“Your shoulder is feeling okay even going without the sling?”
“Better every day.”
Kinsey wasn’t sure if that was true or if it was just a marine’s bravado like she’d heard from Declan this morning. But she knew there was no sense pursuing it.
“I’m tired from being on my feet today, though,” he said as he handed her the dessert and picked up his own plate. “Let’s go sit in the living room with these.”
Kinsey led the way, sitting on the sofa, making sure to hug one end in her efforts not to encourage anything with him. She may have decided to stop fighting her attraction, but she wasn’t going to pursue Sutter. He’d have to decide for himself if he wanted something to happen between them.
But Sutter sat in the center of it and, as big a man as he was, that put him not far away despite her best efforts.
They each tasted the seven layers of cake and ganache. Sutter judged it good but rich, while Kinsey considered it just plain wonderful.
After her second bite she decided she was going to broach something she’d begun to consider today.
“You know, I took you at your word when you told me about the reasons for your ‘marriage to the military or marriage to a woman but not both’ thing. But now that I keep seeing how antiromance you are with the colonel, I’m beginning to think maybe there’s more to it.”
“I’m not antiromance,” he claimed.
“None for you, none for your mother,” she pointed out.
He smiled a crooked smile. “Who said none for me? I said no marriage for me,” he qualified. “That doesn’t mean no women or relationships.”
“There’s someone in your life?” Kinsey asked, alarmed that he might have kissed her while he was involved with someone else.
“Not now. Not recently. But I’m not a priest. And I’m not made of stone.”
He just had a rock-hard body...
But Kinsey put that out of her mind and said, “I just started to wonder if—in addition to what you saw living on the bases as a kid—you’d been hurt and that turned you sour on things, too.”
“I’ve always been really clear about not looking for marriage so I’ve never let myself get in deep enough to have my heart broken, no,” he said between bites. “But I did have my own experience early on with breaking someone else’s heart and that sealed the deal for me.”
“Whose heart did you break?”
“Her name was Mandy Brisbon. My father had an old marine buddy who taught at the academy. He sort of adopted me while I was at Annapolis—invited me to family dinners, for holidays if I couldn’t get home, that kind of thing. Freshman year I met his niece at one of the dinners.”
“Mandy Brisbon.”
“Right. She lived near campus and we started seeing each other whenever I had the chance. Dating. It lasted the full four years, all the way to graduation. Which was when she thought a marriage proposal was due.”
“Did she not know about your marriage policy? Or was it not really a policy with you before that?”
“It was and I’d told her—early on, before we’d even been on our first date. But I was young and it didn’t occur to me that I needed to say it again—”
“Ooh,” Kinsey commiserated with the young Mandy. “You told her before the two of you even knew each other and then spent four years dating?”
“Yeah. It was a lesson I learned—as time went by, she thought our relationship was serious enough that it had canceled out my concerns.”
“And she was willing to be a military wife?”
“Temporarily. For some reason she’d also switched things around in her mind to believe that I’d do my active duty obligation after graduation and then leave the marines so we could have a regular civilian life—not that we’d ever talked about that, because we hadn’t or I would have made where I stood clear again. I honestly didn’t intend to mislead her, but I guess the fact that I kept coming around—”
“For four years.”
“Yeah, she thought that said more than what I’d told her before we’d gotten to know each other. So while I thought everything was cut-and-dried—”
“She thought the two of you were headed for the life she wanted,” Kinsey concluded for him. “And you set her straight and broke her heart.”
“No choice,” he said, an edge of guilt sounding in his tone.
“Was she willing to be a marine wife forever?”
“No. Which helped a little. I didn’t have to convince her of the strain our relationship would take after ten or fifteen years of my life as a marine because the course I was on was not what she saw for her future even five years down the road. But it didn’t help much. It was an ugly breakup. And it wrecked my dad’s friendship with her uncle, too. Like I said, it was a lesson I learned.”
Kinsey nodded, seeing by the lines the mere memory drew on his face that he’d beaten himself up for it in the years since even though he hadn’t intentionally caused the hurt.
“And after Mandy Brisbon?” Kinsey asked.
“I’ve made sure since then not to let anything ever get far enough for that to happen again—and I make absolutely sure that any woman I date knows where I stand.”
“So since college you just sleep around? Love ’em and leave ’em as fast as you can?”
If that’s the kind of man he was, it might alter her perception of him as a stand-up guy. And that could change things for her regardless of the decision she’d made to let whatever was happening between them play out.
“I do not sleep around or ‘love ’em and leave ’em’ as fast as I can, no,” he said as if she’d insulted him.
“Then what do you do?” she asked bluntly.
He’d apparently eaten all he was going to of his cake—about two-thirds of it, leaving behind the thick layer of ganache that frosted the top—and he set the plate on the coffee table.
