A smile slowly curved my lips. “Oh, they want it.”
Panther looked around, paranoid as ever even though the barracks were dead quiet, no one out and about at the late hour. He didn’t meet my eyes again, instead focusing on the helmet in his hand. “You should’ve stayed at the beach.”
“No reason to if you aren’t there.”
His head shot up then. “You need to back off. I don’t fuck around on base—”
“Then let’s go off base—”
“You don’t fucking get it, do you?”
“I’m not delusional. I hear what you’re saying, but your eyes tell me something else.” Then I looked down pointedly. “And so does your body.”
With my back still pressed against his door, I decided to try my luck, and whaddya know? The knob turned easily, and I found myself pushing the door back and stepping inside as alarm crossed Panther’s face.
“If you think for one second I’m inviting you inside, you’re in for disappointment.”
“So what are you gonna do, stand out there all night?”
“No. You’re going to get the hell out of my room and go back to your own.”
I turned and scanned Panther’s quarters before looking back his way. “Well, that’s not very team-spirited of you. Here I am wanting to bond with my partner, get to know him better so we can work better together, and you’re being downright hostile.”
Panther looked down the line of our building, but just like before, it was empty. Then those sharp blue eyes once again found mine.
“Do I look stupid to you?”
“Honestly? No. You look like someone I’d like to get naked and fuck, and I don’t really go for stupid.”
Panther’s fingers tightened around his helmet, and I couldn’t be sure, but I had a sneaking suspicion he was thinking about hurling it my way.
“Get out of my room.”
Don’t ask what possessed me—maybe the memory of a half-naked, wet Panther striding out of the crashing waves—but I pursed my lips, took a step back, and shook my head. “No.”
“Solo,” Panther said through his teeth, as I stopped by the end of his bed and let my eyes wander over it.
“You know, I think your bed is bigger than mine—”
“Solo. Get the hell out of my room.”
I turned my attention back to where Panther still stood at the door, and placed my helmet on the desk. “Here’s a thought: why don’t you come in here and make me.”
Panther eyed me as though I’d lost my mind, and really, I might have, considering I was holding his room hostage.
“I’m not coming in there until you get the hell out.”
“Why? Scared?”
“That I might kill you and end up in jail? Yes, I’m definitely scared of that.”
I cocked my head to the side and rubbed a hand over my chin. “You know what I think?”
“There’s not enough money in the world that would tempt me to guess.”
I smirked and began to make my way back over to the door, back over to where Panther stubbornly stood. “I think you’re scared to come inside because you know the minute that door shuts, you’ll have no more excuses. No reason to keep your hands to yourself.”
The twitch at the side of Panther’s jaw made my cock kick. He looked like a man barely holding on to his control, and I wanted to be the one to make him lose it.
