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“Nah, a little bit of everything is fine. It all looks and smells delicious.” I took in our surroundings, still in awe that he’d gone to so much trouble.
Once he’d handed me my plate, I forked a scallop and tooka bite. It was incredible. The handful of times I’d eaten at The Dock, I’d been with my kids and had stuck to ordering a sandwich of some kind while they ate chicken fingers and French fries.
I hummed, savoring the flavor. The sound had Kyle straightening and zeroing in on my mouth. Emboldened by the heat in his eyes, I took another bite and made a point of slowly sliding the fork between my lips. I truly didn’t know what I was doing, but I’d keep doing it if it meant he’d continue to look at me like that.
His jaw locked, and his eyes met mine.
Emily’s words from earlier floated through my mind.
You deserve to feel wanted and desired by a man again.
He shifted and groaned, then brought his own fork to his mouth. “Tell me about your class.”
“Huh?”
“Talk to me about your class of five-year-olds, please.” He looked out at the water, grimacing. “Help a guy out.”
“You want to talk about work?” I tilted my head.
“You really don’t get how much you turn me on, do you?” He dropped his chin and shook his head.
I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth, my heart stumbling in my chest.
“I’m trying hard to keep my hands to myself so we can eat and talk.” He blew out a breath. “So we can talk about your kids, your job, or sports. Really anything that doesn’t include noises I’ve only imagined you making.”
Heat had steadily crawled up my neck as he spoke, and now my cheeks were ablaze.
“I—” The single word came out breathy. I cleared my throat and tried again. “My class is good.” It was better than sports, and I really didn’t want to talk about my kids for once. “I have this one little boy who cries for the first half hour of school. So that’s not fun. But he’lladjust.” I shrugged.
He listened intently, asking a question here and there as I went on about a few of the kids and how our days had been going. Once we finished eating, he gathered the plates and the containers and put them back into the bag.
Hauling himself up, he got to work lighting the fire. While he squatted in front of it, he rubbed his leg for what had to be the third time in the last twenty minutes.
Was his leg hurting or was it habit to rub it like that?
“How’d it happen?” I found myself asking.
I regretted it the minute he tensed up. I should have known better. Levi never wanted to talk about missions, good or bad. He was a master at compartmentalizing. War was war, and home was home.
He sighed.
“It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about this.” I shrugged. The last thing I wanted to do was put a damper on our date.
“Would you believe me if I said wrong place, wrong time?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
“Fair enough.” He smirked but then quickly sobered. “How about I was cocky and impulsive? Thought I was invincible and could make it to my injured teammate without getting shot?”
“So,” I hedged, “you were doing your job?”
“Basically.”
“Your teammate. Did he…?”
His jaw locked and he turned, surveying the water.
“Never mind. You don’t have to answer that.” I knew better than anyone that missions were classified. He couldn’t tell me much, even if he wanted to. “I know you can’t really talk about that stuff.”
