I don’t care if it’s a day or a week or a month. I’ll wait. I promise to be here when you come home.”

Her words were so earnest that his heart expanded. His mouth went dry, and he couldn’t seem to get any words out, which wasn’t a good thing because Shelby’s face fell as she obviously took his silence as a rejection.

“Yeah, that was probably dumb,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. “The I’ll wait for you part. A little too Jerry Maguire, huh?” Her gaze drifted to the helicopter roaring behind them. “You should go. I’ll just get out of your way and—”

He kissed her. Just kissed her, right there in front of a helicopter full of SEALs a few of whom started whistling.

“It wasn’t dumb,” he murmured into her lips. “And I’m not mad, Shel. I was before, but God knows I can never stay mad at you.” A drop of rain fell directly on her freckled nose and he leaned down to kiss it away. “I’m not going to screw around on you like your ass**le boyfriend did, and now that I know you’ll be waiting here for me when I get back, I’ll work my ass off to make sure I come home as fast as I can, okay?”

“Is that a promise?”

“It’s a guarantee.”

“Good.” She leaned up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips over his, then gently pushed him away. “You should go.”

“Yeah, I really should.” Yet he still couldn’t stop himself from kissing her once more. This time he slipped her a little tongue.

“Go,” she ordered, looking breathless and happy and so ridiculously hot he was almost tempted to face the wrath of his commander and simply not get on the chopper.

But she gave him another shove and repeated, “Go.”

“Fine,” he grumbled.

“I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Good.”

He’d only taken a few steps toward the waiting helicopter when he stopped and turned to shoot her a devilish look. “Hey, you know that ice thing you were doing last night?” he called. “When you were rubbing it all over yourself and pretty much driving me crazy?”

Laughing, she waited expectantly for him to continue.

“Well, when I come home, we’re taking out the ice again. I don’t care if there’s a heat wave or not. I’m definitely rubbing a couple of ice cubes all over your very un-vanilla self, all right?”

“Is that a promise?” she called back.

“Nope.” He grinned and repeated his earlier words. “It’s a guarantee.”