And he did. Right there against the refrigerator with her legs wrapped around his waist. It was fast and furious and so hot their skin slid and stuck and she felt burned up from the inside out.

“You’re good. So good,” he groaned as internal combustion raged through her and she gasped, unable to catch her breath. Her heart pounded and her whole world blew apart. When it was over, when every cell in her body reassembled, she felt different. Not in love different. More like not so alone different. She’d been surrounded by a crowd of people all day. Hardly alone, but with Vince she felt alive.

“Are you okay?” he asked against the side of her throat, his warm breath tickling her still sensitive skin.

“I am. Are you? You did all the work.”

“I like this kind of work.” He sucked in a breath and let it out. “Especially with you.”

For how much longer? she wondered for the first time since that first night he’d come to her house. She’d known he would fill her nights. She just hadn’t counted on him to fill up her life so completely. And it was scary as hell. And letting her mind wander down that scary path meant she cared. Caring wasn’t necessarily bad, but caring too much would really be bad. Something that at the moment she probably shouldn’t think about. She’d think about it later when she had to think about every other screwed-up thing in her life.

Afterward, she sat cross-legged on his back patio, drinking Lone Star. The hard concrete chilled her backside as she watched the setting sun.

“I booked a flight Monday afternoon for Seattle.”

Sadie wore her panties and his brown shirt that hit her just above the knees. “Why?”

“Now that I know I’m going to be here for a while yet, I need to get some of my stuff out of storage.” He sat beside her with his back against the wall. His bare feet rested on the bottom rung of the wrought-iron railing. He wore his cargo pants and nothing else. “I’m renting a van and driving back.” He took a drink. “I’ll stick around for a few days and see my sister and hang out with Conner.”

“Your nephew?”

“Yeah. And I’m sure I’ll have to see the son of a bitch.”

“Sam Leclaire?”

“Yep. God, I hate that guy. Especially now, since the rules of engagement have changed.”

She took a drink and squinted her gaze at the orange sun sliding below the trees. “Since he’s engaged to your sister, you mean?”

“No. Since the SOB bailed me out, I can’t hit him now.”

Sadie choked. “Out?” she sputtered. “Out of what?”

“Jail.” He looked at her out of the corners of his eyes. “I got into it with some guys at a bar last December.”

“Some? How many guys?”

“Probably ten.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “They thought they were big bad-ass bikers.”

“You fought ten bad-ass bikers?”

“They thought they were bad-ass.” He shook his head. “They weren’t.”

Still . . . “Ten?”

“Started with only two or three. The others just piled on until it was a full-on brawl and everyone was swinging at anything that moved.”

“What started the brawl?”

“A few guys wanted to run their mouths off and I wasn’t in the mood to listen.”

“What?” Her mouth fell open then snapped shut. “You got into a fight with bikers because they said something you didn’t like?” That was crazy. It didn’t even make sense. “Couldn’t you have just left?”

He looked at her out of the corners of his eyes like she was the crazy one. “I’m all for freedom of speech and shit. But with that freedom comes the responsibility to know what you’re talking about. And if you’re going to accuse the military of being uneducated rapists, then I have the freedom to shut you the fuck up. No. The obligation.”

“A biker said that?” She would have thought bikers would defend military guys.

“It was Seattle,” he said as if that explained it. “Washington is filled with some crazy liberals.”

Now might not be a good time to tell him she’d voted for Obama.

He reached into the side pocket of his pants and pulled out his cell phone. “You drained my energy and I’m starving. Chee-tos aren’t going to cut it.” He ordered a pizza, then helped Sadie to her feet. “If I keep eating junk and hanging out with you instead of working, I’m gonna get fat.”

She stood in front of him and put her hand on his flat belly. “I don’t think you have to worry about it.”

“I’m out of shape.”

“Compared to who?”

He moved into the apartment and she followed him to the kitchen. “Compared to when I trained every day.” He tossed her hat from the top of a box on the kitchen counter. “My sister sent me old photos and crap when she sent me my tax information for the past five years.” He reached inside the box and pulled out a handful of photos. He tossed several onto the counter, then handed her one.

