Terms of Surrender (12 page)

He let out a deep laugh. “That’s great! The best of both pets—you get to play fetch, but don’t have to go outside for any middle-of-the-night business.”

“Believe me, I think if I did, she’d beeline for the nearest fire plug,” Mari admitted, her voice softening, as did her expression when she looked at her obviously beloved feline companion.

That expression hardened when she returned her attention to him. “Now, what is it you want?”

You. Us. A chance. Another night. A thousand of them.

He started with the basics. “One of the deans attended your lecture yesterday, and he had some concerns.”

She sighed deeply. “Old guy with one big, gray eyebrow?”

“That’d be him.” Danny quickly explained Riddick’s concerns. He emphasized that the man’s problems had nothing to do with Mari personally, and were just par for the course with him.

“So he thinks I shouldn’t be allowed to be alone with the students? What does he think I’m going to do to them?” she asked, sounding both horrified and embarrassed.

“I think his concerns were for you, rather than about you.”

She rolled her eyes. “As if I can’t handle a roomful of twenty-year-olds? Good grief.”

“Well, I guess because he knows you’re not technically a teacher and have no previous experience…”

She nibbled her lip, not arguing the point.

“Here’s the thing, though. Apparently the students who attended the lecture really enjoyed it when I came up and the two of us were interacting. Word got back to the Deputy to the Commandant.”

She groaned and lifted a hand to her eyes. “I can’t believe I let you distract me. Why on earth did you just show up in the room and ambush me like that?”

“I didn’t mean to ambush you,” he explained. “I just wanted to see you again.”

She huffed. “Sure.”

“I mean it, Mari…”

“Why don’t you get back to the subject at hand? What, exactly, did the student rumor mill have to say about our verbal sparring match?”

He liked that—a verbal sparring match. That kind of described what they’d done, and actually what he and Mari had been doing since day one. That was one thing he liked best about her—she could talk. She had real conversation skills and a quick wit. There wasn’t a lot of calculation or intentional silence or mind games. With Mari, what he’d seen had been what he got.

He just wanted to get more. A lot more.

“Actually, the feedback was very positive. In fact, the students seemed really jazzed up about having a point-counterpoint, he-said/she-said kind of experience. Given Dean Riddick’s concerns, and the positive feedback about the two of us, uh…”

She was already shaking her head. “No way.”

“’Fraid so. The big boss liked the sound of it so much, he asked me to see if you would agree to make it an ongoing thing.

She shot straight up in her seat, her mouth opening in dismay. “You…he…”

“Yeah. He wants us to work together.”

Knowing she had to be feeling not only annoyed, but perhaps a bit vulnerable about how she’d done—since he remembered how important the job was to her—he quickly explained. “It’s not that he thinks you didn’t do a great job. In fact, the students
loved
you.”

A little too much, in Danny’s opinion. He suspected there had been some serious locker room chatter about the hot new teacher on campus, which he didn’t like one damned bit. Though he trusted her and knew she could do the job, if his presence in the classroom kept the students eyes in their head and their suggestive remarks behind their teeth, he was all for it.

Besides, even though Riddick was a dinosaur, he wasn’t the only campus official who had some pretty old-fashioned ideas. The USNA hadn’t gone coed long enough ago for there not to be some remnants of sexism left behind. He didn’t like it, tried to combat it when he saw it, but it still appeared on occasion.

“I don’t understand,” she said with a frown. “What would be the point of us teaming up? Why does he think this would be a good idea?”

“Maybe it’s because I’m a living example of what their future might look like,” he offered. “I’ve walked the walk, now I can talk the talk.”

“But aren’t they already your students?” She rolled her eyes. “They seemed to know you.”

“Some of them are. But believe me, my aeronautics class isn’t giving them a chance to see me as a person the way your lectures would.”

Mari rose from her seat, pacing back and forth across the small room, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. Mumbling under her breath, she admitted, “Things did improve after you got there.”

“Had they been discourteous?” he asked with a frown.

“No, not at all. Nothing but respectful, for the most part. But they seemed more lively—more involved—once you got there.”

“I’m an ice-breaker. One of
them.
My presence might make them more willing to open up and listen, or even to talk.”

She stopped pacing and stared at him. “Which would be a good thing. Some of those kids seem pretty clueless. I think a few of them came to Annapolis without really understanding that it’s not all a snazzy uniform, travel and exotic hookers in different ports of call.”

He gawked.

“Not that they put it exactly like that,” she admitted, her face pinkening.

“Well, they’re right about the uniform, and the travel,” he said. “But even the newest middie should realize exotic hookers are a surefire way to risk having body parts rot and fall off.”

She chuckled a little. It was something, anyway.

Then, as if remembering she wasn’t supposed to enjoy being around him—God, she really had her back up about him not calling—her humor disappeared. “I already have the rest of the lectures written, the course series completely laid out.”

He held up both hands, palms out. “And I wouldn’t interfere with that. I’ll sit quietly and listen, then jump in during the discussion period. All right?”

