Trask couldn’t lie. It wasn’t something he ever did easily.
“No. I don’t regret it.” He gave a long-suffering sigh and lifted a finger to wag it close to her face. “But hear this. Itwill nothappen again.”
Jett’s lips turned up into a smug, angelic smile. “Of course not. Clearly it was all a big mistake,” she answered impishly. “And besides, we’ve already provided more than enough of a spectacle for the locals. Which means we should just go in and take our bows.”
“Wha—?”
He followed to where she pointed, and groaned.
Behind the big, plate-glass windows of the diner, at least four tables of people were watching them, all wearing pie-eating grins. And it wasn’t because of the diner’s dessert. It was due to the impromptu make-out session to which they’d just been witness.
“Dammit. We can go someplace else if I embarrassed you,” Trask offered, hoping she’d take him up on it, becausehewas mortified.
“No need,” she responded sassily, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. “I’m hungry, so if it’s okay with you, here is good.”
“Fine.” Trask gave a disgruntled huff, opened his door, and got out. Before he could go around to her side and reach hers to be a gentleman, her feet had already hit the parking lot pavement.
She widened her eyes at seeing his hand raised toward the door handle. “Oh. Were you going to do that thing where you help me out of the truck?” She beamed crazily. “That’s so cool. I’ve never seen that done in real life before.”
“Then you’ve been hanging around with the wrong kind of men,” Trask snapped back, trying not to be amused. Was every single thing about her, damned cute?
“No,” she corrected pragmatically. “I’ve been in the military where females and males are expected to be equals and pull their own weight.” She grinned. “But I’m not averse to a little chivalry in my life now that I’m a civilian. Should I get back in?” She turned, as if that’s exactly what she was going to do.
Trask bit back a chuckle that came from…somewhere inside him, and grabbed her arm, barely able to maintain his appearance of dourness. “No. It’s too late now. The moment’s been lost.”
He let go of her abruptly, because touching Jett made him want to kiss her all over again.
“We’ll just appear more like idiots than we already have.” He’d noticed that they were still the best show in town for the diners up front.
“Not idiots,” Jett told him succinctly. “Entertainment. There’s a difference. I’m almost imagining a cheer going up as we walk through the door, or maybe just a bunch of high-fives as we find a seat.”
Jett actually looked pleased at the prospect.
Trask was fit to be tied. He hated any kind of public displays, and he could tell that to his cock all day long, it seemed. The frigging thing was still semi-hard from their impromptu make-out session. Since when did that appendage have a mind of its own? Trask had been able to control it quite nicely ever since he’d made it through his teens, and it had never once before led him anyplace…inappropriate. Now, at forty-seven, his dick was going to become unruly?
“I’ll let you accept the praise,” he gruffed, willing his cock into submission. “I don’tdocheerful interactions with strangers.”
Jett turned her eyes to his and examined him closely. “Yeah. About that. There’s got to be a story there. I’ve spoken at length with two of your brothers, Spence and Buck, and both of them are funny, jolly sorts. I’d love to know what, exactly, happened to you to make you so…buttoned up.”
The answer was easy. Sort of. He hadn’t always been a hard-ass.
“The military,” he told her, grunting. “That’s all.” There was no way he was sharing with Jett the latest thing he’d undergone that had soured his outlook on life. He took her elbow and steered her toward the restaurant.
“I’m not buying that, Trask. Because it certainly wasn’t my experience in the Air Force, and I’vealsoseen some stuff.”
He sent her a warning look, but the woman just wouldn’t quit. “None of the guys in my AFSOC unit were against having a little fun, no matter how tense things got.”
AFSOC stood for Air Force Special Operations Command.
Trask had previously wondered if she’d been part of the special tactics squadron or if she’d been active in the ACC, the Air Combat Command. Now he knew, and it confused him even more. The flighty woman before him had to have nerves of steel for the kinds of assignments she would have been given. How she’d come out of that, after twenty years of service, with her irreverent humor and over-the-top flakiness still intact, was a mystery he’d like to solve.
“None of the people under my command were as free-spirited as you,” he countered grumpily. “If you’d been in my regiment, you’d be taking life much more seriously.” Or would she? Maybe her giddiness was so deeply ingrained, no superior officer had ever been able to get her to behave.
Behave…
And just like that, his stiffy was back, imagining the orders he could give her. Ones that she’d clearly disobey, making way for?—
“Uh, we’re going in, right?” Jett asked cheekily, as if she knew exactly where his brain had gone.
