She tipped her head to the side as she slowly explained. “I didn’t get a great offer on my next contract. I was looking at four years of being a glorified admin clerk. So I’mmovingon.”
“But you’re…” He shook his head. He’d only had one brief workplace interaction with her, but she was so damn smart it hurt to think about her being shunted to the side. “Whathappened?”
She shrugged again, this time more stiffly. “Does it matter? It’s done. You know the way ofthings.”
He did. And since he was in a separate stream, where career progression wasn’t a roll of the dice, the unfairness of the system was more of an academic notion to him most of the time. “Doesn’t make itright.”
“Not much I can do about that.” Her words tightened, until the last two practically got clippedinhalf.
“No. Of course not.” Shit, he was being a heel. Tears shimmered unshed in her eyes. He softened hisvoice. “Hey…”
“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t give me sympathy. I don’twantit.”
“But you got a shittyrawdeal.”
“Yeah. It happens. And I’ll live. Thrive, even, soit’sfine.”
“But if it was about something thatwedid—”
“Nope. Don’t. For one thing, it’s never because of one thing. So yeah, maybe my blow-up at your team didn’t help when the CO got wind of that. But it wasn’t the first time I’d lost my cool, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. And you know what? That probably just means it was time for me to go,anyway.”
“Icould—”
“Oh, God no. You can donothing. Please promise me that. I’m not tilting at windmills or waging a campaign against some injustice, imagined or otherwise. I’m moving forward with my head held high, my tuition paid for and my future bright. And that’s the officialstory.”
“It’s a good story.” But it still made his chest hurt. And that was his problem,nothers.
The day was still young and they had days of exploring each other and the island ahead of them. Anything else could wait. Should wait, really, until at least until after their third datewasover.
She laughed as he felt himself smiling. “What are you grinning about overtherenow?”
“This is ourthirddate.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Youfigure?”
“I do.” He ticked off on his fingers. “Lunch yesterday. Dinner last night.” He winked. “And now breakfast. This is now officially my longest relationship in the last three years by number ofdates.”
She groaned. “And by hoursinvested?”
“Second longest.” He rubbed his jaw. “There was this woman I went on two dates with, but they were a weekapart.”
It was the worst thing to admit to a woman you liked, but it served its purpose. Leah was laughing at him, with him, and her eyes were sparkling again. “I don’t have you beat, bytheway.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “My last boyfriend was halfway through my last posting. So…six years ago? Five, I guess, and then a year of emotional fallout from that before I got the hell out of there. When I got to Fort Lewis, I told myself that this posting was all about the job, and no more mixing business andpleasure.”
“He’d been inuniform?”
“No, but he was local. And he made some trouble for me. Nothing too embarrassing, more stressful than anything else. And not worth it when you know that the job will take yousomewhereelse.”
“I know what that’s like.” It was the way of it, often. Of course, guys married sometimes. His SEAL team was about half and half, married and single, and most of the committed couples were ridiculously in love. So he had great role models for that, it just had never been anything that had appealed to himbefore.
He sat up a littlestraighter.
It didn’t appeal to him.Fullstop.
That was the official party line of Quinn Parry. He was a dark sheep, a maverick, apervert.
And that was enough conversing about relationships. He gestured for her to eat up. “I’m feeling a sudden desire to head back to your room and explore more of the ways you like to be incontrol.”
As far as diversions went, it was extreme. But it also was the truth. If his heart was growing weirdly soft, it just needed a kinky beating to return to its natural state—hard-bitten, wary as fuck, and hiding behind his up-for-anythingdick.
She didn’t even blink. “Sounds likeaplan.”
