She frowned, following him outside in the gathering dusk. The noise of crickets and frogs was deafening, and the last vestiges of color were draining from the sky into the west, leaving a vast, midnight expanse overhead. It reminded her of Griffin’s eyes, deep blue and fathomless.

“What’s up?” she asked as she fell in beside him.

“What are you really doing here?”

“We’ve been over this. I’m training to be a SEAL.” She paused, and then added dryly, “With your help, of course.”

“You do realize the men on the teams will never accept you, right? Even if you were to manage, by some miracle, to meet the physical standards.”

“Why not?” She had a good idea of how he would answer that question if he were completely honest, but she wanted to hear him say it out loud.

He shoved a hand through his dark-brown hair. It was rather longer than Navy regulation, and its soft waves begged a woman to run her fingers through them.

A whole day of looking at him hadn’t diminished the pull she felt toward him. If anything, she was more tempted than ever. He struck her as the kind of man who, if she flirted with him, would jump at an invitation into her bed. Griffin Caldwell in her bed? He’d be tanned and hard—oh my. Now there was a mental picture—

Without warning, he turned to face her, gripped her shoulders, and backed her up against the clapboard wall of the cafeteria. She stared up at him, shocked at how her breathing accelerated and excitement tore through her veins. Griffin was powerful and dangerous, completely unlike any man she’d ever spent time around.

He stared at her, his chest rising and falling every bit as fast and hard as hers. He surprised her by releasing her shoulder to push a strand of hair back from her face, and she froze, fascinated and wary of where this was headed.

“Christ,” he murmured. “I can’t get enough of looking at you.”

Her brow puckered a little. Really? This is about my looks? She sighed. Sometimes she got so sick of how hung up people were about how she looked. She’d won the genetic lottery. Folks could get over that already. She would love, just once, for a man to look at her and see her mind. Or her loyalty. Or her courage.

He muttered, “I want to understand you.”

“What is there to understand?”

“Explain to me what a girl like you wants with becoming a Special Forces operator like me.”

She chose to ignore the “girl like you” part of the question, focusing instead on what motivated her to be here. “I expect I want roughly the same thing you do. To serve my country and do something cool in the process.”

“There’s a hell of a lot more to being a SEAL than that.”