definitely wanted Ray, he had a hard time restraining himself. “Sorry.”
    She turned away, an odd introspective mood clouding her previous lack of inhibition. The kitchen remained silent while she finished cooking. But when she returned to the table to dish up the eggs, she made a wry face at Eli.
    â€œI guess I don’t have any modesty left. Being in this line of work has a way of forcing you to get to the core of survival. After being around men so often, I’ve begun to feel like one of the guys, and men have always treated me just that way.”
    Eli had a really hard time believing any man, young, old, single, or attached could be around Ray without complete and total acknowledgement of her as a woman. It didn’t matter what she wore or how she acted with the men. Unless they were blind, they’d be noticing her.
    She gave a self-conscious shrug. “I’m only in this mode when I’m on an assignment. There’re just too many other things to concentrate on to worry about my appearance. I hope you don’t mind too much.” She pushed her bangs away. “I’ll try to remember a little more modesty.”
    He didn’t want her to do that. But after that speech, where she took everything so seriously, concentrating solely on the job of saving his brother, mentioning that he had enjoyed the show might seem insensitive.
    He’d just have to try harder to hide his reaction to her.
    But then she took her seat, reached for her toast, and the strap of the undershirt slid down her arm. For one breathless, heart-stopping, anticipatory moment, Eli thought the shirt would give way to gravity and reveal the fullness of her breast. Neither heaven nor hell could have pulled his gaze away from her.
    But she caught the strap and tugged it back up, oblivious to his turmoil.
    Eli rubbed his face. Much more of that and he’d be making a fool of himself at the kitchen table. He concentrated on the food, on his brother, on anything and everything other than Ray.
    Eating eggs and fried bologna while feeling like an anxious adolescent preparing for his first intimacy wasn’t easy to pull off. His lack of control annoyed the hell out of him.
    As she wolfed down her portion of breakfast, Ray pulled out a map and laid it on the table between them. Using her fork, she pointed to a spot in Central America. “This is where they have your brother, just a couple of miles from the Macal River.”
    He glanced at the map. “A plateau?”
    â€œYeah. Real pretty land, but riddled with caves, some pretty treacherous. There’s a clearing here,” she said, pointing to the map, “that used to be an old logging camp. It’s being reclaimed by the forest, though, and isn’t really passable except on foot. Deadfalls are everywhere. The wood makes good campfires, but it also houses some deadly insects and snakes.”
    Eli wasn’t worried about a few bugs. “Is the pilot you mentioned reliable?”
    Her eyes came up to his with a suddenness