I clear my throat, pushing away the budding emotion.
“And then you, Trent, you tell me I’m beautiful and sexy and all this crazy stuff. What the heck am I supposed to think?”
“I’d never lie to you,” he snaps. “You’re beautiful. And if the fucking idiots in your high school couldn’t see that, it’s their loss. I’m relieved they didn’t. I’m relieved I get you all to myself.”
“It’s just…”
He sits up, reminding me of his gargantuan size. A look flickers in his eyes, the same look I imagine he gets before a battle. It’s intent and focused with a glimmer of deadliness beneath the surface of his gaze.
“Tell me their names. Give me a goddamn list and I’ll pay each and every one of them a visit. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you forget the way those bullies spoke to you.”
“I would,” I say, thinking about how satisfying it’d be for the football captain to come face to face with a Navy SEAL of Trent’s caliber. “But I’m afraid of what you’d do to them.”
“Yeah.” He sighs darkly. “So am I. I just hate the thought of you being disrespected. My woman doesn’t deserve that. And, shit, it’s more than that. You don’t deserve it, even if you weren’t my woman… which you are, and always will be.”
He smirks, endearing and handsome and strong.
“I guess I’m not making much sense, eh, Snapshot?”
“I know what you mean,” I assure him. “You think women don’t deserve to be talked to like that, even if they don’t belong to a man.”
“Yeah.” His smirk widens and a hungry look glimmers in his eyes. “But it does make me way, way fucking angrier because you do belong to me. Everything about you is mine. The thought of somebody disrespecting you, goddamn, it almost makes me forget the discipline they taught me in the teams.”
“The SEALs,” he says.
“Is it true you’re called frogmen too?”
He chuckles and his expression turns to longing, as though a thousand memories are attached to the word, flooding him with warmth. “Yeah. Sometimes. We’re specialists in the water.”
“Maybe that’s your nickname, huh? Frogman?”
I say it with a teasing note, but he stares solidly at me, with that expression that is focused on me and me alone.
I shift in my chair, my body going hot and needy, my core pulsing and my clit tingling as it urges me to give into my overwhelming desire.
“Call me any damn thing you want,” he growls. “As long as you keep looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re counting down the seconds until I fuck you. Counting down until I take you hard, and raw, and pound your virgin slit until you’re overflowing with my seed.”
I gasp and shift in my seat again, my body sending me a thousand signals, all of them directed at my man.
My hands tremble as I pick up the menu, which I dropped during our conversation.
“Maybe we should order first,” I say, with a great effort.
“You’re probably right,” he says. “We’re going to need our energy for later.”
His words hang in the air and he looks at me, waiting for me to tell him no, waiting for me to tell him I’m not ready tonight. But I don’t know if I want to tell him that.
Even if it’s true – even if nerves still sizzle and twist inside of me at the thought of disappointing him – I can’t ignore the promise of pleasure in his every word, his every gesture, his every breath.
He turns to the menu, his lips twitching.
He knows.
And he can’t wait.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Trent
“Oh my God.”
My woman giggles as the forest is set ablaze with the sound of a drone, whirring as it carefully moves lower and lower toward the wooden platform. I chuckle as I stand with my hands raised, ready to take the cardboard box that is tied to its underside.
“Did you think I was joking?”
“I don’t know,” she says, her face alight with her excitement, lust, and beauty. “How did you arrange this?”
“It wasn’t so hard,” I tell her. “And I’ve got a hell of a lot of motivation.”
She looks at me questioningly and I chuckle.
“You, Snapshot, you’re my motivation.”
She averts her gaze, becoming shy again. It’s so captivating to read the battle of nerves and indecision that wars across her expression every second, her confidence sparring with her sassiness, her feistiness trying to beat down her shyness.
I take the box and unhook it from the drone, and then it flies away, whirring through the forest until it’s barely an echo, and then it’s gone.
I place it on the edge of the table and open it up, handing her a container and placing my own on my plate. I place two sealed plastic bottles that contain our drinks beside them and put the box at the edge of the table.
“Let me,” Tessa says when I make to pour her drink from the bottle into her glass.
I smirk as I drop into my seat. “I’m not going to say no to that. Stand up while you do it. I need to see how you look in that dress when you can’t hide behind the table.”
She swallows, her throat shifting around, and then she stands up and walks around the edge of the table.
I stare, enthralled, at the sight of the golden dress draped over her body. The fabric is the kind that settles atop the shape of her body, outlining her every curve, teasing me with what’s underneath.
My mind automatically strips away the fabric – it’s impossible not to when it’s so suggestive and tantalizing – and I have to grip the table to stop myself from touching her.
Not that I don’t want to touch her.
But I want to have dinner first, to treat her right before I show her what it really means to belong to a man.
She pours the drinks, casting me looks under her eyelashes, her face blooming red.
“What?” I smirk.
“The way you’re looking
