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His face changes from goofing around to more guarded. But there’s something there. “I won’t always be able to be here, Carys. Not with my job.”
“I know what your job is, and I know what it means to you.” If he’s trying to warn me, it’s not working.
With an almost imperceptible tip of his chin, his face relaxes, and a small smile slips into place before Axel calls his name. Then, with lightning-quick speed, Cooper’s hand grips my hip and moves me an inch away from him before he catches the beer tossed his way.
“Dude, Axe.” Coop chuckles. “How the hell can you have such great aim with a gun and such bad aim with a beer?”
“Fuck off, Sinclair. Let’s see if you can touch my numbers when you get back from sniper training. Then we’ll talk.” Axel grabs two slices of pizza, adds some onion rings to his plate, then takes his beer and follows Linc and Emerson through the door to the back deck.
I reach out and fist Cooper’s t-shirt while my heart lodges in my throat. “You’re going to sniper training?”
“I’m just gonna...” Trick motions toward the door the others just walked through. “I’m gonna... Yeah.” He looks from me to Coop. “Good luck, man.” And he’s gone with the rest of them.
“Doesn’t that make you a target?” I’ve read everything I could about SEALs since Cooper went to boot camp with the intention of making the teams, and I know what this means.
He puts his beer down, then wraps his hands around my waist and lifts me easily to sit on the counter, and before I even realize what he’s doing, he’s positioned himself between my legs. In any other circumstance, I’d be all for this, but not when I can’t stop picturing him hurt or worse.
“Coop—” I try to force my voice to sound calm but fail miserably before he cuts me off.
“Nope. My turn.” Cooper rests his hands on either side of my thighs, crowding me again. “I need you to listen to me, Carys. I need you to really hear me. Okay?”
With shaking hands, I reach up and remove his cap.
Needing to touch him.
Unable to deny the connection there.
“Yes, I’m going to sniper training. You can never have too much training. Can never be too skilled. I have the best training the United States government has to offer, Carys.” His voice is firm and leaves very little room for question.
He stands between my dangling legs. His strong, callused hands rest on top of my thighs. This is the closest we’ve been since the night of our parents’ wedding, and I love it and hate it all at once.
“Every time we go down range, there’s a risk. But my team is the best of the best, and we’re gonna do everything to make sure we all get home safe.”
Emotion clogs my throat at the mention that it won’t always be safe, and I have to swallow the threatening tears.
“Promise?”
He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear and holds the back of my neck in a possessive grip like earlier. A move that is so perfectly Cooper, and God, do I want him to be possessive of me.
“Yeah, baby. I promise.”
If he didn’t already own my heart, this moment right here would be the moment that sealed it. But just when my heart soars, thinking he might kiss me, the back door opens, and Axel walks in, abruptly ending whatever could have been in this moment.
“Come on, future baby momma. Pizza’s getting cold, and your girl sent me in here to get the two of you.” Axel grabs the pizza boxes with a shit-eating grin on his face as he winks. “Now hurry it the hell up.”
Coop offers me his hand as I hop off the counter, his eyes still holding me captive. “We’re not done yet, Carys.”
“We haven’t even started yet, Coop.”
But I think we’re finally about to.
I thoughtCarys and I would have a chance to finish our conversation before the night was over. But I should have known better. Axel dominated her attention for the next few hours. And while at first it pissed me off, I started paying closer attention to her reactions to him. Once I realized she was tolerating him the way she does her brother, it was easy enough to laugh along and let go of my jealousy.
Even if I’m gonna put an end to that shit real soon.
Every time Axe called her “future baby momma,” I wanted to kill him.
Never felt that way over any girl before.
