“Smells like my favorite little restaurant in New Orleans,” he said as he moved to the dinette and poured two glasses of white wine she’d raided from the Thatches’ wine rack.

Lola arranged the blackened snapper and rice on a celadon platter and wished she had some yellow zucchini and butternut squash to go with it. She’d set the table with matching celadon plates and stainless flatware and placed the platter in the center of the table.

For Baby, she cooked what was left of the pretty blue fish, which, after cleaning, was just the right amount for her dog. Then the three of them sat down to lunch, Baby eating off a little plate on the floor.

Max dug into his meal with the enthusiasm of a man who clearly enjoyed food. He didn’t place his elbow on the table, chew with his mouth open, or lunge at his fork, but he was definitely a hearty eater. “This beats granola bars and crackers all to hell,” he said between bites.

Lola raised her glass and took a big swallow. His compliment pleased her more than it should have, and she had to remind herself to keep her guard up. This wasn’t some sort of social occasion, and he wasn’t her boyfriend or even her friend. She’d cooked lunch for him because she’d had to cook lunch for herself. It was survival. Nothing more.

As Lola took a bite of her fish, she looked into Max’s face. He still wore the white strips on his forehead and his left eye was badly bruised, but most of the swelling was gone. Sunlight from the windows lit up the table and shone on the chrome and wood of the appliances. The natural light cast an ethereal glow from the outside in, and none of it seemed real. Not him. Not her. Not the Dora Mae.

He glanced up, and beneath his dark brows and spiky black lashes his blue eyes stared directly into hers. Then he smiled and she had to force herself to swallow. She needed to go home. Not only did she have to find a private detective and get her life back, the longer she was around Max, the more she had to fight not to see him as a man. A man who, beneath the bruises, made a woman want to check her mirror and pop an Altoid. A man who could easily fold her to his big chest and make her believe everything would be okay. That he could take care of all of her problems. Only he was the person responsible for her problems.

She believed that he hadn’t meant to drag her into his life and into his flight from Nassau, that she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That he’d needed to get off the island in a hurry, and he hadn’t known she was on the yacht. Knowing and believing him shouldn’t have changed anything, but somehow it did. Since he’d saved Baby, she couldn’t make herself hate him anymore. On the contrary. The more he held back, the more he intrigued her.

Lola had never been accused of being patient or subtle and was dying to know more about him. “So,” she began, “if you aren’t CIA, are you one of those black operations guys?”

“Are we back to that?”

“Yes. If you’re retired from the Navy like you say, what sort of work do you do for the government?” She took several bites of rice and fish, then washed it down with her wine.

He polished off his snapper. “I could tell you,” he said as he reached across the table and stabbed another piece, the smooth play of his muscles drawing Lola’s attention. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

“Funny.” She set her glass on the table. “Why don’t you tell me the stuff that won’t get me killed?”

He laughed, and she was surprised when he actually told her. “Let’s just say that, hypothetically, some of the things the government might want done, can’t be done through regular channels. In those cases, they might want to contract out.”

“For example, what?”

“Maybe breaking into key installations or disrupting a convoy of illegal arms in Afghanistan.” He took a few more bites and chewed thoughtfully, as if he were weighing exactly what to tell her. “It’s no secret that the U.S. government has rules and guidelines for everything, and those rules deem certain things unacceptable as national policy. Hostile targets like chemical war plants can only be hit during bona fide military strikes. But by the time the military plans a strike and the President signs the order, the bad guys know about it and have moved their chemicals, or nuclear warheads, or whatever. One way for the U.S. to strike back and still retain deniability might be to subcontract one or two or even five people for covert hits.”

“And one of those people is you.”

“Maybe.”

“So, you are sort of a James Bond meets Jean-Claude Van Damme?”

He just smiled and continued to eat.

Lola ate also, but she was by no means through with her questions. “What’s the development group stuff you mentioned yesterday?”

“Naval Special Warfare Development Group.”

“Yeah, is that like a SEAL team?”

“Somewhat,” he informed her between bites. “Most of what DEVGRU does is classified and is a component of JSOC.”

“What’s a J-sock?”

“Joint Special Operations Command.”

She shook her head and raised her brows. “So, what did you do?”

