“Huh. Have you seen the divorce rate? Or heard the arguments? Don’t kid yourself. It’s hell being married to one of us.”

“Why’s that?”

“We come out of the field wired too damned tight for the civilian world, we expect our families to follow orders like our men, and I’m told we’re shut down emotionally.”

“You don’t seem shut down to me.”

“You’re seeing me in my native environment. Apparently, in the civilian world, men like me tend not to engage emotionally with others.”

She lifted one foot and placed it flat against the tree trunk behind her. “So, if I saw you in, say, a restaurant or a bar, I’d think you were a gigantic jerk?”

“Oh, no. You’d think I was handsome and suave and sophisticated. You’d want to go home with me, get me naked, and take me to bed.”

Sherri’s laugh was music across his skin. No matter what else she might be, she was attracted to him like a moth to a goddamned flame.

He leaned in closer, planting his right hand on the rough tree bark beside her head. She shocked him by settling her hands on his waist, and he stopped breathing. Literally.

“We shouldn’t do this,” she said. “It’s against the rules.”

He exhaled. “SEALs live to break rules.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Danger is our middle name.”

“But—”

He closed the remaining distance between them, pausing only long enough to whisper, “SEALs don’t get caught. It’s what we’re trained to do.”

He felt her hesitation as her breath feathered lightly across his lips.

“Do you have the daring to be a SEAL, Sherri?”

His dare hung between them, in that inch-wide gap between their mouths. Would she seize the moment or not? They both knew she wanted to kiss him again.

Without warning, she surged forward, pushing off the tree and flinging her arms around his neck. Her mouth closed on his, and suddenly they were kissing wildly. They went from zero to sixty in way under a second.

His arms wrapped around her, dragging her higher against him, fitting their bodies together. She kissed him with all of herself, moving sinuously against him, her belly rubbing his, her pelvis pressing deliciously against the hard bulge behind his zipper. Great ghosts almighty, he wanted this woman bad.

The scent of her filled his head until he was drunk with it. He plunged his tongue into her mouth, trying to capture the taste of her. Her tongue spiraled sexily around his, and his knees damn near buckled out from underneath him.

“You’re so effing hot,” he ground out.

“Have you looked in the mirror?” she panted back.