When he regained awareness of his surroundings, it dawned on him that he was crushing her, and that they were both breathing hard. He rolled onto his back, taking her with him. She sprawled across him bonelessly, her hair spilling across his chest in strands of gold. Lazily, he ran his fingers through its silken softness.

“Huh. You weren’t wrong about people speaking the truth under duress,” she commented.

“How’s that?” He managed to form words to reply.

“Didn’t you hear what you shouted just now?”

He frowned, reaching back through the fog of that epic orgasm to replay it in his mind. He started to chuckle. Then to laugh.

“Son of a bitch,” he chortled as his laughter finally wound down.

Quickly, he reversed their positions, propping himself up on an elbow to stare down at her. “How about we try this one more time? And this time, when neither one of us is out of our mind with fear, or exhaustion, or orgasmic pleasure?”

“You first, Mr. Caldwell.”

“My pleasure, Ms. Tate.” He gazed down at her, drinking in her tousled beauty, so much sexier and more natural than her polished pageant self, and deciding he liked her exactly like this best of all.

He smiled, letting all the joy in his heart out and said, “I told you once you didn’t have the heart of a SEAL.”

“I remember,” she murmured.

“I was twice wrong. Not only do you have the heart of a SEAL, you have the heart of this SEAL. I love you, Sherri. I’m yours. Every last scarred, beat-up, stupid-at-relationships, lousy-at-expressing-feelings bit of me.”

Her smile was nothing short of otherworldly. “I love you, too, Griffin.”

* * *

Sherri sat on deck watching the sun slip into the west, and a deep calm washed over her. This place, this moment, this man—they added up to a sense of happiness, of rightness, she doubted anything else in her life could ever top.

She consciously made a memory of this sunset. In the future, whenever she was far from home in a dangerous place, she would recall this exact moment and know that the world had good in it. Happiness.

Griffin emerged from the galley where he’d been cleaning up after grilling her the best steak she’d ever had. The man did know what a girl needed after Hell Week and a week from hell. He’d pulled on a pair of jeans slung low on his hips the way she liked them best, and his chest was bare. She would never tire of the sight of him like this, barefoot and sexy as hell.

He came to her chaise longue and reached down for her, drawing her to her feet. And then he did an odd thing. He went down on one knee before her. Washed in the crimson light of the setting sun, he looked like some sort of knight of olden times kneeling there.