Page 2 of Burning for Him

Doug didn’t follow the man and his dog. He wasn’t in the mood to be teased by, hopefully, the only person who’d figured out his attraction to Jenn. Tuff made subtle comments about Jenn to him on a few rare occasions, but Doug never took the bait. Her godfather would throw him out of the company’s helicopter at five thousand feet above the Earth if he suspected anything. Since Doug was still alive and employed, he’d obviously done a good job of hiding his feelings. Too bad he couldn’t get rid of said feelings altogether. He tried dating other women over the past several years, but none had sparked more than a passing interest from him. After a few dates and a roll in the sack a time or two, he was ready to move on. But when alone in his bed or the shower, and the need for release overtook him, it was Jenn his mind always conjured up to send him over the edge. Then the guilt and shame kicked in, and he felt miserable afterward.

He glanced around. Over seventy people had come to wish the young woman a bon voyage. They filled the landscaped yard, which featured numerous seating areas, a fire pit, an outdoor kitchen, a large grill capable of holding a whole pig, and a koi pond. A few shade trees and a misting system helped keep everyone cool when Gulf coast temperatures soared, and two areas on the far end were set up for cornhole and horseshoes. It was often used for parties or as a gathering place for when the Trident employees needed a little downtime. However, for a crowd of this size, they’d needed to set up tables and chairs in the parking lot beside it to accommodate everyone.

Laughter and raised voices caught Doug’s attention. He turned to his left to see three of his division’s bodyguards approach him, undoubtedly intending to drag their supervisor into the friendly argument they were in the middle of. Taking a sip from his half-empty beer bottle, he decided to let them, hoping whatever it was about would keep his attention away from Jenn.

Fat chance.

CHAPTER TWO

As she chatted with her friends Daniella Mavis and Yardley Adams, Jenn did her best to ignore Doug’s glare from where he unsuccessfully tried to blend in with the shrubbery. She didn’t know what his problem was, but she wouldn’t make it hers. He made it perfectly clear he wasn’t interested in her romantically almost a year ago, after she practically threw herself into his arms and kissed the ever-loving hell out of him.

“Stop staring at him,” Yardley chastised. She and Jenn met in college while taking many of the same classes together and became BFFs. “He had his chance, and you deserve better than him.”

Jenn didn’t realize that she was staring and ripped her gaze away from the man. She confided in both women about her humiliating experience back then and asked them to help her get past it. They offered shoulders to cry on while gently telling her that it was time to move on and find someone else to love. There was no point in yearning for a man who didn’t want her in return. She even let her friends set her up on a few blind dates, but they all failed. Her heart and body still yearned for Doug, despite his rejection. However, he avoided her like she was a predator and he was the prey she wanted to eat alive. She almostgroaned aloud—that was not a good analogy when she was trying to forget the man.

Doug was one of the reasons she was flying to Colombia tomorrow to spend the next three months working at a medical commune. She’d wanted to volunteer in an undeveloped area of another country after being inspired by two friends who’d done that during a summer break before entering their third year of college. However, she decided to wait until she earned her bachelor’s degree in social work, during which time she researched where she wanted to go. Grandpa Chuck and Grandma Marie Sawyer, who loved her as if she were their own granddaughter, were involved in many charities and helped her explore several volunteer programs. Jenn’s biological grandparents all died before she started kindergarten, and she didn’t remember any of them, so she was grateful for the relationship she had with her godfather’s parents.

After talking to several other people, Jenn narrowed it down to two places. One was an Argentinan orphanage, and the other was a commune run by Dr. Ramona Sanchez, located near the small settlement of San Justino, just an hour northwest of the bustling city of Bogotá, near the foothills of the Andes Mountains.

After researching both places and contacting the women who ran them, Jenn decided to go to Colombia, which she knew her uncles weren’t thrilled about, even though Carter had known Dr. Sanchez for years and often sent her supplies to help the underprivileged native Colombians that she aided. Although she doubted they would’ve been happy if she had chosen Argentina instead. If the alpha men in her life had their way, she’d stay cocooned in their well-guarded compound until she was an elderly spinster virgin. Well, they weren’t getting their way this time, and she definitely wouldn’t be the one to tell them the virgin thing was no longer an issue.

Before Doug was assigned as her bodyguard and her attraction to him began, Jenn quietly dated a nice guy she met at the University of Tampa. “Quietly” because she didn’t want her uncles to go ballistic and investigate and interrogate Cole. He was her first real love, but after six months of dating, they realized they weren’t meant to be together. Their dreams and aspirations were vastly different from one another. Jenn knew she wanted children someday, and that didn’t blend in with Cole’s plans. His parents’ nasty divorce and neglect of their three kids had jaded him. He also wanted to move to California after graduation, and Jenn didn’t want to be on the other side of the country from the only family she had left. So, in the end, she and Cole went their separate ways but remained friends, staying in touch through social media. He was now in a stable relationship with a woman who also wanted to remain child-free, and Jenn was happy for the couple.

While she’d dated a few other guys since then, she hadn’t slept with any of them. Her heart, mind, and body compared every man to Doug, and they all fell short. Someone else had to be out there who could meet the high standards she’d set. After observing the deep love and affection her parents and her uncles had for their spouses, Jenn refused to settle when it involved giving her heart away to someone for life.

