Second Chance SEAL: A Bad Boy Military Romance by B. B. Hamel Page B

gestured at the place. “Go ahead and get settled.” He turned back to the kitchen and I sat down at the table.
    “Not much to settle,” I said.
    “Good point.” He started fussing with the stove and eventually got it lit. He opened a can of soup and poured it into a pot, stirring as it heated.
    We sat there in silence for a few minutes while he stirred. I could tell he was thinking about something, but I didn’t know how to bring it up and pull it out of him. Gates wasn’t exactly the forthcoming type, and I suspected that he didn’t respond well when someone pressed him too hard.
    I was beginning to feel like I had a picture of Gates, even if it was in broad strokes. It was a sketch of him, but it was something. He was loyal as hell and serious, but he was also funny and cocky. He had a grin that drove me insane, but he had the attitude and the abilities to back it up. He held something deep inside of him, something that he wasn’t going to share with me anytime soon. But it only made me want him more, despite our insane situation.
    He finished heating up the canned soup and placed a bowl in front of me, along with a spoon. He got us two glasses of water and sat down across from me.
    “You’re not eating?”
    “Not hungry,” he said.
    “Come on. Eat something.”
    He shook his head. “Had too much coffee. I’m going to crash soon.”
    I took a bite of soup. It was plain and boring but exactly what I needed in that moment. I began to slowly eat.
    “I think I owe you an apology,” Gates said after a minute or two.
    “You definitely don’t.”
    “I do.”
    “Whatever you think you did, we’re more than even,” I said, laughing.
    “I never responded to your letters.”
    I stopped eating and stared at him for a second, the painful memories of those ignored letters rushing back to me. I looked away from him and out the kitchen window.
    “I didn’t think you got them.”
    “I did,” he said. “You can’t imagine how they made me feel.”
    “Why did you ignore me, then?”
    He was quiet for a moment. “I was in another country, surrounded by violence and danger. I didn’t think I was going to make it back home.”
    “So what? You knew that going in.”
    “It’s one thing to know it, but it’s another thing to see it. When I got your letters, I realized that I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t string you along.”
    “Bullshit. You could have told me that.”
    “It’s the truth. I couldn’t respond because I didn’t think I was strong enough to. But those letters got me through some serious shit for a while there.”
    I chewed on my lip, unsure about how to feel. On the one hand, the pain of him ignoring me lanced through my chest and made me want to curl up into a ball and cry. I had a feeling he was just a one-night stand, but to have him completely ignore me just plain destroyed me. I got over it, of course, but at the time it was very, very painful.
    On the other, I understood what he was saying. He was in a war zone and he couldn’t allow himself to get involved with someone back home. Maybe it was for my sake or maybe it was for his own, but he had to do what he needed to survive. I couldn’t fault him for that.
    “It’s okay,” I said. “It doesn’t matter now.”
    “It does matter. I wanted to respond to you.” He reached out and took my hand suddenly. “I wanted to tell you exactly how I felt so many times, but I never had the chance.”
    “How did you feel?” I asked softly.
    He stood up and came around the table. He knelt down in front of me and put one hand on my cheek, eyes staring deep into mine.
    For a second, I thought he was going to say something. I thought he was going to confess some deep, inner secret to me. I could practically see it there, boiling under the surface.
    Instead, he pressed his lips against mine and kissed me.
    That was better than a secret. I’d take a kiss over a secret any freaking day, especially a kiss from Gates.
    His mouth worked