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She pulled a key chain out of her pocket and with a quick beep, the doors of the Subaru in front of them unlocked. “I put her on the passenger seat,” she gave him a curious look, and he stepped up to open the door.
She moved around to the driver’s door, giving him a hesitant smile across the hood. “Thanks, Mister Derringer.”
She’d heard Nani call him that, so it made sense, but he didn’t want her to call him that.
It seemed so… distant.
“You can call me Buck,” he put the cat carrier on the chair seat and looked up to see her pause halfway into her seat. “That’s what my team call me.”
A series of emotions crossed over her face before she spoke. “What kind of team?” Her gaze moved over him, and he sucked in his stomach, not that there was much to suck in.
And not that she could see it with his t-shirt untucked, but she touched a nerve in him that no one else seemed to touch.
Her eyes widened a little and he remembered that he hadn’t answered her question.
“Is it football?”
He smiled at that.
He wasn’t a small guy.
None of his team were. Kid was lanky, but tall.
Riptide was a little on the slimmer side, but he was their resident squid, so that tracked.
Everyone else was built for combat.
“Marine, actually. My team… my military team. They call me Buck.”
She nodded, her gaze turning away thoughtfully. “I don’t know if I like that.”
Mari startled and he wondered what caused that reaction.
“I guess I… I could call you that if I see you again.”
If?
Oh, he had every intention of seeing her again.
And again.
“You could call me Heath,” he offered.
The moment he said his given name, he had an instinctual need to hear her say it.
A name hardly anyone used.
He wanted to hear it in her voice.
Soft. Melodic. Gentle.
He wanted… needed to hear her say his name.
“Heath.” She said it on an exhale, and the breathy tone made his skin tingle.
Damn it.
He’d only heard her say it once and now he wanted to hear what it sounded like when she was moaning it.
