Fall for a SEAL (32 page)

“I don’t see why it’s so funny,” he muttered
good-naturedly as she dabbed on some vitamin E lotion he had in the cupboard in lieu of her usual moisturizer.

“It’s not,” she said, hiccuping, which only sent her into another fit of giggles.
 

He gave his cast one final shake, then wrapped it in a towel and stood, a giant, naked, man mountain beside her.
 

“What?”

His lips twitched in an almost-smile. “I like having you in my bathroom.”

She almost-smiled back. “Okay.”

“Do you need a hair dryer?”

“Sure.”

He disappeared and returned a minute later with a never-before-opened box. “Here.”

“Why do you have a brand-new hair dryer?”

A laugh tore out of his throat. “Because my mother is insane. She’d love nothing more than for me to settle down with a girl, so she’s forever bringing me things to domestic my home.”

She took the box
and opened it. “When did she give this to you?”

“Last year sometime?”

And Gaby was the first woman who would use it. That did funny things to her heart. “Thanks.”

He grinned and disappeared. Music came on in the other room, and when she finished drying her hair, she found him fully dressed and prepping what looked like a stir fry for dinner.

She found her clothes and pulled them on again,
skipping the soaking wet panties.

“Hey,” he called out from the kitchen.

“Hey what?” she yelled back, but before she could go to him, he appeared in the doorway, then steered her backwards to the couch.
 

“I want to ask you something,” he said, settling them side-by-side after a kiss. “Stay over tonight.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“We don’t need to have sex.”

“We
won’t
be having sex. One step
at a time, right?”

“Just cuddles.”

She laughed. “Well, not
just
cuddles.”

“Don’t dismiss that as a valuable offer unto itself. I have it on good authority I’m an excellent snuggler.”

“I bet.”

“That was the wrong sales pitch, wasn’t it?” His eyes twinkled like he knew it didn’t really matter to her, and it didn’t. This felt too right.

“Definitely.”

“How about, I miss you when you go. It’s
only been a week and I’ve been crawling the walls for at least five days of it, hungry to see you. And I think we should extend our weekly date to the morning. Besides, I don’t sleep well alone.”

“That’s not fair.”

He grinned, a feral acknowledgement that he knew he had her. “What did it?”

She mumbled her answer under her breath. She didn’t need to give him any more advantage than he already
had.

“Pardon? I didn’t hear you.”

She winced. “You said you’re hungry to see me. You said it before…you know.” She made a face of defeat. “I really like it.”

“Yeah, you look like you like it.”

“Well, it’s kind of like kryptonite. I don’t think I’m supposed to like how weak it makes me.”

“You haven’t seen Superman, have you?”

“No. Why, did I get the reference wrong?”
 

He laughed. “Yes and
no.” He rolled her beneath him. “So when I say I’m hungry to have you in my bed…”

“So you can sleep? Because you’ve gone without a bedmate for weeks on end and it’s so awful?” She said it archly, but her lips were twitching into a smile she couldn’t hold back even before the sentence was past her lips.

“Yes on the first point. No on the second, and don’t make me want to spank you. I’m still
uncoordinated with my left hand.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “I missed you this week, Gaby.”

Leaning into his palm, she closed her eyes and admitted to herself that she’d missed him, too. But just to herself. He didn’t need anything else to use against her. She took a settling breath. “We didn’t talk about spanking.”

“We didn’t talk about it being off-limits, either.” He kissed her
as he stroked his palm down her hip and tapped the side of her butt. “Would it be?”

God, he was going to be the sexual death of her. “No,” she whispered.

“Okay.” He grinned. “One step at a time, though. I’ll let you think about that while I make dinner.”

— TEN —

Gaby sighed and stole a look at her phone resting quietly on the edge of her desk.
 

It was only Tuesday. Three more days until she could call Trick and invite herself over to his place for a few rounds of “Let’s See What We Can Do With Our Hands and Mouths.”