She looked at the young man with the clearly defined chest muscles and wet shorts. “Goodness.” She hadn’t thought the guy could get any more buff. She looked from his wet pecs in the photo to his face. “You look so young.”

“I was twenty. That was taken the day I passed drown proofing.”

She was afraid to ask what that meant and picked up a photo of Vince on one knee in front of a bullet-ridden wall, a machine gun by his side and decked out in full camo and black scruffy beard. In another he was clean-shaven and doing push-ups with two scuba tanks on his back. “How much do those weigh?”

He turned his head and glanced at the pictures. “About eighty pounds. I didn’t mind pushing out reps. I hated ‘get wet and sandy.’ ”

They’d already established that he loved the water but hated the sand. She reached for a different photo of the younger version of Vince with his arms around a woman and a red-haired teenage girl. He wore a white sailor suit with a black neckerchief, white hat, and a huge smile.

“That’s my mom and sister at BUD/S graduation.” She could see the resemblance to his mother somewhat. To his sister, not at all. “What exactly does BUD/S mean?”

“Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL.”

She could also see the pride in his mother’s eyes. If her daddy had a son like Vince, he would have been proud. May have even given him three pats on the back. “Was your father there?”

“No. I’m sure he had something more important to do.”

From the little bit he’d said about his father, she wasn’t surprised by his answer. But what could be more important than your son graduating from SEALs training? “Like what?”

He shook his head. “Don’t know.”

“My father didn’t attend my high school graduation.” But at least she knew what had been more important. “He was branding cattle.” She thought of the events of the day and all the Clive stories. Good and not so good. The last time she’d seen him, they’d made more of a connection than they had in years. She got a glimpse into her father that she’d never seen before, but it had no way been the big emotional connection she’d always longed for. “Your father is still alive, maybe he’ll change.”

“I don’t care.” He looked into the box and pushed stuff around. “I don’t think people change unless they really want to. No one changes just because someone else wants it. And even if he does, it’s probably too late.”

She didn’t think that was true, but who was she to argue? She’d never made true peace with her father. Not the kind of big, satisfactory Hollywood ending that would have tied things up in a nice bow for her. If he’d lived another ten years, she probably never would have gotten that from him. She looked in the box and pulled out a blue helmet with “Haven” written in white on the front and “228” on the sides. “What’s this?”

“Second phase BUD/S helmet.” He took it from her hands and set it on her head. It fell to her brows. “It matches your eyes.”

She pushed it up. “It covers my eyes.”

He took out a gold medal from a velvet box and pinned it to the T-shirt. “You look really hot in my helmet and Trident.”

“Really?” She chuckled. “How many women have you let wear your helmet?”

“That particular helmet, none.” He lowered his mouth to the side of her throat and said against her skin, “You’re the first woman to touch my Trident.”

She didn’t know if that made her special or not, but his warm mouth against her skin did special things to her insides. “I don’t have anything for you to touch.”

“You have lots of things for me to touch.” He slid his mouth to just below her ear. “Soft things. Things that feel good.”

“You’ve already touched those things.”

“I want to touch them a lot more.” She tilted her head back, and his helmet fell onto the counter. “I like touching you,” he said between kisses across her jaw. “I love going deep.”

He loved going deep, but that didn’t mean he loved her. In the past, she might have gotten that twisted around in her head to mean that this emotionally unavailable man loved her. He didn’t, and she could never let herself have any deep feeling for him.

The doorbell rang and Vince lifted his head. His brows lowered, his eyes a little glassy. “Who could that be? No one but you knows where I live.”

“Pizza guy.”

“Oh yeah.” He blinked. “I forgot.”

Together they sat in the middle of Vince’s empty living room and chowed down on double pepperoni and drank Lone Star. Sadie was surprised by how much she ate, given her own house was filled with funeral casseroles.

“I don’t think pizza is energy food. I feel like a slug now,” she said as she leaned back on her elbows and stretched out her full stomach. “If I keep hanging out with you, I’m the one who’s going to get fat.” At the moment, there was no place she’d rather be. There was, however, someplace she needed to be. “I should probably get home.”

“I should probably show you my air mattress first.” Vince washed down his last bite with Lone Star and set the bottle on the empty box.