Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT Caribbean Nights #9) - Kat Cantrell Page 0,37

the table, he raised a brow. “We can save the bed for tomorrow if you’d rather. I’m a fan of up against the wall myself, and I’m pretty sure you can get me to talk while I’m pinning you to it.”

“Charlie, please.”

The seriousness in her gaze was the only thing that kept him from blurting out something else provocative like, Save that kind of talk for later, sweetheart. Because she was asking him to, he dialed back the heat. “What are we doing then? Being just friends?”

The air quotes might have been a little sarcastic, but he truly didn’t get what she wanted from him. Without sex in the picture, what would they be doing? Lining up for more emotional evisceration? No thank you.

“I don’t know! No, not just friends. I couldn’t stop wanting your mouth on me if I tried.” She blew out a breath and met his gaze squarely, which he appreciated. “Also me being honest.”

“Yeah, I got that.” And it was sweet indeed to hear her say so. Enough that he was willing to hear her out. “So what, we’re taking it slow?”

She nodded with a smile that was a touch too relieved for his tastes. “Slow I could do. Sex complicates everything, and I need uncomplicated right now. Please say you understand.”

It was an echo of their last conversation before he’d left to go back to Coronado. Instead of promises, they’d agreed to take it slow. That hadn’t ended up so well the last time, and he was not a fan of slow in the first place, especially not when it got thrown in the blender with no sex.

But what was he supposed to do, tell her he was just kidding when he said he wanted to figure out what a new start might look like? Slow sounded like exactly what a guy with a big ugly box behind his rib cage and an inability to actually utter the term PTSD out loud should be lining up for.

The waiter brought their plates and made a big show of delivering them.

“Fine,” Charlie growled as the waiter scurried off again. “Eat your dinner and we’ll take a walk on the beach so we can talk.”

He might be on board with slow, but there was no reason he couldn’t kiss her if he felt like it. No reason he couldn’t provide some incentive designed to get her to ask him to put his mouth on her. Slow had no parameters, and when you compared the speed of tonight with how fast they’d ended up naked the first time they’d sat in this restaurant, the current pace could easily be described as glacial.

Besides, sex was the one thing they had no problems with, and he wholeheartedly disagreed with her point about the complications. If anything, sex made everything crystal clear, because that was when she opened herself up to him. He wanted to dig into her, pry open her insides, and read the answers to the questions he had.

But when a woman said wait, he obliged. Being a saint totally sucked.

“That sounds lovely.” She brightened. “Seems like the anticipation game worked for us once. It can be that good again.”

Only because the first time they’d been forced to wait due to lack of condom foresight. This was totally different because it was self-imposed and he didn’t have a clear end in sight. How would he know when it was okay to stop going slow?

They ate dinner, and Audra outlined some ideas for how Aqueous Adventures could run a couple of education programs. The only bright side was he did like to listen to her talk, especially about dolphins. There were just so many other things they could be doing with their mouths than gabbing.

He could be patient. He’d waited this long. Her secrets would keep.

Audra excused herself to run to the ladies room and stopped to freshen her lipstick. She and Charlie were about to walk on the beach, and unless she missed her guess, he’d get handsy before too long. The new layer of pink might curtail some of it.

But probably not, knowing Charlie. He’d never met a barrier he couldn’t knock down, largely owing to the big, fat mule head he had on his shoulders, no doubt.

She’d gotten him to agree to no sex. How, she had no idea, nor how long he planned to honor it. Or what she’d do to stop him when—when, not if—he backed her into a shadowed corner. Because honestly, she was pretty