Run To You

hands over his head. “I’m done. You can go back to bed.”
    Instead, she knelt by the edge of the pool. “Your mother is a nice woman.” The light shone up the front of her shirt, shimmered on the waves, and touched her throat and chin and mouth.
    “I know. Surprised?”
    “A little.” The corners of her lips tilted up. “You’re a hard . . . ah . . . ah . . .”
    “Ah what?”
    “Marine.”
    Nice save.
    “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
    “I’m headed to New Orleans.” He moved a few steps closer so their raised voices wouldn’t wake his mother. “I’ve got business there.”
    “Then what?”
    “That depends on you. You can either get on a plane or I can take you to Lovett after New Orleans.”
    She tilted her head in thought and the light brushed across her cheek. “Well, you’re kind of crabby, but I don’t want to fly to Texas.”
    “I’m not crabby.” Even to his own ears he sounded crabby.
    “I guess I’ll let you drive me to Lovett,” she said through a sigh as if she was doing him a favor. As if she had other choices when he got the feeling she clearly did not. “Do I get to meet your brother?”
    “If he’s still there.” She did that thing with her hair. Pulled it to one side so that it looked very black against her white shirt. Her hair curled beneath her breast and did that thing deep in his groin that made him forget she was only twenty-eight.
    “Are you the good twin or the evil twin?” She also did the thing with her mouth. Smiled like she thought she was funny.
    “I’m the good one.” But at the moment, his thoughts headed south toward evil again. He spread his arms wide across the surface as if he was innocent and pushed waves against the edge.
    “Or are you really the evil twin masquerading as the good twin?”
    He and Blake had been fascinated with twin movies and had seen them all. Not that there were many. “Like The Other ?”
    She shook her head. “Like South Park . When Cartman had an evil twin who turned out to really be the good one.”
    “Jesus.” A cartoon.
    “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen South Park .”
    “Maybe here and there.” While she’d been watching cartoons, he’d been watching high-value targets. He’d been sweating on rooftops in Iraq or freezing his balls off in the Afghanistan mountains, picking off terrorists and making the world a safer place. Sometimes making the mistake of thinking that he really was Superman. “I’ve been kind of busy.”
    “Doing spy stuff?”
    “Are we back to that?”
    She grasped the edge of the pool and leaned forward to brush the surface water with the fingertips of her free hand. “Maybe you’re not a spy, but you know stuff about me.” She scooped water into her palm and let it run down her fingers and drip into the pool. “I wonder how much you know.”
    “Not a lot,” he answered truthfully. “Other than you got busted for unicorn graffiti.” One drop, then two fell from her fingertips into the clear water. “And you shoplifted a padded bra.”
    “I wish I hadn’t told you and Naomi that.” She leaned forward a little more and her fingers brushed the ripples in the water. Back and forth, barely skimming the top, teasing the surface.
    A shudder tugged at Beau’s spine and worked its way to his shoulders, knotting his muscles as he held himself tight. “Yeah” was all he seemed capable of saying. Beau Junger, scout sniper, United States Marine, HOG, reduced to mindless lust.
    “I wish you didn’t know things about me,” she continued, as her hair fell forward and light shimmered in the black strands. “While all I know about you is that you have a killer right hook, you’re kind of uptight, and you have a really nice mother. Oh, and you’re a Marine. Which isn’t a surprise, considering.”
    He was glad she didn’t know things about him. Glad she didn’t know the things her smiles and hair and the sight of her fingers drifting across the water did to him. Glad she didn’t know that below the soft, wavering ripples, he was hard as a steel pipe.
    She lifted a hand and pointed it at him. “And I also know your mother wants you to start producing kids.” She chuckled. “Better get started on that, soldier.”
    Several drops of water slid down her hand and dripped into the pool. Her soft laughter tugged at the knot in his shoulders and spine and the hard-on in his shorts and all he could think of was that he’d like to get started on that. He’d like to get