by Swann, Lara
His gaze sharpened, even as my words stirred that uneasy feeling deep inside me. I didn’t want to be his sister. The idea was beyond stupid.
“We’re not siblings, Bella.”
Damn right.
The reassurance helped a little, even if I did have to resign myself to losing the dance. With a sigh, I turned and spotted the guys he’d arrived with.
“Yeah, I know. I guess you’re right, probably best not to. Want to introduce me to your Navy friends instead?”
His expression was too closed, his body too still as I moved onto the suggestion I’d been wanting to make all night. Something in me froze a little at that sight, knowing instinctively I was treading in an area I wasn’t welcome. That hurt me as much, if not more, than being unable to dance, even as he nodded and turned for them. This felt wrong.
I didn’t get a chance to stop him and ask what was going on though, as I followed to an area off to the side of the dance floor. There were three guys chatting and bantering there - the man in the middle quite a bit older but with the bearing that indicated he was firmly in control of every situation around him, framed by a wiry, lithe man to his right and another with a scar down cheek on the left. All of them had that same controlled intensity that radiated from Seth, and it wasn’t hard to tell they all did exactly the same thing. I watched as their gazes swept over me, their expressions friendly but their eyes holding an alertness that spoke of the ability to spring into immediate action.
“Hey, I wanted to introduce you to my step-sister to-be, Bella. She’s the one that put together so much of this event.”
He turned to me and nodded.
“Bella, this is Dale, Ace and Mike. We’ve all served together at one point or another.”
I smiled and held out a hand to greet each man.
“It’s an impressive event - and we appreciate your support for our troops.”
It was Dale that spoke up, with a rumbling voice that I could immediately picture being heard on a battlefield. His salt-and-pepper hair reminded me of my father, but that was about all that did, as the man radiated command with every gesture or move he made. The thought of living and working - or fighting - with these people was such an intense idea I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
I thanked them for coming and then - to my shock - Seth excused himself, saying he needed to check on something.
He didn’t need to check on something.
I was running this damned show and if there was something to check on, I’d be the first to know about it.
It was such an obvious attempt to extract himself from our conversation that something tore inside me. I’d been looking forward to this for the last couple of weeks - to getting to know this side of Seth’s life and understand him a bit better. I couldn’t deny it - I’d wanted to be introduced as someone who meant something to him. I’d expected to be.
I knew and understood so little about the men in front of me, and I’d wanted to be invited into that by Seth. Given the chance to see what was behind all the fascinating little hints of it that he’d shown over the last month together.
Instead, I was left awkwardly playing host and with no way to start a conversation about those things. Not without inventing some context that didn’t even make sense. I could ask about their life, sure - as no doubt everyone here had done - but as an outsider. Maybe I was being stupid, but I felt shut out in a way I wasn’t sure I could handle tonight.
I made small talk for a few minutes before wishing them a good time and backing away, feeling awkward and embarrassed.
After that, I gave up on trying to find Seth.
I played the good host and ensured everyone had a great time eating our food and drinking our wine.
It felt like a long time before the party finally started winding down and I had an excuse to retreat to my room.
* * *
“God, I missed you tonight baby.”
Seth stalked closer from the balcony, the seduction I’d become so familiar with lighting in his eyes.
This time it just set my anger off - especially with that casual comment. I couldn’t believe that after tonight, he’d even had the nerve to come and find me.
He reached for me as if nothing was wrong and I jerked away, glaring back.
“Yeah, not surprising, since you completely avoided me all night.”
“What?”
He pulled back, frowning.
“You heard me.”
“I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to be seen together.”
“No? And why not? We were both helping organize the damn event, and we’re supposed to be a family now - it wouldn’t have been too much to think we might spend two minutes talking to each other!”
I was working myself up, but I was angry and upset and the evening had been a disaster as far as I was concerned. It grated that Seth didn’t even seem to consider it.
He took a step back, crossing his arms and looking at me as if I was crazy.
“I would have thought little miss perfect wouldn’t have wanted the risk.”
“It wasn’t about that, Seth, and you know it. You don’t care one bit if someone sees us together, if we make the wrong sort of eye contact or touch in those oh-so-subtle ways you love. This was different. You shut me out.”
His expression went hard again, closing off in a way that showed me I’d hit the mark.
“There was nothing to shut you—”
“You completely abandoned me with your friends. The guys I’d been so looking forward to meeting. You made that nothing.”
He looked back at me, stony and cold in a way that almost had made me shiver. We’d spent so long being so close, so all over each other, it had only been warmth and fun and games. Seeing his cold distance now was a shock I didn’t know how to deal with.
“It was nothing.”
“How can you say that?!”
My voice was becoming shrill, and some small part of me worried someone would hear, but right then my heart was pounding in my ears and I couldn’t bring myself to care.
“Because it’s true. Just what do you think this is, Bella?”
