He was staring at the seeds, then at me, his expression open with surprise and something close to wonder. “I only mentioned that once,” he said. “Months ago.”
I had never forgot. The night in Salt Lake, after the third time we’d fucked, when we’d been lying in the dark and he’d been talking about his vineyard, about the varieties he wanted to plant, about the merlot seeds from Belize that were supposed to produce grapes with a depth of flavor. I’d written it down on my phone the moment he fell asleep, had made a separate trip to track them down when Sterling sent me to Belize City two weeks later.
I shrugged, like it was nothing. Like I hadn’t spent three days tracking down the vineyard, another two convincing the owner to part with a packet of seeds that weren’t for sale. Like I hadn’t carried them through three countries and two security checkpoints, keeping them safe in my boot the whole way.
“Thought they might do well in your soil,” I said, because I couldn’t say what I really meant: I listen to every word you say.I remember all of it. I would move heaven and earth to give you things that make you happy.
Jackson was still looking at me, the seeds clutched in his palm, the bracelet gleaming on his wrist. “Thank you,” he said, the words simple but weighted with something that made it hard to breathe.
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and reached for my coffee to give myself something to do with my hands.
We finished eating in that same careful quiet, Jackson examining the seeds while I watched him from across the table. When the plates were empty, I stacked them back on the room service cart and checked my watch.
Eight-fifteen. I had to move.
Jackson was watching me, his eyes tracking the movement of my hand to my watch. “You need to go,” he said, not a question.
I nodded. “Flight’s at ten. Need to get through security.”
He stood, the sheet falling away completely, and I forced myself to look at his face, not his body. “I should shower,” he said.
I nodded again, already calculating how long it would take me to get to the airport, to check my bag, to get through security. “I’ll wait,” I said, and watched something flash across his face—surprise, maybe, or relief.
“Okay,” he said, and then he was moving toward the bathroom, naked and unhurried, like he’d forgotten I was there. Or like he knew exactly how much I was looking.
The bathroom door closed behind him, and I stood in the middle of the room, bag at my feet, and tried to figure out how to say goodbye to a man who’d never really been mine in the first place.
I waited until I heard the shower shut off, then counted to thirty—giving Jackson time to grab a towel—before I pushed the bathroom door open.
Steam billowed out, carrying the scent of the hotel’s generic soap and something underneath it that was just Jackson. He stood at the sink, towel slung low around his hips, water still dripping from his hair down the smooth planes of his back.
He didn’t startle when I came in—hadn’t since the second time we’d met, when he’d casually mentioned that he could hear my footfalls from three rooms away. Another SEAL habit, one I recognized because I had it too: the constant awareness of who was moving where, the automatic cataloging of weight and rhythm and intent.
Instead, he caught my eye in the mirror, one corner of his mouth lifting in that not-quite-smile that still did something to my chest. “Thought you’d be gone by now,” he said, reaching for the hotel’s sad excuse for a hair dryer.
“Flight’s not until ten,” I said, leaning against the counter, close enough that our shoulders almost touched. “Plenty of time.”
He nodded, turning on the dryer and running it through his hair with quick, efficient movements. I watched the muscles in his arm flex with each pass, the water beading on his shoulders, the way the towel clung to the curve of his ass.
There was something about Jackson’s nakedness that got to me—not just the body itself, though God knows that was enough, but the complete lack of self-consciousness with it. He moved through the world in his skin the way he moved through everything else: with confidence and purpose and the absolute certainty that he belonged exactly where he was.
It was one of my favorite things about him. One of many.
He shut off the dryer and ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. In the mirror, our eyes met again—his curious, mine probably giving away more than I wanted them to.
“Where exactly are you headed?” he asked, turning to face me, one hip braced against the sink. “Minsk is... Belarus, right?”
I nodded. “Then maybe Kiev, depending on how things go.” The words were out before I could stop them—operational details I had no business sharing with anyone, let alone someone outside the chain of command. But this was Jackson, and something about him made my carefully maintained boundaries fuzzy at the edges.
“Security consult?” he asked, using the cover story I’d given him the first time we’d met.
“Something like that.” I hesitated, then added, because I couldn’t seem to stop myself, “Sterling’s running point. Belarusian opposition group with connections to Russian intelligence. They’re moving weapons through Minsk, using diplomatic channels.”
Jackson’s eyebrows went up. “That’s...”
“Classified,” I finished for him. “Extremely.”
He nodded, understanding flashing across his face. “I won’t—“
