Free Accidental SEAL (SEAL Brotherhood #1) by Sharon Hamilton Page B

sex.
    God, I wish there was.
    At the lobby of her building, he kissed her. “Thank you. This was nice, Christy.”
    “I’d like to do it again sometime.”
    She was masking again, trying not to plead. But damn, if he didn’t love the way she wanted him, and how hard he felt she was fighting to cover it up.
    Me, too. Fuck. I could do this every night. He shifted his weight and stepped on his own foot to wake himself up—a trick he’d learned in the BUD/S training.
    “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.” It hurt to say it, but it had to be said. After all, he was a dog. And she deserved way better.
    As she opened the heavy glass door, she turned and asked him a question. “Kyle, will I see you again?”
    He didn’t want to answer it. He didn’t want to lie. But what was the truth, after all? He sighed. “I think so.” Then he shrugged. “Just not sure when.” He looked down at his feet, then up to her face. “Best not to expect too much out of this.”
    She got the message. He saw it in her eyes, in the flicker that registered she’d felt the spear of rejection. He could see she wasn’t used to getting it. And she wasn’t used to giving so freely of herself.
    He’d been honest with her, at least. He’d done what had to be done, no question about it. But he still felt like a complete heel. He hoped her anger would help her forget him.
    He knew it would be impossible to ever forget her.
     

Chapter 8
     
    The next morning, Kyle didn’t have time for shame. He threw it in the back of his mind like he used to throw his wetsuit and surfboard in the back of the battered old truck with the rusty headlights. His old but reliable vehicle had been crumbling, with parts sloughing off it for years. This flawed hunk of metal had served him well while he became a man. She was always by his side, proving to be much more reliable than any of the girls he’d dated.
    His heart hadn’t gotten seriously snagged on any of the lovelies from his past. But the truck was different. He nearly cried the day he’d sold her to a friend, the sale signaling the end of his carefree but tumultuous life—the same day he’d reported to the Indoc center. Not once did he ever wash her. She was perfect the way she was.
    He took a shower, then checked Armando’s refrigerator for something unhealthy. No luck. A little nonfat yogurt and greens. No milk for cereal, if he even had cereal. No bread for toast. He found some cheese and cut a slice. It tasted terrible, like rubber tires. He read the label.
    99% nonfat? What the hell is up with that?
    Armando was a food Nazi, all right. Kyle grabbed a bruised apple from a bowl on the kitchen counter and walked around, surveying the house, sure he missed something. Armando had nothing frilly to indicate a woman’s presence. All hard steel stuff. No pictures of frogmen jumping out of airplanes or US flags either.
    When I was a child I thought like a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. It was one of the quotes he and Armando loved, and had sustained them all during his training and during some of the darkest days overseas in the Middle East. On those days he’d look out over the sand and hear the kids playing, the goats bleating, and wonder if this dusty hellhole was going to be his killing field, where he would end his days on earth.
    He and Armando had the shared experience of getting up close and personal with Death. And just like at BUD/S, neither of them would quit.
    Wherever you are, Armani, I’m coming. I’m bringing you home. Armando had to know Kyle would do this, or die trying.
    He thought about the lovely woman he’d shared his passion with last night. How her face was filled with tears from the intensity of their lovemaking. He caught a very brief glimpse of what life would be like with a woman like her. But all too quickly the picture turned, and once more he’d humiliated Christy, exposed her to the dark side of his chosen life. All she’d done was