LITMIR.BIZ

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Her brown eyes were warm and rich and filled now with a lazy satisfaction that was already giving way to new needs. Needs he wouldn’t—couldn’t—fulfill. Brian grabbed her wrists and shook his head.

      “What?” she asked, wariness creeping into her expression.

      “I’ve gotta go,” he said and gently lifted her off his lap and pushed himself to his feet. Pain radiated through him and Brian realized he hadn’t been that frustrated since he was a kid. A cold shower probably wasn’t going to do it this time. With an ache this big, this deep, he’d need an oceanful of cold water.

      “Are you kidding?” she demanded, slipping her arms through the straps of her shirt and rearranging her clothing as she stood up to face him. “You’re leaving? Now?”

      “Especially now,” he said tightly.

      His hands itched to hold her again and other parts of his body were even more interested in getting close again. Deliberately, Brian turned his back on her and stalked to the front door.

      “Was that just me, Brian?” she demanded and the tone of her voice prodded him to turn around to meet her gaze just as he hit the front door.

      He saw hurt and confusion along with the anger in her eyes and told himself it was his own damn fault. He never should have trusted himself inside this house alone with her.

      “Was I alone in there?” she asked, waving one hand behind her toward the living room.

      He wanted to say Yeah, I felt nothing, because that would surely be the easier way. But the whole Coretti polygraph thing had him in its clutches again and Brian discovered he couldn’t lie to her. Not about this.

      “No,” he said, his voice just a ragged hush of sound, “you weren’t alone.”

      “Then how can you leave?” she asked. “If you feel anything of what I’m feeling, how can you leave?”

      “Don’t you get it, Tina?” he asked, hitting the screen door with the flat of his hand and stepping out onto the porch, “It’s because I’m feeling what I am that I’m leaving.”

      She threw her arms across her chest and held on tight. Glaring at him, she snapped, “That makes no sense at all.”

      His body aching, his mind hurting, his soul emptying, Brian just said, “Yeah, I know.”

      Then he left.

      While he still could.

      For the next three days, Brian stayed as far away from Tina as humanly possible. He even considered moving onto the air base for the duration of her visit. But he just couldn’t seem to make himself do it. Oh, he didn’t trust himself anywhere near her, but at the same time, he didn’t want to cheat himself out of at least seeing her from a distance.

      Stupid.

      Losing control of the situation had been stupid and Brian couldn’t even remember how he’d lost it. All he could remember was the feel of Tina in his arms again. The soft sigh of her breath. The amazingly responsive woman he’d missed so desperately.

      “When are you going to admit it?”

      Brian snapped out of his thoughts, which had once again been centered on Tina, and looked at Aidan, across the table from him. “What?”

      Aidan sneered at him and jutted his elbow into Liam’s side for emphasis. “D’ya hear that?” he demanded. “He’s not even willing to admit to us that Tina’s getting to him.”

      “She’s not,” Brian lied and didn’t even feel guilty for it. What was between he and Tina wasn’t anyone’s business. Not even his brothers.

      “Right,” Connor said from beside him and reached for a tortilla chip out of the basket in the center of the table. “You’re just avoiding going home because you hate the dogs.”

      “I do,” Brian reminded him.

      “Uh-huh,” Liam put in, “but they’ve never kept you away from home.”

      “Fine.” He threw both hands up in mock surrender, then reached for his beer. Taking a long swig, he swallowed, then said, “You guys win. Tina’s making me nuts. Happy now?”

      While his brothers grinned and nodded knowingly, Brian shifted his gaze to the crowd dotting the tables at the Lighthouse. Always, there were families. Kids, of all ages, parents, grandparents. He’d never really paid attention to them before, and maybe that was because it hurt too much to see happy families when his own marriage had ended.

      But for some reason, the last few days, all Brian had been noticing were families. His friends and their kids. Military wives driving into Parris Island to hit the Commissary for groceries. And he couldn’t help wondering if he and Tina would have had kids by now if he hadn’t insisted on a divorce. But following that thought, he wondered if he hadn’t saved them both a lot of heartache by ending things when he had.

      What if they had had kids, and then divorced? How much harder would everything be? And how unfair to children, torn between two parents.

      His gaze fastened on a little girl, no more than two or three. She had dark, curly hair and big brown eyes and looked just as he imagined a daughter of his and Tina’s would have looked. She was beautiful, he thought, just a little wistfully. And if a ping of regret sounded in his heart, then he was the only one who would know it.

      “I don’t know about the rest of you,” Aidan said, snagging a chip for himself, “but I’m real happy to hear it.”

      “Oh, me, too,” Connor put in. “Good to know I’m not the only one suffering here.”

      “You guys are lightweights,” Liam said with a sly smile.

      “Hey,” Connor argued, “you’ve had a few years to deal with this whole, ‘no women’ thing. We’re new to it, thank God.”

      “And not long for it,” Aidan remarked, pointing his beer at Brian. “At least, one of us isn’t.”

      Brian bristled. Sure, things were tougher than he’d thought and damn, he’d come close to losing the bet—and himself—in Tina the other night. But he’d stayed strong. Stayed dedicated.

      Stayed frustrated.

      “Don’t worry about me, boys,” he said tightly. “I’m doing fine.”

      “Right. That’s why you’re here with us instead of at home.”

      Brian ignored Connor and looked at his older brother. “You enjoying this, Liam?”

      “I am,” he said and cradled his bottle of beer between his palms. Slanting a look at Brian, he said, “You know, maybe there’s a reason Tina’s in town right now.”

      “Sure. It’s fate, huh?” Brian said with a snort.

      “Would it be so surprising?”

      “Yeah, it would. I don’t believe in fate,” Brian said flatly. “We make our own decisions.”

      Aidan and Connor exchanged a glance and a shrug, then kept quiet and listened.

      “And if you make the wrong decisions?” Liam asked.

      “Then you pay for them.”

      “Like you’re paying now?” Liam mused.

      “Who says I’m paying?” Brian argued and when his voice got a little loud, he winced and hunched his shoulders as a woman at the table next to them gave him a quick look. “Damn it, Liam, Tina has nothing to do with this bet.”

      “I’m not talking about the stupid bet, Brian,” his brother said softly, as if only the two of them were at the table. “I’m talking about you letting Tina walk out of your life.”

      “That’s over and done,” he murmured, refusing to look at any of his brothers. Instead,

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