The question hit me hard, precisely because it was the same thing I’d been pushing aside for so long. All those casual, hot moments with him - all the little stories, the things that made me feel like I was getting to know him. All the little gestures, the moments of affection we never acknowledged.
I knew what he thought this was. He said it often enough.
But just because he said it didn’t make it true.
“Don’t tell me this is just a fling, Seth. You know it isn’t.”
“No. I don’t.”
His words were clipped, hard and angry, as if I was the one destroying everything that had grown between us.
The way he touched me at night. The way he looked into my eyes. The way he told me that this was the best sex he’d ever had.
“Seth, you can’t honestly tell me—”
“Yes. I can. Stop being a bitch, Bella - you know it as well as me. There’s nothing more to this. There can’t be. Our parents are getting married in a few weeks.”
That argument shut me up. It wasn’t I don’t feel anything for you or this doesn’t mean anything to me.
It was this can’t be anything more.
That, at least, was honest.
But so were my feelings, and I couldn’t deny them. Not after tonight. I was done fooling myself and pretending like it was all going to work out.
“This doesn’t feel like a fling to me, Seth. I don’t want it to be.”
“Well, tough shit, sugar. That’s life. It doesn’t work out how you want.”
I couldn’t believe the way he was acting - it was like he was trying to make me angry. To lock me down and push me away. I couldn’t stand it - and I couldn’t stand what he was saying either.
“What are you going to do, Bella? Go to your father and tell him ‘Oh, I’m sorry, but I kind of slept with my stepbrother. Oh, and please
, I hope you don’t mind, because I kind of want to continue. You know. If that’s okay with you?’”
The biting words cut through me, his exaggerated mimic of the way I spoke to my father filling me with dread. I could feel the contempt underlying it, and I’d been harangued about it enough times for the strike at that sore spot to work.
“You’re a bastard, Seth. A fucking bastard.”
Tears were stinging my eyes, but I ignored them as I looked at him. It seemed like all I’d done since he’d come into my life was cry.
“Pleased to meet you.”
He gave an ironic bow and turned to leave.
“Wait!”
I had no idea why I called him back. He was an arrogant, stupid jerk that I should have never let into my life. I just couldn’t see him go like that - damn it all to hell, but he meant too much to me.
Even from just this short time.
I’d known this wasn’t a fling from the beginning. And I’d known it couldn’t work - agreed with myself that I’d let it go when it came to it. But, damn it, I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight so badly.
Why the hell doesn’t he?!
It didn’t even make sense - he had almost no respect for the rules, for our parents.
Why wasn’t he fighting for this?
The callous glance he threw over his shoulder had my heart pounding, hurt and rage warring within me.
I tried stupidly to reason with him, to get him to understand.
“I just wanted to get to know you, Seth. See your life. Understand you better.”
He slowly shook his head, pausing with a hand on the balcony door.
“And I didn’t want you there - that’s my life. I don’t bring casual flings into it.”
The truth of that was more than obvious, but it hurt like hell to hear it. To know that was how he saw me.
My heart in my mouth, I watched helplessly as he opened the balcony door, my stupid sentimental mind thinking it might be the last time he did.
“What are you doing?”
“This was always going to end, Bella. Seems like this is it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Seth
“You’re in a piss-poor mood, sailor. Go home.”
Dale’s sharp words cut through me, leaving no doubt it was a command as I glanced up in shock.
Obedience was instinctive and the salute happened without thought, but I stalked more than marched away, anger and confusion stirring in the barely controlled whirlpool of emotions that had been with me the last few days. Sure, I’d been snapping and growling at everyone around me long enough, and Dale had given me plenty of subtle hints - but the phrase still hit me hard.
This was my home.
I knew we were all encouraged not to stick around at base at these sorts of times - just getting back from deployment usually gave you a month or two of light duties. It meant most guys could see their families, try to adjust to normal life for a bit before training started and then we were thrown back into a world of chaos and terror.
If you don’t have anything to do, don’t do it here.
The phrase was oft-repeated, but since I’d never really wanted to be anywhere else I tended to ignore it, and no one had objected to me sticking around.
At least until I’d acted like an ass day-in day-out.
I swore to myself as I collected my stuff from the barracks, grabbing the bag with the civilian clothes I hadn’t bothered unpacking and heading to my truck, having no idea what I was going to do now. This was where I belonged, where I wanted to be, and I had no idea how long Dale’s order applied.
Probably until I got my shit together.
Which seemed impossible right about now.
The phrase was still reverberating through me when I roared out of the car park, cursing and heading nowhere in particular.
Go home.
This is my home, damn it.
It had been ever since I’d passed BUD/S. Ever since I’d lived and breathed and got shot at and killed with the guys around me. We were closer than family. At least any family I’d ever known.
And I didn’t fucking want any other.
These guys could be trusted. With anything.
They weren’t going to fuck me over.
