Chapter 23
SANTIAGO
This weekend, I wasn’t taking any chances by sticking around here. Training was over for the week and I was packing up some things in my office. In five more minutes, I’d be hitting the road and getting as far away from the temptation that was Layla Perkins as I could.
And by that, I meant I was going home. It was about time, too. All my houseplants were probably dead by now. The neighbor kid forgot to water them way too often.
As I slid my laptop into its case, I looked up and found none other than the woman I wanted to avoid standing in my doorway. “Perkins? Is everything okay? What are you doing here?”
She came in and shut the door with a soft snick behind her. “I, uh, you know I don’t have anyone here. My parents are out of town this weekend and I really don’t want to just sit around all weekend.”
My heart started pounding in my ears. “Why are you telling me this?”
“What are you doing for the weekend?” she asked, and before the question was even all the way out of her mouth, I was shaking my head.
“I’m going to my house, and before you ask, you can’t come with me.”
“Why not?” she asked. “Please let me come with you. I thought we were being grownups and putting what happened behind us. We can just be two friends hanging out for the weekend.”
“We’re not friends,” I said immediately, then groaned when I saw that pleading gleam entering her eyes again. “Don’t do this to me, Perkins. I am trying to be an adult about this and to move forward, but I don’t know how to do that if you come home with me.”
“Look, I understand, okay? Do you think I like being in here, begging you to let me go along with you when I know how much you don’t want me there?”
“It’s not that I don’t want you there,” I said, already realizing that I was losing this argument. “Why don’t you just stay here and get some sleep? Maybe do some reading or something.”
“All I do when we’re not in training is sleep and read,” she said. “If I promise not to make a move on you, will you let me come along?”
I blew out a breath through my nostrils, wondering why I was so damn incapable of turning this girl down. “You’re sleeping in the guest bedroom.”
A beaming smile appeared on her lips. “Does that mean I can come?”
“As long as you don’t phrase it that way,” I said. “My place is a little over an hour away from here. I’ll give you the address, but you need to wait about an hour before you leave, okay?”
She nodded. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I won’t tell anyone about this, I swear. Thank you.”
Regretting my apparent lack of any fucking backbone when it came to this woman, I jotted my address down on a post-it and handed it over. “Go now. Remember to wait at least an hour.”
“I will,” she promised again, smiling from ear to ear as she left.
Aaaand it’s official. Layla Perkins is going to be the death of me. And if not of me, then of my career.
I knew it, and yet I was surprisingly excited that she was going to be spending the weekend with me. While I knew how wrong it was and while I knew that I really shouldn’t have been happy about this unexpected turn of events, I was.
The whole drive home, I kept promising myself that nothing was going to happen. She’d asked to come with me as a friend, and that was what it was going to be. Friendship. Platonic hanging out with absolutely nothing sexual being either done or discussed.
I had a nagging feeling it wasn’t going to work out that way, but I still told myself it would. Contrary to how I’d acted at that pier with her, I wasn’t an animal. I had a little something called self-control and I was going to use it.
As I turned onto my street, my worries melted away. It always happened when I got home. I’d saved up from my very first paycheck, and a couple years ago, I’d finally managed to scrape together enough money for a down payment.
During training, I mostly stayed at the Station, but this place really was my sanctuary. When I was here, I wasn’t Master Chief Cortez. I didn’t have to worry about being watched or about my cadets. My place was just for me, and I loved it.
It was a cottage on the coast with only an old stone wall separating me from the beach. Not a lot of people lived around here, hence the neighbor kid not even making it over often enough to water my plants most weeks, and it was about as private as private could be.
I didn’t have much of a yard, but I didn’t need it with the beach right outside, and it was pretty perfect for a lock-up-and-go, which was exactly what I needed. As I parked out front, I dragged in a deep breath and once again reconsidered my decision to let Layla come here with me for the weekend.
I’d been making all these pretty little promises to myself about keeping my hands—and my dick—away from her, but the reality was that I probably wasn’t going to.
This taboo crush I had was too intense at the moment, and maybe it was just because I wasn’t supposed to feel anything for her, but I really did feel so many things that I hadn’t really felt before.
Relationships were not for me. I’d learned that early on. My job was my first love, and even though I knew it’d be time to move on from this particular chapter soon, I just hadn’t had time to get involved in anything serious.
When I did have time and I wasn’t in training or on duty, I preferred to be out here by myself, fishing, relaxing, and preparing myself mentally for whatever challenges I might face during my next shift.
As I unlocked the old, heavy wooden front door, I pushed it open and walked in, then realized that I’d left in such a hurry the last time I’d been here that the place looked like a hurricane had hit it. It wasn’t big enough inside to be untidy.
If there was one shirt on the couch or a few odds and ends on the kitchen counter, it looked like a bomb had gone off in here—and that was what it looked like right now.
