Accidental SEAL (SEAL Brotherhood #1) (14 page)

So, he’s not used to begging.
She knew he was trying hard to cover up something. She liked it better when his control waned.

“Oh, sure you can. Just say thanks for the hot sex, Christy. Maybe we can do it again some time. That sort of thing…”

She turned and took her next sip of coffee so he couldn’t see the tears breaking free and running down her cheeks.

Christy heard the flinch and his instant reaction toward her. He slipped his arms around her waist, one hand sneaking inside the delicate silk with a soft brushing sound like leaves in the fall as he spooned her back into his stunning chest she hadn’t had enough time to study, and whispered, “It isn’t like that, and you know it.” His voice was soft, but urgent.

His fingers massaged her breast as his tongue traced along the curve of her earlobe, driving her crazy for him again. In spite of it all. Even if it was going to be the last time she’d ever see him, if he asked, she would fuck him silly and make him think about her and wish he’d stayed.

Damn the man. It was going to hurt. Maybe this one would be lethal.

She set her coffee down on the countertop and turned to face him straight on. The side of her robe had brushed open and her naked body was against his fully clothed one. The next thing she knew, he was kissing her neck, then her mouth, tongue deeply penetrating, and she was unbuttoning his fly, finding his erection. She was a woman without pride, on a collision course with a man who was practiced at getting in and out without being noticed. Well, she’d make him pay. She’d make sure he never forgot how much she needed him and how good it felt to be inside her.

She nudged a toe behind a cabinet door and stepped up to sit on the counter while he dropped his pants to his ankles. She pulled his T-shirt off and spread her palms against his smooth, warm chest. She let her knees drop to the sides and he urgently impaled her. She lay back among the clean dishes and glasses, which she knocked to the side. He mounted the countertop and pressed down on her. Dishes were falling, breaking. A glass shattered as it hit the floor, but he didn’t flinch and he certainly didn’t have any intention of stopping. He rode her, obsessed with something raging inside him.

He brought both his thumbs to bear down on her nub and she thought she would go insane with pleasure.

“Oh, Kyle. I…” She bit her hand to keep from saying the words. She wouldn’t tell him she loved him, because he wasn’t going to tell her that either.

It was over quickly, except that she was still vibrating from the deep thrusting. He pressed his shaft against her insides and came in huge explosive grunts, as if his climax would never end. She was already rubbed raw and perhaps lightly bruised inside from his ministrations the night before. She quivered like a puddle in an earthquake.

“This is not a pit stop,” he whispered as he bit her earlobe.

She wanted to believe him. Deep down inside, she thought that she could.

“But…?”

“I need this…maybe too much.”

“Is that possible, Kyle?” She looked into his blue eyes and thought she could see his pure white soul. But it was terrorized by something dark that she could not see.

Another glass fell to the floor. She laughed at the fact that this was going to be their last time and he was breaking her things. He’d fucked her on the countertop, of all places. No one had ever done that. “That’s one way to get out of doing dishes.”

He pulled up his pants with one hand and carefully lifted her up off the counter, then brought her to the living room couch, saving her delicate feet from harm. But she was disappointed he did not bring her to bed. She’d been right. He was leaving, after all.

She sat snuggled in his lap, running her fingers over his chest, memorizing every bulging muscle, the size and feel of his nipples, the way his Adam’s apple moved when he talked or swallowed, the size of his full lower lip that she traced with her index finger. He covered her mouth with his, then drew back and held her face in his palms.

“You are so…” he started. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“Same here. I’ve never had so much fun in my kitchen before, either. You do this sort of thing often?” She could show her thick skin, too.

She got an angry glare back.

“Are you going to walk away from this? Isn’t there anything I can do to convince you to stay?” She had looked down at his chest as she’d asked the question, but he continued to hold her head between his hands and made her look at him.

He searched her eyes, and for a second she thought perhaps he would say something else, something she would like, but then again the control came back and his eyes died right along with her heart. It was no use. He dropped his hands and sighed.

“I said some things last night I shouldn’t have.”

