He didn’t know how long he slept, but he’d never felt more rested when he finally opened his eyes a while later. Pleasure tugged at his heart when he realized Miranda was still in bed with him. No longer tucked into his chest, but lying on her side, her hazel eyes fixed on his face.
“What time is it?” he asked, reaching up to wipe the sleep from his eyes.
“One thirty.”
“Damn, woman, you let me sleep past one?”
“You needed it.” She touched his jaw, running her fingers over the thick stubble.
He groaned. “Oh, right there, scratch right there.”
With a laugh, she scratched the itchy spot on his chin, summoning a contented sigh from his lips.
“I should really shave,” he conceded.
Miranda gave a mock gasp. “Wait, you actually own a razor?”
“Yes, I own a razor.” He grinned. “I just don’t use it very often.”
“I can’t picture you clean-shaven.” Her fingertips skimmed the stubble above his upper lip, then trailed over the beard growth along the line of his jaw. “I don’t think I’d like it.”
“You like your men scruffy, huh?”
She offered a self-deprecating look. “I’ve always been attracted to scruffy, tattooed bad boys. It’s a problem of mine.” And then she gave his jaw another scratch and it felt so good he nearly purred like a fucking kitten.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, sitting up.
She’d gotten dressed at some point when he’d been asleep, and he enjoyed the way the fabric of her black tank top was pulled taut over her breasts. The bra she wore must have been thinner than toilet paper, because he could see her nipples poking through, and his lower body stirred at the sight.
“I’m starving.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, but his attempt at flirting was betrayed by the loud rumble of his stomach.
Miranda laughed again. “Uh-huh. There’s my answer.”
Much to his unhappiness, she scooted off the bed and headed for the bedroom door. “Omelet or regular eggs?”
His mouth immediately watered. “Omelet.”
“Ham, cheese, mushrooms, green peppers, onions?”
Oh fuck. Now he was liable to drool all over her damn sheets. “All of those sound great.”
“Good. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Seth dragged himself out of bed and ducked into the hall bathroom to use the john and wash up. His gaze was drawn to the toothbrush holder on the edge of the porcelain sink. Three toothbrushes—an adult-sized one and two kiddie brushes with Disney characters on them. It was an intrusive reminder that Miranda didn’t live in this apartment alone, but luckily, he hadn’t spent much time with the rugrats since they’d left his house. He’d either come by here when the kids were in school, or Miranda stopped by his place for a quickie if she managed to leave the club early.
When he entered the kitchen five minutes later, Miranda already had an omelet sizzling in a pan. She nudged it with a wooden spatula and the most incredible aroma floated in his direction.
“You need any help?” he offered.
“I’ve got the omelets and toast covered, but you could pour us some coffee. Mugs are in the cupboard to your left.”
Seth grabbed the coffeepot and poured the hot liquid into two ceramic mugs, then headed for the fridge to get the milk. He splashed a bit into Miranda’s cup, dumped in two sugars, and carried both mugs to the small kitchen table. He sipped his coffee, his gaze following Miranda’s movements and admiring the way her cotton boxer shorts clung to her perfect ass.
“Oh, and by the way,” she announced, perching one hip against the counter, “I’m still horrified by what you said the other day.”
He chuckled. “I say a lot of scandalous things, baby. You’ve gotta be more specific.”
“About Marquez being technically better than Pacquiao?” she prompted.
“Oh, that.”
“‘Oh, that’?” She raised her spatula in the air as if she planned to whack him with it. “Manny Pacquiao is clearly the superior fighter, Seth. He won two of the three matches between him and Marquez—”
“It was a split decision—”
“It’s still a win!” She harrumphed. “Jeez, next thing you’ll be telling me is that Ali wasn’t the greatest boxer of all time.”
“He wasn’t. Sugar Ray Robinson, hands down.”
Miranda’s mouth fell open. And stayed open. She just stared at him in shock for a good minute.
