Chapter Twenty

- MASON -

I hate that I needed to set my alarm this morning.

This is likely the last night I’ll spend with Freya—or at least sharing a bed with her. I want to savor the feel of her in my arms for every instant that I can.

And, even though I set my alarm for oh-five-hundred so that I’d have time to grab coffee before I go meet the movers at oh-six, I find I don’t need it. I haven’t slept one iota last night, instead spending the hours watching Freya as she sleeps.

It’s like a torture, lying here, laying out all my options and seeing that I really have no logical ones.

I can’t tell her how I feel about her now, not with me moving.

If we’d had longer together, maybe I’d do that. No, I’d definitely do that. But we’ve only had two nights like this. That’s not long enough to ask some girl to go through the hell of life with a SEAL. I love her too much to think of her up here in Annapolis, wringing her hands and worrying while I’m on my next mission. She’s so young—twenty-three seems practically illegal to a guy who’s twenty-eight and spent the past two years thinking of her as some kind of pseudo-little-sister.

Christ almighty. How could I have done this to her?

No. Twenty-three should be partying with her friends (though she’s never been much of a party girl) and playing the field while she figures out what she wants from life. Dating guys like Harris, who, though I want to kick him in the nuts right now, is actually an okay guy compared to those titwads she’s dated while I’ve known her.

She should date more. She should laugh more. She should have all the fun that I had when I was twenty-three, not sit around waiting for me until some mission finally proves to be too much and I come home to her in pieces. Metaphorically in pieces, I’m hoping.

 And me? I should stick with women who are looking for a few dinners out, predictably fantastic sex, and no obligations.

My dick just shrank three inches at the thought.

I lean over to turn off the alarm on my iPhone before it sounds. No need to wake her before I go. It’s the crack of ass and she looks too beautiful, with her eyelids fluttering as though she’s immersed in a stunning dream, one filled with beautiful coastlines, maybe those rocky ones she wants to see in Iceland.

I will take her there one day. No matter how our relationship ends up. Even if we suffer a few bumps in the road after our friendship took a two-day detour, I know we’ll get back to that place where we were before. The bond between us is too strong for it to die.

I tug on my shorts silently. Being a SEAL, I can move pretty stealthily when I want to. But when I zip my shorts, I see her eyes flicker open.

“You’re leaving?”

I sit on the bed beside her. “I didn’t want to wake you. I have to open my door for the movers.”

The frown on her face gives me some hope that last night was as unforgettable for her as it was for me.

“You’re really moving.” She sighs, pushing herself upward so that she can rest her back on her headboard. It looks uncomfortable, so I pull her forward slightly and crush an extra pillow behind her back. My fingers graze against the headboard’s spindles remembering that crazy afternoon only a few days ago. Yet it seems like a lifetime.

“Promise me you won’t let anyone else tie you to this headboard.” I kick myself for saying it. I don’t want her to think she can’t date anyone else, although I sure as hell wouldn’t mind if she didn’t.

It’s only that most guys who want to tie a girl up aren’t looking for the kind of syrupy sweet lovemaking a woman like Freya deserves. And the idea of someone just using Freya for their own pleasure makes me want to punch a hole in her drywall and leave a note for the next guy who comes in this bedroom that reads, “This wall will be your face if you hurt her, asshole.”

“I promise,” she answers. “So, we’re still best friends, right?”

“Of course,” I say so automatically it’s like a sneeze. “You don’t regret these past two days, do you?” The thought of that kills me.

“How could I regret sex that good?” she replies with a mischievous grin. “You’re sure you don’t need any help with the movers? I don’t have to be at the bookstore until nine.”

“Nah. I’ll probably be on my way south by then. Lord knows I don’t have much for them to load into the truck.” My tone is filled with remorse suddenly, thinking of my stacks of boxes. I’m a bachelor. If I dropped a match to everything I own, I wouldn’t even flinch. I don’t have photographs of kids taking their first steps or marching off to kindergarten for the first time. I don’t have boxes filled with champagne glasses etched with the date of my wedding, or the garter I pulled off my wife before tossing it to the crowd. I don’t have big, bulky furniture with excess pillows and slipcovers that I was forced to buy at Pottery Barn to replace my crappy bachelor sofa that I picked up on Craigslist for a song.

People say that you shouldn’t have things to give you self-worth. And I guess they mean things that drive you into credit card debt or have you paying off your car until you’re graying around the temples.

But right now, with nothing of sentimental value stashed away in my stacks of boxes, I’m feeling something lacking.

I glance toward her nightstand to a collection of tiny frames. There’s a photo of a much younger Freya and her grandma, both half covered in flour, rolling out some dough. There’s one of her high school graduation surrounded by a group of friends she only keeps in touch with on Facebook now, she says. And there’s one of her and me taking a selfie at the spot on the Navy grounds by Greenbury Point where she’d pictured her SEAL shifter headquarters.

I think, when I remember Freya, I’ll always picture her there, sitting on a rock and sinking her feet into the Severn.

“Can I have this?” I ask. It’s a pretty ballsy thing to ask, I know. I don’t normally help myself to women’s stuff, but I feel this overwhelming need to have something of hers to put in my place in Little Creek. “I’ll get you a new one. I just—” My voice fails me. My words fail me.

But she saves me, not letting the silence rest between us. “Sure. I’ve got the photo still on my phone, anyway.”

“Thanks.”

“Just don’t let any of your conquests see it. I don’t need a bunch of women showing up at my door, telling me to lay off their man.” Her tone is light as she grins. “And now that I know how good in the sack you are, I can kind of understand why they’d do it.”

And just like that, our friendship is back to normal.

Or at least on her end it is.