“No,” she said, turning her head from side to side, rubbing her forehead against his jaw. “No. Don’t you dare say that. Not now.” Tears began to form. Hot tears.

“I have no right to—”

“That’s for damn sure. You have no damned right to come waltzing in, saying things you don’t mean so you can get into my bed. Or in this case, on my kitchen counter.”

It felt exhilarating to let the anger spread. It was stuffy in her condo.

He got up abruptly and fastened the top of his pants, leaving her disheveled, her robe gaping. She quickly covered her body and wiped her eyes, hoping he couldn’t see her tears.

“I’m going to clean up the mess in the kitchen,” he said. He looked like he was ten years old and had just broken his mother’s cookie jar.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Who the hell are you? One minute I see glimpses of a man I could love, and the next, a cold, calculating—” She teared up again.

“I’m sorry.”

“Leave. Just go.”

It hurt to say it, but her pride and what was left of her self esteem was at stake. Better if she sent him off.

“Christy. I really enjoyed our time together.”

“But not enough to stay.”

“There’s no future here,” he said, tapping his chest with his tattooed forearm, the one with the little three legged creature prints. He squinted his eyes.

“Guess not. Maybe someday when I’m not naked and just been given the goodbye fuck you could tell me what you meant to say but didn’t.”

“I can’t promise that. I’m afraid this is all we have. I’m sorry.”

“Will you stop saying you’re sorry? I would have preferred, ‘I can’t,’ before you screwed me.”

He turned and walked out of her life.

She was in shock. She could still smell him in the air, on her skin. She could still feel the touch of his fingers and his thumbs as he’d played her, as he’d snagged her heart and then ripped it right out of her chest.

Chapter 12

Kyle spent the morning gathering equipment. He put together things to make small IEDs, bought and borrowed ammo, and purchased thin razor wire. He ran into Cooper, who was stocking up his medic kit. The tall SEAL held up a plastic tube.

“You wanna know what we use these for in Nebraska?”

Kyle had no idea. He welcomed any conversation as distraction from the hollow cavern in his chest.

“Mom said her dad, when he got older, wouldn’t want to come into the house when he had to pee if he was way down plowing his fields. Used to keep one o’ these tucked into the brim of his hat.”

Kyle wasn’t sure where this was going. But he knew he was going to wince.

“Granddad’s solution was to shove this thing up his unit and he’d spew like Yellowstone. Became the only way he could pee during the day.”

Kyle frowned, worried his friend was perhaps on a bender. And Coop didn’t do benders anymore.

“Not very sanitary, and it would hurt like hell,” Kyle finally said. “Something wrong with just whipping it out and peeing on the ground? He enjoy the pain and irritation it must have caused?”

Cooper shrugged. “Damn straight. Exactly what I thought. Mom said he was always on penicillin. I think he had a low-level bladder infection and had to pee constantly. Happened all during my younger years until he died. All those farmers did in those days. They didn’t go to a doctor, they went to their vet.”

Kyle shook his head.

“And here I am, using these as chest compression tubes. The very same stuff. Goes to show how some things change and some things stay the same.”

Cooper wandered off the aisle, in search of something else. Kyle was in awe of how the farm boy knew so much about mechanical things, both gas-fired and human. Cooper just knew how things worked in every sense of the word.

All machinery.

And Kyle knew Cooper was probably expert with the ladies, due to all this knowledge of working parts.

Then Kyle remembered about Christy. He got hard in spite of himself.

Damn. He felt bad about how he had treated her. But it had to be done. And she’d made it easy on him. She’d asked him to leave. He wasn’t half sure he would have if she hadn’t insisted on it.

But what a way to break it off. Fuck her on the countertop among the dirty dishes.

You are a goddamned dog. That’s all there is to it. You’re the same man as your father. Add a little alcohol, and hell, you
are
as mean and uncaring as your father.
He was glad she got away. He didn’t want to make a woman as miserable as his father had made his mother.

He called Timmons, who had no news. The chief was near hysterical.

“You better get me something quick. I’m starting to smell here in this office. Hard to cover up shit like this.”