Seth stifled a laugh and gestured to the stove. “You gonna deal with our breakfast before it burns?”
After a beat, she snapped out of whatever mental lecture she’d been giving him and shut off the burner.
“I can’t believe you said that about Ali,” she muttered after she’d served their food and joined him at the table. “I think that might have been blasphemy.”
“Hey, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion,” he chastised.
“Not when it’s wrong.”
The stubborn look in her eyes made him grin. He liked that she had no qualms about arguing with him. Or challenging him. Or sassing him. Miranda always spoke her mind, which he appreciated. A lot of females expected you to be a damn psychic. They wanted you to anticipate their moods, to know when they were pissed off without them having to tell you, and then they got even angrier when you didn’t. It was refreshing being with a woman who didn’t expect him to do any unreasonable guesswork.
Being with her? the little voice in his head echoed, wary as hell.
Sleeping with her, he amended. Hanging out with her. Flinging with her. Whatever.
There was a lull in the conversation as they ate, but the silence was comfortable. After they finished eating, they carried their plates to the sink and cleaned up together. He washed, she dried, and as detergent soap bubbles floated over the sink, Miranda sneezed so many times Seth actually got a stitch in his side from laughing so hard.
It wasn’t until they refilled their coffees and headed for the backyard so he could have a smoke that he realized how this entire morning just smacked of domesticity. He’d never had breakfast with a woman before. Never washed dishes with a woman. Never had coffee in a woman’s backyard, or chatted about bird feeders with a woman.
Shit.
What was he doing?
“Sophie is convinced one of those sparrows is after her.” Miranda’s laughter broke through his thoughts.
He followed her gaze to the birds pecking at the seeds in the red wooden feeder hanging off the fence that bordered the yard. “She could be right,” he mused. “That one on the right looks a tad aggressive.”
“She claims it sits in front of the window and pecks at the glass, looking at her with, and I quote, ‘bad-people eyes’.”
He laughed, then reprimanded himself for it. Crap. Again, what was he doing? This thing with him and Miranda…it was about sex. About satisfying the hot, primal urges she unleashed in him. Nothing wrong with enjoying her company at the same time, but there needed to be a balance between, say, talking about boxing like friends and washing dishes together like an old married couple.
Except…doing those dishes had been fun, damn it.
Everything he did with Miranda was fun.
“Fuck,” he mumbled.
She glanced over, her hazel eyes flickering with confusion. “What?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “Just thinking about how the rugrat might be right—that bird really does look like a shithead.”
Miranda threw her head back and laughed, and it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.
It was also another sign that he was treading into some very dangerous territory.
He thought doing chores as a couple was fun?
He thought the sound of her laughter was sweet?
Fuck.
Two weeks later
“Jeez, someone call the smile police,” Andre announced with a laugh. “You’ve smiled so many times in the last ten minutes it ought to be illegal.”
>
“Seriously,” Ginny agreed. “What kind of happy drug are you on and where can I get some?”
“Can’t a girl be in a good mood?” Miranda lifted one leg and rested her ankle on the sleek ballet barre spanning the studio wall. She curled her spine and reached to grasp her toes with her hands, and as she stretched, she tilted her head at the two instructors sprawled on the blue mats. “You’re acting as if I usually walk around here like the Grinch. I smile all the time.”
“Not this much,” Andre countered.
“Not this much,” Ginny echoed.
With a laugh, she switched legs and began a new series of stretches. Truth was, she knew exactly what they were talking about. She’d noticed it herself these past couple of weeks. Her spirits were at an all-time high, and she was smiling so often her facial muscles were beginning to hurt. She couldn’t help it, though. Life was good. Her apartment showed no signs of the damage caused by the flood, seven new students had enrolled at the school, and the preparations for the summer recital were coming along well.
Oh, and she was having mind-shattering orgasms on a daily basis.
What was there to complain about?
