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“You say that like it’s something I should be ashamed of,” I said quietly, the burn in my cheeks unpleasant. The coffee I’d been drinking now sat in my stomach like a rock.
“Hey. No. Stop that.” He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing my face up to his. “Don’t talk like that, sweetheart,” he said in a low, husky voice dripping with tenderness. “There’s nothing in this world that you should ever be ashamed of. You hear me? Not you. Not ever.”
Even with things being as strained as they had been the past couple days, this man still had a gift for making everything in my world better.
One corner of my mouth curled upward. “Thanks, Viking.”
He draped his arm over my shoulders and pulled me into his side as he started us moving once more. “So, is this why you’ve been acting weird lately? Because you’ve been having a dry spell?”
“Um, yeah,” I said, my voice pitching high. “Yep. That’s why. It’s been a strange time for me.” I cleared my throat and did my best to regulate my tone. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s time for me to find someone to take the edge off, you know?”
I might have been fantasizing about Gage, but I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that wouldeverhappen. He was too important to me. Too special. And I wouldn’t do anything to ruin our friendship.
I felt his arm around me flex, the muscles in his bicep and impressive forearm tightening and bunching up. “You mean dating?”
I looked up curiously, seeing the muscle ticking in his jaw. “God no,” I scoffed. “You know better than to ask that. After Darrin, I’m still firmly anti-relationship.”
His heavy arm dropped from my shoulders, falling down to his side. “So, what? You’re just going to go out looking for some random guy to take home for a night?”
I lifted my brows in disbelief. “Are you judging me right now?”
“No, of course not.”
I propped my coffee-free hand on my hip and hit Gage with a hard look. “Good. Because it would be really hypocritical of you if you were. In the years I’ve known you, random hookups have been your MO.”
His chest heaved on a heavy exhale, like he was expelling all the air from his lungs in one go. “I know. Not a damn thing wrong with random hookups when it’s consensual for both parties, but that’s... that’s just not you, Bits. It’s not in your nature.”
I wish he wasn’t right. It would have made things so much easier. “Then what am I supposed to do, huh?” I asked with exasperation. “Just spend the rest of my life celibate? Die an old, dried up spinster who gets her face eaten off by her cats when she dies? That’s not fair!” I stomped my foot on the ground like a bratty teenager.
“I don’t know!” He reached up and raked a hand through his hair anxiously. “Christ, can we please change the subject? Please, God. Let’s just talk about anything else.”
I suddenly felt a little disheartened. Deflated. “Works for me.” This whole conversation had devolved beyond what I was comfortable with anyway. I looked his way and arched a wry brow. “Heard from your ex lately?”
He gave me a flat look. “Smartass.”
ChapterEight
GAGE
She wantedto find some random asshole off the streets to take back to her bed. To break her dry spell.
Fuck me, just thinking about that conversation from earlier made my teeth grind so hard I was going to wear my molars into dust, but I couldn’t seem to stop no matter how hard I tried. It was running on a damn near constant loop in my head.
That conversation had consumed me to the point I was struggling to concentrate on my work.
“For fuck’s sake, are you catatonic or something?”
Laeth’s tone yanked me back into the present, back to the conference room where I’d been sitting for our weekly team meeting. I hadn’t realized I’d zoned out.
“Sorry. What?”
My partners looked at me like I’d grown a second head. Lark’s lips were pinched between her teeth to hide a smile and Willow looked curious.
“What the hell’s going on with you, man?” Jensen asked with a frown, more out of concern than anything else. It wasn’t like me to lose focus. It was something that had been beaten into us during our years in the Army. Losing focus could cost you your life or someone else’s. “You’ve been spacing the whole damn meeting.”
Fuck me.
“Sorry. I’m good. Promise. Keep going.”
