Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 9) (13 page)

But what was he supposed to do, tell her he was just kidding when he said he wanted to figure out what a new start might look like? Slow sounded like exactly what a guy with a big ugly box behind his rib cage and an inability to actually utter the term PTSD out loud should be lining up for.

The waiter brought their plates and made a big show of delivering them.

“Fine,” Charlie growled as the waiter scurried off again. “Eat your dinner and we’ll take a walk on the beach so we can
talk
.”

He might be on board with slow, but there was no reason he couldn’t kiss her if he felt like it. No reason he couldn’t provide some incentive designed to get her to ask him to put his mouth on her. Slow had no parameters, and when you compared the speed of tonight with how fast they’d ended up naked the first time they’d sat in this restaurant, the current pace could easily be described as glacial.

Besides, sex was the one thing they had no problems with, and he wholeheartedly disagreed with her point about the complications. If anything, sex made everything crystal clear, because that was when she opened herself up to him. He wanted to dig into her, pry open her insides, and read the answers to the questions he had.

But when a woman said wait, he obliged. Being a saint totally sucked.

“That sounds lovely.” She brightened. “Seems like the anticipation game worked for us once. It can be that good again.”

Only because the first time they’d been forced to wait due to lack of condom foresight. This was totally different because it was self-imposed and he didn’t have a clear end in sight. How would he know when it was okay to stop going slow?

They ate dinner, and Audra outlined some ideas for how Aqueous Adventures could run a couple of education programs. The only bright side was he did like to listen to her talk, especially about dolphins. There were just so many other things they could be doing with their mouths than gabbing.

He could be patient. He’d waited this long. Her secrets would keep.

A
udra excused herself to run to the ladies room and stopped to freshen her lipstick. She and Charlie were about to walk on the beach, and unless she missed her guess, he’d get handsy before too long. The new layer of pink might curtail some of it.

But probably not, knowing Charlie. He’d never met a barrier he couldn’t knock down, largely owing to the big, fat mule head he had on his shoulders, no doubt.

She’d gotten him to agree to no sex. How, she had no idea, nor how long he planned to honor it. Or what she’d do to stop him when—
when
, not
if
—he backed her into a shadowed corner. Because honestly, she was pretty sure he just had to breathe on her and she’d drop her panties. Again. Her will sucked, but his was like iron, so he’d be the one doing the heavy lifting in this deal.

It was imperative that they take this slow so they could figure out how to be around each other again. So she could gauge whether he had one foot out the door this time too or he intended to do things differently. They had to talk, really
talk,
about the reasons they’d made the decisions they had. She wanted to feel like she could trust him enough to tell him about Isaac and how broken she’d been. How broken she still felt sometimes.

Otherwise, there was no point in this. They’d done hot, fast, and furious, then good-bye. She didn’t want that. Of course she had no freaking clue
what
she wanted other than not Jared and not being apart from Charlie. Anything else was too much to contemplate right now.

Content in the moment worked for her. And a walk on the beach sounded like a perfect way to take some baby steps forward.

But when she found Charlie outside the restaurant on the path to the pool, he was talking to two women he obviously knew, a blonde she might have to hate for being extremely pretty and an arresting brunette with horn-rimmed glasses. She was also pretty but she got a pass by sheer virtue of her style. Not many women could pull off glasses with such panache.

“Dr. Reed.” Charlie smiled as she approached.

Uh-oh. Titles meant something. But she wasn’t sure what. Was he sleeping with one of these women and hoped to keep his relationship with Audra quiet so no one got upset?

Her stomach twisted, threatening to expel the contents of her dinner onto the sidewalk by the blonde’s flip-flops.

“This is Emma Riley and Rachel Blume,” Charlie said unhelpfully. “Emma is married to one of my partners. Dex. You haven’t met him yet. Rachel is my lawyer. Or rather she’s working for Aqueous Adventures. I just tell her how hard to press on the court.”

Oh.
That
was helpful. “Nice to meet you. Please call me Audra. I’m only Dr. Reed at work.”

Rachel held her hand a touch too long as she shook Audra’s, her gaze shrewd and assessing as she took her measure. “Well, well. I just heard the distinct click of several stray pieces falling into place.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I never could figure out Anderson’s angle when he insisted on bringing in a dolphin expert. He was so smug when I met with him. I had no idea there was more at play here than just an island.”

What the hell had this women figured out simply by shaking Audra’s hand? And when had she met with Jared? He’d never mentioned it to her. Her hackles rose.

“Can we talk about something less inflammatory please?” she murmured with a glance at Charlie. “Like politics or religion? Jared is not a popular subject at the moment.”

Rachel’s eyebrows rose. “I like you already. So okay. No work talk tonight. You and I need to have a very long discussion though. Soon.”

Something about the way the lawyer drenched her comments with innuendo intrigued her. She instantly liked Rachel too—especially since she didn’t give off the slightest vibe that she’d ever noticed Charlie had a smoking hot body and a mouth with lush lips that could yank a scream out of a woman in minutes.

“What are you ladies doing at the resort anyway?” Charlie asked conversationally. “Evan mentioned that he had plans with you when I shanghaied him into taking Audra and her sisters parasailing earlier.”

Rachel grinned. “He always has plans. That was code for the fact that he wanted to be home when I got there so he could surprise me with flowers. It’s our anniversary,” she explained to Audra. “We’ve been together exactly one month today.”

