had been stillborn. She had a friend here—Anya Podlasli—who gave her room and board in exchange for help with child care. And every time Izzy had gone to try to see his wife, old stern-and-disapproving Anya with her tightly, Germanicly pursed lips, had turned him away.
The last time had been the final time, except now here he was, unexpectedly back in Germany, not far from where Eden was living. The urge to go visit her for one
final
final time was strong. Especially when the training exercises he’d gotten caught up in after his release from the hospital had ended a full two days before his flight back to Coronado and his next assignment as a BUD/S instructor. Whoo fricking hoo. Still, everyone had to take a turn, and it was his—spurred, no doubt, by the recent supposedly irresponsible behavior that had put him into the hospital, true, but had also saved Eden’s brother Danny’s life.
Not that Izzy had done what he’d done for Eden’s sake. He’d done it for himself and for Dan, and because sometimes rules needed to be broken.
And okay, yeah, he was a liar. He’d done it for Eden, too, becausehe knew she’d already had too much pain and loss in her life, and try as he might, he couldn’t make himself stop caring about that, and about her.
But he
could
make himself accept the fact that his marriage to her was over, so instead of hopping a train and trying to see her one
final
final time, he’d put on some civvies and left the base. When he got off the bus, he’d started walking until he hit the first bar.
And when he’d found this one, he’d walked in and then found the first seemingly available woman and sat down beside her.
Love Germany? Sweetheart, he was counting the minutes before he could leave.
But telling this woman that wasn’t going to get him laid. And that was his goal here, tonight, wasn’t it? Sex with a convenient stranger, to pull him out of the purgatory in which he’d resided since Eden walked out of his life.
“I haven’t ever really lived here,” Izzy told the nurse. Damn, he’d already forgotten her name. Sylvia or Cindy or … Cynthia. That was it. A pretty name for an equally pretty woman, with her red curls and blue eyes. She was dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt, sneakers on her feet—which should have been a warning to him. She wasn’t here trolling for a one-nighter, in her fuck-me shoes. She really was here for just a glass of wine. “I only drop in briefly, for visits.”
“You’re not stationed here?” Her disappointment in that news was almost palpable, and Izzy watched the integer for this evening’s potential orgasm count nosedive back to the solid zero it had been for most of the past year.
But it wasn’t disappointment he was feeling, it was relief. And that pissed him off. He didn’t want to not want sex. He didn’t want to feel as if his getting in a little recreational happy-fun was wrong—for any reason. But most of all, he didn’t want to look at a perfectly acceptable beautiful, sexy, and intelligent woman like fair Cynthia and think
why bother trying
simply because she couldn’t hold a candle to his soon-to-be-ex-wife.
There was a lot of room between his current state of not having anysex at all and the unearthly bliss of being sent into sexual orbit via Eden. And the sooner he moved into that as-yet-unexplored territory between the two, the better.
So even though Cynthia was giving him all of the classic pre-shut-down,
this won’t work because you’re not stationed here
signs, he pushed aside his feeling of relief and went for it, firing the biggest gun he had in his possession.
“I’m a Navy SEAL,” he told her, and yes, her body language immediately changed from
I have to go find my friends
to
What friends, I never had any friends
.
So he embellished, heavy on the lighthearted flirtation. “We only come to Germany to let you and the doctors check the stitches we give ourselves. And to give you pointers to use in the
The last time had been the final time, except now here he was, unexpectedly back in Germany, not far from where Eden was living. The urge to go visit her for one
final
final time was strong. Especially when the training exercises he’d gotten caught up in after his release from the hospital had ended a full two days before his flight back to Coronado and his next assignment as a BUD/S instructor. Whoo fricking hoo. Still, everyone had to take a turn, and it was his—spurred, no doubt, by the recent supposedly irresponsible behavior that had put him into the hospital, true, but had also saved Eden’s brother Danny’s life.
Not that Izzy had done what he’d done for Eden’s sake. He’d done it for himself and for Dan, and because sometimes rules needed to be broken.
And okay, yeah, he was a liar. He’d done it for Eden, too, becausehe knew she’d already had too much pain and loss in her life, and try as he might, he couldn’t make himself stop caring about that, and about her.
But he
could
make himself accept the fact that his marriage to her was over, so instead of hopping a train and trying to see her one
final
final time, he’d put on some civvies and left the base. When he got off the bus, he’d started walking until he hit the first bar.
And when he’d found this one, he’d walked in and then found the first seemingly available woman and sat down beside her.
Love Germany? Sweetheart, he was counting the minutes before he could leave.
But telling this woman that wasn’t going to get him laid. And that was his goal here, tonight, wasn’t it? Sex with a convenient stranger, to pull him out of the purgatory in which he’d resided since Eden walked out of his life.
“I haven’t ever really lived here,” Izzy told the nurse. Damn, he’d already forgotten her name. Sylvia or Cindy or … Cynthia. That was it. A pretty name for an equally pretty woman, with her red curls and blue eyes. She was dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt, sneakers on her feet—which should have been a warning to him. She wasn’t here trolling for a one-nighter, in her fuck-me shoes. She really was here for just a glass of wine. “I only drop in briefly, for visits.”
“You’re not stationed here?” Her disappointment in that news was almost palpable, and Izzy watched the integer for this evening’s potential orgasm count nosedive back to the solid zero it had been for most of the past year.
But it wasn’t disappointment he was feeling, it was relief. And that pissed him off. He didn’t want to not want sex. He didn’t want to feel as if his getting in a little recreational happy-fun was wrong—for any reason. But most of all, he didn’t want to look at a perfectly acceptable beautiful, sexy, and intelligent woman like fair Cynthia and think
why bother trying
simply because she couldn’t hold a candle to his soon-to-be-ex-wife.
There was a lot of room between his current state of not having anysex at all and the unearthly bliss of being sent into sexual orbit via Eden. And the sooner he moved into that as-yet-unexplored territory between the two, the better.
So even though Cynthia was giving him all of the classic pre-shut-down,
this won’t work because you’re not stationed here
signs, he pushed aside his feeling of relief and went for it, firing the biggest gun he had in his possession.
“I’m a Navy SEAL,” he told her, and yes, her body language immediately changed from
I have to go find my friends
to
What friends, I never had any friends
.
So he embellished, heavy on the lighthearted flirtation. “We only come to Germany to let you and the doctors check the stitches we give ourselves. And to give you pointers to use in the
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