Free SEALed at Midnight by Cat Johnson

have asked for help.” He sat up.
    She’d done her best to be quiet but that obviously hadn’t worked.
    “I don’t need any help. All done. See?” She tried to sound cheerful and competent when she was neither at the moment.
    “Yes, I see . . . and heard.” He smiled.
    The expression transformed his face. It was as if a light had been turned on, illuminating him from the inside, giving her a glimpse of what he’d look like happy and healthy.
    “Sorry. I don’t usually talk like that.” She kneeled on the hearth and threw in another log.
    “Don’t apologize. That was by far the most creative swearing I’ve heard in or out of the Navy.”
    She turned to look at him. “Do you realize what’s happening? What you just said?”
    “No. What?” He frowned.
    “You talked about the Navy. You’re remembering things.”
    He paused for a second. “Maybe I am. But not the important things like my name. Or if I’m married or not.”
    Knowing whether he was single was important to him? Could that be because he was interested in her?
    Ginny beat back that thought. He’d hit his head hard enough he had amnesia, for God’s sake. It was pure conceit to believe he would spare even a thought regarding her at a time like this.
    “Lie down and rest. Please.”
    “If I do, will you please do the same? You’re shivering now too.” He lifted the corner of the blanket. “Come get warm.”
    Get warm, under the same blanket as a man who had the body of a Greek sculpture and was wearing nothing but boxer shorts.
    But he was right. She was cold now that the ass of her pajamas was wet.
    She could handle this. She was an adult . . . an adult who hadn’t had sex in so long she’d begun to dream about it like some pubescent boy. But desperate times called for desperate measures and it was a proven fact that two people’s body heat was better than one.
    “Okay.” She moved around him. “But you get the spot closer to the fire because you’re hurt and you were colder longer.”
    “All right.”  
    She settled herself on the carpet, faced the room and rested her head on the edge of the pillow barely big enough for two.
    He covered her with the blanket, leaving his arm draped over her waist after he did. She felt his breath against her hair. Felt his body pressed close behind her, along with his hard muscles and long limbs.
    It was all the makings of some of her best dreams, but unlike her dreams, this was real. And unlike her dreams, she couldn’t yank the boxer shorts off this perfect specimen of a man and jump him.
    That didn’t stop Ginny from letting her mind wander to what would happen if she did.
    As his breathing became slow and deep behind her, the list she’d made while watching the Love Doctor caught her eye.
    It was crazy, but the damn thing had worked. She’d wished for a man and he’d appeared.
    Next time she’d be more specific regarding what she wished for. She’d have to remember to include things such as a memory as traits she wanted in a man.
    Lesson learned.

CHAPTER 8
    Thom woke disoriented.
    His state of confusion stemmed more from the warm body next to him than from the hard floor beneath him.
    He’d dozed on the floor of transports and during missions more often than he’d like, but it had been a very long time since he’d woken next to a woman.
    His body had known she was there before his consciousness had, and it had reacted accordingly. He didn’t dare move and risk her feeling his raging hard-on.
    He pawed through the haze of sleep and grabbed onto a memory. Her name was Ginny, though her mother called her Virginia. She cussed like a sailor when she thought he couldn’t hear and she hadn’t shown fear even in the face of encountering a strange man in the middle of the night.
    He’d be lying if he didn’t admit to himself what a huge relief it was that he could remember last night at all, given his recent head injury in the Black Hawk.
    More importantly than his remembering Ginny’s