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Eve sighed. Loudly. “Oliver—”
“Have I mentioned I like the way you say my name?”
“Sergeant Martinez, I don’t think—”
“Now, that’s just cold, dulzura,” he said.
“I am not your honey,” she snapped, sitting down. He seemed surprised she’d understood, so she explained. “I took Spanish for four years in high school and had a summer break in Mexico. Now, can we please get this done? I want to get home before The Walking Dead comes on.”
“Why don’t you watch it here? I’ve got cable, and we could order that pizza we never got to eat.”
Eve bit the inside of her cheek, nearly groaning in frustration. “Man, you just don’t give up, do you?”
“No,” he said firmly. Then he sat forward and caught her hand before she could pull it back. “Quiero que seas mía.”
Eve’s heart slammed in her chest as she silently translated his words.
I want you to be mine.
“Stop it.” Her cheeks felt like they were on fire, and she jerked her hand away. “No pizza. No Walking Dead with you, and definitely no being yours.”
Oliver’s ocean blue eyes bore into hers until she had to look away, afraid he’d see that she wasn’t as strong as she sounded.
“Okay, so I’m thinking we start off at ten and have the auction at eleven. We’ll have games for the kids and bouncy houses as well as private vendors selling canine treats, accessories, veterinary services, etcetera. And there will be several other military organizations represented.”
“All of that sounds good, but you never answered my question,” Oliver said.
“Which one?”
“I asked what you needed to know to decide whether or not you like me.”
“I-wanna-see-you-naked like you or like-you-as-a-friend like you?”
“Either,” he said.
Eve looked up from her iPad, right into his eyes. God, why did they have to be so pretty? They made her want to tell him the truth—that she already liked him in a definite let’s-get-fleshy kind of way.
But deep down, she knew it was time to nip this flirting in the bud. She needed to prove she was right and that their attraction was just that. They would never last in the long run, not without the same goals in life.
“What’s your idea of a real relationship?”
He spluttered, which was exactly what she’d expected. Nothing freaked a guy out or threw him off his game like talking about his intentions.
“It’s a simple question, unless you aren’t the relationship type,” she said.
Oliver let out an uncomfortable chuckle and rubbed a hand over his shaved head. “I don’t know. I had a girlfriend in high school, but we mostly just watched TV and—”
“I get it, you had a real connection,” Eve said.
“Look, I don’t have a lot of time or chances to meet girls, unless it’s at a bar, and most of them aren’t looking for more than a night or two,” he said. “But I guess if I was going to spend a lot of time with one person, we’d do regular stuff. Go to dinner, maybe a movie, and maybe vacation together.”
“But those are just activities,” Eve said. “What do you think makes a relationship real?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. I guess it’s just the way two people feel about each other and whether they can stand to spend the rest of their lives together.”
“Romantic,” she said.
“What? It’s true. We all have bullshit, but when we just start seeing someone, we try to hide that bullshit until there’s no going back. I mean, you’ve already seen that I can be a jackass, my people skills are shit, and dogs hate me. But if we’d met under normal circumstances, like I saw you sitting alone at the café or something, I’d have asked if I could join you and would have been on my best behavior.”