Daniella stepped between Jenn’s line of sight and Doug, then skillfully steered the conversation in another direction. “I still can’t believe Ian and the rest of them are letting you go.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t easy to convince them.”

“How did you?”

Jenn smirked. “I got my aunts, Grandpa Chuck, and Grandma Marie to back me up. And Nick too.”

Only a few years older than her, she never considered the youngest Sawyer brother to be an uncle. In fact, she even hada brief crush on him in junior high. Now, he was more like the older brother she never had.

Daniella laughed. “I bet that didn’t go over well with his brothers and Jake.”

Though eleven years older, the pretty brunette and Jenn had clicked last year when Jenn trained her to take over her job at Donovan’s Pub so she could start a social work internship. Since then, Daniella had gotten to know Jenn’s extended family well since they often hung out at the pub, which was owned by Mike Dovonan, whose younger brother, Jake, was a Trident operative and Nick’s husband. Uncle Jake was on the same SEAL team as Jenn’s dad, Ian, and Devon, and came to work for the brothers when they all retired from the military, along with their teammates Marco DeAngelis, Brody Evans, and Ben “Boomer” Michaelson. Nick had also been a SEAL before retiring from the Navy, but on Team Three in San Diego.

“I don’t even want to think about what his punishment was.” She knew all about the BDSM club on the other side of the compound—how could she not? Her uncles and their spouses were in the lifestyle, but it wasn’t something she was interested in. However, because of her long-time exposure to everyone being so comfortable in their sexuality, she wasn’t embarrassed by it. As long as she didn’t observe them being too intimate, she didn’t mind hearing about it sometimes. She even got a kick out of some of the conversations her aunts had about sex.

“But Kristen, Angie, Nick, and the others all knew what doing this meant to me. We’ve talked about it a lot over the past two years. I think Uncle Ian and Devon hoped I would forget about it, but this is why I went into social work. I want to help people.” A family friend, Kayla London, was a social worker, and it was through her that Jenn became interested in the field as a career. “It’s only for three months, and it’ll look good on my resume, even though I already have a job in Kayla’s office when I getback. I just wish my uncles would stop calling me Baby-girl and see that I’m an adult now. Hopefully, this will help.”

Uncle Ian was at the hospital the day Jenn was born and the first person to call her what would become her nickname among the Navy SEALs on her father’s team—thirty-three of them who came and went over the years. While she’d loved the moniker for a long time—it made her feel special as a child—now that she was twenty-three, with little nieces and nephews, it only made her cringe. They would never see that she was a grown woman until she proved it to them, and the way to do that was to step out on her own.

“I think it will. And then when you get back, we’ll find you a man.” Yardley hooked her arms around Daniella’s and Jenn’s. “In the meantime, c’mon. Let’s get some more wine and toast the new and improved grown-up Jenn Mullins.”

Doug couldn’t remember a funeral or any other event where more tears flowed than they did as Jenn said goodbye to her extended family. Although everyone gathered for the party yesterday, most had returned to hug and kiss her before she left for the airport in a few minutes. Because she was taking several items that Ian had insisted on, which might get flagged by TSA, he offered to fly the small group of volunteers down to Colombia in Trident’s private jet. Jenn accepted on one condition—that Ian and everyone else stayed behind instead of giving the group an armed escort to Dr. Sanchez’s ranch.

Damn, this was killing him. She’d be on another continent for fuck’s sake. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, having her close by and not being able to claim her like he wanted wastorture, but the next three months, not knowing if she was safe every minute, would be ten times worse. While he didn’t see her every day, when they did cross paths, she lit up his world, even for just a brief moment.

He knew she was embarrassed about their kiss and pissed about how he rejected her and then left—the most challenging thing he’d ever done in his life—but it was the best thing for her. Jenn was an intelligent, warm, generous young woman who could have any guy she wanted, and for some stupid reason, she thought that guy was Doug. She deserved someone better than him. Someone closer to her own age. Someone who could protect her better, rather than almost getting her killed because she was a beautiful distraction. And someday, he’d have to remain in the shadows and watch her find that man.

It’d been a while since Doug relived that horrible day in his nightmares, but last night, after he left the party and went home to sleep, he woke up in a cold sweat. His chest ached and burned where the bullet had torn into his flesh and ripped a hole in his right lung. Jenn’s screams for him to save her as she was dragged out of the SUV echoed in his head, and Doug barely made it to the bathroom before vomiting up everything he had eaten and drunk only a few hours earlier. He knelt over the toilet for close to half an hour, retching long after his stomach was empty.

His head throbbed, and he couldn’t think of putting anything into his stomach yet. It still churned as he watched Jenn hug Marie and Chuck Sawyer. It took him a minute to realize she was making her way down the long line of people, and only Brody Evans, his wife, Fancy, and their young son, Zane, were left before she reached Doug, who was last. He should step back or crouch down and call Ian’s dog, Beau, over for a belly rub—anything to avoid the awkward moment that was only seconds away. But he remained frozen until she side-stepped and stopped in front of him.

Her beautiful blue eyes brimmed with tears, and her cheeks were wet from those that had already fallen. Her chin quivered. Doug tried to tell himself that she was emotional because she was leaving her family behind, and it had nothing to do with him. But she stared at him a bit too long as if trying to memorize his face. After taking a deep, shaky breath, she wrapped her arms around him, squeezed, and then let go, not giving him time to return the embrace. “Goodbye, Doug.”

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