“You give good dates,” she said softy.
He settled her on the sand on a blanket and popped the top on the basket. He’d brought champagne, which scored him immediate bonus points on her dating scorecard. He also had cold chicken, rolls, a chilled crème brûlée and strawberries. There were advantages to dating a chef.
She spooned up the last bit of her dessert. It was every bit as good as it had looked, and she must have made a noise.
Mason nudged her shoulder with his own. “Happy noise?”
“You bet.” She eyed the remnants of their picnic ruefully. “You have to know you’re an amazing cook.”
“Practice,” he said humbly.
“Where have you cooked?”
“Lots of places.” He stared out at the ocean, and she’d bet he wasn’t seeing the waves. “Do you cook?”
The last time she’d baked something from scratch had been...never. “I’m more of a cake-mix gal, although I do make a mean cake-tini.”
In fact, a cake-tini was her all-time favorite drink. Who didn’t like pineapple vodka and whipped cream?
He shuddered. “Cake mix doesn’t count.”
“Hey. If I want cake, I make cake. Duncan Hines and I are best friends.”
“Tell me what you want,” he said, watching her now and not the ocean. “And I’ll get it for you.”
“Cake?”
“That, too,” he answered.
* * *
MASON WASN’T ROMANTIC. In fact, he was a resounding hell no in that particular department. He’d fought battles in all four corners of the world. He knew a dozen ways to kill a man with his bare hands. He’d spent two weeks in a foxhole, drinking his own piss when the water ran out because that was what it took to get the job done and bring his team home. Dating Maddie to someone else’s script sucked.
Worse, it seemed to be working. Her eyes glowed as she grinned at him from the other side of their picnic blanket. She appeared to be enjoying herself, which made him want to smile himself. Instead, he filled her plastic champagne flute.
“It is Fantasy Island.” Her mouth curved up in the prettiest smile. “You going to tell me a fantasy?”
Good thing he wasn’t a drinking man, because that request made him choke.
“What do you know about fantasies?” Gray had explained the resort’s kinky cocktail menu to the team, but Mason hadn’t been entirely sure if he believed the team leader. Was that how Gray and Laney had gotten together in the first place? Did hotel guests really use drink names as code for the sexual fantasies they wanted to act out? It seemed simpler just to ask outright, but people got uptight about what they liked, or thought other people would judge them. Frankly, he was too old to surprise. He’d also spent plenty of time propping up the wall in various bars around the world while he waited for his fellow SEALs to wrap up a night of drinking, and the drinks lists were fairly predictable. Blowjobs, cherries and virgins. He got why that appealed to a bar full of men, but why would Maddie be interested?
She sighed and knocked back half of her champagne.
“You need to loosen up,” she informed him. “When’s the last time you had fun?”
“I’m having fun right now,” he pointed out.
“Oh.” She blinked and held her glass out. “That’s all right, then.”
He knew how to have fun. True, he didn’t do it like Levi, but he’d had plenty of good times. He topped off her glass, although he suspected she needed to go a little easier on the champagne. She snuggled into his side and he wrapped his arm around her, tugging her closer.
“Would you order off the drinks menu?”
He thought about that for a minute. “I’m not much of a drinker,” he admitted. “Maybe I could play bartender in this fantasy of yours.”
She stabbed him in the chest with a finger. “Not the alcohol menu. The sex menu.”
He should check the alcohol content on that champagne. “You know about that?”
She shrugged. “Everyone knows about it. I’d heard rumors before I landed. You can’t keep a thing like that secret. Point and pick.”
“Is that what you’re planning to do?” he asked hoarsely.
She set her glass in the stand, where it promptly fell over. “It doesn’t seem like my kind of thing,” she admitted. “It seems awkward. And what if the person you’re ordering with likes something different? Or didn’t realize you’d be asking?”