Oh. That was helpful too. “You and Evan? The gorgeous, silent one? Lucky girl.”

“I’m standing right here,” Charlie commented drily. “I’d hate to hear what you’d say if I wasn’t.”

Rachel shrugged. “No difference. Were you expecting a filter over the mouth of a woman who can handle you? I wasn’t. If you’re looking for a sweet, unassuming woman with social niceties, keep walking.”

“Well played,” Audra said decisively with a laugh. “We should make that appointment to talk in a couple of days. My sisters are in town until Sunday. Tonight I have plans for a moonlit walk on the beach with a surly ex-SEAL who apparently thinks I’m blind.”

“We have ice cream to get,” Emma said. “Rachel is kindly forgoing anniversary sex for my benefit. I’m so sick to my stomach all the time, and the stupid pregnancy tests keep coming up negative. I don’t get it. As many times a day as my eggs are getting fertilized, I should be pregnant with a litter by now.”

“La, la, la.” Charlie stuck his fingers in his ears. “Talk about girl stuff later. I don’t want to hear about this.”

Emma laughed. “You can’t fool me. I know you nursed Dex through the worst of his hangover when he went out on that all-night bender after I first posed the idea of a baby. You listened to every word without judgment, and I appreciate your counsel.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m a saint.” Charlie waved it off. “He obviously didn’t tell you the part where I helped him see how great it would be to spend twenty-four seven trying to get his hot wife pregnant.”

“Standing right here.” Audra elbowed him good-naturedly. “That taste of my own medicine? Bitter. How about you find something else to stick in my mouth instead?”

“And that’s our cue to leave for real this time.” Rachel put a hand under Emma’s arm and steered her toward the dining hall.

“They’re good girls,” Charlie commented as they strolled toward the beach and threaded his fingers through hers without asking. She didn’t mind. His thumb absently stroked her knuckle and it was nice in a sweet way that they’d seldom indulged in.

Romance was a side benefit of the no-sex plea. One she hadn’t even considered. Not that she didn’t think of Charlie as romantic—but his idea of a romantic gesture was making her come four times before he allowed himself any relief.

“You seem fond of them. Some guys would hate losing their buddies to serious relationships.”

“Nah, they keep Dex and Evan in line. Very well. I owe them both a lot, especially Rachel.”

That sounded like a lead-in if she’d ever heard one. “Because she’s working the legal angles against Jared over Ilhota Rosa?”

Instantly a guard snapped into place over Charlie’s expression, as frustrating as it was sudden. “Yeah. She’s a big help. And we need all we can get, considering.”

Audra didn’t have to fill in the blanks. Jared had intruded on their evening once again, and she was powerless to chase away his presence when they were both so prickly about it. Somehow, they were going to have to exorcise this ghost between them. But how?

Audra worked on the answer to her Jared problem over the next couple of days as she spent time with her sisters. The anticipation stretched as she caught sight of Charlie across the resort as he strolled back from the dock, chatting with a knot of guests who’d just returned from parasailing. Sometimes he’d wave as she hung out by the pool while Hannah and Carly ignored her in favor of their near-telepathic communication or more earthbound texting.

Once, when she was on her way back to her room from breakfast—alone, because the girls were sleeping in—he’d snagged her by the hips as she passed and pulled her into one of the ice machine alcoves. The scorching kiss he’d laid on her kept her warm for a solid hour. The confusion over it lasted much longer than that.

They didn’t talk, not like she’d hoped. Charlie didn’t ask her to dinner again, and she didn’t finagle another boat ride because she felt bad taking his time from paying customers. If it weren’t for the kiss and the random drive-by smiles he shot in her direction, she’d think he’d changed his mind about any kind of do-over. Like she wasn’t worth the aggravation and he’d rather forget
her
name instead of Jared’s.

The distance between them was real and palpable, and she hated it. Had she screwed up by insisting on no sex? The physical pleasures had always been what was so thrilling between them, what had led to their unbelievable connection. If she truly wanted to start over, sex was an undeniable part of that.

Carly and Hannah went back to Miami Sunday night without any of the bonding Audra had intended. They were seventeen and difficult, she told herself. Eventually they might grow up a little, and then they’d find out she was a great big sister. Maybe. But would it have killed Hannah and Carly to get their heads out of their iPhones long enough to realize Audra was hurting? Pushing away that hurt got more and more difficult the longer she had to live each day without the other half of her pod. She missed Isaac, and it was almost as if he’d never existed. She had no one to mourn with, and it was taking a toll.

Audra spent Sunday night in her apartment with her hand on her phone in case Charlie called since he knew her sisters had left. She craved his voice murmuring to her in the dark. But the phone never lit up, and she eventually drifted into a fitful sleep laced with weird dreams that she forgot as soon as she woke up.

Monday dragged by until just after lunch when Rachel Blume called to see if Audra was free to talk. Instead of having Rachel come to FARC, Audra asked Charlie’s lawyer if she’d like to have dinner instead. Probably it wouldn’t matter—if a man could put his tongue between her legs without anyone in the next office cluing in, a conversation with Rachel about Ilhota Rosa would likely go completely unnoticed. But she didn’t want to take chances. Jared was a donor of epic proportions, and she would not be shocked to discover he had spies all over the building.