A shiver racked through her at the memory of the past weekend. Their third weekend together in the new and improved Trick
and Gaby 2.0. Easy, breezy, orgasm-please-y. He’d come over to her place—Lila had been gone for the weekend, taking any possible embarrassment out of the equation—and they’d driven up to the La Jolla tide pools. Then spent the night at his place before a late diner breakfast and a long, slow kiss goodbye midafternoon on Sunday.

She could so easily get addicted to him. It wasn’t just that he was
impossibly good-looking and had mad sex skills. He was also smart and had a closet geekiness that made her want to buy him Doctor Who boxer shorts. He asked all the right questions and listened to the answers. He cared about his job and his friends and his family and shared more than she expected about all of the above.

He was perfect.

And not a forever kind of guy.

She really needed to have
that tattooed on her hand, because if she let herself slip into wanting Trick to be something other than what he was, she’d miss out on how special it was to have him in her life.

Their plan was a good one. Have fun on the weekends and not get too clingy during the week. She didn’t need to weave him into every facet of her life. It would make it that much harder to move on when they were over.

She took one last look at the phone and headed for the craft area. The kids were great about cleaning up at the end of the day, but there was always some restocking and cleaning needed, plus prep for the next day.

She was almost done when a knock sounded at her classroom door. Expecting it to be one of her fellow teachers, she called out for them to come in and tried one last time to shove a
sheaf of construction paper onto the top shelf before giving up.

“Need some help?”

At the sound of a rough, rumbling voice she was now intimately familiar with, she lost her grip on the paper and turned to face him as it rained down around her. “Trick!”

“Oh, shit.”
 

She shot him an alarmed look, a natural censoring reaction when someone swore in her classroom, and he gave her an apologetic
shrug as he dropped to the floor and started gathering up the red and blue and yellow and green squares. With both hands.

With extra care, she reached out and touched his right hand. “You got your cast off!”

He tugged up his long-sleeved t-shirt to reveal a black flexible brace wrapped around his forearm. “Still have to be careful, but I like this better.”

She narrowed her gaze at him. “Wait…did
you go to see a doctor?”

“Look at all these papers. Whatever do you get the cute children to do with them?”

“Trick…”

He winked at her. “Gaby, I think fussing about a cast falls into girlfriend territory. Leave it be.”

He’d meant it as a tease, she knew that, and he was right, but it still felt sharper than she expected.

You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think you want that
.
 

“Okay,” she
said, barely squeaking out the word.

“What?” He must have picked up on the weird vibe, and she mentally kicked herself.
He didn’t mean it like that.

“Nothing. Really. I’m just surprised to see you.” She smiled. “It’s a good surprise. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to see you.” He raised his hand. “Let’s call it an exception to the agreed-upon parameters.”

“Is everything okay?” She didn’t know
a lot about his job, but she was pretty sure he wasn’t usually done at the end of the school day.

He shrugged, dropping his gaze to the papers they were still picking up.

“I’m pretty much done here, I just need to run some copies of worksheets for tomorrow. Give me ten minutes, okay?”

She kissed his cheek as she stood up, then grabbed her spelling handouts for the next day and headed to the
office to make some copies.

The school receptionist, Nadia, was filing the day’s attendance reports and blushed when Gaby came into view.

“Oh, so he sweet-talked his way past you, huh?”

“There aren’t any kids here.” Nadia stuck out her tongue. “Please don’t try to tell me you didn’t want that hunk of man to surprise you. Because if you didn’t—”

Gaby laughed. “Oh no, I did. Thank you.”

“Is
it serious?”

Gaby shook her head. “It’s new. And he’s way out of my league, so I’m sure it won’t last, but as long as it does…”

Nadia frowned. “Don’t sell yourself short. Does he give you that impression?”

“No!” The retort stormed out of her, because it was the truth. “No, he’s lovely.”

“Military?”

She nodded. “Navy.”

“Hot.”

“Mmm-hmmm.” They giggled together as Gaby waited for the last
of her copies to spool off the printer. “Okay, I’m out of here.”

“If you call in sick tomorrow, I’ll cover for you!”

“I won’t.”

“Foolish girl.” Nadia sighed and leaned against the filing cabinet. “If he has any friends. Or brothers. Or hunky acquaintances….”

