But still, I screwed up my nose.
He grinned at me while taking a pull of his beer.
I watched the column of his throat in fascination.
“That bother you?” he asked. He didn’t seem offended. He seemed intrigued by my response. I guessed it wasn’t one he was used to getting. Men serving our country were treated with the utmost respect and were almost immediately thanked for their service whenever it became known what their profession was. And I admired them greatly.
It was not their courage that I had a problem with.
It was the fact it was necessary.
“No,” I whispered honestly. “It’s rather beautiful,” I continued, talking about the act of him drinking and not his profession. “You have a great neck.”
I slammed my hand over my mouth.
Holy shit.
I’d just told the hot and dreamy Marine that he had a great neck.
If he didn’t think I was an idiot little girl before he surely would now.
His laugh was throaty, thick, manly and it sent warmth all the way to my toes. And to...other places.
Places that had only gotten vaguely lukewarm in all my previous experiences with boys.
But I guess that was it.
Because they were boys.
This was a man. And despite the fact he was calling me ‘little girl’ his gaze, his attention, it made me feel like a woman.
“I’ll remember that watchin’ me drink beer does not bother you,” he murmured.
More heat. A fricking inferno.
“My job, that bothers you,” he clarified, not a question.
“I’m not really in support of war,” I said, also honestly. It was a problem of mine. I always spoke my truth. Even when it was smarter to omit, or at least stay silent. Omission and silence weren’t exactly my style. So I continued speaking. “In fact, I actively protest it. I’m all about peace.”
He smiled, obviously not offended by my truth. “Ah, but that’s what starts all wars, Sunshine. People lookin’ for peace.”
I blinked at him, at an answer that I did not expect from a soldier or a Marine—I knew there was an important distinction between the two. I didn’t know the reason, but I guessed for men who attached their identities to something, who were willing to give their lives for such a thing, titles were important.
This man was important.
I knew that already.
From the first moment I saw him.
It was so horribly cliché, but I didn’t worry about logic or clichés when it came to my feelings, my heart. I just followed both.
Blindly.
Following both had me putting down my beer on the sticky table, then doing the same with his. The brush of our fingers as I did worked to spark an even greater reaction than his words.
He’d raised his brows slightly when I took his beer, but he stayed silent. He continued watching me put his beer beside mine. Didn’t move. Waited for me to do so.
And I did.
Move.
I placed one of my hands in what I now considered ‘my’ spot on the flat of his pec, the other I fastened around his neck and exerted as much pressure as I could to make my intentions known.
My strength was laughable compared to his, so if he didn’t want to move then he didn’t have to.
But he moved.
Our mouths crashed down on each other in the next moment.
A man like him, I expected him to take the reins as soon as my mouth opened to him and his tongue slipped into my mouth. I may not have personal experience with the alpha type men, but I knew the drill. I’d seen the Sons of Templar men.
But Heath wasn’t going to be put in one particular box.
He kissed me back. Heck, did he kiss me back. But he let me control the pace, the fire, everything.
My hand was tight on his neck, commanding our bodies together, pressing as much of his muscled form to my small one as I possibly could.
I wanted to be closer. I wanted to unzip him and crawl inside his skin.
His hand was tight at my hip and was yanking me to him with that same kind of desperation. His entire body was tight. Wired.
His eyes were dark and dangerous when I pulled back.
I stepped away from him and grabbed my beer, if only for something tangible to hold onto so I didn’t float off the face of the earth.
He watched me, grasping his own beer. Silently.
I waited for him to speak, not nervous. I should’ve been, such an extended amount of silence after a kiss between strangers was not the norm. It was usually a sign of something bad. But I knew it wasn’t bad. There was a certainty between us that shouldn’t have been there after such a short amount of time. It shouldn’t have been there, but it was.
He took a long pull of his beer, never taking his gaze from me.
“What was that for?” he asked after swallowing.
“I just felt like I needed to see what it was like to kiss you,” I replied, my voice soft.
Something flared in his eyes. “That was a bad decision, Sunshine.”
My blood ran cold with the words chilling it in a way only rejection could.
But this isn’t rejection, I told myself. The way he’d kissed me back, the way he was looking at me, devouring me with his gaze, no way in hell was that rejection.
It was something else entirely.
“Why was it a bad decision?” I asked on little more than a whisper.
“Because now I’m never gonna wanna know what it feels like to stop kissin’ you,” he growled.
My stomach dropped.
My panties dampened.
He continued to stare.
I didn’t know what to say.
His attention didn’t urge me to find the words. No, it seemed to radiate contentment, like he was perfectly happy to watch me struggling to breathe, to control my hormones and figure out how the hell to handle myself in a situation like this.
“You’re not holding much back,” I said on a whisper. “You’re showing your cards pretty early in the piece. Aren’t you meant to pretend you don’t care about me or something?”
He moved as soon as I spoke, so his body was right up in my space and his hand on my neck.
“I don’t pretend under regular circumstances,” he said. “And these circumstances are far from regular.”
His eyes went down my body and then back up, every spot under his gaze sizzling from the power of it.
“You are far from regular,” he murmured. “But I’m also not gonna sugar coat shit here. I’m not in it for a long haul, and that’s not a choice, that’s my life. Path I’ve chosen means the only choices I can make is to kill someone else to save a buddy, or to save myself.”
His thumb began to stroke the side of my neck and he held me hostage with his gaze. “I don’t get to choose to see the beautifully irregular girl again after this weekend,” he continued. “I’m showin’ my cards now, they aren’t pretty, or even the hand I wanna play, but it’s the only one I’ve got. Now you’ve gotta make your decision about whether we’re gonna play this out or if I’m gonna put you in a cab, have the memory of your lips and your smile.” He moved his hand to brush my bottom lip with his thumb.
“And trust me, places I’m gonna be, that’s gonna be enough to get me through. But if you’re willin’ to give me more, knowing what you know about what this is, more importantly, about what this isn’t, make no mistake, I’m fucking taking it.”