“No way,” Cash said again. “Whatever you heard, there has to be an explanation for it. Carson’s not the f**king-around type.”
“You never knew him in his manwhore days,” she countered. “Fucking around was his middle name.”
“Was. He loves his wife, Jen. There’s an explanation, trust me.”
She wished she could. Wished she could feel as certain as Cash sounded.
And she really wished she could erase Holly’s miserable expression from her mind.
I knew what I signed up for.
Yep, Holly had known, but that didn’t make it any easier, did it? Loving a SEAL was no walk in the park, and Carson and Holly’s marital problems were proof of that.
Swallowing a lump of sorrow, Jen studied Cash from the corner of her eye, watching his strong hands move over the steering wheel as he pulled away from the restaurant. She’d been staying with him for five days now, they’d only been lovers for two of those days, but already she felt herself getting attached to him. She loved his heart-stopping grins and rough voice. The way he’d fallen asleep last night with one arm carelessly flung over her, as if he were trying to protect her even in her sleep. How he’d smiled at her when she’d opened her eyes this morning. And his genuine praise for her photographs earlier had made her heart soar like a damn helium balloon.
But seeing Holly’s ravaged face had reaffirmed her decision to avoid relationships with military men, which meant she needed to nip this growing attachment in the bud and remember that they were just having a fling. Some hot sex, some laughter, some fun, and in two weeks, they’d say goodbye.
Keeping his eyes on the road ahead, Cash dropped one hand off the steering wheel and rested his palm on her jeans-clad thigh, lazily stroking her over the denim. The gesture felt so natural that Jen gulped.
Two weeks.
Biting her lip, she forced herself to cling to that reminder. Two weeks. That was all the time they had left, all the time she would allow herself. No matter how much she enjoyed being with Cash, she couldn’t risk forming any emotional attachments to him.
Because there was no doubt in her mind that if she let herself, she could fall head over heels in love with Cash McCoy.
Chapter Eight
Cash had just dunked his head under the shower spray when the curtain was ripped open and Jen appeared like an apparition.
“Hurry up,” she ordered. “We’re going out.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Why don’t you join me instead?”
“We’re going out,” she repeated.
Then she disappeared, leaving a cloud of steam in her wake. Bewildered, Cash rinsed the shampoo from his hair and shut off the faucet. Water slid down his naked body and dripped onto the fluffy blue bath mat as he grabbed a towel. He quickly dried off, wrapped the towel around his waist and wiped the foggy mirror so he could see his reflection while he shaved.
Since his electric razor was busted, he was using disposables until he got around to buying a new one, but he’d run out of those too, so for the past couple of days he’d been stealing Jen’s girlie lady razors, which drove her nuts. When he opened the medicine cabinet and reached for her stash of pink razors, he found a yellow Post-it note taped to the package.
The words “NO MEANS NO” glared accusingly at him.
Grinning, he ignored the permanent-marker warning and swiped a razor. He shaved in a hurry, knowing that Jen was probably pacing the bedroom while she waited for him. Probably biting on her bottom lip the way she did whenever she was upset.
And he knew she was upset, because she’d been nibbling on that sexy lip ever since they’d come back from Del Mar yesterday. Cash had tried assuring her there was no way Carson would cheat on his wife, but Jen hadn’t seemed convinced. She’d stewed about it all night, in fact.
In all honesty, he was less upset over what was no doubt a misunderstanding with Carson and more upset about the way Jen’s parents had behaved. Jeez, those two treated her like she was a huge disappointment to them, a total failure because she’d yet to find her career path, and the admiral’s barbed remark about Jen’s “silly” pictures had seriously grated. After seeing her photographs, Cash knew there was nothing silly about them. Hell, he still couldn’t believe she wasn’t doing it professionally, and now that he’d seen firsthand how talented she was, he damn well planned on encouraging her to look into photography opportunities. Someone needed to offer some encouragement, seeing as she didn’t get any from her folks.
It bothered him that she let them undermine her confidence and make light of her skills, but when he’d asked her last night why she didn’t stand up to her family, she’d shrugged and said something about “picking her battles”.
Jen was indeed pacing when Cash entered the bedroom a couple minutes later. She fired an impatient look in his direction and said, “I picked out an outfit for you.”
He glanced at the bed—yep, she’d laid out some clothes—and raised his eyebrows. “Um. Okay.”
“To save time,” she added hastily. “I’m not making some controlling statement about your fashion sense.”
Speaking of fashion sense, he suddenly noticed what she was wearing, and his brows rose even higher. Rather than the tight-fitting jeans, cute tops and sexy shoes he’d become accustomed to, she wore black yoga pants, white Adidas and a snug hooded sweatshirt in a dark shade of blue. And a baseball cap. Nope, couldn’t overlook the baseball cap.