“We became best friends after that.”
“I would hope so,” Caitlin shook her head. “So what did you boys do? Chase girls in high school?”
“Uhm, I think that would be a negative.”
Caitlin flopped onto her belly and propped up on herelbows. “Now, you’re trying to make me believe you and Nate left the girls alone?”
“You asked if we chased girls.” She caught the flash of his grin in the dim light. “We didn’t. They chased us.”
Caitlin rolled her eyes. “Of course. Between you two, you probably had pussies falling from the sky. So do you remember your first love?”
Travis leaned in and said, “You.”
“Be honest, Travis.”
He crossed his arms behind his head and stared at her. “That’s the truth, babe. There were so many girls, none of them were serious. I dated them, but I just wanted to fuck, so it didn’t seem fair to lead them on by pretending I wanted a relationship. My junior year, I didn’t even date high school chicks any longer. College girls were more interesting, and less likely to cry when I didn’t call them.”
“Oh, God, you were such a jerk.”
“I was a teenager,” Travis fired back. “I always made sure they knew the score. My priority was becoming a SEAL. I knew the training itself was brutal. I had no time or focus for a relationship.”
“You can’t have me believing you were a monk when you were a SEAL.”
Travis laughed, “Monk? No! I hooked-up, sometimes it was a one-night stand, sometimes it was the same girl for the entire duration I was home. It depended on if the woman was willing and if I was attracted to her. I may seek her out again when I was on my next break, but there were no promises of commitment.”
“You went to SEAL training directly from high school?”
“No. My dad wanted me to get my degree first, so I went to college and graduated with an economics degree in three and half years.”
“Overachiever.”
“I had lofty goals.”
“Yeah, you married me, a girl you met at a bar.”
Travis unfolded his arms and dragged her on top of him, sealing his mouth over hers in a firm kiss. “That was fate, babe,” he whispered, his voice laden with tenderness. “Never had a relationship in my life, and in one night, it just hit me. You took my breath away, and I handed you my heart. I was a goner.”
“Hmm . . . You say the most romantic things,” Caitlin murmured. “No wonder you got me to marry you in six weeks.”
“Had help, babe,” Travis admitted. “I may not have had relationships before, but I knew what my parents have, and I swore I’d have that, too. Maybe that was why I didn’t want to jump from one relationship to another. When I fell in love, I would make the effort to win the woman I love, making sure it was going to be forever. I’ve got a dad who loves my mom to distraction. All I did was ask his help to teach me how not to screw this up.”
“What if you weren’t convalescing and you only had two weeks? Would you have sought me out again on your next break?”
Travis gave her a firm squeeze. “You’re not listening. I was gone for you after one night. I would have never left for my deployment if I wasn’t sure you knew that you were mine and no one else’s. Fuck. I didn’t even wanna think what I would have done if I only had two weeks to convince you to marry me. You’d probably run from me, screaming that I was a psycho.”
“You’re right.”
Travis chuffed indignantly. “You were crazy about me, too.”
“If you say so Trav—” She squealed when he dragged her under him and silenced her insolent mouth with a plundering kiss. After a few minutes, his kiss gentled until finally he pulledaway and finished by kissing the tip of her nose. He fell on his back again and tucked her to his side.
Caitlin grinned; then a yawn escaped her. “How come Nate’s not a SEAL like you?”
“We did go to BUD/S together, but his old man got sick, and he had to take care of him for a couple of months. Shame really. He joined the Army Special Forces instead. He quit after one tour because he got recruited into the CIA paramilitary division.”
“You had additional training to be in SEAL Team Six?”
Travis nodded. “To be a DEVGRU operator you have to pass the Green Team selection process.” He exhaled deeply. “Attrition rate is high. Fewer than fifteen percent active-duty SEALs successfully screen for it, and those who actually pass training are in the top 1% of the SEAL community.”
