Burning For Nero (SEALs Going Hot) (9 page)

He cuddled her close, his good arm flexing around her.

She awoke with a start.

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

“How long was I out?” Her voice was laden with fatigue.

“Ten minutes, max. I’ve worn you out.”

She stretched her legs and nuzzled his throat. “Feels good, though.”

“Yeah. I want you again.”

She rubbed the tip of her nose into his cheek. “I can’t. I’m silly putty now.”

“I mean I want this with you again often.”

She stiffened.

“In Virginia.”

She didn’t even breathe.

“When we’re home.”

What was wrong? Why didn’t she respond? Why freeze? He hadn’t dreamt that she wanted him. But she did. He hadn’t imagined that he meant more to her than…a quick fuck. But he was more. Last night, she had agreed they were not friends with benefits.

He pulled back and gazed down at her.

She met his questioning gaze with the stern look of an opponent who would defend her ground with her dying breath.

“You will have to fill me in here. I’m lost, babe.”

“This—” She waved a hand around the room, her move quick, desperate. “This is nothing I thought might happen.”

“Me, either. Go on.”

“I didn’t plan this.”

That was an insult. But what good would it do him to concentrate on that and ignore the reason she withheld from him? “This is not an accident. Not a fluke.”

“No, I mean my desire for you wasn’t new. Wasn’t a flash in the pan.”

“Good to know.” That salved some of his wound.

“You have got to understand that I didn’t love Ray for a long time.”

“So you said.”

“And I hadn’t experienced wanting a man for years, either.”

Gratifying as that was, he needed more facts. “And?”

“So looking at you for months and months, I had a lot of thinking to do. I watched you with Jon, saw you easing his pain and then I realized you were easing mine, too. I didn’t want this with you because I was some horny broad who hadn’t had a good roll in a long time. I was…me…wanting you.”

He smoothed wisps of hair from her brow. “Thank god for that. I don’t want you because you and I are friends. Or even because Ray and I were. I wanted you years ago and gave you up because Ray took the lead.”

“I know. When I thought about how we first met, I remembered that.”

He really was going stupid or nuts. Maybe both. But he didn’t get where she was headed. “So help me out here. I’m not following what this has to do with us and any future we could put together.”

“I told myself I would never have you. Not like this. Not so well as this.”

“But you do now. And it changes everything.”

She shrank away from him,
picking up the towel from the floor and
pulling it around her. “I don’t think it does.”

Was that a stake he felt piercing his heart? He rose to his elbow. “Why not?”

“Because while I wanted you like this—” She sat up, walked to the other side of the room and faced him. “It doesn’t mean we should have anything more together.”

“That could take time, don’t you think? It should take time.”
Even though I’d make you mine tomorrow, if you’d agree.
“There is too much to consider.”

“I care for you, Tony Nero. You are kind, tender, generous with a little boy who isn’t yours, handsome and sweet as any man I’ve ever seen on god’s green earth, but I won’t encourage you to put me in your life every day.”

He didn’t dare move. The walls of this place moved in on him and crushed the air out of him. His arm pounded like it might fall off.
What the hell was she saying?

“I’m leaving Dam Neck and I’m never going back. I can’t be near you.”

Anger broke through his haze. His objective had been his. He had put his hands around her, his body inside hers. That was no dream. That was mission accomplished. “I sure as hell have no idea why.”

“You’re a man who loves his job first. I saw what that job did to one man and I won’t stick around to see what it does to another. Already, you’re hurt.” Tears blossomed in her green eyes. “Because of the job, you’re injured. Because of me, you’re hurt. I won’t add to that any more than I have to. And I can’t live with you, Tony. I can’t be your lover and I sure as hell can’t be your friend, either. The contact would eat me alive.”

He sat up, his feet firmly to the floor. “You’re saying you won’t be with me as anything, not friend or lover or anything more, because I’m a SEAL?”

“And I won’t ask you to leave the team for me, either. That is not who I am. I wish to god I could say what you do doesn’t matter to me. But it does.”

He stared at her. Broken, hurting, furious. “I am not Ray.”

“You are nothing like him.”

“Then why—”

“Call me a coward. Afraid that I can’t tolerate losing you.”