It hurt to know that the tight, unbreakable bond we shared didn’t mean the same as home for most of them.
They had wives, and parents, and children and all the things I’d never cared about.
That thought opened the whirlpool again, my crazed emotions spilling out as I drove down the open road.
I have a home. These guys can be trusted.
But my mind turned to Bella. Again. Always. Relentlessly.
The casual banter we’d shared, the laughter and fun and ease. The warmth that simply being around her gave me. The look in her eyes when she saw me coming towards her.
Her hot, fiery, wildcat eyes. Her sweet, innocent, outraged eyes. Her lustful, adoring, beautiful eyes.
They haunted me. The pain, hurt and confusion accusing me as they followed me through my mind.
It was stupid - it couldn’t work. It was never going to be more than a fling.
A hot, unbelievable, sexy-as-hell fling. With the best woman I’d ever known.
But that was it - and it was over. Done.
I knew Bella - there was no way she was going to do anything to upset her father. And this was about as provocative as I could imagine. I wouldn’t ask her to do that for me, put him between us like that. But that didn’t mean I was going to sit around and wait for her to figure that out, wait until she chose his sensibilities over whatever crazed thing was going on between us.
Sure, maybe the ending didn’t have to be quite so offensive - but on the plus side, she hadn’t tried to contact me. She understood it was over. There was no doubt for either of us. Better that way.
Go home.
Fuck it. I didn’t have a home.
I thought I’d found one in the Navy - and I had.
It just wasn’t the kind of home that could sustain you, support you, invigorate you. Not indefinitely. Not when it was tied to every violent, stressful moment of your life.
Home.
I didn’t want it.
It made you weak and reliant on others, made you think they weren’t going to turn around and let you down.
I didn’t need it.
Becky’s expression came to my mind, unwelcome but insistent as those fierce, uncompromising eyes followed Ryan - full of the kind of love, pride and acceptance I’d always discounted. I pictured Fiona again, with Ray standing protectively over her, her hand wrapped around her belly and a soft smile on her face as she leaned against him.
I saw the way Bella looked at me. The things she brought out.
Fuck it.
I swung the truck around, heading in the direction that had become all too familiar.
It was stupid. Crazy. Insane.
But I’d never been one to follow the rules.
I wanted her.
I didn’t want to, but I fucking wanted her. More than anything I’d ever felt.
And I wasn’t going to let her go like this.
She’d wanted to be part of my life - she’d wanted me to let her in, admit that what we had went beyond a simple lust-filled fling. Something I’d known since the beginning and pushed away, hard.
I’d thought I could deal with it, that we could play with those dangerous things and get over it in the end.
The way it was consuming me made me think otherwise.
Damned girl. Why the fuck does she have to be right?!
Everything she’d said all along…I shook my head as I revved the engine hard at the lights, plunging full speed ahead even as I had no idea what I was about to do.
I just knew nothing else felt right.
I didn’t know how to make it work, not with everything in the way, but damn it - I couldn’t stop trying. She meant at least that much to me.
I’m a Navy SEAL. Giving up is not an opt
ion.
That was underneath every angry, messed up emotion I’d been struggling with - I’d walked out.
She hadn’t pushed, I’d just quit it.
I don’t quit.
And I couldn’t let myself start now. I might not know how I was going to win this, but damn it, I would.
We would.
I’d give this crazy thing between us a chance and see what happened.
At least, so long as could I convince her not to throw me out on my ass.
* * *
I slipped into my room without anyone noticing, having already checked the pool area that Bella liked to hang out at.
She hadn’t been there - thank god. I didn’t want to risk this out in the open, and I wasn’t sure I could wait.
It only took a minute to slip out down my balcony and over to the piping I’d always used to climb up to hers - the movements were familiar and automatic while I tried to control my breathing and work out what the hell I was doing.
I still didn’t know as I gave the room a quick glance - clear except for the girl sitting at her desk, eyes in front of that computer she was entirely too fond of.
Okay, whatever deity watched over fools and idiots had been with me so far - let’s hope my luck held.
I opened the balcony door and stepped in, making more than my customary noise to alert her.
I couldn’t read her expression as she jumped up and looked at me, but whatever it had been was quickly replaced with cold anger.
“What the hell are you doing here, asshole?”
Probably fair.
And I fucking wished I knew.
I stopped thinking, and just acted.
I was in front of her in moments, and then I had her in my arms, the strength of my body wrapped around her pretty, petite form as she glared up at me. The stiffness made it clear I wasn’t welcome, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d thought of nothing but this for days. I reached down gently to kiss her, a gentle whisper across her lips as I inhaled her flowery, feminine scent. Her mouth reacted for an instant, and I withdrew before she could object, letting my hand cup her chin and tilt her face up to me as I tried to resist the urge to crush her to me.
“I’m sorry, babe. Fucking hell, I’m sorry. I’m a bastard.”