Page 68 of Cowboy SEAL Christmas

She would not be deterred. “Fine. No game. A deal.”

He unfurled from his crouched position over the fire, crossing his arms over his chest as he did so. “Fuck your de—”

“I will ask you one question,” she said firmly, and maybe that was her mom voice that usually made Colin jump to attention, but Gabe didn’t need to know that. “You have to answer said question to my satisfaction. No lies, no evasions, no half-truths.”

“This sounds like a barrel of laughs and all, but—”

“In return, you can ask me two questions. Same rules apply.”

Thathad him hesitating, which she’d count as a point.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I want to get to know you better.”

Oh, what storms raged beneath those calm, dark waters in his eyes. Under the taut way he held his body. She wanted to reach out again, but instead, she faced him. A fighter’s stance. Ready to fight for something more. What exactly, she didn’t know, but she’d fight until she did.

“Everything that’s happened in this cabin is temporary. That’s what I want, and you said the same thing. That no one would respect you if this went any further than this week.”

It felt like a slap, no matter that it shouldn’t. It was true. She’d said those things. He didn’t want more with her. She needed to accept all that. “I know what I said.”

“Then what does it matter if you understand me?”

“We have to be friends after. If we leave not having understood each other any better, there’s no hope we accept the…there’s no hopeIaccept…” God, she hated struggling for words. “There’s no hope we put this behind us. Because we’ll be in the same sniping place we were before, but we’ll know the sex is good. And every time we snipe…” She gestured at the couch.

“So this is all because you’re afraid you won’t be able to control yourself. That’s sad, Monica.” He grinned that empty, sharp grin.

She didn’t react, didn’t budge. She simply held his gaze. “I get one question. You get two. That is the deal I’m putting forth. Aren’t you curious?”

“Why would I be curious?”

She nearly wilted at that, but he was studying her too hard, as if looking for that wilt or stab of hurt or…or maybe he was looking for something else. Something that would never make sense to her.

She only stared. Maybe her eyes were a little too wide and she wasn’t as collected as she’d been, but she wouldn’t give in to him. Not this fake, mean side of him that had to be protecting all that softness inside of him.

That sharp, empty smile slowly changed, turning down at the corners as his jaw tightened. “I have a condition,” he finally ground out.

She tried not to let her elation show. “All right.”

“Two rules. One, you have to ask first. Two, we play this little game once a day, and only once, until our deal is over.”

“Christmas.”

He shrugged.

That would give her six more days of questions, although she’d be in Denver for the last two. Four days of in-person questions. Which meant she had to be careful, and she had to choose wisely. “Okay.” Okay.

“I don’t suppose you have any alcohol I could black out with first?”

Her lips curved ever so slightly. “No, I don’t keep alcohol in the cabin.”

“Figures,” he muttered. He glared all around the cabin as if it had done him some personal affront. With the quickly fading afternoon light sneaking in through the windows, bouncing off all that snow outside, he glowed close to gold.

Someone should sculpt him like that—scowling and bronzed, the picture-perfect image of an angry, vengeful god.

Except, for all Gabe’s bluster, she didn’t think he had vengeance in him. Anger, yes. Fury, absolutely. But the thirst for vengeance required a kind of belief that you could bend the world to your will.

It struck her as interesting and confusing that confident, and at times bossy, Gabe seemed quite comfortable with the fact the universe ran the show and the rest of them were just pawns.

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