He watched Annie pick at her food while enjoying his pint of the local ale. As he’d chosen a small guest house that only served breakfast, the innkeeper had suggested the restaurant down by the harbor for dinner. It wasn’t cheap, but Annie deserved a nice meal after what she’d been through. He had a feeling that now that they were out of immediate danger, it was all catching up to her.
“You okay?”
She looked up at him. She had that surprised strange look on her face again before she lowered her eyes and blushed. “I’m fine.”
She’d been doing that all day. Ever since he’d walked out of the public bathroom minus the beard and longer hair.
Dean frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Or maybe not looking was the better question.
She glanced up again. Warily. “Like what?”
“Like I’m some kind of freak fromX-Men?”
The blush deepened. She lowered her gaze again before forcing it back to his. She’d never seemed shy before, but that was definitely how she was acting.
“I’m just not used to seeing you without the beard and long hair. You look”—she paused for so long Dean started to feel self-conscious, which was an entirely new feeling for him—“different.”
Different?What the hell did that mean?
Maybe he was getting the cute issue now.
Dean found himself rubbing his chin, which was definitely self-conscious. Christ. What was he, seventeen? Why did he care if she didn’t like it? “It’ll grow back soon enough.”
“It’s not that,” she said quickly—maybe a little too quickly. “I like it.”
Suddenly he understood the blush and shy looks. Ah, shit. She was attracted to him. Given that he was feeling the same way, it probably wasn’t a good idea, but he said it anyway. “I feel the same way about your hair.”
He was glad he’d said it when she gave him a smile that reached all the way up to her eyes. He could get really used to making her smile like that.
As he was on a roll, he thought about mentioning the dress—the low-cut, tight dress that showed off a pretty spectacular chest and got even lower every time she leaned forward to take a bite—but he thought that might give too much away. Yeah, he was also a pig and not above taking cheap thrills where he could find them.
This place was too romantic anyway. A small table tucked in a corner, low light, sea view, intimate conversation... It wasn’t a date, but it felt a hell of a lot like one.
The problem wasn’t just that he was hot for her. He was hotter for her than he’d ever been for any woman in his life. So hot that the next few nights sharing a room with her—and not touching her—were going to be fucking torture. The kind of torture that would put last night to shame.
But evenonecheap room and food were going to deplete his stash of cash quickly. They couldn’t do a his and hers.
Better not to think about that right now. “Tell me about your dissertation.”
She eyed him warily. “Really? Mr. Anti-Save-the-Whales is interested in my liberal, environmental agenda?”
He was interested in everything about her. Shit. He had to stop thinking things like that. “I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t. And I’m not anti-Shamu or environment.”
She arched a very pretty dark eyebrow. “I notice you didn’t say anything about the liberal-agenda part.”
He smiled, caught.
“I thought so! Well, to pay you back, I’m going to bore you senseless.”
She was wrong. She didn’t bore him at all. It was fun listening to someone who truly loved what they did.
She told him how she’d switched majors after the Gulf Oil spill, and how she wanted to make sure nothing like it ever happened again.
Dean remembered some of the pictures of the dead wildlife after the disaster—dead birds and dolphins coated in crude oil. They’d been disturbing, but given some of the things he’d seen as a SEAL, they hadn’t made much of an impact.
When you’d seen men blown apart by an IED or seen heads explode like watermelons from a gunshot, the loss of a few birds didn’t seem that important.
