Also she was pretty sure he was about to disappear. Forever.
“Jack’s walking us to the hotel before he takes off back to Duchess Island,” Thora said with a sly smile. “I’m sure Fitz will be tagging along. If that’s information that might be of interest to you.”
She perked up considerably. Maybe she could offer to take Fitz to dinner to thank him for… what? The orgasms? Getting them rescued? Being the most amazing night of her life?
All of the above, she decided. It was how she felt. She waited until they’d walked the few blocks to the hotel. It wasn’t on the beach, which was okay. She’d had enough beach for one vacation. But not enough Fitz.
She didn’t even have his phone number. When they hit the lobby of the hotel, she took a deep breath and snagged his arm, pulling him to the side where they could talk in semiprivacy.
“Hey,” she said and glanced up into his hazel eyes, focusing on the pinwheel of brown whirling into the green. And that was the extent of her vocabulary apparently when dropped back into reality with a man she’d woken up with this morning. Naked.
“Hey,” he said back and blew out a breath. “Man. Some ride, huh? I’m glad it’s over.”
Oh. Well, that made one of them. All at once, she hesitated. Whatever had happened between them had been limited by their circumstances. She’d been a convenient woman on an island with no other choices. This was the end of their association. There was no reason to try and recapture the magic of last night when it was obviously supposed to have only been that.
“I just wanted to say thank you,” she said sincerely. “For everything.”
His smile warmed considerably. “I should be thanking you. You made the whole experience bearable. I insist on being stranded with you from now on.”
But it had been so much more than just being stranded. For her, at least. But she conjured up a smile to match his. “I guess you’re going back to Duchess Island with Jack?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a couple more days before I have to be back in California, and it’s a free place to crash. A bunch of my former teammates live there too, so I expect we’ll hang out. Drink a lot of beer.”
Translation: no females allowed. Otherwise, she suspected Thora would be in the middle of it. “That sounds nice.”
This might be the most stilted conversation they’d ever had, which was saying something considering some of the awkward things that had come out of her mouth. Fitz still got her all tangled up with the English language apparently.
He tilted up her chin with one hand and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “If you’re ever near San Diego, you should let me know. I’ll take you to dinner.”
Her cheek burned where his lips had touched. Considering how hot of a kisser he was, that had been like a small spark that had popped free from a forest fire. Far too tame, and far less than she wanted.
Since they were in public, maybe it was best.
Was she the only one dying to pick up where they left off? After all, they’d never gotten to round two, and honestly, she’d thought they’d have a couple of days on the island or she would have never closed her eyes in favor of getting as much time with him as she could possibly cram into one night.
But being able to say what she wanted last night was a far cry from doing it now in the lobby of a hotel when they had no reason to be together any longer.
“Sure,” she said with a bright smile that shouldn’t have fooled him. But seemed to. “Oh, I need your address anyway. So I can mail you a picture.”
The mention of it put a ripple of discomfort between them that she hated. Why? Was he second-guessing the idea of posing for her and just wished it would all go away?
“Give me your phone.”
She handed it to him and watched as he punched in a contact entry. And then there was nothing left to say. He hugged her and blew out of her life because she couldn’t open her mouth and tell him what she wanted. Not because she didn’t think she could say it. But because she didn’t think he wanted to hear it.
The vacation that hadn’t been anything close to a vacation was finally over.
Fitz prowled through his apartment, but he couldn’t find a thing to capture his interest. When he wasn’t deployed, he generally didn’t do downtime. No point in sitting around when he could be jogging, eating, sleeping, catching up on Game of Thrones.
None of that cured the restless feeling in his blood—he’d tried.
The middle-of-the-night call to get his ass to Iraq was imminent. Like clockwork, his team would be dropped into the middle of a conflict that needed the best recon available, and he was it.