But in odd moments, when he caught her by surprise or when she turned suddenly and caught him by surprise, their gazes met for brief instants of naked honesty. The attraction between them was still there, still as strong as ever. It pulsed and throbbed relentlessly between them, a magnetic pull that never wavered. Never weakened. It was maddening.

But there wasn’t a damned thing they could do about it. Not with Cal Kettering watching every move they made with the predatory alertness of a hawk.

Her life settled into a weird dichotomy of desperate desire for Griffin at night and deeply despising him during the day. The only reason she didn’t lose her mind completely was that love and hate were ultimately the two sides of the same passionate coin, and one was not far from the other.

As the intensity of the training increased, Griffin was always there, right in her face, telling her she wasn’t good enough, whispering in her ear that she should just quit now and save them all the hassle. That she was arrogant and stupid for thinking she could be more than just a pretty ornament in this man’s Navy.

Problem was, she’d grown up with that crap. Her father had been a Vietnam veteran and a total SOB. Looking back as an adult, she could see how broken he’d been. PTSD didn’t have a name back then, and admitting to “combat fatigue” had been a sign of weakness. Sherri’s mother had mostly checked out of dealing with her father by tranquilizing herself into a stupor and moving through life on autopilot.

But young Sherri, desperate for Daddy’s approval, had kept trying to make him happy. Kept trying to make him proud of her. No matter how much she accomplished, though, it was never enough. Perhaps that was why she’d become such an outrageous overachiever. When one sport didn’t please Daddy, try another. When straight A’s didn’t make him proud, go for A+’s. When being pretty wasn’t enough, start winning beauty pageants.

Was that the source of her deep distrust of men, which Griffin had been at pains to point out to her? She shied away from the answer, unwilling to think about the more unpleasant aspects of her past that involved the painful education of a beautiful and naive girl.

Was she pushing for more, and yet more, out of herself because Griffin was never satisfied with her?

Why did she even really care what he thought, anyway?

Of course, she knew the answer to that. And it went beyond the fact that he kissed so well she forgot her own name or that she wanted inside his pants so bad she could hardly stand it. No matter how much he infuriated her, she secretly admired him.