Page 104 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

“That’s great news,” Alex offered, smiling and clearly not thinking it was great.

But Becca wasn’t going to dial down her enthusiasm just because these three men were afraid of a mental health professional. In fact, Monica being here was even more exciting because of that prospect. Maybe having a therapist around would…get a few balls rolling for these guys too.

Preferably Alex.

She shoved her own bite of lasagna into her mouth. Things were good, and she was going to keep believing that. So she chattered happily as they ate.

And because she had lucked into working with three really good men, they were mostly good sports about it. Definitely quiet and not excited, but they didn’t tell her to be quiet. They didn’t sigh heavily and roll their eyes. Well, mostly. She’d gotten a few heavy sighs from Gabe and one eye roll from Jack, but that was pretty good, considering.

Dish duty fell to Jack that night, so Becca, Alex, and Gabe retired to the living room. Except when Gabe tried to sit down, Alex jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Beat it.”

“What?” Gabe demanded.

“Go find something else to do, somewhere else,” Alex replied.

“You two want to have sex, you have bedrooms for that.”

Becca still couldn’t quite get through those blatant kinds of statements without blushing, no matter that it had been nearly a month. Still, it was better they treated it casually than making a big deal about it.

“Yeah, well, I want to sit on the couch, alone with my woman, and watch a movie. So get out.”

“Your woman. You’re going to put up with chauvinistic bullshit like that, Becca?”

Because she was a very simple creature, and because Alex was kind of superhot when he said my woman, Becca shrugged. “I think so.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Gabe muttered as he grumbled off upstairs.

“It’s probably not fair to evict him from the premises just because you want to watch a movie with me.”

“Probably. But he was being a dick all afternoon. Had to get back at him somehow.”

“So you don’t want to watch a movie with me?”

“I absolutely will watch a movie with you.” He stopped and turned to face her, grinning. “As long as movie is code for making out on the couch, which will lead to going upstairs.”

“Men really do just have a one-track mind, don’t they?”

“Absolutely. One hundred percent.”

“So, what are we are going to pretend to watch? Oh, I know!” Becca tried to sidestep him and move for the drawer with the DVDs, but Alex blocked her.

“No. No chick flicks.”

“What does it matter if we’re only going to make out through it?” She smiled sweetly at him, batting her eyelashes.

“Nope. Uh-uh. You’ll stop at certain parts and say, ‘oh, isn’t that romantic,’ and then I’ll have to pretend like I give a crap about a guy on his knees in the rain giving some lame-ass speech. There will be no rain-filled lame-ass speeches from me.”

Since she could see the teasing glint in his eyes, and she wasn’t particularly looking for any rain-soaked speeches, she took a step toward him. She touched her fingers to the lettering on his T-shirt.

“I thought I was your woman,” she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes. It was amazing, still, all these weeks later, the way she never felt…shy or fidgety flirting with him. It was easy. He made it easy, because she trusted him to…well, not embarrass her or make her feel silly.

He tugged her into his hard chest in that way that she had yet to get tired of.

“You are my woman. You’re not going to lecture me about all that possession crap are you?”

“No,” she replied, winding her arms around his neck. “I quite like the idea of being your woman.”

---