Free Soak (A Navy SEAL Mormon Taboo Romance) by Celia Loren Page A

we’re still young. Lots of things are changing in the church. People are
more progressive these days, more realistic.”
    “You think Elder Johannes is more progressive?”
    “Touche. Guess I was thinking of, like...” Gwen gestured,
vaguely—“The Romneys. They have their moments.”
    “Oh, great.”
    “Just trying to be helpful. Anyways. Fuck the
shoulda-woulda-couldas for a moment—do you want it to happen again?”
    Chloe closed her eyes. She tried to imagine the rest of
Ryder’s open-ended visit passing as if the night before had never happened.
Could she really keep sitting across from him at the dinner table, keep griping
at him about his slights against her religion, as if nothing had happened? Even
the idea of this effort seemed to drain her. It wouldn’t work. He was a magnet,
and she was metal. Their next union wasn’t just something she wanted—it was
something that had to happen. She felt spiritually convinced.
    “Oh, no,” Gwen said slowly. Chloe had forgotten her best
friend’s probing eyes on her face, and tried to snap herself back to reality.
But Gwen was ever-intuitive. “You’re totally in love with him, aren’t you?”
    “Gwen, what? No! People don’t just fall in love after a
few...dangerous liaisons.” One well-placed eyebrow raise from her best friend
finished the exchange. Gwen wasn’t buying it.
    “What would you do?” Chloe asked, finally. This was the
first time in memory that talking to her best friend hadn’t made her feel
better about a problem, more equipped to deal with conflict. When her uncle had
died, when her brother had been wounded, when a dozen “reedy, nametag-wearing”
Mormon boys had dented her heart, Gwen had been ready to deliver advice both
witty and consoling. But today, she seemed to have nothing that helped. It was
making Chloe even more anxious.
    “I guess I would try really, really hard to figure out if
it’s love,” she said, slowly. “Listen, Chloe. I love you. I support you. So
does your family, for the most part. But I remember when my Dad was going
through hell about this stuff, and he did eventually have to make a choice. So
that’s kind of what it boils down to, right? If—when—it comes time to make a
choice between Ryder and all this”—she gestured around the soda shop, but Chloe
understood what she meant—“what would you rather have?”
    Him, or the community? Him, or the childhood she’d known,
the people who cared about her, the whole worldview she’d been schooled in?
Chloe slurped at her milkshake, and brushed her blond hair behind her ears. She
thought of a favorite literary heroine, who’s advice she preferred to take this
morning, even as Gwen fixed her with a steely, serious stare.
    I’ll think about it tomorrow, she told herself.

 
    Chapter Eleven
     
    But she couldn’t follow even this, the easiest piece of
advice. She was thinking about it that night, once again, as her family moseyed
up the stairs post-Scrabble. John had hung around for a while after dinner and
spoken to Ryder in the corner in serious, hushed tones, but not even her
brother’s frown could banish what had happened on the couch. Against all her
better judgment, Chloe had come down for every meal that day in the skimpiest
garments her mother could tolerate: an empire-waisted hippie dress that
designated the barest outline of her actual figure, and skinny jeans. Elder
Johannes frowned at her clothing, but didn’t say a word. The twins took turns
giving Chloe a thumbs-up, which she steadfastly ignored.
    “Got a hot date later?” her mother joked. Chloe pulled a
face; she knew that if her mother really suspected a gentleman caller in the
mix, she’d be chock full of her typical, double-edged “encouragements.” (Her
mother was great at the pseudo-compliment: “You’d look so much prettier in
black. It’s a slimming color, you know.”) But apparently the entire community
had given up on Chloe’s ability to find a mate without