Page 26 of The Playboy SEAL
It doesn’t make any sense. Men don’t look one way and then act another. They always behave in a predictable way. Men like Macs take what they want from whoever they please.
“I don’t want to have sex with anyone else. Just to clear that up,” I explain.
“You don’t say?” He smiles.
I roll my eyes. “You’re so cocky. I should, just to spite you.”
Shaking his head, he says, “Never do anything to spite me. That would mean I care, and I don’t. I’m not doing anything to ruin our science experiment. Now I’m curious as to how this will play out.” The smile fades from his face. He doesn’t like the idea of me having sex with another man. It’s something, I guess.
“I’m not a science experiment,” I deadpan.
He backs away from me, toward my large, ornate front door. “I don’t fuck experiments, babe.” He’s not fucking anything tonight. Or, according to him, he’s not. I’m not sure I believe him. “And I’m definitely fucking you. Your body is going to haunt my damn dreams,” he says, very obviously running his eyes up and down my body. A jolt of energy spikes in my system, like electricity taking the place of blood in my veins. “Not tonight. Call your friends back and tell them about the first kiss with a side of orgasm.”
I can almost feel his tongue on my neck from remembering it. I shiver. He watches. Forgetting his keys on my counter, he leans forward to grab them. I notice he glances at my phone.
Placing my hands on my hips, I say, “I’ll walk you out.”
Clutching his keys, he chuckles. “No, you won’t. Not unless you want to fuck in my back seat?” Macs tilts his head to the side in the direction of his car. When I don’t respond, he says, “Thought so. Good night. I’d kiss you, but I can’t.”
My heart skips along this furious pace I’m not familiar with. I get a little lightheaded. It has to be lust. I need to have sex or engage in a long date with my vibrator. Heflashes his dimples, and he’s out of my door and heading down the hallway to the elevator. One of my neighbors is unlocking her door, her little barky dog in her arms. She gapes as Macs walks by, and as if I’m a second thought, she turns her huge brown eyes my way. I wave my hand and then put a finger under my chin and bring my lower jaw up to meet the top with a click of teeth. She scurries into her apartment with an embarrassed scowl on her face. I laugh but can’t tear my gaze from his retreating back.
The way you move says a lot about a person. I see it in yoga, through the poses and the fluidity of movement. I can decipher their skill level, determine things about their personalities. The way Macs moves is something else entirely. Something predatory lies in the depths of his stride. It drips with confidence and danger. He has a sway in his walk, his muscles preventing him from looking ordinary, even though he’s not even trying for extraordinary. It’s something that comes naturally to him. He doesn’t look back before he gets on the elevator.
Not even a quick backward glance in my direction. I hear my heartbeat in my ears, a cacophony reminding me I’m in dangerous territory, and feel the wetness between my legs. He doesn’t just walk like a predator. He is the goddamn king of those motherfuckers.
CHAPTER TEN
Macs
The elevator doors close,and I take a huge, deep breath.Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.Walking away from her was the hardest thing I’ve done in a while. My dick is rock-hard and dripping in anticipation. I don’t think that fucker has been this drooly in his entire life. I couldn’t think straight with her in front of me. I know it’s because I need to fuck. It had nothing to do with her personally. I’m sure of it.
I’m sure of it.
Her neighbor was hot. I could easily get in her pants. What if Teala heard? Why do I care if Teala heard? I rush out of her small lobby and make a right-hand turn to exit into the parking garage. I’m still catching my breath when I slam my car door and start the engine. It’s like I just did the obstacle course. I feel crazy. Out of control. My phone is still glowing in the cup holder, the messages pouring out of it like my favorite song. I turn up my music to drown out everything else. My head is too full right now. My cock is too full right now. Itshould be considered a dangerous weapon.
I told her I wouldn’t sleep with other women. I thought it was a lie when I said it, but now I’m not so sure. It’s as if a part of me, the good part of me, spoke, and now I have to obey him because my pride won’t let me lie. I’m good at my core. It’s everything else that’s fucked up. I need sex. It’s akin to denying me oxygen. Surely she wouldn’t fault me if I picked up my phone and hooked up with one woman tonight. She knows what she did to me. What did John call Jessica? Sexual Napalm? Yes, that. Teala is that to me. It is partly because I can’t have her whole body up front, but also partly because of something else.
I like her.
I like her personality. She’s funny. I find myself enjoying her company the most when we’re just talking. I liked telling her things about myself. I like kissing her. I like the way she smells. I like the way her body presses against me. I lift the neck of my shirt and take in a breath. It smells like her. It’s sweet. It’s sex. It’s forbidden. I slam my steering wheel with the palm of my hand with a groan. “Fuck!”
My voice is loud and angry even though it’s not anger I feel. It’s something I don’t recognize. My phone chimes, and I’m so irritated that I look at it. As I suspect, they are messages from my app. Women who could fix me right now if I let them. I scroll through the messages, and one pops up while I’m scrolling. It’s a text message from Teala—a photo.
I click it open. It’s the sloth photo in her bathroom, no message attached. I laugh. How stupid and asinine. I take a deep breath. I don’t reply, but I’m not so frustratedanymore, and the sloth made my hard-on recede a touch. It’s enough. I put my car into gear and drive home.
I think about Teala all the way home, our kisses on replay in my mind. I’m dissecting every move and every word spoken between us. Does it help decipher what is happening between us? Not one bit. I’m not certain there’s anything there but pent-up lust and the promise of mind-blowing sex. Also, I’m not sure what compels me, but when I pull into my drive, I ignore all the notifications from my matches and head into my phone settings to change my background to that stupid fucking sloth.
I can’t look at it without smiling. She’s right.
Repacking a parachute after it safely guides you to land from twelve thousand feet is the bane of my existence. It doesn’t matter how good you are at repacking, it still takes fucking forever. You have to do it right, perfectly, or you’ll die on your next jump. Perhaps that sounds a tad melodramatic, but it is truthful all the same. Tahoe is in the space next to me, rolling and packing with extreme precision. A lot of times we have people do this for us, but not today. Everyone is busy doing other shit.
The drop zone is a large open field with a few ratty structures and an airfield for takeoff and landing. Airplanes buzz overhead and parachutes litter the sky above the drop zone. My team goes up in waves. Today we’re doing HALO jumps, high altitude, low opening.It’s just an average day at the office. I have my phone silenced so it doesn’t interrupt me at inopportune times. After I finish packing my chute, I take out my phone to check the time and see I missed a call from my mom. She left a voicemail. She’s in the generation of answering machines, so she always leaves a godforsaken message even though my voicemail greeting says, “Are you sure you can’t text me?”
My stomach grumbles, reminding me I haven’t had lunch. I walk to the trailer in the corner to find my cooler of food and listen to my mother’s voice as I go.
“Sweetie, are you okay? The news is saying awful things. Have you watched it? I know you’re busy, but you really should turn on the television every once in a while. That’s silly, though. I’m sure you know what’s going on. What’s that?” she asks someone in the room. My father. “Your father wants you to call him tonight. He has a theory.”
Raising my brows, I let out a long, annoyed breath. I love talking to my parents mostly, but my dad has some real theories about the state of our world. Let’s just put them into the conspiracy category for lack of a better word.
