Page 59 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

“You were shaking, and you didn’t—”

“Enough!” He slammed his hand against the truck door and immediately regretted the outburst when she jumped in surprise. “I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat and focused on being calm. “I am sorry.”

“I know you are.” She looked at him, concern radiating off of her in waves.

Her concern, her…whatever it all was, coiled inside of him, dark and ugly. He didn’t want anyone’s fucking concern. Most especially hers because it prompted some other thing inside of him he didn’t know what to do with. Some kind of softening. A yearning, if he had to put a name to it.

He wouldn’t.

“Let’s go back inside,” he muttered.

“No.” She put her hand on the arm he had braced against the truck and her other hand on the wrist of the arm hanging at his side. Her fingers curled around his forearm as though she could keep him in place. It would’ve taken no effort at all to walk away, but…

She was touching him. He didn’t want to walk away from that.

“Why are we really fighting?” She sounded soft, a little tired, and definitely a little drunk.

“Because you’re obnoxious,” he returned.

She gave a soft laugh, but her hands were still wrapped firmly around his arms and he was afraid to do anything. Because he didn’t know how he would react if she slid her hands up his arms. If she touched his face. If she did any of the things he was imagining her doing.

He would have to be strong. He would have to put her in her place.

He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to do it.

“I need you to treat me like an equal. I think Jack and Gabe need the same thing from you. We’re not asking you to change who you are. I know your instinct to take charge comes from a really good place. But we are all trying to figure out who we are and what we want and where we’re going. I think you need to worry a little bit more about…”

She paused and he knew what she was going to say. He could’ve put her off. He could’ve told her to be quiet. He could’ve walked away. Instead, he stood there and let her talk. Instead of walking away from her hands curled around his arms, he let her say all the things he didn’t want to hear.

“Try focusing on you instead of us. Please? For all of our sanities.”

“I’m trying.” Which was the sad part. He was trying to back off, but his brain didn’t work that way. He didn’t want to think about himself. He had his mission. That was all he wanted to focus on.

Becca leaned into him, and he was so lost in his own thoughts for a second, he didn’t think to sidestep it or stop her. Her hands slid off his arms, but they came around him. A hug. She was hugging him.

And he couldn’t…he couldn’t move or speak. Partially because she felt soft and smooth and smelled so damn good, even after the bar. But partly because it had been so long since someone had hugged him. Since he’d been offered that kind of soft touch.

He had to swallow against the tightness in his throat and stiffen against the need to draw her closer.

For the first time, he wished the feeling in his gut was merely sexual rather than…whatever this was. Pain, comfort, longing.

“You try so hard for so many people. I know we keep snapping at each other lately, but we’re trying hard too.”

She didn’t stop hugging him, but she pulled back far enough that she could tilt her head up and look at him.

If she had anything else to say, apparently meeting gazes put a stop to it. Her eyes seemed to take in everything, from his hairline, to the square cut of his jaw, to…

His mouth.

It would have been easy to kiss her. Lower his mouth to hers and sink into a sweetness he did not deserve. It would have been so damn easy, and it was so damn tempting. Especially when she moved on to her toes, that pretty, lush mouth closer than it had a right to be and…

“Don’t,” he managed to command.

She stopped on a dime, looking at him wide-eyed.

Her expression changed. The softness and surprise going hard. What was wrong with him that he liked all the different sides of her? Soft and stubborn and hard and good and sweet and honest and a little neurotic.

“Why did you send Mac away back there?” Becca demanded, her arms still around him.

---