Chapter 3 #2
She was hard to get a bead on tonight as she was both angry and sad and at times almost relaxed. And seeing her behavior tonight made him wonder if he should have just stayed gone. Selfishly, for his own peace of mind, he’d had to see her again.
He’d had to try to make things right. He wasn’t a complex man and Lord knew he didn’t have any real idea of how a relationship should work, but having seen his buddies and their wives, Jay knew that it was possible for a guy to be a soldier and have a life outside the Corps.
“So you decided just to let me down and get it over with.”
In this respect she was right, although there had been so much more to the decision.
Now he was paying for it. He wondered sometimes if he’d be just better off staying to himself.
His dad had always said he was a lone wolf who wasn’t fit for socializing and at times like this Jay believed that.
“I think we’ve both gone around this long enough.
Tell me more about the woman you are today. ”
She took a swallow of her wine and then gave him a half smile. He couldn’t stop staring at her mouth. She’d had some kind of lipstick on earlier, but during the meal it had worn off. And left just the natural color of her lips, which brought an image to his mind of her tight nipples.
Damn. He wanted her.
“I work, I meet friends at the beach, I go to my parents’ house for dinner. I have a normal life.”
“Are you happy?” he asked.
“Most of the time. What are you trying to ask me?”
“Am I screwing your life up again by coming back?” he asked, being as blunt as he could. “I didn’t think that you would be so—”
She laughed quietly, and this time not with the strained quality she’d had before. “So...what?”
“So real,” he said at last.
“How did you expect me to be?” she asked. Then she leaned her elbows on the table and looked him straight in the eye. “Vegas wasn’t real for either of us.”
“I know that now, but I didn’t at the time,” he admitted.
He’d been seduced by the lights of Vegas and that attitude the city had of everything seeming possible.
He’d felt the pull of Alysse so strongly he hadn’t thought beyond his time there and having her in his arms. And that had been a mistake because he’d ignored the fact that he wasn’t the kind of guy that women liked having around.
His own mother had proven that point a long time ago.
Alysse put both hands on the table and continued looking at him. He knew she couldn’t see his eyes but he wondered what she was searching for in his face. He knew he was very good at not giving up anything, but he still wished that maybe she’d find whatever it was she needed to see.
“Why? Even I knew it was just a fantasy,” she said.
“I didn’t. If I don’t have a weapon in my hand and a target in my sights I don’t know what’s real,” he explained.
She sat back in her chair and he knew he hadn’t given her the answer she’d been wanting. Still, he didn’t have any explanation other than the truth. “Why did you take a chance on me if you knew that Vegas was all lights and make-believe?”
She tucked a strand of her long pretty hair behind her ear and nibbled on her lower lip. “I thought...I thought that after the glitter of Vegas faded away we’d still have the connection. I thought we’d formed a bond so quickly because it was real.”
Fair enough, he thought. Both of them were living their own fantasy and their perceptions had led to...him leaving. Not her actions, she couldn’t have been more perfectly suited to him during that weekend.
“Where do we go from here?” she asked.
“We’re going to date. Real dating. To see if our bond was real,” he said.
Alysse shook her head and pushed back from the table. She paced to the edge of the cabana where she looked out at the shore. Waves gently lapped on the beach.
He stood up and walked over to her, putting his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged his hand away and he realized for the hundredth time what a monumental task he’d set for himself.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“That I’m not sure I can do this,” she said. “I know that I have said that before but the more time I spend with you, the harder it is to remember that I have moved on.”
Her words cut him, but he knew that they shouldn’t. He was lucky she’d stayed for dinner. He knew each date would be a test to pass, he thought. That was motivation enough. It gave him something to focus on, something concrete that didn’t make him feel so unsure.
“We are going to figure this out. If for no other reason than that we both need to resolve what happened.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t want to be the man who hurt you and you don’t want to be the woman with the broken heart.”
She pursed her lips as she turned and looked at him.
“It’s the truth.”
“Yes, it is. I just don’t want it to be. But you’re right, I need something that only you can give me, and I’m going to be ruthless about taking it, Jay. I won’t make this easy for you.”
He smiled and felt something tight in his chest relax. “I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
“Do you want me?” she asked. “Or do you just want a version of me? This isn’t Vegas. I’m not going to have time to just lie in bed with you and have sex all day.”
He hardened at the thought of that. That was one of his fantasies, but he also wanted more from her than the physical.
Their bond had started with light flirting and kisses that he still didn’t quite believe were real.
No one had ever tasted as good as Alysse or had fitted into his arms just the way she did.
“Who said anything about sex?” he asked.
She closed the gap between the two of them. He held himself still as she ran her finger down the center of his chest, poking him. “This entire setup is about seduction and we both know it. So give me the truth, Marine.”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to handle you without the sex,” he said. “In bed I know what I’m doing and...well, it makes our relationship a lot easier.”
“That’s not a relationship,” she said.
“I know. Believe me, if it was we’d still be together and the last few years would have been much different.”
She smiled at him. “I don’t understand you, Jay.”
He didn’t understand himself. This crossroads had started in the desert sand but it was turning into a crisis inside him.
Something that he had to resolve, or he knew he’d end up just as bitter and lonely as his old man had been.
Having a chance at happiness with Alysse—he knew he couldn’t, wouldn’t, give that up.
“I don’t either, but we can do something about it,” he said.
“You are very confident about this.”
“It’s the only plan I’ve got. I’m kind of invested in making it work.”
