Her anxiety spiked at her thoughts, and she breathed through it. She couldn’t have another attack.
“Hon, what’s distressing you?” Dalton spoke softly, as if he didn’t want to spook her into a panic attack.
“I was thinking about the past. What I’d done and wondering if what happened to me was because of it.” It had been so easy to say those words, why hadn’t it been easy to tell Dalton about her fingernails?
They were still in the car facing each other. A strange place to be having a conversation like this, but perhaps it was the perfect place. They were cocooned by themselves, life going on around them.
Dalton cupped the back of her head, his touch light and comforting. “Don’t ever think that. What happened to you wasn’t your fault. It was the fault of the sick bastards who believe that people are a commodity.” He smiled softly. “We’ve all got pasts. I was no monk when I first enlisted. You did nothing wrong.”
He said the last bit so fiercely.
“Thank you.” Then she did something she never thought she’d do. Steff leaned forward and pressed her lips against Dalton’s. A soft touch, but empowering all the same.
Steff pulled back, and loved seeing the look of surprise and delight on Dalton’s face. “Shall we go in?” She inclined her head toward his building.
“Sure. Wait there for me, please.”
She nodded, happy to wait anywhere for this man. Dalton got out of the car. Through the windshield, she watched as his head turned as though on a swivel, as he scanned the surrounding area.
Did he do that all the time? Or was he only doing it because she was with him? Considering his job and what he’d done in the past, all the things he’d seen and endured, she suspected it was automatic for him to check if danger lurked nearby.
“All good?” she queried after he opened the door. It was kind of silly to ask, because if there had been any danger, he wouldn’t be standing in front of her; he’d be doing whatever was necessary to keep her safe.
“Yep.” He held out a hand, and she placed hers in it, relishing the closeness to him when he tucked her into his side.
They didn’t say anything as they made their way to his apartment. The building was a bit older than hers, but it was well maintained. There wasn’t the same level of security that her apartment had. Although Dalton still needed a key to enter the front door, it wasn’t open for all and sundry.
“It’s not much, but it’s home,” Dalton announced as he opened his front door.
She hesitated, and he looked at her, an eyebrow raised in query. “You’re not going to check it out?” she asked hesitantly.
“I should, shouldn’t I?” His smile rueful. “Wait here.” He pointed to a spot just inside his front door. “I’ll be right back.”
As he made his way through his apartment, Steff took the time to look around. The main living area was large, and had a couch that looked soft and perfect for curling up on to watch something on the big ass TV that hung on the wall. She couldn’t comment, her own TV was large. It was the norm these days.
Off to the right was a round table with four seats that bled into the galley style kitchen that was present in most apartments. She didn’t know how many bedrooms he had, but guessed, from the doors she could see from her vantage points, that there must be at least two.
The place was neat and tidy, and there wasn’t a layer of dust on the surfaces she could see.
Dalton returned. “Like what you see?”
“I do. How long have you lived here?”
“Since I chaptered out and joined Alliez. My first real home after the one I grew up in. I lived on base the whole time Iwas in the Navy. It was easier considering I’d get called up at a moment’s notice.”
Now that she’d moved away from the door, she could see that the couch still looked quite new. Along with the rest of the furniture.
“Did you have to buy everything when you got this place?”
Dalton nodded. “Yep. I really lucked out on getting this apartment, too. The guy who owned it couldn’t decide if he wanted to rent it out again or sell it. We got to talking and struck up a deal. I rented the first year, and then had an option to buy. Which I did.”
“That’s great.” Steff was suitably impressed, an apartment in LA wasn’t cheap, and she didn’t know how much a SEAL earned, but it wasn’t her place to ask. She could afford her place because when her parents had died, they’d taken out life insurance policies. At the times of their death, she’d been young and a little shocked at what had happened, but a family friend had guided her through everything and had invested the proceeds wisely, allowing her to have financial freedom that not many people were able to have.
“Do you want something to drink? I’ve got juice, water, soda?”
“Water’s fine.”
She wandered over to the floating shelves and picked up a picture frame. Four smiling faces looked back at her. All dressed in Navy fatigues, with wicked looking guns over their shoulders. She could easily pick out Dalton amongst his friends. Each man looked younger than they did now. All just as handsome, but this photo had to have been taken a few years prior.
