Her One Best SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 6) (13 page)

“Stay for a while?” She sounds sleepy and contented. She won’t stay awake long, and then I’ll leave. This isn’t a sleepover or a commitment. It’s not even a date. We’re just friends who fuck and who maybe take a little nap together. It’s no big deal.

We’ll wake up in an hour, and then I’ll leave. We’ll get together and screw when Marlee’s worked out that ovulation kit, and then she’ll get her baby, and I’ll hit the road for good. Or maybe I’ll stick around on the edges, coming by for birthdays and school stuff. No big deal. No big commitment.

“Yes or no, Vann.” Amusement colors her voice. “Stop thinking so hard.”

It’s just a shared bed and a quick nap. I’ve slept in a hundred different places with a thousand different people. Being in the same place doesn’t have to mean anything. I know that better than anyone. Marlee’s hand rubs down my back, finds my hip and curls around me. Well. Okay, then.

I give up the idea of getting dressed and crawl back in the bed beside her. Marlee rolls over with a contented sigh, her butt pressing against my dick and hips, her soft curves cradling me. This isn’t bad at all. This isn’t
friendly
at all.

I’ll figure it out if it becomes a problem, because right now I bury my face in Marlee’s pretty, every-which-way hair, and I drift off inhaling her.

F
unny how time flies when you’re having fun. Marlee and I fall into a seductive rhythm. We spend time together, both naked and not. She thinks it’s important we
get to know each other
. Apparently, the best co-parents are friends, so if I do decide to play anything other than a walk-on part in the Mini-Marlee’s life, she wants to know more about me than the size of my dick and my O-face.

We’re not dating. I mean, we go out. We do shit together, we eat out, and then we come back and bang like the last pair of rabbits after the nuclear apocalypse. Marlee really, really wants that baby. Three weeks after we first start Operation Make a Baby, however, Mother Nature hands Marlee her first defeat.

I get the heads up when I knock on Marlee’s door. We’re supposed to be going to a drive-in movie in my truck, and I’ve packed snacks in a cooler. I’ve got a stack of blankets and a six-pack of nonalcoholic beer (I’ve been informed we all have to make sacrifices in the Great Baby Quest), and we’ve got just enough time to drive the twenty miles before the opening credits start rolling and all the best parking spots are taken.

Marlee opens the door, holding her phone in her hand. She looks surprised to see me, which should have been my first clue. Except I’m drinking her in. If I were a dog, I’d be barking and licking and all over her, but fortunately for her, I’m better trained than that. I lean down, intending to go for the kiss, but she backs up.

Whoa.

Yeah. Let me say that again. She fucking retreats from my mouth, and I have no idea why. Yesterday we were naked and banging, and now it’s like I’ve got a terminal case of halitosis.

She waves her phone at me like it holds all the answers. “I texted you.”

“Forgot my phone.”

“Oh.” She chews on her lower lip.

“Something you want to tell me?”

“I bailed on our movie night,” she admits.

“I figured,” I tell her, motioning to her clothes. I’m still not sure what’s going on here, but Marlee’s in her pajamas. Most nights, I like those pajama pants of hers. I love them even better, though, when I’m stripping them down her legs, tossing them over my shoulder, or discovering them balled up at the bottom of the bed. My dick gets hard remembering, and my fingers itch to touch her. What the fuck did I do to screw things up?

“Sorry.” She gives me a small, tight smile and crosses her arms over her stomach. She’s holding onto herself as if things might fall apart if she eased up even a millimeter, and her mouth is tight. What. The. Fuck.

“Can I come in?” I know she enjoys what we do in bed, but that’s sex with a purpose. I have no idea if she’d really want to spend all this time with me if we weren’t—

Don’t go there.

Fall.

Back.

“I got my period this afternoon,” she admits.

We knew this was likely to happen. Most people don’t get knocked up their first month of trying. That’s probably one of the reasons why sex is so amazing, why the sensations are so fucking addictive. You want more and more so that Mother Nature gets as many shots as she needs at knocking your ass up. If it was easy, the world would be wall-to-wall people and we’d have already figured out how to colonize the moon.

“You don’t have to stay,” she continues, as if she somehow thinks the only reason I’ve been coming around is for the sex. As if she’s my booty call, my friend-with-benefits, my hook up. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe that’s all I am to
her
—sperm in an attractive package, but right now she can’t sample the goods, so she doesn’t need me.

She stares at me. I stare at her.

A lightbulb goes off in my head. “What if I
want
to?”

She gives me a mischievous grin. “In that case,
mi casa es tu casa
.”

Maybe it’s just because we’ve spent so much time together, but I don’t want to miss out on today. Marlee’s smile is warmer, brighter. I could watch her all day and all night, too.

I go back to my truck and grab the cooler. There’s no point in wasting perfectly good food—and besides, Vali cooked it all, so it’s bound to be good. We end up picnicking on the floor of the living room, while we squabble amicably over which movie we should watch. Marlee wins, of course, because I let her.

We’re twenty minutes into
Steel Magnolias
(thank God Finn’s not here to give me crap), when I notice she keeps rubbing her stomach and wincing. Fuck. I have a bad premonition of what labor’s gonna be like.

“What’s up?” I want to pull her into my arms, to promise her I can fix what’s wrong. To see her smile and her face light up. The part of me that’s committed to baby-making suggests that there are plenty of ways to accomplish this, starting with an orgasm. And honestly? That would be my first choice, too.

