But Jane…he connected with her. She made him laugh. And she turned him on like no other woman ever had, not even his ex-wife.
He thought of what she’d just asked him. What was this? Fucked if he knew.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, keeping his gaze glued to the road.
“Okay.” She paused. “This conversation is pointless, anyway. I leave in a few days, so even if we are dating, we won’t be for much longer.”
The pain gnawing at his insides was disconcerting. He’d forgotten she would be leaving on Sunday, and he wasn’t sure why the thought of her walking out of his life made his chest feel so tight.
He didn’t reply, and neither of them said much as he drove to the mini-golf course Jane had found the address for on Google maps. They’d been lying in bed, recovering from their respective orgasms when he’d brought up the idea, though he still wasn’t quite sure why he’d suggested they spend the afternoon playing mini-golf. Jane was right—this was relationship stuff. He’d agreed to a casual fling, some fun in bed, so why did he suddenly feel so eager to have fun with Jane out of bed?
He pulled into the gravel parking lot and shut the engine of his rented SUV. He and Jane got out, and she immediately plopped a pair of sunglasses on the bridge of her freckled nose. The sun shone overhead in a cloudless sky, and a warm breeze brushed across Becker’s bare arms. He slipped on his own sunglasses, aviator-style ones that Jane had teased him about, declaring they belonged in a cheesy action movie. But he liked his shades, and he ignored her giggle as he put them on. What he couldn’t ignore was the way her blue halter dress molded to her curves.
Dresses. That’s all the woman ever wore. Cute little sundresses, halter ones, the long green one made from that filmy, see-through material. It drove Becker crazy, each time she came out of the bedroom in another one of those f**k-me dresses. It drove him even crazier knowing that, half the time, she didn’t wear panties. She wore them today, though. He’d seen her sliding into a flimsy black thong before they left the cottage, and his mouth went dry, his hands tingling with the urge to reach under the hem of her dress and pry that thong off her firm ass.
“You’re thinking about sex,” Jane said, jarring him from his thoughts.
He shot her a rueful smile. “Yep.”
“Well, stop. I won’t be able to kick your ass on the course if I’m distracted.”
Becker moved closer and wrapped his arms around her slender waist. “Maybe I want to distract you. Maybe it’s part of my dastardly plan to kick your ass in golf.”
Jane stood up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips over his. She gave a mischievous grin. “In your dreams, Thomas. I’m very good at this game.”
“Crap, you weren’t kidding,” Becker said ten minutes later, after Jane had sunk her third consecutive hole-in-one.
She demurely held her putter to her side, enjoying the look of awe in his eyes. She might be the least athletic person on the planet, but she’d always been pretty damn good at mini-golf. “When I was a teenager, I dated a guy who worked on a putt-putt course,” she confessed. “We used to sneak onto the course after he finished his shift.”
“Please don’t tell me you lost your virginity on a piece of green felt in front of a fake earthquake scene.”
She shot him a solemn look. “I did.”
Becker let out a sigh. “Seriously?”
Jane grinned. “No. I lost my virginity in the backseat of a Ford pick-up, which is probably just as bad.”
They crossed a little bridge that hovered over a pretty pond with fake yellow and blue fish. The path leading to the next hole wound around a big papier maché mountain, which made no sense since the last hole had looked like a beach. Obviously this course had no discernible theme. As they headed around the bend, the sound of male voices drifted toward them. Jane couldn’t help but laugh as she listened.
“What the hell are you saying? There’s no way to know which tunnel to tap the f**king ball into,” someone said, sounding aggravated.
“Trust me, Ry, it’s the third one,” a second voice argued.
“He’s trying to sabotage you, Ry,” a third voice said. “He’s out for blood.”
Next to her, Becker seemed to stiffen. She glanced over. “What’s wrong?”
“Those voices sound way too familiar,” he said with a heavy breath.
They rounded the corner, and Jane was hit by a dose of testosterone, her eyes assaulted by the sight of four ridiculously sexy men. And then the sight of four jaws dropping in unison as she and Becker stepped into view.
“Lieutenant?” the one with sandy-blond hair said, looking surprised. “What are you doing here?”
Becker lifted his putter. “What does it look like?”
The one they’d called Ry looked utterly delighted. “See, I told you guys he has a secret life we don’t know about.” Ry’s playful blue eyes landed on Jane. He let out a soft whistle. “And it’s obviously even better than I imagined. Are you going to introduce us, Lieutenant?”
Becker made the introductions, but it was hard to focus on names when each man Becker introduced was sexier than the last. The blond one was Carson, who looked like he belonged on the cover of GQ. Will had dark, almost black, eyes and a head of messy dark hair that fell onto his forehead. Ry was Ryan Evans, who was possibly one of the cutest guys Jane had ever met, with his brown hair, blue eyes, and gleaming biceps revealed by the sleeveless basketball jersey he wore. The last one was Matt O’Connor, who boasted a shaved head and green eyes that twinkled as he reached out to shake Jane’s hand. All four men, who Becker introduced as members of his SEAL team, stared at her appreciatively. And staring at Becker as if he’d just arrived from another planet. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Becker wasn’t Mr. Social. Judging from the surprise in his team’s eyes, this was probably the first time they’d seen him somewhere other than the Navy base.