Chapter One Hundred and Four
Georgia
“O h my God.” I wheezed like I was going to die. “If you didn’t have such a big dick, I’d hate you.” Bending at the waist, bracing my hands on my knees, I thought I was going to hurl. “What kind of an insane person runs for fun?”
His hands on his hips, looking sexy and sweaty and not at all out of breath, Blade smirked. “No one said you had to come with me, Lioness.”
“You shamed me into it.” He didn’t. But he’d been quiet the entire week since his brother had shown up. Well, more quiet than usual.
He’d also been getting texts from Church.
Blade had shown me each one as they came in. He’d read them, hold his phone up to me like he was proving he didn’t have anything to hide, or maybe he was just sharing, but that’s all he’d do. He’d show me the text, then shove his cell back into his pocket and not say a word.
The texts were crushing.
His brother wanted him to work with him, and every time he asked, he gave some small anecdote about their childhood. Most were about something Blade had taught Church.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified, but I was also excellent at denial.
Blade hadn’t once texted Church back. I knew what that meant because Blade had always answered all of my texts. In the same vein, Blade still hadn’t said what his confession was or even brought up that conversation. Since I was too afraid to ask, I was packing that fear away too. Because everything else—this life here on his land, falling asleep in his arms, waking up to his unwavering gaze every morning—I loved it.
“I didn’t shame you into shit, woman.” He grabbed the two waters he’d shoved into a snowbank on the side of the cabin before we left for the run, twisted one open, and handed it to me. “Drink.”
“No.” I seriously might throw up. “My throat is burning, and my lungs are on fire.”
“Fucking drink, woman.” Grabbing the ponytail I’d left hanging out of the back of my pink beanie with the fuzzy pom-pom, he yanked me upright and thrust the bottle into my matching pink-mittened hands.
That was another thing about him that’d been different since his brother had shown up. He’d been a little more rough. Mostly in the bedroom. I wasn’t complaining.
I looked up at him. “If I vomit, it’s your fault.”
Side-eyeing me, standing there in only a long-sleeved workout shirt and black sweats, he uncapped his water and downed it.
I tried a sip of mine. It was perfectly cold, and I didn’t throw up. I drank another sip as I checked him out. “How are you not cold?” I still couldn’t believe I got to have sex with this man.
“I’m a SEAL.” He crushed the bottle into a circular pancake of plastic and recapped it.
I stared at the veins on his hands. “That’s not an answer for everything.”
“Name one thing it doesn’t answer.”
“The Theory of Relativity.” I didn’t know what the hell that theory was.
“A small amount of mass can be converted into a large amount of energy.” Without warning, using the outside of his fist, he reached up and hit an icicle hanging from the roofline.
Like a domino effect, the icicle he punched took out the one next to it, and within five seconds, the entire row of icicles was in the snowbank.
“E equals MC squared,” he stated. “Special relativity.” He held up his fist. “SEAL.”
Feeling stupid as hell and now breathy for a different reason, I stood there. Then I thought of a question that I was absolutely positive had nothing to do with Navy SEALs. “That doesn’t explain what keeps a bag of Lay’s chips all puffy.”
“Nitrogen.”
Oh, come on. “Bullshit.”
“Look it up.”
I wasn’t going to embarrass myself like that. “How do you know about nitrogen?”
“Nitrogen narcosis and decompression sickness. Ask any SEAL about either.”
I threw my hands up, and water spilled on one of my mittens. “Fine. You win. Navy SEALs are the answer to everything. You happy?”
“Is my dick hard?”
Like a trained dog, my eyes dropped. He was massive. It was hard to tell. “Nope.” Damn it, now I wanted him to do all the dirty things to me with that monster, but I was sweaty and gross, and the muscles in my legs were burning.
“That’s because it’s fucking twenty-eight degrees out, you cut my run short, and I’m cold as shit.”
I glanced back up. “You don’t look cold.” He looked like a force of nature—one that was inked up and mainlining dominance.
“Embrace the suck.” He took my water from me and capped it. “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”
“Let me guess. More SEAL sayings?”
Ignoring the question, he tipped his chin toward the cabin. “Get your sweet ass inside, woman.”
“Are you coming?”
“No. Running the front perimeter of the property.”
“That’s five-point-six miles.” I knew. I’d driven it in my brand-new Jeep. A Wrangler 4-door Rubicon 392 Final Edition in Hydro Blue Pearl that’d shown up the day after his brother had. I was in love with the Rubicon, even though he hadn’t asked me if he could buy me a car.
He’d just handed me the keys that afternoon when it’d been delivered to the cabin. Then he’d put my Cherokee in the farthest outbuilding, strode back into the house, and informed me I was now driving the new Jeep. So I’d immediately walked out and gotten in the 4x4 without him. An hour later, after putting the Rubicon through the ringer and trying unsuccessfully to get it stuck in the mud, I’d driven back to the cabin. The Jeep was filthy, and I was smiling.
A SEAL was standing on the porch, arms crossed, staring me down—kind of like he was doing now.
“And?” he prompted.
“You already ran a mile.” And I had separation issues. Actually, I only had SEAL separation issues. Especially out here. And now I had needs. Or an itch. And I wanted it scratched.
His smirk returned. “Lioness, your pink ass didn’t even make it half a klick before you turned tail and headed back.”
“Oh my God, rude .” My hands went to my hips. “And I’m not built for running.”
“You’re built for something.”
“Like?” Blade didn’t flirt, he was too blunt. But he would give you shit, and occasionally he’d tease. I just hadn’t figured out all the slight nuances to his tone yet, because when I said slight, I meant almost nonexistent. So when he said things like that, sometimes I still couldn’t tell if he was giving me shit or complimenting me.
“Get inside and get naked, and you’ll find out in twenty-nine minutes.”
That was another thing about him. He lived by a clock. If he said he would be back in twenty-nine minutes, he would he walking through the door in exactly twenty-nine minutes. It took me twenty-nine minutes just to force my eyes open in the morning.
I fake pouted. “ Fine .” I turned toward the door.
He let out a lethal growl. “Fucking.”
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold whipped up my spine. I looked over my shoulder. “What?”
“That’s what you’re built for.” He paused, then said a single word in a low, dominant tone that told me his statement was meant as a compliment. “ Lioness .”
I smiled.
He gave me his penetrating stare that was all promise for one breathless beat of my heart.
Then my SEAL took off running.