“So,” Andre said, catching Miranda’s eye in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that took up one entire wall of the studio, “what’s his name and why don’t you ever bring him by the school?”
She finished her stretch, then walked across the shiny floor toward the two teachers. They’d all come in early this afternoon to go over some details about the recital, but now that they’d squared everything away they had some time to kill before students started showing up.
Plopping down on one of the mats, she grinned at Andre. “His name is Seth, and he doesn’t come by because there’s no such thing as Bring-Your-Fling-To-Work Day.”
Ginny, a slight blonde with big gray eyes and an endless supply of energy, snickered loudly. “Well, there should be because that sounds awesome.”
“So it’s really just a fling?” Andre’s brows drew together in a frown. “Doesn’t seem like your style, boss.”
She was about to say “it isn’t”, until she remembered that her only other sexual relationship had been nothing but a fling too. At the time, she’d thought she loved Trent, but it wasn’t until after he’d deposited her back in Vegas and told her to “get rid of the kid” that she’d realized how naïve she’d been. Trent hadn’t loved her, and now, seven years later, she understood that she hadn’t loved him either. It had been nothing more than girlish infatuation.
With Seth, it wasn’t much different. She was an adult now, and she was well aware that sex and love didn’t necessarily go hand in hand. She was sleeping with Seth, yes. She enjoyed spending time with him, of course. But to call this anything other than a fling? Maybe if she was still a naïve girl, sure, but the eighteen-year-old Miranda had bid good-bye to her naiveté in that delivery room giving birth to twins.
“I’m just having a little fun,” she answered, her tone noncommittal. “It’s not serious at all.”
Ginny leaned back on her elbows, her elfin features filling with curiosity. “What’s he like?”
“He’s…” she sighed, “…the consummate bad boy. Smokes, hardly ever shaves, says what’s on his mind, rough around the edges.”
“Great in bed?” Ginny teased.
“What do you think?” she said dryly.
Andre’s expression remained grave. “And you don’t think it could lead to anything serious? There are no emotions involved at all?”
She didn’t miss the irony that the female teacher was trying to score the sex details while her male counterpart was more concerned about the emotional nature of Miranda’s relationship.
“Of course there are,” she told him. “There’s bound to be some emotions whenever you’re sleeping with someone. But this won’t become serious.”
“You sound very sure of that.”
“I am.” Confidence rang from those two words. “Seth is fun to be with, and he’s unarguably amazing in bed, but he’s not someone I can see myself with in the long-term. When or if I make a commitment to someone, it has to be with a man who’s willing to be there for my kids.”
Now Ginny was frowning, her silvery eyes losing that gleam of humor. “Wait—are you saying he doesn’t like Soph and Jase? How could anyone not like those two?”
Miranda exhaled slowly. “It’s not that he doesn’t like them per se. I think kids make him uncomfortable. Not just mine, but all children. With Sophie and Jason, he just sort of…tolerates them, know what I mean? But I’m pretty sure that if he had the choice, he wouldn’t want them around.”
The thought brought a sting of pain to her heart, along with a jolt of disenchantment. It really did bother her that Seth still hadn’t warmed up to her kids, even after nearly a month of being in their lives.
“Has he spent much time with them?” Andre asked.
“Not really. I mean, we stayed at his house when our place was being renovated, but his schedule is kind of messed up, so either he wouldn’t be home when the twins were awake, or he’d be sleeping during the day after being gone all night. He’s a SEAL,” she said hastily, when her explanation earned her two suspicious looks.
Ginny’s distrust instantly transformed into delight. “A SEAL? Oh, hell yes, Miranda. That’s so hot and I’m so jealous.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just because he’s a SEAL doesn’t mean I should marry the man. Actually, I have a feeling if I even brought up the word marriage he’d run screaming in the other direction.”
“Commitment-phobe,” Andre said knowingly.
“Kid-phobe,” she reminded them. “Seth doesn’t want to be a dad. He didn’t explicitly say it, but it’s fairly obvious he has no intention of ever having children.”
