Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 75754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
I nodded. “I assumed.”
“Yeah, the whole country will know about the SEAL team now that we’re home. But we were called to perform a mission that wasn’t well thought out in the least, and we nearly died because of it,” he explained.
“Did your whole team survive?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Yeah, not with any help from Uncle Sam, though. We had to do it all on our own, cross into two countries before we were able to get out safely,” he answered.
“Wow,” I whispered. “Did you get hurt?”
I knew he was hurt.
I could tell because he couldn’t quite hide the winces each time I pressed too hard on his right shoulder.
I’d yet to see his back, but I knew he had some type of…something…there.
I felt something on the back of his right shoulder, but the moment I started to turn to look at it, he’d distracted me with round three.
It’d been a rather thorough distraction, too.
Now, though, I wouldn’t be so easily deterred.
“So what now?” I asked softly, sitting up until I was crossed legged in the bed.
He shook his head. “Keep working. One bad mission won’t stop us. The only one that will stop us will be the ones that kill us.”
I tried not to let that sink in too deep.
The thought of him being killed, while on a mission, scared the crap out of me.
Not that I had any right to demand he be careful, it slipped out of my mouth nonetheless.
“You need to be careful, Sterling. You have a lot of people that would miss you if you were gone. Silas didn’t actually express being worried, but he always had the news on every time I saw him,” I whispered, picking at the invisible lint on the sheet.
“What about you?” He asked.
I blinked, looking up at him. “What about me?”
He smiled, his beautiful eyes full of mirth now instead of pain.
“Will you miss me?” He asked.
“Would I miss you? Yes. Will I miss you? No, because you’re not going anywhere,” I answered.
He grinned, and I realized he was happy with that answer.
Really happy.
“So about that date…”
I shook my head. “I need to go to sleep. I have to work in the morning.”
He moved quickly.
One second I was staring at his throat, admiring his jaw and mouth, and the next he was pinning me to the bed, his hard cock pressing into my exposed sex.
Only the sheet was between us, and it wasn’t much of a barrier for the beast he had between his legs.
“Call in sick,” he said, his mouth only a whisper away from my own.
I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m opening tomorrow.”
He looked at the clock at my bedside, and then back to me.
“What time do you have to be there?” He countered.
I looked at the clock myself and winced.
“In about two hours,” I answered.
His brows rose.
“And what exactly do you do when you get there that early?” He asked.
“I open…” I trailed off.
He tickled me and I squealed.
“Stop! Ack!” I screamed and laughed.
“What I meant,” he said, removing his fingers. “Was what do you do once you get there? Are you busy?”
I shook my head. “No. Why?”
“You up for some company?” He wondered.
I nodded. “Yeah, I could do some company.”
He laughed. “You already ‘did’ the company. More than once.”
I reached forward and grasped his nipple between two fingers and twisted slightly.
He shot off me like a rocket, laughing the whole way.
“Let’s go get breakfast. And have that date,” he answered, pulling up his pants that I hadn’t seen him step into.
I blinked.
“Me going to work doesn’t count as a date,” I told him.
He smiled.
“Yeah, but I just gotta make sure you don’t get lost when our date finally does happen. So, I’ll be sticking close,” he informed me, picking up my pants I’d had on outside when he’d texted me.
Which reminded me.
“Why are you programmed as Kraken in my phone?” I asked.
He grinned. “I came in last night for my key and snuck your phone from behind the bar. Reprogrammed myself. That’s my club name.”
I blinked.
“How did you do that with nobody seeing you?” I asked incredulously.
He pointed at himself, declaring, “SEAL baby. It means I can do things most normal people can’t.”
“Full of yourself much?” I asked, dropping the pants in favor of a pair of blue jeans at the foot of my bed.
“The only one who’s ‘full of me’ is going to be you if you don’t get dressed in the next fifteen seconds,” he shot back.
I hastily pulled on my jeans, smiling at him over my shoulder.
“Got it.”
Chapter 6
Sometimes I want to rub Sterling’s beard like my lucky rabbit’s foot.
-Ruthie’s secret thoughts
Sterling
“This isn’t safe at all,” I muttered to myself as I took in the darkened gas station.
I’d seen it in passing at night, but never really connected it with Ruthie working.
There wasn’t a single light on in the parking lot, and once you turned the light on inside, you were highlighted perfectly while you couldn’t make out a single goddamn thing outside.
And my SEAL training was screaming at me to get the fuck out of such a high profile spot.
“Would you chill out? You’re scaring away the customers,” Ruthie admonished as she started flicking on all of the coffee makers.
I looked back at the parking lot that had yet to see a single customer.
“There haven’t been any here at all. How would I have scared them away?” I asked, confused.
Ruthie tossed a smile over her shoulder. “I was teasing. Something that obviously went right over your head. Hey, will you do me a favor and bring me a bucket of ice out of the back?”
She pointed in the direction of a doorway, one I remembered looking into earlier when we’d first arrived.
All that was in it was an ice machine and some extra supplies such as coffee cups, napkins, and straws.
I went and did what she asked, hearing the door jingle not even thirty seconds after I started filling up the bucket.
I came out with my hand grasped around the metal handle to see Ruthie flirting away with an older man that looked to be in his mid-nineties.