One Week with the Marine (Love on Location)

“What happened?” Holden asked, pulling up alongside her, his brows knitted in concern.

“I stepped on something,” she said slowly, lifting her foot and peering down at the injured extremity. A large piece of sea glass jutted from her heel, and she groaned as blood welled around it.

He leaned close, steadying her by the arm as he examined the injury. “It’s pretty deep,” he muttered, straightening. “You don’t want to be walking on it and getting dirt in the cut. Let’s get you back to the apartment, and then we’ll remove the glass and clean it up.”

He didn’t bother waiting for her response. One second she was standing on one foot, and the next, he’d swung her into his arms and was effortlessly cutting a path across the beach. Like the sexy, amazing, hero soldier he was.

She blinked back her tears and stared miserably in front of her. It wasn’t like she didn’t have her reasons for trying to keep him at a distance. Whatever was going on in her heart, she needed to sort it out before she ruined their arrangement forever. Before she ruined their friendship. It was just that her reasons seemed less and less rational the more time they spent together. But maybe that was just her way of fooling herself into thinking things would be okay if she let go.

She listened to the even, steady beating of his heart as he carried her, resisting the urge to bury her head into his shoulder and give in. Let it all go and just let her body and heart do what they wanted and melt into Holden Morris.

“We have to bandage this up good so you don’t bleed all over me tonight,” he murmured.

She stiffened, ignoring the sublime feel of his chest rubbing against her breasts with every step. There was no way he could sleep over tonight. Not when she was feeling this vulnerable. She had to throw up one last shield if she stood any shot of withstanding this onslaught.

“Yeah, um, about that. I’ve been having night terrors.” She kept her eyes glued to the horizon so he couldn’t see the lie in them. “So, I thrash around a lot. I’m basically a danger to myself and others. In fact, I gave Fred a black eye not three weeks ago. He still hasn’t forgiven me.”

He craned his neck to stare down at her, his dark eyes as solemn as a preacher’s. “Is that so?”

“Yup.” She swallowed so hard, she thanked the gods for the whipping wind that sucked the sound away. “And I’ve also started snoring. Loudly. Even Rodrigo won’t sleep with me.”

“If there’s one thing I learned how to do in the Marines, it’s catch some z’s when and where I can. It won’t be a problem. Unless it’s a problem for you?”

What could she possibly say when he’d been nothing but amazing to her? She had no good reason to keep him from her bed besides the truth.

That she was terrified of falling in love with him and losing herself in the process.

And that wouldn’t do at all.

She forced a smile and shook her head. “Nope. Fine with me.”

She would let him carry her the rest of the way home, and then sit there while he lovingly tended to her cut with the same care and meticulousness that he did everything. Then she’d lie next to him and pretend that sleeping with Holden was the same as sleeping with Myla. And she’d just have to say a prayer that, in the morning, she’d wake up with her heart intact.

Fat chance.

His steps slowed as they reached her apartment, and she cursed her clumsy feet. But even as she had the thought, the deepest part of her slapped back with a most uncomfortable truth. It wouldn’t have mattered, really. Because something told her, no matter how far she ran, no matter how fast she went, Holden would be there waiting when she got to the finish line.

And that scared the shit out of her.

FROM THE DIARY OF AVERY FORRESTER

He has a ten-year plan?

I mean, I guess everyone does in a way—though mine can be summed up in some choice grunge-rock lyrics.

Seriously, though, what am I supposed to do with that? Within the next ten years, he wants to get married and have kids.

Which means what for me?

Does he want me to be his military wife? Or was this effectively my pink slip—official notice that he was beginning the search for someone who could actually get along with his family and raise kids.

I can barely maintain Rodrigo and myself, let alone a husband and children. If Rodrigo didn’t throw so much shade at me, I probably wouldn’t even know how to take care of him. It’s just not what I do.

I’m a fricking human cannonball. I’m loud and abrasive, and even if I did have kids, what kind of life would they have with me? What kind of habits would I teach them?

They’d be screwups, college dropouts who’d run all the way across the country because they wouldn’t be able to take it at home.

They’d be people who wouldn’t know how to show emotion unless it was happening to someone else.