When he sat back he angled more in her direction than he had been, and stretched a long arm along the sofa back.
“There can be things between love ’em and leave ’em as fast as I can and marriage, you know. First and foremost, I follow regulations,” he said. “I have not ever and would not ever get into any kind of personal relationship with anyone under my command.”
“No fraternizing.”
“None,” he said firmly.
“But...” Kinsey prodded as she finished her own cake—crumbs and all—and set her plate on the coffee table, too. Once her hand was free, she swiped her finger through that ganache layer he’d left. No sense in having it go to waste.
Something about taking that one last bite made him smile as he watched it, before he said, “But there are women who exist who aren’t under my command—”
“Women who aren’t the military groupies you told me about before?”
“Women who aren’t military groupies but are civilians. Or civilian personnel. There are military women in units apart from mine. I was involved for a while with a reporter on assignment overseas.”
“All romances of convenience?” Kinsey asked when that occurred to her. That would also give her pause, since she didn’t want to be a mere convenience, now that she thought about it.
He laughed. “There is pretty much nothing about getting involved with me that’s convenient. I’m married to the military, remember? I’ve made extra sure since Mandy that any woman I’m with knows duty comes first.”
“And that you’re antimarriage.”
He made a face. “I’m not that, either. I’m just—”
“Married to the military instead.”
“And upfront about it. So if I meet someone who isn’t completely onboard with what I’m about, I steer clear...”
Kinsey wasn’t sure why his own words seemed to give him pause—as if they’d made him think som
ething unexpected—but he did pause and his brows pulled together.
She wasn’t going to get to know what had gone through his mind, though, because then he went on with what he’d been saying.
“Hurting Mandy was like what I saw growing up—misery one person caused another because that person had to answer the call of duty—and I honestly don’t want to be responsible for doing that to anyone.”
“But if a short-term relationship is okay with them, then—”
“Most of the relationships I’ve had haven’t been too short-term,” he amended. “I saw Bethany—the reporter—for over three years while she had the overseas assignment. And there have been others that went on for a while, too—a year, more than a year, another that was almost two years. As long as we know where things stand, it’s all good. We have some time together when it can be arranged around my schedule and theirs, and when the time comes for us to part ways, we say goodbye—no harm, no foul.”
“As easy as that?”
“It has been...”
Past tense? And why did that make his brows pull together like they had before?
Again Kinsey had the impression that the wheels of his mind were turning in unexpected directions.
But she doubted he was going to enlighten her this time either, so she ignored it and said, “And no one’s changed their mind after getting in under your terms?”
“No,” he said, coming out of his momentary lapse to answer her. “Every woman I’ve been involved with has had her own career or interest or duty to serve, so my kind of relationship has been what works best for them, too.”
“So you aren’t antiromance but your relationships are still more friends-with-benefits than love connections,” Kinsey said.
“I’d consider some of the women I’ve been with good friends by the end, yeah. But while things are happening between us, we’re not just friends who sleep together. I’ve cared about them and I think they’ve cared about me.”
“Just not too much.”
He frowned and laughed at the same time. “Are you just looking for me to be a creep?”
Maybe, she realized. Not that she wanted him to be a creep, but maybe she was looking for something—anything—that might give her pause about him.
Before she could answer his question he went on. “I’ve genuinely cared about the women I’ve been with,” he said defensively. “There’s just been something bigger that we both have to do, and knowing that from the start, we’ve enjoyed what we’ve had while we could and then gone our separate ways to do that bigger thing.”
“Are you sad at all when it ends?”
“Sometimes. But when you know from the get-go that it will be ending, I think you’re prepared for it and that makes it easier to deal with.”
“And it’s never been different than that? Prepared or not, you’ve never reached an ending and discovered that you just didn’t want to say goodbye?”
“I haven’t,” he said candidly.
“It’s just ‘this has been fun, thanks for a good time, maybe we’ll meet again’?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever said those particular words or had them said to me, but the essence of them has been there. Coming at me as often as from me.”
Kinsey nodded, getting the picture more and more clearly—he only risked relationships with women who had enough on their own agendas not to make him any more their priority than they were his.
“And you’re not ever sorry that you don’t get closer to anyone than that?” she asked. “You never want more?”
“There are days,” he admitted.
She didn’t know why he was looking so pointedly at her but he was.
“But I’ve made a commitment to serve,” he said then, almost as if he was reminding himself. “And a commitment not to put anyone through what families left behind go through in the process.”
Kinsey nodded her understanding again but said sadly, “I don’t know...that doesn’t sound very satisfying.”
