Page 4 of Kyle (Gold Team #3)

“His attitude has nothing to do with you or the mission.” Maybe that was a white lie.

His bad mood had everything to do with the mission.

But not because he disagreed with rescuing the girls.

“Declan’s…intense. He has to be. He’s our te am leader.

He makes the hard calls and his decisions may or may not end with someone dying.

He takes that seriously. Dec’s former Force Recon and he spent years in the CIA.

When shit hits the fan, you want Declan by your side. ”

“What about you? Are you a Marine, too?”

My lips twitched and I couldn’t hide my smile at how she’d formed her question. She would’ve had to know a Marine or know something about the military to know there are no ex or former Marines. There are simply Marines. And I found it interesting she knew what Force Recon was to begin with.

“I lived with a Marine when I was a teenager,” she explained.

“After…well you know, you read the background check on me. Anyway, I stayed with him and his wife for about three months, but he was changing duty stations and since they were only fostering me, I couldn’t go.

It was the only place I’d ever felt safe. ”

Well, that answered my question, but now I had a queasy feeling in my gut.

Yes, I understood what she was referring to when she’d said “after” and it pissed me off that she’d only ever felt safe one time in her young life.

But again, it brought my fascination full-circle.

How could someone hold on to all the beauty she had after they’d been through hell?

“I was in the Navy,” I answered her question to avoid the other topic altogether.

“A SEAL?” she guessed.

While she was not wrong, it was interesting she’d gone there first.

“Now why would you ask that?”

“You look like one.”

So she was observant by nature or she’d been paying attention.

And damn if I didn’t like the thought of her watching me closely.

Normally it’d annoy the shit out of me if a woman asked if I was a SEAL.

I’d run into my fair share of Frog Hogs who hunt around the bars in San Diego and Virginia gagging to get their hooks into a Special Forces Operator.

And there was nothing sexy about a woman who was gagging for it, not even when she easily fell on your dick.

No—especially when she did. There was not one damn thing intriguing about those women.

Nothing special or unique. They were a dime a dozen and so different than all that was Anaya Baker, it wasn’t even funny.

I couldn’t picture Anaya aggressively pursuing a team guy just so she could brag she’d bagged one.

Hell, I couldn’t see her aggressively going after any man.

And she wouldn’t have to, not with her beauty.

Men would flock, they’d pursue, they’d chase.

All she’d have to do was smile and they’d be in her web.

I had no doubt, because there I was trapped in the net she didn’t even know she’d cast.

“Look like one?” I smiled. “Have you been around a lot of SEALs to know what they look like?”

A stem of jealousy unexplainably took root.

“Considering I live in San Diego, I’ve seen my fair share,” she shot back.

“I actually met with Rear Admiral Creasy a few times when I was with NCMEC. Two victims had been taken by boat from the beach. A witness reported the boat was seen near San Clemente Island. For obvious reasons civilians helping in the search couldn’t go onto the island.

He’d personally gone out and had a BUD/s class that was there for training stop and help search. ”

That sounded like Creasy. He’d recently saved us a lot of time and effort, unofficially aiding in the rescue of Thad’s wife, Emerson. He was as kind and good as he was tough and demanding.

“Were they found?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, both had died. A diver found one just off the island and the other victim washed ashore. Rear Admiral Creasy had respectfully brought both back to Coronado and assisted the families.” Again, that didn’t surprise me.

Creasy had seen his fair share of grieving spouses, parents, children, and siblings.

Actually, he’d seen more than any one man should have to see.

She felt that loss. And I couldn’t say I was happy she did but I liked she had the capacity to feel it.

I was even happier she hadn’t masked her sadness.

In the short amount of time I’d spent with Anaya she’d put in a fair amount of effort to hide her thoughts and feelings.

I fucking hated it. It was maddening. I wanted to tear down the walls she’d built and demand she show me the real her.

“You didn’t answer my question, sailor,” she teased, and I was nearly blinded by her smile and those dimples she had did some weird shit to my insides. I wanted to run my finger over the indentations and at the same time, I wanted to press my lips on them just to see what they felt like.

Goddamn bizarre.

“I didn’t? I must’ve forgotten what you asked.”

“Evasion. Nice tactic.” Her head tilted to the side and, while she was being funny, her eyes were not. They were steadily gazing into mine and my hands twitched to pull her closer.

“Evasion?” I chuckled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Right, now we’ve moved to resistance and denial. What’s next on the SERE training protocol? Escape?” Her wide smile was contagious and when her dimples once again dotted her cheeks, blood quickly flowed south and my dick jerked.

Damn, those fucking dimples were going to be the death of me.

I glanced out the window. “Escape for thirty thousand feet without a parachute might be a little difficult. ”

“Yet you’re not worried about the lack of oxygen or decompression sickness. Interesting.”

I couldn’t help the bark of laughter. “What’s interesting is you know what SERE training is and decompression sickness from a HALO jump.”

“A what?” Her head crooked to the side and I had a feeling she was screwing with me and knew what I was talking about.

“High altitude low opening jump.”

“Right.” She laughed and I knew she was fucking with me.

It was too much, the way she was easily teasing me in a way that was flirty yet still witty and definitely cute was muddling my head and doing nothing to help with my hardening cock.

Nothing good was to come from it either.

I needed my head on straight and my dick to get with the program.

Unfortunately it seemed to have its own agenda and getting into Anaya’s pants was priority number one.

“Why’d you leave the NCMEC?” I asked, hoping the change in topic would ease some of the stiffness in my pants.

“I needed a change.” She shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal.

But hurt flashed in her eyes and I knew there was a story there.

One I wished she wanted to tell me. Which was so unusual for me, it was baffling.

No one would ever accuse me of being nosy, that was for sure.

I wasn’t standoffish, and I didn’t have severe trust issues like Max did.

There was no trauma in my past like Declan that prevented me from forming relationships.

I simply respected others’ privacy. I had boundaries I didn’t cross.

But for some reason, with her I couldn’t find where those boundaries lay, and even if I could, I didn’t want them between us.

At least that’s what I told myself, I wasn’t nosy and respected others need for privacy. But the truth was I had no intentions of leading a woman on. I’d always been upfront and honest about only wanting a superficial encounter, for however long it lasted.

I had no interest in having a family of my own, therefore there was no reason to form a deep and meaningful relationship.

But if that was the case, then why was I so hellbent on wanting to know everything about Anaya?