Page 7 of Kyle

“Were they found?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, both had died. A diver found one just off the island and the other victim washed ashore. Rear Admiral Creasy had respectfully brought both back to Coronado and assisted the families.” Again, that didn’t surprise me. Creasy had seen his fair share of grieving spouses, parents, children, and siblings. Actually, he seen more than any one man should have to see.

She felt that loss. And I couldn’t say I was happy she did but I liked she had the capacity to feel it. I was even happier she hadn’t masked her sadness. In the short amount of time I’d spent with Anaya she’d put in a fair amount of effort to hide her thoughts and feelings. I fucking hated it. It was maddening. I wanted to tear down the walls she’d built and demand she show me the real her.

“You didn’t answer my question, sailor,” she teased, and I was nearly blinded by her smile and those dimples she had did some weird shit to my insides. I wanted to run my finger over the indentations and at the same time, I wanted to press my lips on them just to see what they felt like.

Goddamn bizarre.

“I didn’t? I must’ve forgotten what you asked.”

“Evasion. Nice tactic.” Her head tilted to the side and, while she was being funny, her eyes were not. They were steadily gazing into mine and my hands twitched to pull her closer.

“Evasion?” I chuckled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Right, now we’ve moved to resistance and denial. What’s next on the SERE training protocol? Escape?” Her wide smile was contagious and when her dimples once again dotted her cheeks, blood quickly flowed south and my dick jerked.

Damn, those fucking dimples were going to be the death of me.

I glanced out the window. “Escape for thirty thousand feet without a parachute might be a little difficult.”

“Yet you’re not worried about the lack of oxygen or decompression sickness. Interesting.”

I couldn’t help the bark of laughter. “What’s interesting is you know what SERE training is and decompression sickness from a HALO jump.”

“A what?” Her head crooked to the side and I had a feeling she was screwing with me and knew what I was talking about.

“High altitude low opening jump.”

“Right.” She laughed and I knew she was fucking with me.

It was too much, the way she was easily teasing me in a way that was flirty yet still witty and definitely cute was muddling my head and doing nothing to help with my hardening cock. Nothing good was to come from it either. I needed my head on straight and my dick to get with the program. Unfortunately it seemed to have its own agenda and getting into Anaya’s pants was priority number one.

“Why’d you leave the NCMEC?” I asked, hoping the change in topic would ease some of the stiffness in my pants.

“I needed a change.” She shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal.

But hurt flashed in her eyes and I knew there was a story there. One I wished she wanted to tell me. Which was so unusual for me, it was baffling. No one would ever accuse me of being nosy, that was for sure. I wasn’t standoffish, and I didn’t have severe trust issues like Max did. There was no trauma in my past like Declan that prevented me from forming relationships. I simply respected others’ privacy. I had boundaries I didn’t cross. But for some reason, with her I couldn’t find where those boundaries lay, and even if I could, I didn’t want them between us.

At least that’s what I told myself, I wasn’t nosy and respected others need for privacy. But the truth was I had no intentions of leading a woman on. I’d always been upfront and honest about only wanting a superficial encounter, for however long it lasted.

I had no interest in having a family of my own, therefore there was no reason to form a deep and meaningful relationship.

But if that was the case, then why was I so hellbent on wanting to know everything about Anaya?

Chapter 3

Kyle was interesting but a little hard to puzzle out.

We’d been in the air almost an hour and the conversation had flowed easy. He still hadn’t answered my initial question if he’d been a SEAL but frankly, I liked the banter and his silly denials. He’d accepted any vague answer I’d given him as if he didn’t care I wasn’t elaborating. Which was confusing because he asked a lot of questions.

“You don’t press for answers, do you?” I blurted out. “I’m not complaining or anything. Just an observation.”

“You’re not an enemy combatant I’m interrogating,” he returned.

Okay, that was kinda funny.

“And have you interrogated many?” I asked, enjoying our game.