She had told Jon he would not die so Jon could go on living. But she couldn’t deal with the possibility of his loss herself?

He raked his hair.
“You’re no wimp, Cass. You were a good military wife—”

“What difference did it make?” She grit her teeth and pulled on her clothes.

“We’d be different together. You and I.”

She shook her head vehemently. “You can’t know that.”

“Of course, I do. What’s happened here proves it.”

She looked wild, her eyes wide with alarm and tears. “Great in bed?”

“Weren’t we?” he asked, his broken heart in his voice.

She caught a sob. “Too great. Unbelievable.”

He got to his feet. “You think that happens all the time?”

“Not to me.”

“Not to me, either.”

“There’s more to life than sex.” She tugged on her T-shirt and strode to the door.

He stalked her, grabbed her wrists. “So spend time with me outside the sack. Let’s see if we care for each other in between car pool runs and soccer games, groceries and electric bills.”

“Let’s see if we can survive with me worried that you are lost or injured or dead?”

“Those are worries anyone in civilian life can have.” He might change and he would die…someday. “I can’t promise you anything except that I’ll love you until I do die.”

She stared at him as if he’d just grown the devil’s horns. He admitted he loved her and she was horrified. She broke his hold, turned the doorknob and left him alone.

What in hell was he supposed to do now?

Chapter Six

“Have a beer.” His brother, Gil, shoved a bottle in his hand, then sat down beside him on the edge of the dock. Behind them on the broad lawn of the two families’ homes, more than forty people ate and drank, chatted and hugged. Sunset blazed along the horizon, a red-orange glow that turned the Severn to flame.

That’s how I feel. Burnt up.

“Thanks.” Tony took a swig. His third beer today. Normally, he didn’t drink more than that, but tonight he might consider tying one on.

“I’ll cut to the chase, Tone. You look like you just got beat up by Godzilla. I’d say the creep did a few rounds with Cass, too.”

Tony rolled a shoulder, not wanting to grace that with any comment. His secret love was definitely no secret to anyone. Why deny its existence—or their breakup?

“You’ve loved her too long to let an opportunity to patch things up pass you by.”

His family knew everything. Clairvoyant, he guessed. Even this one, his twenty-three-year-old sibling. Two inches shorter than Tony, the kid was a leaner version of him. His physique reflected his passion for baseball whereas Tony had always been the competitive weight lifter.

He scrubbed Gil’s baldhead with his knuckles. “When did you get so smart?”

Gil trained dark chocolate eyes on him. “When did you get so frazzled by women?”

Tony snorted. “Wait until one woman takes you down with a look or a word. Then you’ll remember today.”

“Well, I hope to Christ I also remember how you resolved this.”

Tony shook his head. “Your words do not compute.”

“Yeah. Why not?”

Tony took another slug of his beer. “I don’t have enough data.”

Gil huffed. “Simple then. Need to get more.”

“She shut me out.”

“Come on, man. Where’s your playbook?”

“With her? I’ve never had one.”

Gil shook his head and drank his beer. “Not sure if that’s a good thing. What would you do with any other broad?”

“Woman?”

“Okay, okay. What, huh?”

Tony winced.

Gil choked on his beer. “Geez, dying to admit that to me, huh? No worries. I can deal. But you? What do you do when you’re shut out of an op plan?”

“Dream up another way in.”

“And Great Nero can’t figure this one out?”

“Brain is not working.”

“That I do believe.” Gil snorted. “Well, every woman has needs, right? What are hers?”

Tony frowned, the direction of Gil’s rhetoric certainly perceptive. “She wants security. Predictability.”

“Shit. She can’t ever have that. From anyone. SEAL or not.”

“She’s too scared to see that.”

“Then you soothe her fear. Show her you’re the only man to make her life worth living.”

Tony fixed his little brother with a withering look. “You have specs for that?”

“Short of becoming a super hero, I guess not.”

The analogy had Tony snorting. But if the suit fit….

For certain, Cass didn’t care for him because of his strength. But he had a few more assets going for him than that. He’d show her he was more than brawn and brute force. More than a warrior. He was a man who needed her. Just her.