She nodded. “Things are going to be different this time.”
“I get that,” he said.
“Good. I’m not the passive person I used to be.”
He laughed that she said that with a straight face. “You are so far from passive. From the beginning you had me wrapped around your little finger.”
“Did I?” she asked. “It felt the other way around to me.”
In that instant he knew that the bond they’d formed had its grounding in something beyond just sex.
He had always known it deep inside because she’d never left his thoughts even when they had half the world between them.
But she’d made him very aware that the feelings weren’t one-sided.
And that gave him more hope than he probably deserved.
THE WAITER LIT the tiki torches near them and delivered a coffee service. She glanced at her watch, knowing she should be leaving, but she didn’t want to go just yet. Jay made her feel as if this was the first day of the rest of her life.
She wanted it to be worth something. She thought about how one-sided her life had been since she’d started working at the bakery.
How when she went to the beach to play volleyball with her friends and family she always felt like the odd person out because everyone else had a partner and she was afraid to risk herself again.
Jay had stolen a little of that happiness from her and she wanted it back. She wanted everything life had to offer and the only way she would get that would be to take it back.
Jay had been right when he’d said she wasn’t passive. She liked to pretend she was easygoing and just went with the flow, but truly, she was determined to have everything her own way.
And maybe Jay had sensed that and he’d left her because he knew she wasn’t going to be content just to let him be her lover and rule her life the way he had that week in Vegas.
She had changed in the last five years and she hadn’t even realized how much until she’d been sitting across from him at dinner.
She wanted things now that she hadn’t understood were important back then.
It was humbling to discover that though she’d felt so adult and grown up in Vegas she was only now catching on to how much she still had to learn. It had been easy to fall for Jay because she’d never really lost before. Were her expectations too high? Not high enough?
“Come back and sit down,” he said.
She nodded and returned to the table. No matter how much she wanted to run away and leave him she knew she wasn’t going to do it until she’d gotten some more information from him.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Just wondering how difficult the last few years have been for you,” she said.
“Not too bad,” he answered. “A lot of routine and discipline.”
“Do you like the routine?”
“Love it. In the Corps there are rules and if you follow them you get the expected results.”
“Just like baking,” she said.
He chuckled and she caught her breath as she recognized just how handsome he was when he smiled. She stared at him and noticed again the new cut above his lip. Just a small scar, not recent, but it hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him.
Suddenly she had a vision of a warrior, battered and bruised, but continuing to fight because he didn’t know anything else. She wondered if Jay had a code of honor and then realized what a silly thing that was to consider: she knew he had a code of honor. He’d left her to keep from hurting her.
That was what he’d said. And in a way she could see the logic in it, but in another way she didn’t get it. She truly didn’t understand this man.
“I guess it is like baking,” he said at last. “I like the order of it.”
“Me, too. But I also like coming up with my own variations. I use the recipes for the basics, then I build on them.”
He shook his head. “There’s little room for variation when you are fighting a war.”
“I wouldn’t know about that. But I think I want to. Tell me about yourself, Jay.”
“There’s not much to tell,” he said.
She frowned. “I’m not going to let you push it aside. I need to know what you’re really like.”
“Fine. I wake up at five-thirty even when I’m on leave and run five miles. Then I shower and eat breakfast.”
“What do you have for breakfast?” she asked, suspecting he ate the same thing every day. After all, he’d admitted he liked routine. It was just the Jay in Vegas that had been spontaneous.
“Cereal. I like it and it tastes the same wherever I am in the world.”
She wanted to ask him more questions, but he seemed lost in thought. She could almost see the gears in his mind turning as he mentally went through his routine.
“I report for duty when I’m not on leave and check my weapons and get my assignment. Depending on what my mission is I follow the parameters of that. Then, at the end of the day or mission, depending on how long it lasts, I return home.”
“What kind of assignments do you have?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said.
“Yes, I do.”
“Tell me about your day,” he said.
She narrowed her gaze on him. “You’re stubborn. More so than I am.”
“Damned straight.”
She just sat there knowing that she’d play this out to the end by not budging an inch. But then if she did and kept up the stone wall around her emotions, was he going to leave her exactly the same person she was when she arrived here? Alone and not trusting
any man.
“Fine. I wake up at four and hit the snooze button twice before I finally have to jump out of bed and hurry through my shower. Once I get to the bakery I am almost awake. I have a cup of coffee and start making the pastries we need for the morning. Staci gets there about the same time as I do and the first fifteen minutes are eerily quiet until we both wake up and then we start talking.”
“What do you talk about?”
“Anything, everything and nothing. You know? We just talk and then the day speeds by and when it’s six we close up and head home.”
“That’s a long day,” he said.
“Yes, but I like it. We’re closed on Sunday and Monday and I always wake up at four and can’t go back to sleep. It’s so frustrating.”
He chuckled, and for a moment she forgot the past and the baggage they both had. She felt as though she was on a date, and she relaxed for the first time in more than five years.
“I hate that.”
“Does it happen to you?” she asked.
He shook his head and she had to laugh. It figured. He was the kind of man who was too regimented ever to have that kind of sleeping issue. He probably ordered his body to exercise and it did it.
But he wasn’t a machine, no matter how much he might seem so on the surface. She knew that he was a man and he wanted—no, needed—something from her. Some sign that there was more to life than what he’d known, and she was so afraid to go down this path with him.
But she wasn’t about to let herself chicken out.