“Maybe that’s because he hasn’t spent a lot of time with them,” Ginny pointed out. “It’s easy for people like us to shake our heads and say ‘what the hell is wrong with that guy?’ but we hang out with children of all ages every day. Not everyone has the same opportunity. Is he an only child?”
Miranda nodded.
“Okay, so he didn’t have any younger siblings running underfoot. And he’s in the military, surrounded by men and women his own age or older.” Ginny shrugged. “He probably has no idea how to talk to kids. They make him uncomfortable because he can’t relate to them.”
Andre joined in, his tone grudging. “She has a point, boss. A lot of people can’t interact with children. If you don’t have any of your own, or aren’t in a kid-friendly environment, then chances are you don’t know how to handle being around them.”
They raised a good point, and Miranda grew quiet for a moment as she let it all sink in. Heck, maybe Ginny and Andre were right. Maybe it wasn’t that Seth didn’t like children. Maybe he simply didn’t know how to relate to them. She remembered a time when she hadn’t known the first thing about kids—but she’d had to learn pretty damn fast once motherhood had been prematurely forced upon her.
“So, what, you think I shouldn’t write him off just yet?” she asked uneasily.
Ginny’s head tilted pensively. “I don’t know. I’m just saying that if it’s the kid thing that’s holding you back, maybe you should get him to spend some more time with Soph and Jase and see if he starts feeling more at ease with them.”
She supposed that wasn’t a bad suggestion. If she wanted something more serious with Seth. But did she? She’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t settle for anything less than a reliable partner who was willing to give their relationship 100 percent. She needed someone who would always be there, someone who wouldn’t let her down, who wouldn’t let her children down. Because she wouldn’t be the only one getting attached to the man she brought into their lives. Sophie and Jason would get attached too.
But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to be more open about this thing with Seth. They’d spent a lot of time together over the past two weeks, in and out of bed, and she truly did enjoy his company. She loved arguing with him
, loved curling up against his broad chest, loved how when she talked about people or places in Vegas, he knew exactly what she meant because he’d grown up there too.
Would it really be so terrible to lower the shield around her heart? Just a little bit?
Battling a mix of uncertainty and trepidation, she finally put an end to her troubling inner debate by making a decision. From now on when it came to Seth, she was officially keeping an open mind.
Loud laughter and lewd catcalls were the two most common side effects of poker night, and Friday was absolutely no exception. The men had only been gathered at Carson Scott’s place for twenty minutes, and the good-natured heckling was already occurring in full force.
Carson, who’d just been taunted about the hickey on his neck, remained impervious in the face of it all. “What can I say? My wife can’t keep her mouth off me. I’m a walking turn-on and I ain’t gonna apologize for it. In fact, I embrace it.”
Dylan groaned right along with everyone else in the living room. He was suddenly happy he hadn’t bailed tonight the way he’d been tempted to do. Normally he loved hanging out with the boys, and poker night was always a blast, but for the last couple of weeks he’d avoided connecting with any of his teammates outside of the base. Matt, in particular, which made him feel pretty shitty because he loved chilling with O’Connor.
Unfortunately, Matt was BFFs with the one person Dylan didn’t want to see at the moment, which was why he’d been making himself scarce.
His insides had been tied in rigid knots the entire drive over here. He’d barely said a word to Seth in the car, too busy envisioning all sorts of awkward scenarios. But all that worrying had been futile because when he’d walked into Carson’s living room, Aidan Rhodes was nowhere to be found.
Relief had soared through him. And at the same time? Disappointment. A hefty dose of it. Rather than focus on the latter, he’d clung to that rush of relief, finding solace in Aidan’s absence. He’d only seen Aidan once since he’d moved back home, and that entire encounter had left him feeling even edgier than before.
“And you know what? I’m perfectly happy to give you boys lovemaking lessons if you need to brush up on your skills. Call it a training demo.”