“Cramps,” she says. Her tone announces that she’s providing no more details and she’ll kill me if I ask. Conveniently, I’ve spent years under fire—and I’ve lived to tell the tale.

I slide my hand over her stomach. She glares at me, but her eyes look just a little less hostile. Maybe she’s still considering disemboweling me, but the death sentence is now off the table.

“How do we fix that?”

She gives me a look. The one that says I’m such a guy. The one that says I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. “
We
don’t. The cramps will go away by tomorrow.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve been around a woman with her period, but this is the first time anyone has discussed cramps with me. We live in a country that’s put a man on the goddamned moon. Why the hell can’t we fix cramps? It’s downright barbaric if you think about it—I don’t even have ovaries or any related parts and I’m wincing in sympathy.

I borrow Marlee’s phone and do a little Google action. Most of the home remedies for cramps involve pumping yourself full of various vitamins. Tea. Heating pads. Vigorous exercise. And orgasms.

“I could be just what the doctor ordered.” I turn the phone so she can see the screen.

She makes a face. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“You got a heating pad?”

She nods and gives me directions; as soon as I’ve got the thing plugged in, I tuck her into bed and transfer our movie to the television on her dresser. Then I pull her closer and do the only thing I can. I rub the small of her back and I pay attention. When she sighs and moans, I know I’ve found a good spot. The right spot. I have one job—taking care of Marlee—and I won’t fuck it up.

“It’s silly to be so disappointed,” she says. “About the baby.”

“We’ll try again,” I promise her and run my hands up her spine. She’s got knots there that would make the Gordian knot look small.

“Yes,” she breathes.

She exhales.

I inhale.

Fucking perfect.

“Why a baby now?” As admittedly awesome as Roger is, I can’t imagine being this desperate to make one of my own. Or maybe it’s a girl thing. A chemical thing or a desire that gets passed out with ovaries and a vagina. All I know is that I’ve never had it.

She shrugs. “I don’t know if I can explain it.”

“Try?” That’s my mouth brushing over her ear.

“You know how you’ve got the SEAL team?” she asks instead. “Those guys, they’re like your brothers. Part of it’s the fighting and the shared purpose, but there’s another side, right? You spend all that time together. You know each other. I know it’s not a guy thing to say, but you love each other.”

“They’re family,” I agree. I’ve never thought about my team in that way before, but she’s not wrong. Ro, Finn, and the rest of them? They’re not
like
brothers. They simply are.

“I want that,” she says fiercely. “I’m ready to find my family, to fight for it, to earn my right to belong. This baby and I, we’re going to be a unit, a team. We’re going to be together.”

Baby and I
. That’s a mighty small version of
we
.

“I think that’s why I married Roddy,” she continues. “I thought he and I could be the start of that new family. My parents and I have drifted apart over the years. No fighting—nothing like that—but it’s like there was nothing holding us together. Roddy seemed like my perfect do-over. I thought we’d be a family of two, and then we’d add kids when we were ready. He always stayed close with his own family and spent time with his sister’s kids. He was solid, loyal, and dependable.”

So are the dogs I train.

I find the remote and turn off the TV.

“So what happened?”

“In fifteen years, we didn’t grow closer. We didn’t really make a home—we just bought bigger and bigger houses. He didn’t care enough and we weren’t really a team. We tried for a baby a few times and it didn’t happen and when it turned out we couldn’t—” she shrugs. “The house just seemed even emptier and bigger. Now here I am, and I’ve got you as my wingman.”

Great. I’m the prop, the guy who closes the dating deal for his friend and talks up his more sterling qualities. If I’m really Marlee’s wingman, it’s my job to make sure she goes home with her number one man. And it sure sounds like she’s not over Roddy. So why is she here with me?

Marlee’s drifting off on me now, sleep claiming her.

“I’m gonna stay the night,” I say.

“Okay,” she agrees, but she’s already buckled in and braced for landing on Planet Lala Land.

I’m not the right man for this job. I’m nothing like Roddy, right down to the inescapable fact that I’d never let her walk away from me if we were married—and yet I’m more than willing to give her a baby. What we have is just sex. Hot, sometimes dirty, always mind-blowing sex.

Just sex.

Which is definitely more than Roddy the Super-Fucking-Awesome is getting from her. And which is small comfort, because I have a bad feeling I’m starting to want more—and that was never part of our deal.

We hang out on Monday, Tuesday,
and
Wednesday. We watch all of the
Pirates of the Caribbean
movies back-to-back, and Marlee asks if I can do beads and braids (for her, I’ll consider it). I show her what’s wrong with the fight scenes. We both agree that only an idiot would try to commandeer an English ship by walking underwater with a rowboat over his head.

Friday night, we cheat and head over to the Tiki Hut. The place has live music and dancing—which seemed like a good idea until we’re pulling up and all that light and sound comes spilling out across the sand. Fuck. This is date night central. The only non-couples are packs of guys and gals—all checking each other out.

We go in, I commandeer a table, and we listen to the music. Which is getting harder and harder to hear over the incessant laughing and public foreplay happening on the dance floor.

It’s raining, which means we’re all huddled underneath the palapa roof like we’d melt if a little water touched us. Kind of funny, really, seeing as how we live yards from the ocean. You ever see a video of the capybaras that live in some Japanese park? It rains and they pile up in a little wooden house like they’ve never seen water before. I love the rain. Always have. It’s the perfect time to run—or maybe convince Marlee to come back to my place where we can hear the rain and the ocean at the same time. Even if we’re not having sex, she’s got to sleep, right? Might as well be with me.