He gave her the wicked grin again. “Depends on how you do it,” he said in a voice full of sexy innuendo, lightening the tone as he reached for a strand of her hair to let it curl around his fingers.
“I think,” he said in a quieter voice then, watching his hand toying with her hair, “that if there aren’t any illusions, consenting adults can have an enjoyable time being consenting adults. And short-lived or not, it can be good.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Kinsey had to agree because she’d just that morning told herself that if she kept her eyes wide open with him, she could stop fighting against the exact things that were coming to the surface in her even now.
Now when she could feel the heat of his hand near her face, the idea of giving in was more tempting than ever.
She wasn’t sure whether he had on a very light cologne or if it was his soap, but he smelled like crystal clear mountain air. And of course there were those blue-green eyes and that face that was all masculine and chiseled.
And there was that dimple in his chin.
Right below those fine, fine lips...
And she wanted what she’d wanted from the moment he’d stopped kissing her the last time—she just wanted him to kiss her again.
“God, you’re beautiful...” he said even more quietly just before he stopped fiddling with her hair and combed his fingers through it to cup the back of her head. Cradling it, he brought her toward him as he leaned in and closed the distance between his mouth and hers just the way she’d been wishing he would.
Her first thought was that no, she hadn’t been imagining it—he did kiss better than anyone she’d ever kissed.
And then her mind went blank and she just let herself drift completely into the warmth of parted lips and his sweet breath, and kissed him back.
His other arm came around her, strong enough despite his injury to pull her closer, for her to feel the strength in the big hand that splayed against her back.
She did something else she’d been wanting to do, pressing her own hands to his chest, careful of the side that was hurt but drinking in the feel of honed pectorals encased in that sweater.
His mouth opened wider and she followed his lead, happy when his tongue made its maiden voyage, her own coming out to meet and greet it with playful abandon that made him smile a smile she felt in their kiss.
He pulled her more forcefully to him then, capturing her hands between them until she let her arms snake around to his back where she did her part in keeping breasts to chest in a way that felt so good she couldn’t resist pressing herself against him.
And that was how they stayed, mouths meeting and parting only to meet again, exploring and clinging together as if they were two teenagers who’d snuck away for a frantic make-out session in whatever bit of precious stolen time they had.
Kinsey wasn’t sure when she’d made out like that in recent history—so intensely, so passionately that she completely lost herself in it. That she completely forgot about everything else.
They kissed for so long that she began to feel her lips going numb while other parts of her body began crying out for more.
His hand still clasped the back of her head, but he’d begun to work her scalp in a way that made her breasts yearn for that same touch. Breasts that were nestled comfortably against him.
But the permission she’d given herself that morning was so new she was a little afraid to let this go any further—despite how much she wanted to—so she teased his tongue with her own a few times and then retreated to let him know that was enough.
She knew he got the message from the low groan that rumbled from his throat. Then he kissed her even more thoroughly before he stopped by slow increments that extended things just a little longer.
When their mouths finally came apart for good he took a deep breath and r
ested his forehead to hers.
“If this is what comes of feeding you chocolate cake I’m gonna hide the rest of it somewhere and dole it out slice by slice...” he joked.
“I do like cake,” she countered. And she liked him. Oh, how much she liked him...
Heaven help her.
They remained the way they were, as if neither of them had any inclination to part more than they already had.
Until Jack jumped up between them with one of the socks they hadn’t been able to find in the yard on Wednesday night or when Sutter had looked again in daylight on Thursday.
Then they had to let go of each other and put their attention on the puppy.
“Ah, no wonder we couldn’t find that—he must have buried it somewhere,” Sutter observed, taking in the sight of the mud-encrusted sock.
“But look what a good dog he is—he brought it back himself.”
Sutter laughed. “Uh-huh,” he agreed dubiously, collapsing back into the sofa again and picking up the muddy stocking with two fingers to set it aside.
Then, to Kinsey he said, “How does tomorrow sound for the doggy playdate? I think I have it set up.”
With the Camdens.
How was it that she was having trouble lately remembering her goal with them?
Luckily Sutter kept her more on task than she did herself.
“A doggy playdate sounds great,” she said. “And it’ll be good for Jack, too, to see his littermates.”
“I talked to everyone about aiming for tomorrow afternoon, when the colonel naps so she won’t miss any of us.”
“Great! Thank you.”
He acknowledged her gratitude with only the raise of that dented chin.
“And then you have Sol coming over tomorrow night for a movie?” he said.
“I don’t have Sol coming over tomorrow night for a movie—the colonel invited him,” Kinsey corrected. “I just volunteered to make a casserole for dinner before and popcorn for during.”
“Let me guess. We’re watching Patton—the colonel’s favorite movie that I’ve seen so many times I can quote the dialogue?”
The Marine Makes His Match Page 12