Ride the Tide (Deep Six #3) - Julie Ann Walker Page 0,4
I know you get your wick dipped every time we come to town. You’re just secretive about it. Why is that?” Wolf leaned back to study him. “Worried we’ll scare off your potential bed partners by tellin’ them about your itty-bitty baby penis?”
Something to understand about Navy SEALs—or retired Navy SEALs as was their case—was that their job forced them to make really big, really adult decisions on a daily basis. When it came to their humor, as an escape from all those really big, really adult decisions, they tended to harken back to their middle school years. The size of another man’s dick being a favorite butt of their jokes.
“See,” Mason said with a laconic shrug, happy to be off the topic of Alex, “I might be offended, but I know that you know that’s just not true. You’ve seen it.”
Wolf faked a shudder. “Don’t remind me. Ugliest damn thing ever housed behind a zipper.”
Mason smirked. “Like most things, they’re cute when they’re small. But when they’re big? I mean really big?”
Wolf laughed and clapped him on the back.
After a while, Mason added, “And it’s not every time we come to Key West. Besides, what I have with Donna is different from what Alex is proposing I have with her.”
Alex…
Damn. And just like that, they were back on his least favorite subject.
“Donna, huh? That’s her name?” Wolf chewed thoughtfully on his cocktail straw. “Okie dokie, so I’ll bite. Why is what you have with the mysterious Donna different from what you could have with Alex?”
“’Cause Donna’s fine with what I’m offering—a mutual scratching of itches when I’m here, and radio silence when I’m not. She’s not after anything permanent.”
A line appeared between Wolf’s eyebrows. “What makes you think Alex is?”
The look Mason sent Wolf broadcast just how silly he thought the question was. “She’s twenty-seven years old and still a virgin.”
Virgin… Saying the word aloud made it resonate within his skull like the booms heard around Boston Common when the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts held their annual change of command ceremony and set off simulated cannon shots. He found himself shaking his head for the hundredth time because… How the fuck is it possible to be a twenty-seven-year-old virgin in today’s day and age?
The bartender set a sweating glass of vodka and Bloody Mary mix in front of Wolf. The cocktail perfumed the air with the scent of hot sauce and celery salt. And it came with so many garnishes, Mason decided Wolf could skip the breakfast buffet.
“Alex isn’t still a virgin by choice,” Wolf said easily, as if they were talking about the woman’s penchant for smearing her cute-as-a-button nose with zinc oxide instead of the intact state of her hymen. “She was a late bloomer. Then she was nose-deep in her studies in college and not payin’ the datin’ scene much mind. By the time she looked up from postgraduate school, she was closin’ in on the end of her third decade and no man wanted to take her on because, like you, they all thought a twenty-seven-year-old virgin was on the hunt for a white dress and a big, sparkly diamond.”
It took every ounce of self-control Mason possessed to keep his jaw from unhinging. “How the fuck you know all that?”
“She told me.” Wolf pulled a strip of bacon from his drink. That was all it took to awaken Meat from his dead sleep. With a grunt, the house walrus jumped into a seated position, deep-brown eyes laser-focused on the salted pork.
“Why’d she go and do that?” Mason managed to grit from between his teeth. His jaw had no chance of unhinging now. The muscles had locked down tight. In fact, everything inside him had locked down. Well, except for his blood pressure. That had skyrocketed. “She proposition you too?”
He shouldn’t care if Alex offered up her virginity to Wolf. After all, Wolf was a good man. The best. The kind that would be gentle and tender and considerate.
And yet…Mason did care.
He cared very much.
“So what if she did?” Wolf eyed him closely.
Mason couldn’t answer. He couldn’t blink. As the moment dragged on, he began to wonder if he could breathe. A weird buzz sounded in his ears, and his vision went white-hot and crackled around the edges.
Eventually Wolf laughed and shook his head. “Relax, asshole. She didn’t proposition me. The woman just isn’t one to keep what’s in her head from spillin’ out of her mouth.”