“You might as well quit pining over the girl,” Carson added, lifting his beer bottle to his mouth and taking a long swig.

“I’m not pining,” Garrett said defensively. “I’m just…” His voice drifted, his brain unable to come up with an alternative description for the way he felt about Shelby.

Fuck. Fine. Maybe he was pining, just a little. But who could blame him? Shelby was pretty fricking amazing. Look up the definition of sexy California girl in the dictionary and Shelby Harper’s picture would be there, complete with her wavy, sun-streaked blonde hair, her big blue eyes with those incredibly long eyelashes, and that slender athletic body she kept in shape by surfing out at Coronado Beach every morning.

Most of the officers who met her thought she was the typical West Coast blonde, complete with the dumb part, but Garrett had only needed five minutes with the woman to know she was the furthest thing from dumb and typical.

Shelby Harper was smart as hell. Funny as hell. Nice as hell.

And there wasn’t a chance in hell that she’d ever get naked with a guy like him.

“Look,” Carson said after Garrett’s silence had lasted a bit too long. “You’ve spent the last year acting like a choirboy, coming in here whenever you’re on leave and buying those fancy-pants mocha latte Frappuccinos without ever telling Shelby that what you really want is to get inside her pants.”

“You can’t tell a woman like Shelby Harper you want inside her pants,” Garrett replied with a frown, reaching for his own beer. He took a slow sip, but the liquid was already room temperature, and room temperature meant about ninety degrees. He forced himself to swallow the tepid beer, then pushed the bottle away.

“Why the hell not? She fills out a pair of pants pretty f**king nicely.”

She sure did…

He forcibly shoved all thoughts of Shelby’s tight ass out of his head and said, “I can’t treat Shel the way I treated all the SEAL groupies I hooked up with. She’s…classy and… nice. She deserves more than a couple sleazy come-ons.”

“Well, since you’ve been striking out since day one, maybe a couple sleazy come-ons are what you need.”

“I, uh, kinda tried that,” he admitted. “Just now.” A groan rose in his throat. “I offered to fondle her tits and she—”

Carson hooted. “You did what?”

“—pretty much ordered me to get out of her sight,” he finished.

And now…now she was cozying up to Aston, who was obviously trying to get her drunk enough so she wouldn’t care if he was married or not.

“Look, although the fondling line is gold,” Carson chuckled again, “maybe it’s time you accepted the fact that she’s not interested. And do you blame her? This place is right near the base. Think of all the Navy personnel—and groupies—who come in here. She’s probably heard all about your reputation, man.”

Garrett clenched his teeth, fighting the urge to hit something, but deep down he knew Carson had a point. He was by no means a saint, and no doubt Shelby had heard some wild stories about him, most of them true. At best, she knew his past was a revolving door of women. Lots of women. At worst, she was aware of his wild streak, maybe even the threesomes, some with none other than Carson Scott, the guy sitting right beside him.

But his reputation was the precise reason why he’d tried taking a different approach when it came to Shelby Harper. He hadn’t been overly flirtatious, hadn’t acted disrespectfully, and he certainly hadn’t made it obvious just how badly he wanted her naked beneath him while he drove his c**k inside her and made her scream his name while she came…

Shit, definitely not a good idea to be thinking about stuff like that. He was already hot enough thanks to this heat wave.

Next to him, Carson wasn’t finished with his lecture. “Shelby’s not a wild chick, Garrett. Like you said, she’s nice, wholesome, you know, the kind of woman who’d probably freak out if you suggested, I don’t know, trying something other than the missionary position. She’s got a body that won’t quit, sure, but there’s this whole Pollyanna thing going on. Maybe it’s the freckles.”

“I like the freckles.”

“Yeah, me too. But I’m telling you, women with freckles are ridiculously vanilla when it comes to sex. I speak from experience, man.”

Garrett had to laugh. “Let me guess, your little black book has an entire section reserved for freckle-faced women.”

The other man just grinned, which made Garrett wonder if Carson really did categorize his conquests…nah, even Carson Scott wasn’t that sleazy.

His brain suddenly stumbled over the word sleazy, and he had to wonder if that’s how Shelby saw him. He hoped not, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she thought that.

Even though he’d bid goodbye to his wild ways, his reputation did precede him. So did his rep as SEAL, though Shel didn’t seem all that impressed with his line of work. Most women were ready to rip their clothes off when they found out he was a big bad SEAL, an all-American hero. Yet he got the feeling Shelby viewed his job as a turn-off. Garrett knew she’d dated a Marine a couple years ago and that the relationship had ended badly, which was why he’d always made a point not to talk about his work. Not that it helped.

Seemed like nothing he did impressed the woman.

“You don’t want to have sex with Shelby Harper,” Carson was saying, still sipping on his beer.