Quiet Nights by Mary Calmes Page A

harder by my appraisal of his profile: the long, straight nose; lush lips; the divot in his chin; and his gleaming henna-colored eyes under dark brows. His thick black hair was coarse to the touch and only a bit longer than it had been when we served in the Army. I didn’t stare at him often—it did me no good—but when I did, when I allowed myself to, I always found myself wondering what he’d taste like. It was a familiar craving.
    “That’s what you told me last night when you were over for dinner.”
    “What?”
    “Dinner. Last night. Is this ringing any bells?”
    “Yep.”
    “My mom went to Miami for sausage and peppers.”
    He’d lost me. “What?”
    “You told me all the things you had to do today, and so I told her and she decided to run to Panama City to pick up what she needed for dinner tonight.”
    “Oh, okay.”
    “But if you don’t get all your work done, then you won’t be on time for dinner, and you’re gonna break her heart.”
    I nodded. “I won’t be late.”
    “You will if you’re fuckin’ around instead of working.”
    He was like a dog with a bone. “I know!”
    “Then why aren’t you there?” he pressed, closing in on me. “You know that since my father died she’s been—”
    “I just need a sec, Coz,” I said before inhaling deeply.
    Silence, but I knew without looking that he was scowling at me. He’d done it all through basic training and continued when we were stationed together in Afghanistan. Even after the accident, when I’d crawled through the debris of his blown-apart humvee, under fire, to reach him. Even when he was full of shrapnel and missing his left arm from the shoulder down, even then, at that moment, there had been scowling.
    Lifting my head, I finally took a deep breath.
    “Oh,” he muttered quickly, clearly surprised, if the lifted brows and concern on his face were any indication. “You actually look scared. What’s wrong with you?”
    I cleared my throat. “Remember that guy I told you about? The reason why I joined the Army to get as far away from my life as I possibly could?”
    He nodded.
    “Yeah, so, I just saw him on the patio at Brenner.”
    The way his eyes narrowed, I knew he was filtering my words, processing them. “No shit?”
    “No shit—” I choked. “—so let me stand here and breathe, okay?”
    “Huh.”
    I lifted an eyebrow in agreement with his assessment of the situation, the whole what-the-fuck of it all.
    “And so?”
    I squinted at him. “What do you mean ‘and so’?” Maybe what I’d seen was not in fact sympathy.
    “I mean, he’s just a guy, right? You’ve fucked a ton of guys in your life.”
    I was being insulted and I knew it, even though it took a moment to sink in. “I’m sorry, what’d you just say to me?”
    “Oh, c’mon, Kel, where is that guy on the list? Do you even know?”
    “Do I know ?” I was indignant.
    He threw up his right arm and groaned loudly as he turned away from me. “Just go to work already, before my mother calls me to check up on us and has a fuckin’ heart attack.”
    I darted around in front of him so he had to either stop moving or plow into me. “I’ll have you know that your mother never calls to check up on me or check up on your sister. She calls to check on you because you’re the one who’s breaking her heart, not either one of us.”
    His eyes widened in anger, and part of me felt bad for baiting him, but he’d just called me a slut, whether he realized it or not.
    “I’m breaking her heart? I am?”
    He’d always been on a hair trigger, and losing his arm, being mad at the world, had not changed that. It had, in fact, just made it worse. I heard the frustration in his rising tone, saw the anger in the clench of his jaw, and felt the heat rolling off his sleek, hot, gorgeous frame. If he would just let me put my hands all over him, I was sure I could relieve quite a—
    “How exactly am I doing that?”
    “What?” It took me a second to banish my