She snagged her bottom lip with her teeth, her thoughts racing across her face in a visible picture of uncertainty. He knew what she was thinking, why she was unsure, and wished he’d started this conversation differently. It wasn’t just having to work with someone else that was bothering her. It was having to work with
him.

Hopefully that wouldn’t be an issue once they got to the second reason for his visit. He’d considered having that conversation first, because getting them on even footing personally might have made this professional thing easier. But there had been that slamming-the-door-in-his-face thing to consider. He might never have gotten her to talk to him at all without playing the work card.

Finally, after a long, silent moment of thought, she began to nod, whether in actual agreement or simple acceptance, he couldn’t be sure. “Okay,” she muttered. “I guess we’ll give it a try.”

Danny had to smile. Business done with—the official part of his visit was over. Now it was time to move on with the personal part.

He only hoped he could get her to listen to him about what truly mattered, what had really driven him up here this evening.

Them.

THOUGH SHE’D MANAGED to keep up a good front—at least, so she hoped—Marissa wasn’t nearly as calm about Danny being here, in her apartment, as she let on. Not only because he had stunned her by showing up. Not just because he was so big and masculine he seemed to suck up all the air in the room. Not even because he looked so damned good to her that she wanted to drink him up like a parched woman offered a glass of cold, refreshing spring water.

No. There was also the little matter of her alter ego.

Mad-Mari. Or, recently, Very
Mad
Mad-Mari.

She’d been sitting out on the balcony writing a blog entry when he’d first knocked. Once she’d realized she would have to answer, or risk her nosy neighbor inviting him in for tea—or macing him!—she’d logged off the site. She’d also quickly closed the door to the hall closet. Inside it were stacks of cartons containing copies of her two books.

The last thing she wanted to do was explain about her alter ego, Mad-Mari.

The irony didn’t escape her, nor did the uncomfortable twinge that she was being a little hypocritical. She’d been angry at him for keeping his identity as a navy officer a secret, but now she was keeping a secret of her own. The difference was, he’d
known
she didn’t want anything to do with anybody in the military even before they’d slept together, whether he realized that included him or not. But Danny had never come out and said he didn’t want to get involved with anybody who wrote, or a blogger.

Quibbling maybe. But still, blogging and writing weren’t what she did anymore. They were an amusing pastime. She’d been nothing but honest with him about who she really was and what she really wanted to do.

Besides, it doesn’t matter anyway—you’re not involved with him.

Right. And they wouldn’t be involved in anything but a professional capacity from here on out.

Honestly, though, it wasn’t her secret writing life she didn’t want him to know about—she wasn’t ashamed of it and suspected he’d be amused by her books, as most men with a smidgeon of self-confidence were. Nor did she mind him knowing that she was a semi-famous internet personality.

But the content of her blog had been pretty revealing over the past couple of weeks.

Marissa wasn’t ashamed of what she’d written, and she hadn’t said a thing that wasn’t true—or that she hadn’t believed was true at the time. But she’d been pretty open about her heartache. The last thing she wanted was the guy who’d caused it to read all about those long, painful days when she’d waited to hear from him. And how she’d reacted when she hadn’t. She’d had a regular bitch session about him with the cyber world, rather than with a few girlfriends over a pitcher of margaritas. Of course, she’d never named him, but he’d know full well who she’d been talking about.

Mr. Perfect. Huh.

She could go back and ditch those entries, she supposed. But she had never played the cyber game that way, and didn’t like people who did. It was cowardly—if you couldn’t stand behind what you wrote online, you shouldn’t write it. Just like you shouldn’t say something behind somebody’s back that you wouldn’t say to their face.

Though, being perfectly honest, she doubted she’d be calling Lieutenant Commander Danny Wilkes a scum-sucking user to his face, the way she had on her blog. Well, not in so many words.

Still, she wouldn’t delete her pain-filled words, that was a cop-out. She was not, however, going to make it easy for him to stumble across them.

“So,” Danny said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. “Maybe you should tell me the topic of tomorrow’s lecture.”

“Safe sex,” she replied absently.

He coughed into his fist. “Uh…seriously?”

Seeing his wide-eyed expression, she wished she’d come up with a different answer. Talking about sex with Danny wasn’t good for her peace of mind. Thinking about having sex with Danny
definitely
wasn’t good for her peace of mind.

She should know—she’d thought about it a
lot
over the past couple of weeks. That heated night had imprinted itself on every cell of her brain, the memories of it reaching out to taunt her in quiet moments. Or not-so-quiet ones. Hell, when she’d been grocery shopping last week, she’d had a serious flashback right in the middle of the produce section because she’d squeezed a pair of kiwis to see if they were ripe.

She’d avoided the cucumbers.

And the zucchini.

“Mari, you’re seriously going to be talking to a bunch of young sailors about sex?”

Cursing herself for deciding to be bold enough to go for the tough stuff in her second lecture, she replied, “Yes.” Mari channeled her inner professor and ignored the lustful free spirit to add, “I intend to go over some of those statistics on body-parts-falling-off, staying safe, that type of thing. Pregnancy rates, how male-female customs in other countries can trip them up. Even immigration issues that could arise if they impregnate a woman while overseas.”