Checking my watch, I realized that I probably had at least fifty more minutes before Layla got here, so at least I had enough time to clean up.
As much as I’d have liked to text her to tell her I’d changed my mind about the weekend, I didn’t have her number. Plus, I was still unreasonably happy that she was coming here and I’d get to spend some time with her away from the Station.
So I probably wouldn’t have told her not to come even if I could. Which was a problem because, against my better judgment, I really did want to spend time with her when we could both just relax and not have to worry about being seen.
After dropping my bag in the main bedroom, I quickly unpacked the few things I had to unpack, put my toiletries in the shower, and then I started cleaning up.
Mostly, it was just about collecting laundry and stuffing it all in the hamper, and then packing away the few things cluttering up the surfaces.
By the time a car pulled up out front, I was done and lying flat on my back on the couch. The TV was off, and I’d been listening to the sound of the ocean outside until I heard the engine. I also heard it cut off, and then I heard her closing the car door.
Slowly sitting up, I closed my eyes, prayed for strength, and then I went to open my front door for her.
She’d changed out of the clothes she usually wore on the Station, opting for a flowery, yellow sundress that showed off just too much of the curves of her breasts for my liking.
Although that wasn’t accurate. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it. It was that I liked it too damn much.
She smiled as I waved her in, those green eyes glittery with happiness as she released a soft breath. “Thanks again for letting me crash with you for the weekend.”
“Thanks for rephrasing it,” I said as I shut the door behind her. “So, uh, I think we need to set some ground rules.”
“Wow. We’re getting right to it then, huh?”
I chuckled as I took her bag from her. “I’ll show you around while we talk about it. The place is tiny, so the tour shouldn’t take too long.”
She looked around as I led her through the open-concept living space at the front down a short corridor that led to the two bedrooms and the bathroom. “This is amazing. I love it. It’s so bright, and warm, and cozy.”
“Thanks. I like it, too.”
She smiled and rocked her shoulder into mine as I opened the door to the guest bedroom. “Obviously, you like it. You live here. Is this me?”
I nodded. “Yep. There’s only one bathroom, though. It’s right across the hall, and that’s pretty much it.”
“It’s perfect.” She beamed at me, her pearly white teeth on display as her lips curled up and her gaze caught on mine. “So, what were you saying about ground rules?”
“Right.” I cleared my throat, backing up a little until I was standing in the door while she was still in the middle of the small bedroom. “We’re here as friends, right? So that means no sex. No talking about sex or what happened, and no shenanigans.”
“Shenanigans?” she asked with laughter shining bright in her eyes. “Could you give me an example? Just so I know what not to do.”
“You know, just nothing like walking around without enough clothes on or leaving the bathroom door open while you’re in the shower.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, still smiling and still looking amused as hell. “When you say shenanigans, then, what you mean is no tempting each other?”
I nodded. “Sure. Whatever you want to call it, let’s just not make this too hard on ourselves, okay?”
“I can do that,” she agreed, but then some of the humor flickered out in her eyes and she took a few tentative steps closer to me. “Before we do all that, can I ask you a question?”
“Depends on the question.”
Her chest rose on a deep breath. “Do you ever think about that night at the pier? With anything other than regret, I mean.”
“I don’t regret it, Layla,” I said softly, ignoring the actual question because I thought about it all the time, but I couldn’t let her know about it. “Settle in and unpack. I’ll get us some beers and we can go for a walk. Maybe drink them on the beach?”
Her eyes still hadn’t left mine and she shook her head when I started turning to leave. “Fine, I’ll go first, then. That night is all I can think about. I know you said we’re not going to talk about it, and that’s fine, we don’t have to talk about it. I just wanted you to know where my head is at.”
“It’s all you can think about?” I asked, my feet closing the distance between us before I’d given them the conscious command to do it. “What happened to moving on?”
“I’m trying,” she whispered as I caught her face in my hands. “It’s just, uh, it’s not as easy for me as it seems to have been for you.”
“You think it’s been easy for me?” I breathed as I stared into those eyes that would make me jump off a damn mountain without a parachute if she asked me to do it. “It hasn’t been easy, Layla. In fact, it’s been so damn hard that I haven’t started moving forward at all.”
“Me either,” she admitted, and my precious self-control failed me again.
It had been less than ten minutes since she’d arrived, but with a few short sentences, she’d already blown my resolve to smithereens.
In a spectacularly poor display of restraint—and it was so spectacularly poor that there was no restraint in the display at all—my mouth descended to hers and I kissed her.
The final nail in the coffin of all those pretty promises I’d made myself came when she moaned and kissed me back. I didn’t know what it was about this woman, but she had gotten under my skin and I was starting to realize that resistance, in this case, was utterly and completely futile.