He went quiet again, then pulled off the interstate. Neither of us said anything as he pulled into a parking lot and stopped the car. Turning in his seat, his brow furrowed as he looked at me.
“What exactly are you talking about John? I don’t understand. Dreamboat can work with anyone.”
I sighed and shifted once again to look at him. “If you don’t already know this, then I’m assuming he hasn’t said anything. So keep it confidential.”
GQ nodded. “Should I be worried? What did he do?”
I laughed. There was no way I was telling him everything before I spoke to Brent. It was no one’s business but ours.
“Before that last deployment, we hooked up in Vegas. Fuck if I know what he did to me,” I lied, “but I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind. I guessImight be the one with the feelings, so I have to find out if the attraction is still there. If it’s a problem for him, I’ll take the job in San Diego.”
My friend blinked at me, then started laughing. “You and Dreamboat are adults. Hell, he’s probably slept with half of Portland if what he says is true. But he’s never mentioned anything to me about having a history with you. Daredevil might be a different story. He loves torturing us with tales of his conquests.”
I huffed out a breath. “Well, we do. And I don’t want to make anything weird with him. I don’t want to interfere with the team.”
Jesse stared at me for a moment. “I appreciate that, but if you’ve got feelings for him, you might want to keep them to yourself for a while. I’ve never known him to do more than one and done. ”
I looked out the window and nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. But it might be easier said than done.”
GQ grinned and clapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Commander. He’ll piss you off a hundred times the first day.”
I looked forward to it.
CHAPTER 2
BRENT
“You excited to see him tomorrow?”
I side-eyed my best friend and former SEAL, Austin Wentworth, aka Daredevil. He was being an asshole, but I knew how to get under his skin.
“You excited about spending a week with Greer?”
I raised my brows at him, then took another pull of my beer, waiting for his response.
Dare scowled, but didn’t reply. Unlike me, he had a love-hate thing going on with the Pirates owner, Greer Rowan. And by love-hate, I mean he loved the guy but hated to admit it. But GQ, Phantom, and I knew the real story since he’d spilled his guts to us last week.
“My situation is different,” I supplied. “I’m not harboring ten years' worth of messy feelings like you. I’m more of a one-and-done, no-repeats guy. No matter how good the lay is.”
“Classy,” he grunted. “And I don’t have feelings for him.”
I scoffed. “Really? The way you two look at each other says differently. You see, the difference between me and you is I know better. I’m just a man who loves being balls deep in a tight ass or face down while some big man pounds me into the mattress. And John’s dick was particularly memorable.”
Dare rolled his eyes, then shoved my shoulder, making me laugh. I wasn’t ready to admit seeing the Commander again was a thrill. He’d been a hell of a fuck.
“We’ll see how you react when you see him again. You forget I know you, and I’ve never heard you talk about a hookup after the fact. Not like you do him. And whether you realize it or not, you bring him up every once in a while. Something is different about him, and I’ll be studying every expression you make tomorrow, and serving you with a side of analysis.”
I laughed to cover the unease crawling up my spine at his assessment. I could handle seeing John once in a while. But every day might be a problem because I’d want to jump on him. Of all the motherfucking former SEALs GQ could have hired, he had to hire mine.
Well, not mine.
But the best ass-wrecking hookup I’d ever had.
The one person who got so deeply under my skin that I still thought about him when I was home alone in the dark. The memory of his too-handsome face and the way his eyes fixed on mine like he could see my soul scared the shit out of me. It was also thrilling.
All along, my plan had been simple: spend my life as a SEAL as long as I could, and fuck my way around the world with whoever interested me. No settling down, no findingthe one, and no falling in love. I knew what happens when you love someone too much. You eventually lost them. I’d seen it firsthand when our teammate was killed in action.
I shifted in my seat, the memories weighing heavier than I wanted to admit. That’s why I kept my distance—why I didn’t let anyone in too deep.