He took a bite of rice and washed it down with his wine. “DEVGRU is a counterterrorist unit.”

“And?”

“And does exactly as the name implies, although the government will deny it. We also spent a lot of time and taxpayer money creating, testing, and evaluating tactics, weapons, and equipment. Which is how the government was able to make its bogus case against me.”

“Wait.” She held up one hand. “You tested equipment? Electrical equipment?”

“All kinds.”

A tiny burst of hope made her sit up straight. “Then you can make a new radio, right?”

He raised his gaze from his plate, and his brows were pulled together. “Lola, you melted the radio, the navigational system, and even the depth finder.”

She’d had help, but she didn’t bother pointing out his part in the destruction of the bridge. “Isn’t there something else you can use to make a new one?”

“What, my shoe?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about electronics.”

He leaned back in his seat. “Then take my word for it, there is no way to make radio contact with anything out there.”

Her burst of hope doused, she drained her wine and reached for the bottle to refill her glass. When she moved to refill his also, he placed his hand over the top.

“There is a bottle of red if you’d prefer it.” As Lola set the bottle back on the table, she felt the wine kick into her bloodstream, warming her from the inside out. Usually she wasn’t such a lightweight, but she figured because she’d lived off nothing more substantial than hors d’oeuvres, she was feeling it more than normal.

“No, thanks. Like your daddy’s cousins, I prefer beer from the bottle.”

He’d remembered what she’d said about her family. He’d been paying attention. In her experience, that was rare. More often than not, men paid more attention to how she looked than what she said. “And do you prefer to breed like a sailor on a weekend pass?” she asked before she thought better of it.

His fork stopped and he glanced up at her. “That’s a subject we definitely shouldn’t get into.”

Probably he was right. “Why not?”

“Because you don’t want to hear about horny sailors.”

No, she didn’t want to hear about sailors. Sitting in the sunlit galley where nothing seemed real anyway, she wanted to hear about Max Zamora. The guy who ate cobra for breakfast. “Did you have a girlfriend in every port?”

“Girlfriend?”

Baby jumped up onto the seat and curled up beside Lola. “Was there more than one?”

“You really want to know?”

Did she? Lola had traveled to just about every country in the world, and she’d seen a lot. Experienced some of it, too, but she’d bet she hadn’t seen or experienced anything like what Max had seen and experienced. “Why not?”

“Okay, but just remember you asked.” He leaned forward and placed his forearms on the table. “If you’re a young guy and are deprived of pu-” he stopped, seemed to reform his thoughts, then continued, “deprived of ass for months on end, pretty soon that’s all you think about. Once you reach port, you tend to go a bit crazy and hump anything with a pair of tits.” Once again he paused before he said, “Sorry about that, I meant breasts.”

Lola bit the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. She had to give him credit for at least trying to clean up his language for her, but if he thought he’d shocked her, he hadn’t. She’d been around too many bad-mouthed photographers, sleazy agents, and groping playboys to be shocked by what he’d said. Just because she didn’t use that sort of language herself didn’t mean she hadn’t heard it all before. Or that she hadn’t heard worse from men who thought that because they’d seen her in an underwear ad, she’d enjoy nasty bedroom talk whispered in her ear. “What about old guys?” she asked. “Do old guys tend to go crazy?”

He sat back. “Yes, but we know how to pace ourselves.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Do you want the juicy details?”

Her lips parted on a breath, and a vision of him popped into her head. A vision of his wide muscular chest, the short black hair that grew across his defined pecs and abdomen, and the dark treasure trove trailing down his flat belly and disappearing beneath the waistband of his wet boxer briefs. The gray cotton clinging to him and outlining his impressive goods. I could prove you wrong, he’d assured her earlier when they’d been discussing size. At the moment, she believed him.

He raised his gaze to hers, and sexual awareness charged the humid air, hot and vibrant and zipping through her bloodstream along with the wine. Vibrant and totally her fault. She’d been playing with fire.

One brow rose up his forehead, silently asking if she’d like to continue to play. She knew without a doubt that with a guy like Max, she’d definitely lose. He’d burn her alive. He was a win-at-all-costs kind of guy. All or nothing. And while Lola was by no means a prude, neither did she have sex with men she’d just met.