Chapter Nine
M y brain reached for every plausible scenario. Any scenario that didn’t mean this woman had tried to take her own life, but I came up short. My dick, still hard as fuck, not getting the message that it’d been red lighted, throbbed in my jeans.
“Why?” Ignoring the urge to adjust myself, I threw down the question like I had a right to know the damn answer.
She pulled her hand back, and at first I didn’t want to let her go. But I had to. Shit was filling in, and it was a picture that was more than I could deal with in a handful of hours.
She crossed her arms and dropped her gaze. “It’s not what you think.”
“Then why not tell me?”
For the very first time since meeting her, she let herself show emotion. She smirked. “You don’t want to know.”
Shit . Did I? “What if I said I do?” I hedged.
She shook her head. “You don’t want to know, otherwise you would’ve simply said that.” She moved around me and reached for the bag from the restaurant. “We should eat. The food’s probably cold.”
I took the bag from her and dumped it back on the counter. “I want to know.”
“You said you were hungry.” She still wouldn’t look at me.
“So did you,” I countered.
She ignored what I was implying, and her chest rose with an inhale before she looked up at me. “Then we should eat.”
Her expression locked, her body language clearly saying don’t fuck with me, she’d done a one-eighty from the woman in my arms who kissed me like she was starving. And goddamn it, I wanted to know why.
I tucked a wild curl behind her ear. “Does this have to do with the asshole at Dax’s bar?”
For once, I could read her expression. She looked like she was fighting for patience. “How many times are you going to keep asking about something that didn’t happen?”
“As many times as it takes for you to tell me the truth.”
“You’re not telling me the truth,” she fired right back.
My eyes narrowed. “About?”
“Why I’m really here.”
She said it with such skepticism, I fought a smile. “You’re tougher than you look.”
Surprise actually showed on her face, and the tension of a few seconds ago was gone. “I don’t look tough?”
I chuckled. “Hundred percent tough, woman.” I put my hand on the small of her back because it felt right and grabbed the food. “Come on, let’s eat.”
We sat at the table, and it was as if we’d eaten together before. She wasn’t shy about trying some of the food I’d ordered, and an easy silence settled in as we both opened boxes and containers and plated our food. We were a few bites in before she broke the silence.
“What do you do in the Marines?”
I took my time finishing my bite. My occupation wasn’t always well received.
“You’re hesitating,” she observed.
“I am,” I admitted. “I was.” I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “Until recently, I was a spotter.”
She took another bite of her pasta. “A spotter?”
I stared at her. “For a sniper.”
Her chewing paused for only a fraction of a second before she nodded and swallowed. “And now?”
“Sniper. ”
Slow, like she was processing, she lifted another bite to her lips, but paused. “That sounds… dangerous.”
I read between the lines. She meant lethal. “It can be.”
“You must have had a lot of training.”
That and on-the-job experience. I nodded noncommittally. “What did you do before you worked for Dax?”
“More of the same.”
“Family?”
“Dad.”
“He local?”
She half shrugged, then took a bite to avoid answering.
“You see him often?” If they were close, why the fuck was she at a dump of a motel instead of being at home?
“No.” She put her fork down and glanced at my plate. “You done?”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t.
“Thanks for dinner.” She stood, picking up our plates. “You bought, I’ll do dishes.”
I stood with her. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
I wasn’t going to argue. I closed the pizza box and put the lids back on the other dishes. “You in a hurry to get to your new place?”
“Why?” She turned the water on and scrubbed the plates.
“There’s a Jacuzzi downstairs.”
She glanced at me like she was trying to gage if I’d lost my mind. “It’s ninety degrees out.”
I smiled. “You’d be surprised the shit you miss when you’re downrange.”
“You missed sitting in hot water in ninety degree heat?”
I missed anything that got rid of the fucking sand and dust. “Yep.”
Her focus went back to the plates. “I don’t have a suit.”
“Go in your underwear. Or one of my T-shirts. The Jacuzzi is on the opposite side of the building from the restaurant, and no one ever uses it.” I leaned against the counter and cocked my head so I was eye level with her. “Come on. I even promise to put your clothes in my dryer after.”
