Lucky SEAL (Lucky Devil #2) by Cat Miller Page B

angry glower. No, it was more like a scowl of resignation. He couldn’t avoid answering. What was the big deal about letting her know his last name? Maybe it was a really sucky name. Maybe women had run screaming at the sound of his name. Could it be Rumpelstiltskin? Seaman? Oh, a sailor named Seaman would really suck. Maybe it was Fuchs. Or Bieber! No! Never say his last name was Bieber!
    After what felt like an endless stare down where Jennifer imagined the worst names possible -like Hitler or Butts-, Rourke finally sighed and rolled off Jennifer. He sprawled across the bed and threw his arm over his eyes.
    “My last name is Rourke.”
    Wait, what? Rourke was his last name? Jennifer had never considered that Rourke wasn’t his name. Logically, since he was a military man, his peers would address him by his last name, but she hadn’t met any of his peers. Everyone from the pastor to his two oldest friends called him Rourke as if that were his name. Jennifer blinked owlishly at the side of his blond head until he turned to look at her.
    “My last name is Rourke. I’ve been called Rourke since I was born because my father hated my first name. My dad was also a Navy man. He was deployed when my mother gave birth to me,” he began to explain but stopped as if she might forget he hadn’t told her his first name. Christ! She was in bed with a man, and she didn’t know his first fucking name!
    “And?” she didn’t mean to yell, but dammit, she felt like a slut!
    Rourke sighed. “My name is Stacy Rourke. No middle name. My mother named me after her grandfather whose name, was Eustace. Mom didn’t care for the name Eustace, so she settled on his nickname, Stacy.”
    Stacy Rourke. Jennifer let the name roll around her mind a few times. She liked it, but the name was clearly a sore spot for Rourke . . . Stacy? She wondered if he’d let her call him Stacy.
    “Stacy Rourke,” Jennifer said the name aloud just to see how it felt on her tongue. Rourke’s expression filled with storm clouds. “Don’t you give me that look. I had sex with a man whose name I didn’t know. That’s fucked up. I’m just trying it on for size.”
    “Don’t. I hate it. I always have. Even my dad hated it.” Rourke rolled to his back again and damn if he wasn’t pouting. He really didn’t like his name.
    “Why don’t you like it? I like it,” she admitted.
     
    Rourke rolled his eyes at her. “Sure you do. Every woman wants a man with woman’s name.”
    “Stacy is man’s name, too,” Jennifer insisted. “Tell me why you don’t like it.”
    Rourke held up his hand and raised a finger with every point he made. “It’s a girl’s name.” One finger went up. “I listened to my dad tell my mom how much he hated my name every time he came home.” Another finger. “It’s a girl’s name.” A third finger went up. “I got picked on mercilessly my whole life because of that name.” Another finger. “And finally, it’s a fucking girl’s name!” He finished, and his large calloused hand fell to the bed.
    Jennifer giggled. Clearly, he was sensitive about having what he considered a girl’s name. “Can I call you Stacy?”
    “Not if you want me to answer.”
    “Not even in bed?” she teased and reached out run a finger down his happy trail.
    “Not unless you want my dick to shrivel.”
    Jennifer laughed a full-bodied, tear producing laugh that had Rourke frowning again. She was upsetting him, so she tried to reign herself in. She just found it so amusing that anything would bother her big warrior of a man so much.
    The thought helped her sober quite a bit. He wasn’t her man. He would never be Jennifer’s anything. She couldn’t forget that fact. Rourke would be going back to the Navy soon, and she would be God knew where just trying to survive. Plus, she was in deep shit with a madman on her heels, and she didn’t want Rourke buried in the muck with her. She needed to get going soon, but she couldn’t imagine Rourke