“Copy that. Armando was alive yesterday, that’s all we know. Coop has a friend at DOJ, off the record. He already found out Armando’s cell is whacked. Gonna see if AT&T can give us the location of his last call. But I doubt it will be helpful. Too old now.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“But Timmons, we got Mia’s cell. I think I’ll have the locator on it today. Armando left a message on his answering machine yesterday afternoon from that number. Told us we’ve got three or four days. I’m thinking three.”

“Damn it all. I’m going to go talk to my liaison with the local PD. Maybe they can help.”

“Good idea. You can pull rank, and remind them to play nice.”

“Well, they won’t play so nice if this caper doesn’t get solved right away.”

“Roger that. Doing the best I can, under the circumstances. Not like we can break down doors and start laying traps.”

“Fucking A. You need anything?” Timmons asked.

“A miracle.”

Cooper and Fredo were waiting for him at the Scupper. Gunny was on his way from the gym.

“Timmons is going to ask for some backup for us.” Kyle’s stare drilled a hole right through their heads. “We need to get this done before any of the locals catch wind of this.”

The hard look he got back from Fredo and Coop told him they got the message. Their ability to move unfettered would be greatly curtailed if they had to ask for permission and wait for jurisdictional etiquette. It would be a cluster fuck, and might cost Armando his life.

Fredo swore, but Cooper just looked back at him, chewing on a toothpick like one of his family’s Herefords in Nebraska chewing on a strand of hay. The farm boy took a slip of paper out of his vest pocket and pushed it with his long fingers across the greasy table with a squeaking sound. “Here’s the address. That cell phone has been there two days now. The friendlies at DOJ are watching it for us.”

“Thanks, Coop.”

“My guy said someone’s been nursing the battery. Turning it off and on. Trying to make it last and sending out a signal every few hours.”

“That’s got to be Armando.”

“That’s what I told him.”

“Think your babe mobile is ready for a little undercover work?” Kyle dropped this bomb on Cooper, but again, the farm boy didn’t flinch. Cooper lived in the converted and customized motor home at the ocean, but they’d never used it for a domestic mission like this one. Built to look just like an old fisherman’s motor home, Coop had installed state-of-the-art surveillance equipment so he could monitor the whole area. It also contained arms stored in hidden compartments, and half a dozen drones he’d picked up overseas on the black market.

Cooper kept the beast clean and stocked with fresh flowers nearly every day. He’d told Kyle that he never knew when his walks on the beach would produce a young lady willing to share his bed for the evening. He didn’t have far to go, so when the urge overtook them, he had a pleasure palace outfitted with candles, music, and clean scented sheets, not to mention the flowers, which the girls always loved. It sure was a damn sight cheaper than a motel room. Kyle halfway admired the boy for his frugality, which was legendary among the teams.

“She’s ready, boss.”

Fredo chuckled and finished his beer. “I sure hope you changed the sheets…”

“I’m not sleeping with you, Mr.-Beans-And-Tortillas-For-Breakfast-Lunch-And-Dinner.” Cooper gave Fredo a twisted grin. “Besides,” he said, showing off his straight, oversized white teeth that obviously had cost his parents a small fortune, “I’d rather smell the sheets than your sorry little ass. Little Miss Saturday Night likes Chanel No. 5, and it’s growing on me.”

Kyle watched as Fredo gave Coop a punch in the arm that almost sent the giant sprawling to the floor.

“Okay, gents. Showtime.” Kyle was impatient to begin.

All three got up. Cooper dumped the last of his fries and some packets of sugar and salt into a napkin and wadded the top closed. He never left a morsel on his plate, or anyone else’s either.

“Supplies,” Coop said to Fredo’s frown.

Kyle felt like two people who inhabited the same body. One side heard and was entertained by the shit talk between two best friends who were closer than blood brothers. His other side was worried about what would happen at Christy’s condo while they were off during surveillance. And he couldn’t deny the fantasy of slipping his long frame against her warm supple backside and riding her all night long.

Be safe, Christy. Be smart. Don’t want to lose you.

He wished he could be the last thing she saw at night and the first thing she saw in the morning, for however long he was given the opportunity.