“Yes?” I startle.
“Take the burgundy dress now. I need to see both looks before I make final adjustments for the parties. Then we’ll do boots and outfits for riding.”
The cocktail dress is gorgeous, all crystals and clean body-hugging lines. I’ve never owned anything so beautiful in my life. .
When I emerge from the changing room, Diesel has switched into the barbed wire hearts shirt with black tuxedo pants, the black Stetson shadowing his face in a way that makes him look like a sexy villain.
Dee Dee appears with an armful of boot boxes and holds up a pair of gigantic men’s boots with pink stitching on the toe and along the shaft. “These are for the first outfit.”
“No.” Diesel’s voice is flat as pavement. “I have my own dress boots.”
“But yours won’t have pink stitching,” I point out, fighting to keep from grinning.
“That’s the point.” His eyes cut to mine, challenge flickering in their depths. “You think this is funny?”
“I do.”
“I’m supposed to be protecting you. Not playing dress-up like some kind of cowboy Ken doll.”
“You can do both. I have faith in your multitasking abilities.”
With a loud grunt, he drops onto a nearby bench and shoves his feet into them with the kind of controlled violence usually reserved for hand-to-hand combat.
They fit perfectly. Dee Dee has done her homework.
He stands and looks down at his feet with an expression of such profound betrayal that something cracks open in my chest, and I can’t hold it back anymore.
I laugh.
It starts as a snort I try to swallow, builds into a giggle I can’t contain, and explodes into a full-body shake that has me pressing my hand over my mouth trying to muffle the sound.
Despite everything. The fire, the stolen truck, my belongings destroyed, losing my freedom and a grumpy bodyguard who apparently looks devastating in pink. This moment is genuinely, ridiculously funny.
Diesel stalks toward me and gets right in my personal space, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
CHAPTER 15
River's laughter is as effective as a scalpel.
I can’t move. Can barely think as I listen to her.
She's a heat-seeking missile without even knowing it, and I was the unsuspecting target.
"Come on," she says, words husky, eyes bright with laugh-tears. "It's funny."
How foolish I was to think I could keep defensive walls up when under a full assault by a woman like her.
No,not like her. Her.
I don't laugh. Some part of me is caving in as she continues to giggle. The sound wrapping around my chest, tightening, making breathing difficult in ways life never has before.
Even with my career, the deployments, the ups and downsthat a SEAL faces, nothing has impacted me this way. This is a special kind of hell and heaven all in one bomb blast.
All of this thanks to a pink shirt and the ridiculous dress boots.
I'm a six-foot-six inch former SEAL for fuck sake. But I already know I'll wear pink a thousand times over if it makes her this happy.
I used to make fun of guys like that.
