CHAPTER 35
Special K
I wish that hadn’t come out of my mouth.
I didn’t plan to say that.
I didn’t intend to imply that she’s a stripper. I wasn’t even sure my suspicions were correct until right this second, as her eyes flash at me in warning.
Wariness. Caution. Suspicion.
And now I have to figure out how to tell her that I don’t give a shit if that’s how she makes a living. Because I truly don’t.
Did I just step in it? Did I just lose all the progress I’ve made with her? I hope I didn’t trample all over whatever trust she’s decided to place in me.
“We should go back,” she says with a curt nod.
“I don’t care, Boots. Please hear me out.”
She looks away and down. I place my fingertips under her chin and gently lift up her face to me again. Under the heavy fringe of her lashes, I can see that the light’s once again left her eyes. The curtains dropped.
“C’mere.” I gather her up, her wet flesh firm and silky smooth under my touch. I lower the both of us down until the steaming water is up to our chins, our bodies buoyant in the mineral-heavy pool. The heat envelops us. I hold her against me, and she tucks her head into the side of my neck.
“Whatever you do and however you choose to live your life is none of my business.”
“Damn skippy it’s not,” she says.
“I don’t care what your life’s like, and I don’t need to know. The only thing I care about is you… the woman here with me right now. The only thing I want from you is this.”
I feel her gasp and stiffen in my embrace.
“I have no plans for you, Frankie. Only that you’ll find a way to believe that you’re safe with me.”
She stills.
“I don’t care if you’re a house painter or a pole dancer or a rocket scientist. Seriously. I give zero fucks one way or the other.”
She doesn't move and she doesn’t say anything more.
I take a deep breath, knowing I gave it my best shot. “Okay, Boots. I’ll take you back. But at least enjoy the spring for a bit longer. It’s the only hot water in a ten-mile radius of Washoe Ridge.”
Frankie slips from my embrace. I watch her float away while facing me; the steam rising around her pink cheeks, her wet hair plastered against her head. I can’t read her expression, and it isn’t because of the fog. She’s shut down.
I’ve fucked up, big time. But we were going to get to some of these questions sooner or later, I suppose.
Frankie paddles her hands in the water until she’s backed up against a rock ledge as far from me as she can get. She finds a comfortable spot and leans against it, slipping deeper into the water, tipping back her head, and closing her eyes.
She’s had enough of this conversation.
I make my way to the backpack and take out the shampoo and body wash. Only then do I notice that Pussy is seated regally on a flat boulder at the pool’s edge, looking down her nose at me in judgment.
“Mrrrp,” she says.
“I know she’s pissed at me,” I answer.
“Rraaoow.”
“I tried. I don’t think she believes me.”
“Rrrpmewrrrrow.”
“Agreed. I’m a total dumbass.”
I hear Frankie giggle, and I spin around to see her staring at the waterfall, ignoring me, though her shoulders are shaking with laughter.
“What?” I ask, gliding closer to her. “Pussy and I vibe. She gets me. What’s wrong with that?”
Frankie can’t hold it in anymore and she snorts, then drops underwater, her laughter rising in bubbles to the surface of the pool. I wait for confirmation that she’s not drowning, relieved when she reappears after a few seconds.
She reaches up to slick the hair off her face, then spins to face me, blinking away the water droplets. I watch in stunned silence as rivulets run down her chest and over the pillowy tops of her breasts, sparkling in the light.
She’s a goddess. A seductress. Too beautiful to be real, and yet here she is.
“Would you mind washing my hair, cowboy?”
We stay like this for a second, just looking at each other. Her irritation has already passed. She’s extending an olive branch, and I’m going to reach out and grab that fucker before she changes her mind.
“I’d love to.”
“Thanks. I’ll wash yours, too.”
“Good. C’mere, Frankie.”
She swims to me and slides her arms up and around my neck. She pulls herself out of the water and leaves a soft kiss on my lips, then pulls back enough that her eyes are locked with mine. “If I tell you anything I’ll want to tell you everything—and I just can’t do that.”
“Understood. Come sit between my legs.”