She didn’t say no, but she didn’t say yes either. She bit her bottom lip and rinsed the plates and silverware before washing our two water glasses.
Not bothering to point out I had a dishwasher, I picked up a dish towel and one of the plates. “I’m not hearing a yes.”
“I should probably get going.” She set the glasses on the drainboard and shut off the water.
I dried the second plate and used my only trump card. “You’re gonna let a guy who’s going back to war spend his last night at home alone?”
“You weren’t alone at Dax’s bar.”
I dried the first glass and set it on the counter. “A beautiful woman versus Daxon Tyler—no comparison.” I dried the second glass.
She stood on tiptoe and reached to put the glass away in the cupboard, but she wasn’t quite tall enough. The glass fumbled in her fingertips.
It was pure reaction. I stepped behind her and caught it before it shattered on the tile floor.
Then the back of her body was against me and the reaction was immediate. My dick instantly hard, I sucked in a breath of pure fucking female, and she froze.
“Thanks,” she whispered, every muscle in her body going taut.
“Welcome,” I rasped, shoving the glass onto the shelf, telling myself to step the fuck back. But before I could put distance between us, she shocked the fuck out of me for the second time.
She leaned into me. Her head under my chin, her body tucked in to mine, she put her hand on my thigh.
“Brookelyn,” I warned.
Her voice went even quieter. “What?”
Jesus, she was small. “What are you doing?” The top of her head barely grazed my pecs. With all of her wild hair and baggy clothes, I hadn’t realized how fucking petite she actually was .
Pressing in to me with deliberate intent, she squeezed my quads. “Something I shouldn’t.”
My hands landed on her hips of their own accord. “Fuck woman.” Spice, floral, female, I breathed her in. “I want inside you.”
“Then take my clothes off.”
Jesus Christ . “Don’t fucking tease me. I’ve been downrange too long.”
“I’m not teasing.”
Slow, fucking torturous, I ground my jeans-clad dick against her ass then I laid it out. “I’m leaving to go back tomorrow.”
Her muscles tensed. “Then we’re wasting time talking.”
I hesitated. “Can you handle this?” I never gave a shit before if women I bedded could deal with me coming and going, mostly going, but this five-foot-nothing wild thing in my arms was different. I didn’t know one goddamn legitimate thing about her, but I knew she was more.
“Can you?” she countered, indignant.
“Don’t be flippant, you know what I mean.” Fuck, I could already smell her desire.
Defensive, offended, she gave me only a piece of the puzzle. “I didn’t try to kill myself.”
I exhaled, and shit I never thought about, shit I couldn’t afford to think about, clouded my judgment and I said the last thing I should’ve. “I’ll be back in three months. For good.”
Her other hand landed on my opposite thigh, and her fingers dug in for purchase. “Doesn’t change the here and now.”
Fuck, I wanted to bury myself inside her. “You’re not hearing me.”
“I don’t think you’re hearing me.” She spun in my arms and repeated herself. “Here and now.”
Intuition flared. “You got someone else?” I was an idiot for asking, and an even bigger fool for letting the seed of jealousy sow. But goddamn it, for once I wanted something more to come home to than an empty condo and a mother who didn’t remember having a son.
Practical, unemotional, she asked the only real question. “Would it matter? ”
Fuck me . I was a pussy if I said yes, and a damn liar if I said no. No way to win, I dropped it. “Then give me the words.” My demand should’ve been a warning, because I hadn’t fucked in ages and this woman didn’t know what the hell she was getting into. But it wasn’t. It was a challenge, pure and simple. I wanted to wreck her sweet body and leave her too fucking spun to think about any other man for three months.
“I already did.”
“No,” I corrected. “You told me to take your clothes off.” Which wasn’t a green light for fucking. Not the kind I wanted to do.
She raised an eyebrow. “Can you fuck me with them on?”
She was lucky I had some restraint. I could’ve ripped her shit off in two seconds flat and had my dick in her with or without her underwear pushed to the side. “You’d be surprised by what I can do.”
“Clever.”
Not the answer I was looking for. “Words,” I growled.
She grabbed the hem of my shirt. “Fuck me.”