“He was that angry that his friend was gay?” Carter’s forehead crinkled in concern.
I smiled at him and reached out a finger to smooth the crinkles. “No, he was that angry Dwight had never trusted him with the truth. I mostly know the story because I heard Grandma tell my mom about denying Grandpa marital rights for two weeks because of it. I had to ask my mom what marital rights were. I thought it was something like maritime law.”
Carter’s bark of laughter filled the room before he slapped a palm over his mouth. “Oh my God. Leave it to a little wannabe Marine to think that.”
“Needless to say,” I muttered, “I didn’t appreciate being corrected. I was horrified.”
“And so you chose to be gay to get out of having to participate in those pesky rights,” he teased, running a hand down my chest to my stomach.
I grabbed his wrist before he got any further. It wasn’t because I didn’t want more action with him. I definitely did. My need for him only seemed to grow. But he was exhausted. And I wanted him to fall asleep while he was happy and relaxed.
“Exactly,” I said. “I vowed right then and there to do whatever it took to avoid marital rights. And that’s how I became gay.”
We shared another laugh over it until I realized his finger was drawing a lazy loop on my chest. I ran my hand up his arm to the back of his head and leaned in for a soft kiss of his lips. Go to sleep,” I said, planning on holding him only for a few more minutes until I knew he was out.
But his body felt so good in mine as it relaxed into sleep. And the air was cool and fresh. And the day had been long and stressful.
I finally allowed myself to drift off with the promise I’d wake myself in a few hours to strategize.
Being in bed with Carter Rogers was too tempting. So I slept.
10
Carter
You know that part of the animated Snow White where she wakes up and slowly stretches, smiling happily at the thought of another beautiful day?
Yeah, waking up with William “Badass” Riggs was nothing like that.
“Holy fuck!” the man said, sitting bolt upright in bed.
Since I’d been curled up on his pec, half on top of him, this meant I sat up too.
“Wassit?” I demanded, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with one hand while reaching for my phone with the other, ready to respond to the callout from the hospital.
Except there wasn’t a callout. And there wasn’t any phone.
“What the fuck fucking time is it?” Riggs demanded eloquently, throwing open the door to the empty living room. He grabbed his underwear and pants and dragged both on. “Have they been in here? Have they seen us together?”
“They” I assumed meant Skinny, Glasses, Beardy, or any of Gustavo’s other dwarves.
“Um.” I scrubbed a hand through my hair, which I was pretty sure had dried in a super-stylish chicken-comb style. “I’m a light sleeper, so I don’t believe so. Fairly sure I’d have heard them.”
Riggs gave me a withering look. “I’m usually a light sleeper. And I’m always up by dawn.”
He said this accusingly, like he held me personally responsible for having a magic tongue that made him orgasm so hard he’d slept past dawn and missed his sunrise calisthenics.
I guessed this meant there’d be no morning-after repeaty action. Moment of silence for my morning wood’s hopes and dreams.
“This is why people don’t fuck around on missions,” Riggs continued. “It leads to distraction, and we cannot afford distraction.” I could have sworn he mumbled something about regretting telling me things, but I chose to ignore him.
I bristled. “Which is what I said last night, and you were all, ‘Oh, but we’re humans, Carter. Let’s fuck around some more in the shower!’”
Riggs’s nostrils flared. “So we agree that this won’t happen again. Back to business.”
“Obviously it won’t happen again,” I scoffed. Then ego demanded that I tack on, “Even if you maul me like you did yesterday.”
Riggs snorted. “Maul? Please.”
“Even if you sink to your knees in front of me and tear off my pants again.”
“God.” He folded his beefy arms over his extra-beefy chest. “You make it sound like—”
“Even if you’re all, ‘I vow to you, Carter, that you’re not just a job to me! I so ardently wish to touch your penis with my tonsils!’ I’m gonna say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks, Riggs, ’cause I’m on a mission. And I’m all about the fucking job.’”
I tossed off the blanket, stalked past Riggs to the living room to get my clothes, then stalked past him again on my way to the bathroom to shower because my hair was seriously out of control.
Riggs, because he was Riggs, interpreted the closed bathroom door as an invitation to follow me.