A job meant close contact. Since I slept with the guy… no, we hadn’t slept. Since Iscrewedthe guy, it was a little awkward because there was no way to steer clear of him. Or explain why I wanted to be far, far away.
I didn’t want the others to know. Obviously.
Sleeping with a coworker in any kind of job probably wasn’t a good thing, but one as tight as ours, where we depended on each other with our lives… it made things tricky.
Especially since I knew I was… again, or still, another in a long line of women who had made it into Kennedy’s bed.
I wouldn’t say that he’d seduced me the other night. Far from it.
I wouldn’t say that it had been one-sided.
If it was, it was onmyside.
I literally climbed him like a tree knowing full well he was a player.
I’d told him I hated him then attacked him with my lips and my needy pussy.
What was wrong with me?
It was the feelings I got from just looking at him. His gaze bored into me, saw past my permanent tough girl act to the woman beneath. He got me to forget I had to be one of the guys in order to get ahead.
The military wasn’t too keen, even in these modern times, to have women in the ranks. Some didn’t care what sex you were as long as you did your job and did it well. Many, actually. But there were rules and other things in place that made it difficult for a woman to get ahead. An example of that was that only recently could we be fighter pilots.
I didn’t have a penis, and that had been a problem for me since birth.
My father had been thrilled that my older brothers had followed in his footsteps into the Navy. When I’d decided to enlist as well, he’d laughed. Nothing I could do would be enough because… yeah, no penis.
My mother was a stay-at-home mom. She’d had four children to raise since my dad was the breadwinner. The man. They were happy in their designated roles, but I saw from an early age that Mom got left out of the fun. The boys got to go play on the big, fancy equipment. Fly. Go in submarines. Have adventures.
I’d wanted that, too. Still did. I didn’t want to be my mom, at home. Bored. Well,shemight not have been bored, but I would be if I was her. She couldn’t have both. Be both. A mom and a pilot. A mom and a … whatever.
No. A woman like my mom got held back. So I didn’t want to be like my mom. I was anti-Mom. I did everything a guy could do except pee standing up.
So those feelings I had, that I was having now staring at Kennedy as he stared right back, meant I was in trouble. Because I wanted something from him I didn’t want from any other guy. He treated me like a woman. Held me. Lifted me without effort. Fucked me. Sucked me. Did all the things to me he did to all the other women he got into his bed.
With him, I wasn’t his co-worker. I wasn’t his pilot. I was Melissa, the woman.
That scared the shit out of me because if I let even a sliver of the idea that I wasn’t the teammate who had her own set of brass balls, then I wouldn’t be anything when he moved on to his next conquest.
Because he would. The only way I could be in his life was as Quincy. Not Melissa. Because he’d be back to the redheaded waitress’s bed by next weekend. If not hers, another woman’s.
So I needed to keep right on hating him because it was easier than being angry at myself for wanting him. Because he’d gone all Neanderthal and broken up my date with Lee, and I fucked him anyway. And it had been the best sex of my life.
“You could speak in English,” I snapped at him, even though Hayes was equally as guilty.
“Could. Just sinking into the culture.”
I glared.Sinking into the culture?“We’re not here for a study abroad program.”
Instead of answering, he winked.
I glared some more.
He stared and then grinned.
“Sorry for leaving you out,” Hayes said. “Ford doesn’t know much Spanish either, if it makes you feel better.”
Ford didn’t say anything. He never did, saving his words for when they were really needed. I doubted Hayes because SEALs had language immersion as part of their training, and Ford seemed to know everything.