He was glad he’d suggested they put off all serious talk and simply get to know each other. Mustang wanted to remember this moment forever. Elodie looked relaxed, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. He would always want that for her. Hated to see her stressed, and it seemed as if he’d seen her that way just about every minute they’d known each other…until now. And maybe back in his truck outside her place.
Mustang remembered how her fingers had dug into the skin on the back of his neck when they were kissing. It was burned into his memory.
He wanted her. Didn’t want to go slow. Felt almost desperate to have her under him, over him, any way he could get her.
And that wasn’t like him. He was usually very cautious, as he’d told her. Liked to move slowly with women. Wanted to get to know them. But that was the thing…he felt as if he knew Elodie. Oh, he didn’t know the details. But he knew her. Who she was deep down. He’d seen that loud and clear on the Asaka Express.
“Beach or mountains?” she asked.
They’d been doing this for the last twenty minutes. Asking either/or questions as to which the other liked better, and then discussing when either wanted clarification.
“Seriously?” he joked.
“Yeah.”
“Beach. I’m a SEAL. I need the water.”
“Fair enough,” Elodie said with a shrug. She had some sugar from the malasadas on her cheek, and he leaned over and wiped it off with his thumb and showed her.
She wrinkled her nose adorably. “Your turn,” she told him.
For a second, Mustang thought she meant he had something on his face too, which would be hard to see with his beard, but then he realized she meant for him to ask a question. “Let’s see…parasailing or paragliding?”
“Gliding,” Elodie said without hesitation.
“Wow. You answered that really fast. You ever done it?”
“Nope. But…and I suppose this is a point that might make or break our friendship…I don’t like the ocean all that much,” Elodie said.
Mustang stared at her in confusion. “What? I don’t understand.”
“What’s not to understand? Sand, salt, sharks, jellyfish, rip currents, killer fish, manta rays…need I go on?”
“But wait—you took a job on a cargo ship. Which is on the ocean, I might remind you. And now you work for a charter fishing company…which again, the fish are in the ocean, and thus you have to spend your time on the boat looking for them…on the ocean.”
Elodie giggled, and Mustang couldn’t help but let his gaze drift toward her chest. She wasn’t hugely endowed, but her tits jiggled a bit when she moved and laughed, and it didn’t help that one of the straps on her dress kept falling off her shoulder.
“I know, but I grew up in Indiana. There weren’t any oceans as far as the eye could see. I like water, in a pool or hot tub. I don’t mind looking at the ocean, but being in it freaks me out. And when I was on the Asaka Express, I wasn’t in the ocean, I was on it. There’s a big difference. Same with my job now. So while parasailing isn’t exactly in the ocean, there’s a chance the rope could break and I’d end up in the water. At least with paragliding, that isn’t the case.”
Mustang could go into all the reasons paragliding was more dangerous than being tied to a boat by a rope and being towed behind it with a parachute, but he kept his mouth shut. If there was a malfunction while paragliding, she’d end up in a crumpled heap on the ground. But she was being adorably cute and he wanted to know more.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Elodie shook her head. “No, I was an only child. My parents were professors at a community college.”
“They still around?” Mustang asked.
“Unfortunately, no. Mom had a heart attack about six years ago. She didn’t make it. And I think my dad was so sad about her passing that he couldn’t go on. He developed a blood clot and died about a year after she did.”
“I’m sorry,” Mustang told her.
“Thanks. I miss them a lot, but know neither of them would’ve wanted to live without the other. They were so much in love. They did everything together. Drove to work, ate lunch, went to shows, cooked. It drove me crazy when I was younger. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to have their own friends and their own hobbies. But they were content with each other’s company. Today I look back and I get it. They were lucky.”
They were quiet for a moment before she asked, “What about you? Are your folks around? Do you have siblings?”
“No brothers or sisters, I was an only child like you. My parents are still alive, they live in West Virginia, where I grew up. They’re hard working, but not all that interested in higher education. They’re happy living in our small town, playing bingo on the weekends, and making moonshine in their not-so-secret still in the woods behind our house.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Elodie asked with a laugh.
“Nope. Sailor’s honor. The local sheriff knows they make the stuff, but since they give him a bottle every month, he doesn’t give them grief about it.”
Elodie snorted. “Wow, okay.”
“They’re good people,” Mustang said. “But they never had the kind of wanderlust I did growing up. They were content to live in the same place, see the same people, and not go anywhere. I wanted to see the world. They also never understood how I could actually like school. Let’s just say they aren’t exactly the scholarly type. But they’re generous, and they love me to pieces. I just have to go to West Virginia if I want to see them.”
“How’d you get your nickname?” Elodie asked.
“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” Mustang joked. He never told the story behind his nickname to people unless he knew them really well. He wasn’t sure why, he just didn’t feel comfortable sharing something so personal.
But the fact that he had no reservations telling Elodie was just another way he knew she was different. Special.
“Kidding,” he said before she could respond. “It’s kind of embarrassing, but at the time, I thought I was doing my buddy a favor.”
“Oh, this I gotta hear,” Elodie said.
Mustang was distracted by her licking sugar off her fingers after eating the malasada, but he did his best to stay on track. “I had just graduated from boot camp and was feeling like I was all that and a bag of chips. My nickname at that point was Webb, based on my last name. I was headed toward the barracks at the end of the day, and one of the guys in my unit, a guy who’d been in for a while, asked for my help. I’d bragged earlier that week that I knew how to hot-wire just about any kind of car, and he said he’d lost his keys and wanted my help in hot-wiring his car so he could get home.
“I was feeling pretty good that the guy had asked me for help, considering how low my rank was, so I gladly helped get his Mustang started. But right after, while I was feeling all proud of myself, the military police came racing up and threw me in handcuffs. The guy who’d asked for my help had fled, and it turns out the Mustang belonged to the commander, not the guy in my unit.”
“Oh my God!” Elodie said, her eyes wide. “Did you get in trouble?”