“I’ll be sure to point them in your direction.”
 

Gaby wiggled her fingers and stepped into the hall—and into Trick’s chest. Big, broad,
hard…and shaking with laughter. She groaned and tipped her head against his shirt. “How much did you hear?”

“Hot, mmm-hmmm. And apparently I’m not sick-day worthy.”

“Are you going to call in sick tomorrow?”

“Fair point.” He slid his fingers through hers. “Is this okay?”

She grinned. “Sure, everyone’s pretty much gone.”

“For the record, you
are
sick-day worthy. There’s just shit going on right
now.”

“Ah.” That explained the visit. “So…dinner?”

“I thought I’d take you out.”

“Let’s swing by my place so I can get changed.” She steered them back into her classroom.
 

Trick swung her around, pressing her back to the interior wall, so they were safely out of view if anyone glanced in the window on the door. He sucked her lower lip into his mouth as he ghosted his hands down her hips. “I
like this dress, though.”

“And it likes you, too.” She opened for him and he thrust his tongue hungrily against hers, zooming her blood straight to the boiling point. She panted as he moved his mouth down her neck. “Maybe I just wanted a polite excuse to grab an overnight bag for your place.”

He groaned. “I thought we were past niceties. And here I thought I’d have to grovel to get you in my
bed in the middle of the week.”

She grabbed his cheeks and pulled his head to hers. “Hey. You need some company, I want you to ask. Parameters be damned.”

The look on his face made her heart melt—starkly serious, totally surprised. “Yeah?”

“Of course.” She curled up on her toes, pressing her lips to his. “Now, where are you going to feed me?”

— —
 

They settled on Mexican pretty quickly.
Trick wanted to take her to a fancy place near the beach, but Gaby suggested something more casual, just off Orange Ave, and rightly pointed out that then they could have a few beers and walk back to her place.

Trick didn’t ask her if Lila was home tonight. For one thing, he didn’t care, and he didn’t want Gaby to care or worry about why he was asking. He followed her home, then upstairs to her
empty apartment. She scrawled a note on the whiteboard on the fridge and took three minutes to freshen up before they headed for the restaurant on foot.

They talked about the pros and cons of living in Coronado Beach and what Gaby’s class was learning for the week. They talked about current affairs and reality television and social media, pausing only to order food. After finishing a shared skillet
of queso fundido, Trick was finally feeling more comfortable with the state of his head when Gaby slid her hand over his and dragged an unexpected truth out of him.

“How was your day?”

“Rough.”

She paused, eyebrows slightly raised like she’d been expecting a nothing answer. It was all he usually gave her.

He shook his head. “Sorry. That’s cryptic, I know.”

She tilted her head to the side.
“I don’t mind cryptic.”

Screwing up his face against the onslaught of sound he had racing through his head—the audio recording of a SEAL fire team caught in the middle of an artillery strike—Trick looked out the window at the sidewalk of happy civilians strolling past. “I’m here, and the team I usually work with…isn’t. The disconnect between what they’re doing—what I usually do—and the cushy
life is….”

Gaby just looked at him, her eyes soft as she waited for him to start talking again. Or not. She really looked like she’d take whatever he could share and not ask for more.

She deserved more.

Not the state secrets stuff, but…she didn’t deserve a boyfriend who might be more fucked up than he thought.

“Do you have someone at work you can talk to about this stuff? Talk freely, I mean?”

He nodded. “I do. And I do talk to them. Lots of them, actually.”

“So what’s the deal…they tell you that you’re reacting normally and you don’t believe them?”

He didn’t, actually. He huffed a laugh. “How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess. And a few psych classes in my undergrad.” She leaned forward and held out her hand, wiggling her fingers until he took them. “So sleeping with me tonight might help?”

“Is that okay?”

She nodded. “More than okay. Thank you for asking.”

They were interrupted then by the arrival of their fish taco plates, but Gaby didn’t immediately let go of his hand. She smiled a polite thanks to the waiter, then slid her attention right back to him.

“Last week you said you don’t sleep well alone. Is this what you meant?”