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He nods, clearly understanding my true meaning. Let’s go on a date and forget about all of this for just a little while.
“Wear the black dress,” he snarls. “The one you were wearing at your party. And get ready at one of your friend’s houses. I’ll pick you up from there and we’ll head someplace out of the city. Fuck, I hate all this sneaking around stuff. Maybe we should just tell Rick.”
I imagine my dad’s face when he learns about the near kiss. “But what would we tell him? That we almost kissed at my party? Maybe we should wait until there’s something to tell.”
A frown forms on his lips. His perceptive glinting blues see right through my excuse, but then he visibly makes the decision to accept it, at least for now.
“The black dress,” he snarls. “I’ve been dreaming about it every day. I need to see that fine curvy body of yours in it again. Understand, Rory?”
His tone is commanding, causing heat to pool in my center. My clit pulses as though urging me to grab his wrist, direct his touch to my sex.
“Yes, Bennet. I understand.”
Chapter Eight
Bennet
Rick lifts his beer to his lips and looks over my yard. We’re on the deck, sipping bottles and talking about old times. The sun has set and my yard lies in darkness since I’ve never had a woman here to spruce the place up.
It pains me to think that only a few hours ago I was pressed up against this man’s daughter, feeling her breasts pressed against my chest, her lust warming her skin. She looked so damn fine when she left me, turning away after we’d agreed to the date, swishing those childbearing hips from side to side.
Focus.
I can’t let myself think about her, not now at least.
Even if not thinking about her is getting more and more difficult each second.
“So how was it in LA?” Rick asks, placing his beer down.
“Can’t complain. It’s easy work, guarding these starlets, and it pays ten times what we used to make. It’s crazy, but there it is.”
“Meet any women out there?”
I chuckle. “Trying to live vicariously through me, you old goat?”
He chuckles as well, knowing I’m completely joking. Rick and Samantha have been together for as long as I’ve known him, and he’s never strayed, never even looked at another woman. He’s a fine example of how a man should behave toward his woman, the respect she’s owed.
“Nah, it was just something Lorelei said.”
Suddenly my blood turns to ice as my fists clench. I hate the reaction, hate that I’m in this position.
But Lorelei doesn’t want to tell him, not yet, not until there’s something to tell. That was how she phrased it and it had my cock pulsing at the time, as I thought about exactly what that would entail. But now I feel like dirt, the lowest of the low.
“Lorelei?” I say, casually taking a swig of my beer.
“She and Yasmin had a bet to see if you had a girlfriend. It got me thinking, that’s all.”
Rick and I rarely talk about this sort of stuff. Whenever we meet up, we usually shoot the shit. Or yell at the TV as a football game plays. If talk does ever turn serious, it’s about the SEALs, the brothers we lost, the battles we fought. We don’t talk about mushy stuff.
“You going to be my romance guru now, eh?” I banter.
He flips me the bird, grinning. “Nah, it’s not like that, man. I don’t know… this big house, you’re raking in some more than decent cash. I just wonder if you ever thought about having a family.”
“Yes,” I say, way too eagerly.
Stop, stop, I think.
“Really?” Rick sounds surprised. “I thought you’d say no. So what’s stopping you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I just deal with things differently to you, but I’ve always been… Hell, I don’t know how to word it.”
Rick stares unflinchingly. “Try, Bennet. I want to hear it.”
“Why so serious tonight?” I say, attempting one last time to change the subject.
But Rick isn’t biting. He just keeps staring, the same way he did in the SEALs when he would give his honest opinion about an operation, no matter how I or anyone else felt about it.
“Closed off, okay?” I snarl, looking up at the stars so I don’t have to look at him. “It’s like there’s this wall around me or something. I don’t know. I don’t want to sound melodramatic. I’ve got a good life. A good job. More than most could wish for.”
“But you want a woman who can get through this wall?”
I’ve already found a woman who’s penetrated the wall, who’s made me feel more with one near kiss than any other woman could even try to. She’s already changed me and made me realize I’m ready to build a life… but only with her, always with her. Forever.
