A SEAL's Courage (Military Match #1)(13)
Something that looked an awful lot like hurt flitted across her face before she straightened and folded her arms. Her features blanked. He’d seen the look enough times to know Lauren was shutting him out.
“Because I’m not your type. Yeah. I get it. Story of my damn life.” With a slow, dejected shake of her head, she turned and started to close the door. “Go home, Trent.”
Trent swallowed a curse, the taste of jealousy and possession bitter on his tongue. Somewhere in her statement was an asshole he ached to find and rip apart with his bare hands. He could let her think what she wanted. It would neatly sever whatever ties they’d formed tonight.
And they had formed them. He’d never forget her soft body against him or the taste of cinnamon in her mouth. Or how goddamn right she’d felt in his arms. Like she belonged there.
He drew a breath through his teeth and forced himself to remain where he stood, but neither could he keep the words from leaving his mouth. He couldn’t tell her the whole truth, but he had to give her something. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this angry with him, and he hated it.
He put his hand up, stopping the door just as it got halfway closed. “I can’t risk hurting you, Lauren.”
She halted. She didn’t turn or even move to fully open the door again, but he’d take what he could get.
“The first time you showed up at my apartment, it had been a bad night. Too damn many dreams. Too damn many times waking up not knowing where the hell I was. And the crushing reality of remembering.”
He reached up, fingering the tags around his neck again. There were three. His, Cooper’s, and AJ’s. Two of his team members had lost their lives because he’d made a fucking mistake. The youngest—AJ—had no family. No one to mourn him. So he’d asked to keep the young man’s tags.
“I needed someone. Just to sit in the same room with me. To keep me grounded. Mom and Mandy mean well, but they hover and nag, and I just end up feeling pathetic. A shell of who I was. You take me as I am, even when I’m cranky as hell. I consider you a friend, Lauren. Friends are gold to me. I’ve lost far too many.”
Lauren turned sideways to look at him. The curtains had fallen again, masking her emotions. With Lauren, it was always obvious. She was usually so open, so warm, that with her, when she shut herself off, an unnatural aloofness settled over her that always seemed wrong to him.
The smile she flashed didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m honored. Thank you for being honest with me. I’m sorry I put you in this position. You should go. I’m sure you have to get up early for work.”
She didn’t give him time to respond, but stepped back and shut the door, the snap of it settling into the frame loud in the otherwise silence of the night.
Trent turned and stopped for a moment, staring out at the darkened street, his heart in his fucking boots. If he’d done the right thing by keeping her at a distance, then why did it feel so awful? How come his gut was tied in a thousand sickening knots? He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but it seemed he’d done it anyway.
*
“Good afternoon, birthday girl.”
The ding of the shop’s bell chiming preceded the familiar voice, and Lauren turned her head, looking down the length of the interior. Mandy strode through the front door, Steph in tow. Both faces held bright—and mischievous—smiles.
A week had passed since her first date with Military Match. Since she’d gone and humiliated herself by not only propositioning Trent but kissing him. God, what a fiasco that had been. The whole evening had confused the life out of her. His rejections had stung, and she couldn’t stop remembering his odd comments at the Starbucks, the subtle hints that he might be attracted to her, too. She’d finally decided she had to know. To stop being afraid all the damn time.
Except he’d turned her down again. Here it was, her twenty-eighth birthday, and not only was she still a virgin, but she was alone. Utterly alone in the world. So she’d called Mandy and Steph, admitted to feeling pathetic. They’d insisted the three of them go out for her birthday. But they were early. By several hours.
In the process of packaging up a dozen cupcakes for a customer, Lauren shot the two a smile. “Hey. I thought we weren’t meeting until tonight?”
Mandy leaned her elbows on the glass countertop in front of her and winked. “That’s what you were supposed to think.”
Without a word, Steph moved around the counter to the doorway leading to the back of the shop. “We’re here, Elise.”
A high-pitched squeal erupted from the back room, where Elise, her assistant, was icing more cupcakes. It was Saturday, one of their busiest days of the week, and cupcakes were the item of the day. She and Elise had baked and iced more than two hundred this morning, but the display case was almost empty.
Elise exploded from the back room, a bundle of barely contained excitement. The joy on her face would’ve put the sun to shame. She all but ran around the corner, enveloping Lauren in a hug so tight Lauren squeaked in surprise. “Oh, you’re going to have so much fun!”
Elise was in her midfifties, a plump little woman who loved what she did. She had the sunniest disposition Lauren had ever seen. Always smiling and laughing and chattering away. The customers adored her, and her cake-decorating skills were superb. Any other time, her enthusiasm made Lauren laugh. Now it had suspicion itching at the edges of her consciousness.