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Again, true. What he’d done made him feel like a jerk. He’d tossed off a one-liner, and, worse, he’d done it because his one night with Mia had meant more than he’d wanted to accept.
“I did.”
“As a penis-toting member of the armed services, you can have no idea how hard it is to be a female officer sometimes. The last thing I want my men to be thinking about when they look at me is sex. How I like it. What I look like doing it.” She sucked in a breath and her hands flew to her hips. “And, news flash? Just because I know what I like and I tell you? That doesn’t make me some kind of BDSM expert. It means I have good communication skills, and you suck in bed.”
Hell. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and promise her it would never happen again. And it wouldn’t because, quite frankly, she wouldn’t be giving him the time of day, let alone allowing him back into her bed. Which was his loss, as she’d so eloquently pointed out.
“I wanted to make it up to you,” he said. “I tried, okay?”
Mia spared him a glance, and the look on her face wasn’t happy. Danger. She pushed the words out through gritted teeth. “Exactly how did you try to make it up to me?”
There was no good answer to her question. Wisely, he kept silent. Plus, she clearly wasn’t done talking.
“Would that be rescuing me on the beach? Giving me a job? Or—” she tapped her chin with her finger “—the pity sex? Because answers two and three are definitely not my favorites, and you might want to rethink your pay-it-back approach. FYI, it definitely helps if the person you owe knows she’s having makeup sex.”
“I should have said something.”
“Damn right.”
“And I’m saying something now.”
She shook her head. “This isn’t middle school where you get partial credit for late homework. I’m giving you a pass on the beach thing, but you’re on the hook for everything else.”
“Mia—” Let’s start over? I didn’t mean it? He had no idea what to say.
“Right.” She stared at him for a moment, but his brain was on empty, and he didn’t have any words to give. They both knew what he should have done—and he hadn’t done it. He had no one to blame but himself.
Apparently coming to the same conclusion, she tugged at his ring on her finger, and he held his hand out. She looked down at his empty hand, then flicked her gaze back up to his face. “You know what? I don’t think so.”
She wound up and hurled the ring over the bay. She had a good arm. The ring hit the riptide dead on and sank.
* * *
TAG HALF SHOVED OFF the side of the pier, as if he was seriously considering going in after his ring. The reaction seemed a tad excessive for cubic zirconia, but maybe it was the principle of the thing.
“Shit,” he bit out. “That was a ten-thousand dollar ring.”
Oops. “You bought me a real ring?”
He closed his eyes briefly. “I did.”
How deep was the water here? Ripples where the ring had gone in slowly faded. Not so much as an X marked the spot where she’d chucked the band. Yeah. Story of her life. She had the real thing, and she threw it away.
“Buying real jewelry wasn’t part of our deal, Tag. A fake engagement means fake diamonds. Why would you go and buy the real thing?”
He looked at her. “Does it matter? The ring is fish food.”
Did it matter? Yeah, probably. But not because she was worried about throwing the equivalent of several months salary into the ocean. He’d bought her a real ring. Did that mean that he...wanted a real engagement? She’d told him over and over that she didn’t want the real deal. He was her practice man and not her happily-ever-after guy. But what if she’d been wrong? What if he wanted more and that was why he’d picked out diamonds just for her?
She sucked in a breath, concentrating hard on the ocean. Say it. “I think it does matter.”
“It was just a ring.” He shrugged. “No big deal.”
He didn’t say anything more and she was already out on an emotional limb. She didn’t need to cut the branch off while she was sitting on it, did she? Maybe he hadn’t meant anything. He was leaving the island soon and he’d never, not once, mentioned the possibility of continuing their relationship after he deployed. If he’d wanted more from her, he’d have said something.
“Don’t call me Sergeant Dominatrix again,” she said.
“Got it.” He scanned the ocean’s surface, but she could have told him that the ring hadn’t magically popped up. He was out of luck in the jewelry department. “I’m sorry.”
