One Week with the Marine (Love on Location)

It was so annoying.

Not that it ever stopped her from rolling over and spying on him while feigning slumber. It was peaceful, almost, watching his cool, collected discipline.

She adjusted on the mattress. He was exactly the same in sleep. So calm.

Every day she’d been determined to break his carefully manicured restraint. She’d pushed even her own limits on acceptability, and somehow, he’d never batted an eye. Even when she’d taken him to the old folks’ home for a photo shoot and offered to hold a wheelchair race in the parking lot, he’d only laughed and done his now-signature move—smiling and shaking his head as if to say “oh, that crazy kid.”

It was maddening.

And the incredible sex had only made things worse. She’d tried her best to create distance. She’d tried crazy stuff. The kinds of positions that people have to act out with puppets just to understand the positioning. But nothing worked.

Every time they were together, the sex had been electric. More than that, it was intimate. Tender. It hadn’t been sex at all—they’d made love, just as they had the night she’d first broken her resolve and allowed them to share a bed.

And that thought alone was enough to send shivers up her spine.

Unable to contain herself within her own skin, she eased from the bed. She paced the floor of her room, kicking all her stray high heels into one solid pile and using an errant tank top to wipe down every surface in the room.

Why did she keep doing that—cleaning like this? It was like the spirit of Martha Stewart was possessing her.

With a sigh, she checked her phone. No emails.

Dammit.

The day before, she’d submitted her work to the gallery in town. It was a small place, and not quite as swanky as someplace in New York, but it was definitely a start.

She and Holden had passed the place while they’d been walking in town, and he’d pointed in the window at the overly stylized photos on display. “You ought to submit your work here. They’d be lucky to have you.”

She’d played it off, pretending his words hadn’t spread a warm thrill through her stomach, but that night when he was asleep, she’d sent everything she had.

Which was fine, because she’d probably never hear back from them.

Swallowing hard, she clicked out of her email and checked her texts instead.

Two messages—both from Myla.

No doubt she was bursting with reasons to bother Avery about her relationship with Holden—questions about how the trip was going, about where the relationship was going. They did this every time he was in town, and this time was sure to be no different.

Then, she’d be left deflecting as she always did until he went back to Maryland and the subject faded into obscurity again. Maybe it was just her imagination, but it was beginning to feel like every time the questions got harder and harder to answer. Like, at first, they’d begun out of interest, then curiosity, and now…it could all just be in her mind, but Myla was beginning to seem genuinely worried about this arrangement. As if she was afraid someone would get hurt.

Deep down in her heart, Avery knew which of them it was going to be. After all, she didn’t have the resilience of a soldier. She didn’t have a supportive family to go back to. She didn’t have some fancy ten-year plan. All she had was Myla, who was distracted. And Holden.

Without him…

She shook her head, refusing for the umpteenth time to think about that. No, now she was going to answer her texts before Myla lost her mind and called her. She slid her finger across the screen and glanced at the message.

How’s the diary going? Do you think you’re feeling more mindful?

She wrinkled her nose, and her thumb hovered above the screen as she considered what to say. The day she referred to her own actions and thoughts as “mindful” was the day she permanently turned in her “Badass” card. And she was definitely not willing to head down that path. Still, she wanted Myla to know she was keeping her word, so she said the first thing that came to mind.

I’m suddenly a lot more mindful of how terrible my handwriting is.

The next message was much simpler to answer. It was only an invitation—she wanted to have them for lunch in a few days. Nothing too serious, just a casual meet-up to say hello to Holden.

/> Avery frowned. She caught a whiff of treachery, but nonetheless she sent her friend a message letting them know she’d try to make it—so long as Myla hadn’t prepared any speeches about the sanctity of a committed relationship.

Biting her lip, Avery’s eyes lit on the numbers of her digital alarm clock. 5:56 a.m. Four minutes until Holden would spring out of bed, his internal alarm clock making him seem like some kind of cyborg. Quickly, she slid herself back beneath the covers, looking at his prone face as he slept. His tanned, muscular arm was stretched across the empty space, snuggling the empty mattress where she normally laid.

Lifting his bicep, she settled against his chest, feeling the warmth of his long, deep breaths.