She turns around and slides up onto the ledge to sit between my spread knees, her back to my front. The satiny curve of her hips settles against the inside of my thigh, and her round ass is pressed against my dick.
She’ll feel how hard I am for her. It’s not like I can hide it or that I even want to. She needs to know what she does to me. What I want from her.
She drives me crazy. I want to ravish her, take her again and again, and then take her some more.
I reach behind me to grab the shampoo, squirt a large dollop in my palms, and raise my hands to her hair. I start massaging at the roots.
She groans in pleasure.
I don’t have any fucking idea why I decide that now is the perfect time to ruin whatever’s left between us, but here I am, about to do just that. I clear my throat.
“Hey, Boots?”
“Mmm hmm?”
She leans back as my hands lather the shampoo through her hair. I’m hypnotized by how the suds run through the strands, dark with water, and slip down the muscles of her shoulders and upper back. The shampoo’s floral scent mixes with the hot steam, and we’re sitting in a cloud of warm perfume.
“I meant it when I told you I was no boy scout.”
“Okay.”
The shampoo suds are rolling down my forearms. This is such an intimate moment, so simple but so sensual. I swallow hard. “I blew up my career as a SEAL, Frankie. I got thrown in the brig because I couldn’t control my rage.”
“Hmm. Okay.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. Her breath doesn’t hitch, and her shoulders don’t stiffen. I take that as a sign that I should continue—and yet more proof that this is one rock-solid woman. “I joined the Navy absolutely determined to be the best SEAL to ever grace the shores of Coronado.”
“And were you?”
“I was damn good at the start, I’ll say that. On my best days, I figure I was second only to my big brother Cal.”
“What kind of work did you do?”
“I was an intelligence analyst.”
“Is that another way of saying that you were a spy?”
“No. But I knew a few. Want to rinse?”
She slips out from between my legs and dips her head back into the water several times, using her hands to loosen the shampoo. She moves with such grace, so much ease. Her arms are slender but muscular, and I watch the tendons in her neck flex as she pulls her head up.
Her nipples are hard and taut. I forget to breathe.
She tips her head and gives me a half smile, her blue eyes iridescent with the reflected water. “Think you can go again, cowboy?”
I sit up.
“Because I’m usually a wash-and-repeat girl.”
I laugh. “I can always go again, Boots.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
She slips back into her spot between my legs, and I start with the second wash.
“You’re really good at this,” she says.
“I’m good at a lot of things.”
“I’ve noticed that, too.”
We’re quiet for a moment. I think both of us are enjoying the soothing sensation of the steaming water on our muscles. The sex we’ve been having is equal parts pleasure and workout. And all I can think about is getting more.
“Do you want to tell me the rest of the story, Special K?”
“Yeah.” I pause, thinking how strange it is that my own family doesn’t know what I’m about to tell Frankie. Maybe that’s why I feel okay sharing my story with her. I’m a stranger to her, most likely a fling. I don’t even know her last name.
If she doesn’t like what she hears from me, what’s she going to do—leave? Like she already plans to do?
And anyway, what’s the point of being with someone who doesn’t know who you are and what you’ve done?
Not that I am so delusional to think that Frankie would want to “be with” me. I may be a dumbass, but I’m not an idiot.
I begin shampooing again. “It was over three years ago now,” I tell her as my fingers massage her scalp.
“I was deployed to a dusty village on the opposite side of the globe to work as the liaison between Navy Special Warfare ops and teams from other special ops forces, you know, Army, Air Force, Marines. It was a new post for me, and I was just getting my bearings, figuring out who was who. And on one of the first nights I was there…”
My hands still in her hair. “Maybe you should rinse again.”
She swims away. I watch her swish her beautiful blond locks in the water, then gather her wet hair over one shoulder and squeeze. She smiles at me as she does this, and the force of it hits me in the gut.
I’m in trouble here.
Because something’s happening with me. I’m letting this woman into my heart. I want to tell her the truth about who I am because I need to be sure she can handle it.
I’ve spoken more words to her in the last few days than I’ve said to my own family in the last few years.
I’m falling for Frankie.
And she’s leaving.