Free A Sexy SEAL Novella Anthology by Tawny Weber Page A

again.
    “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to work,” she
said, knowing she was babbling but too desperate to leave to try to
communicate clearly. “I’m going to work.”
    “Why don’t we settle this first?” He didn’t
sound angry. He obviously wasn’t upset. She hated that.
    “There’s nothing to settle. I was upset last
night. We had plans for dinner and to decorate the tree. It hurt me
when you blew them off to go out with my brother.” She took a deep
breath, then forced herself to continue. “It hurts more to know
that you value Eli more than you do me. His opinions, his company,
his advice. It doesn’t matter if they are right for you or not. If
Eli says it, you do it.”
    “Funny.” Sam gave a rueful half-laugh and
shook his head. “I’m pretty sure your brother was worried about the
exact same thing.”
    “That he’d screw up your life?”
    “That you would. He also said that you’d set
down an ultimatum,” he said in a tight voice. “So what’s it going
to be, Bry? I give up my friends or you’ll leave? Maybe I quit the
Navy or you won’t put out. Why don’t you lay down these new rules
of yours?”
    Her bottom lip trembled, but not nearly as
much as her heart did. Bryanna had to clench her hands together
tightly to keep them from shaking. Or worse, throwing something
again.
    Because she’d never set rules, because she’d
never felt confident enough of them that she thought she could.
She’d never had enough faith in his feelings, in their
relationship, to ask for a damned thing. She simply sat on the
sidelines, accepting any crumbs he’d throw her way.
    So why should she be surprised when that’s
all he offered was crumbs?
    Bryanna wanted to curl up and cry.
    But she didn’t.
    “Where the hell are you going?” he demanded
as she walked out of the kitchen.
    Needing the distance, desperate to clear her
head and figure out how much of this was her own fault for
expecting the impossible while not bothering to ask for it, she
walked faster.
    “I’m going to work. You can figure out how
to get back to your car. Or you can stay here.” Numb, so glad for
the numb, she glanced over her shoulder. “Or maybe you should call
Eli. I’m sure he’ll tell you how to fix this situation. Isn’t that
his job? Telling you how to run your life?”
     

A SEAL’s Proposal: Chapter Eight
     
     
    “Goddamn women.”
    “All women?”
    Easily ignoring what he considered a stupid
question, Sam continued.
    “Soft and delicate, sexy and strong.
Delicious, dedicated and damned hard to resist. They lure a man in,
turn his mind into mush and make his body a slave to their wiles.”
He stopped for a moment to consider the many amazing wiles of
Bryanna Spencer. Luckily he wasn’t drunk enough yet to recite them
out loud to Bryanna’s big brother.
    Sam wasn’t as sure that Russell could kick
his ass as easily as Eli could, but all things considered, he’d
rather not take his chances.
    “Dude, don’t you think you got enough last
night?”
    Sam squinted his bleary eyes, waiting for
the two figures across the table to settle into whichever one they
wanted to be. Then he shrugged.
    “Last night I was celebrating,” he said,
setting his words out as carefully as he would explosives. “Today,
I’m drowning my sorrows.”
    “Is that why you called me for a ride from
my sister’s place? Because you have sorrows?”
    “Pissed her off,” Sam muttered into his mug,
surprised to see it empty but for a ring of foam.
    “So un-piss her off,” Russell said with a
laugh. Easy for him to shrug it off, Sam thought morosely. He
wasn’t still picking green-speckled eggs out of his clothes.
“Bryanna doesn’t hold grudges. But if you’re looking to fix
whatever’s got you in the sorrow-drowning mode, you might want to
slow down on the booze.”
    The question was, did he want to fix it?
    Before Sam could figure that out—hell,
before he could fumble his way through the many facets to the
question—a