And if she wanted security, he’d give it to her. Big time. Predictability? He’d provide that, too. As soon as he went back to Virginia, as soon as they were away from here without the families, he’d show her how predictable he could be. He’d romance her in whatever time he had left before she thought she would move away. He’d make promises and keep them. He’d show up for Jon and her for the movies or soccer or swim lessons and he’d do it to the freaking dot. He’d bring her more of him, every day, any night she’d let him in the door. Candy, flowers, plumbing supplies. And he wouldn’t lay a finger on her. That alone would be so unpredictable, she’d wilt. Melt. Stew.

He smiled. Broadly.

“Got you thinking, did I?” Gil asked.

“Sure did. What do I owe you?”

“You might have to run interference for me against Tessa’s sorority sister.”

Tony chuckled. “That one is a barracuda, bro.”

“Tell me.” Gil flexed a bicep. “See any teeth marks?”

“Down to the bone.”

“Shit. Women can be ferocious.”

“You gotta make ’em pussy cats.”

Gil glared at him, the sexual implication a lurid look in his eyes. “I think you know that drill well enough.”

“That I do.”

They drank in silence for a minute or so.

“Does Cass know about the condition of your arm?” Gil was describing the discussion the five Neros had had this afternoon shortly after he arrived home. The fact that Tony’s arm was not healing rapidly had concerned them all, especially Gil who understood Tony’s devotion to special ops. Gil had recently applied to go through SEALs’ indoc selection and was proud of the fact that his older brother was a frog.

“No.” Tony shook his head. The loving was too heavy, too urgent to allow for much discussion. No sooner had they rolled around in the sack than they pined for more of the same. Passion was perfect for a lot of interactions, but in-depth conversation was not one of them. “I didn’t get around to telling her that.”

“And you can’t tell her now because she would think you were revealing it to make her sorry for you.”

Tony grimaced, rueful of his brother’s logic. “Damn, if the Marines aren’t making you one smart cookie.”

Gil clinked bottles with him in a toast.

Tony took his explanation one step further. “If I told her about my current condition and I went back out, she might fear for me in the field even more. Or she might feel better about me out there, who knows. But if I give up active duty for teaching—and I’m not even certain they’d take me with a gimpy arm—she might think I did it to get her. Who knows if over time, that decision might be the wrong one?”

He wanted to love her, as he was. From what she said, she wanted to as well and would never ask him to leave active duty just to be with her.

Turning to one side, he looked over the crowd. He found her sitting in a lawn chair, talking with Peg and Tessa. Cass faced him, her gaze drifting to him, her eyes widening when she saw him watching her—and holding.

Miss me?

God knows, I’ve got a hole in my life without you.

She excused herself from her company and walked over to the gas grill where she took a hot dog and a toasted bun and put them on a paper plate.

Her dog to her mouth, she latched on to his gaze again.

I want you, Cass. That way. With your mouth on me. I need you, Cass. With my body inside you. My life entwined with yours.

She blinked, her eyes somber with yearning. She plunked the hot dog on her plate, spun, threw plate and all in the trash, and turned her back on him.

Hell.

****

What a fool she had made of herself.

Cass stood in the kitchen, eyes squeezed shut, suppressing the urge to run to her room and cry like a girl.

Going to bed with Tony had been the most foolish act she had ever committed. She had always planned everything she had ever done. College. A business degree. Marriage to Ray. Getting pregnant. She had thought those all out, noting the practicality of it all. Her bachelors in communications. The way she loved Ray and his family. The desire she and Ray had to start a family even though he might be on a mission and not home when she delivered. She had thought it all out, pros and cons and all in between.

She was not erratic. Not impulsive. She was so very even that at one time, after watching one of those crazy housewives of la-la land shows, she wondered if she might have a hormone imbalance. That was nuts, of course, but she had never been a drama queen. About anything in her life.

She knew risks meant rewards, but before yesterday, she had chanced little in her lifetime. Her parents were mild-mannered people. She was like them. They had loved each other with a quiet, funny endearing devotion. They took most things in stride. Their initial failures in residential real estate told them they were better suited for a softer sell, less hectic pace. A higher income clientele appreciated that and her parents had been successful in their new roles. They became so adept at selling large development properties that when they began to make tens of thousands of dollars at each one, they took that in stride, too.