MC Romance: Ride of Their Lives (BBW, Military Romance, Alpha Male) (Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance Book 1) (13 page)

She realized that it had been Ben’s lips moving luxuriously along the back of her shoulders that had caused her to wake with a satisfied sigh. She heard him mutter something barely intelligible about needing to take a shower, before he peeled himself from the bed and shuffled lazily toward that bathroom.

“Aren’t you joining me?” he asked with a sexy grin from over his shoulder.

In two quick strides she was at his side, already kissing and touching him before the water temperature reached a comfortable level.

It was an erotic experience, taking the time to wash each other’s bodies. Emily discovered many points of interest that she had not noticed in the earlier throes of passion. Ben had a small scar on his lower waist from an appendectomy. She remembered him mentioning that it had taken place in his childhood. He had both the entry and exit point of a gunshot wound on the meat of his thigh, as well as hundreds of tiny scars on his forearms and torso that he informed her had come from a grenade blast nearly five years ago. He also, she noted with a smile, harbored a pale birthmark on the left cheek of his backside.

When they had finished, Emily stepped from the bathroom wearing only a towel.

She looked up to find three men, dressed entirely in black, lounging casually about the room. Before she had a chance to scream a hand came down over her mouth and she heard Ben’s voice whisper in her ear.

“Don’t scream.” Ben turned her to face him and leaned down to look into her eyes. “We’re alright.” He assured. “These are my teammates. Breathe, OK?”

With her heart thudding in her chest, Emily clutched the towel and took a series of calming breaths. She could not bring herself to speak, but nodded her understanding that these men were no threat.

“Come on, Portman. Put some clothes on already.” One of the men laughed, tossing Ben a pair of jeans that he promptly slid on. Having heard her sharp intake of breath, Ben had rushed out of the bathroom behind Emily, once again with a gun drawn.

“It’s about damn time you three made an appearance.” Ben clasped hands with each of the men in turn.

“Do you know how many strings we had to pull to get access to an SDV out here in the middle of the Atlantic?” A blond-haired giant of a man lay on the bed, soaking wet. “We had to airdrop onto a sub, then get the damn thing to alter its course. All of that just to get us close enough to track this cruise ship with the unit.”

“What’s an SDV?” Emily asked. She had been eavesdropping on the conversation while extracting a pair of shorts from her duffel bag.

“Pick something warmer.” The blonde pointed at her choice of clothing. “You’ll want to wear whatever you have that is warmest.”

Emily chose a pair of thick sweatpants instead while the man continued to talk.

“An SDV,” he informed, “is a SEAL Delivery Vehicle. It’s a diver-controlled submersible that we use to carry our equipment when we don’t want to, for example, pull up alongside a hijacked cruise liner in a speedboat that announces our arrival like Christmas morning.”

“You swam here?” Emily asked with skepticism.

“Not exactly.” Ben clarified. “It’s more like being dragged along by a torpedo. Except that you can steer.”

Utterly confused, Emily retreated to the bathroom to change. While she dressed, the men continued to discuss tactical plans in terminology that might as well have been a foreign language.

When she rejoined the men they were quiet. She assumed they had formulated some sort of plan because there were four pairs of eyes staring at her with an expectant nature.

“Emily,” Ben began, “I think it’s time that you told us where the disks are hidden.”

Emily groaned and rubbed her hand across her forehead.

“The thing is,” she paced across the plush carpet, “when I hid them I had no idea that Casper had employees on this ship. I would have never guessed that the staff would be involved.”

“Emily.” Ben held her shoulders to end her stride. “Where are they?”

She dropped her head against Ben’s chest in defeat.

“They are in the galley kitchen.” Literally, she told herself, in the center hub of the staffing world. “I figured that it was the one place on the ship that would take Casper the longest to search.

“So, I pretended to be lost and seasick on the first day. I found the kitchen and convinced the chef that if I could sit and rest for a moment, I would be fine. At first he was really concerned, until I pretended to fall asleep. I sat like that for about forty minutes until I finally had a moment to myself. Very quickly, I hid the bag of disks at the very back of the cabinet that held the glassware. The furthest row was dusty, so I guessed that they rarely have reason to use all of the glasses at once.”  She looked up into Ben’s face with regret. “I never expected that I was hiding them someplace where Casper’s goons might stumble upon them. I thought my idea was foolproof and that, even if a staff member happened to find them they would simply be mailed to the address that I left inside the bag.”

She was in completely over her head. It occurred to Emily that she had not had as firm of a grasp on the situation as she had thought. If it had not been for Ben, she was certain she would have been caught by now.

A stocky, bearded man moved from his position by the window and tossed a notepad on the table beside Emily.

“Draw the floor plan. Be as specific as possible and label exactly where you hid the package.” He instructed.

Emily did as she was told while, once again, the Navy SEALs conferred in their complicated lingo.

When the men revealed a pair of thick diving suits that matched their own, Emily and Ben suited up. Ben was given a vest that held all of the tactical equipment that he would need along with a vicious looking military assault rifle.

As he headed toward the doorway, Emily released a cry of protest.

“You stay here until we send Brent the signal to move you to the SDV.” He gestured at the blonde SEAL who was apparently staying behind with her.

“No.” Emily shook her head. “I put them there. I can get them. Casper said they weren’t supposed to cause a scene.”

The blonde laid a hand on her arm.

“All that will change the moment they realize that we are here.” He explained.

“Then let me go alone. They don’t need to know that you are here.” She pleaded.

“Miss Parker,” Brent continued, “we can’t afford to risk your capture. You’ll need to stay here with me.”

Emily slumped down into the chair as three of the men, Ben included, slipped out of the cabin under the cover of night. Never had she been more afraid in her life. She suddenly realized that feeling helpless was much worse than being the one to take action.

After fifteen minutes of silence, Emily was numb. Brent had assisted in the assembly of the rest of her diving gear and given her instructions that she hoped she could remember when the time came to put them to use.

The hand held radio on the bed crackled.

There were a series of sharp commands that echoed from the speaker. None of it made sense to Emily but the transmission sent Brent into frenzy as he began to dig rapidly through a bag that he had finished packing only minutes beforehand.

“What is it?” She approached him slowly.

He slapped a powder packet into her hand and pulled a roll of duct tape from the bag. He then sealed the bag and moved toward the door.

She repeated her question with force this time.

Before opening the door he turned to her with a very serious look.

“They’ve opened fire. They used silencers, so we don’t have to worry about the passengers quite yet, but we have to leave right now.” He stated brusquely.

“What is this for?” she held up the packet clenched in her fist.

“It gels the blood from a gunshot wound. We can’t dive with someone bleeding. It’ll draw in sharks. We need to move fast so, when the boys get back, I need you to pour that powder immediately into the wound while I cover it with the tape. Hopefully, we can prevent too much blood loss before we reach the sub.”

“Who was shot?” She demanded. When he did not answer immediately she tried again, “Brent, who was shot?”

“Ben.” He held up a hand to stop her when she started to speak again. “That’s all I know until we meet up. Just take care of the powder and don’t freeze up on me, OK?”

Emily nodded. He was right that she needed to stay focused. Ben was injured and the only chance of helping him was to get to the safety of the submarine. She followed the SEAL out the door, mimicking his stealth movements as best she could.

They jogged along the length of the deck before coming to a stop at a seemingly deserted stretch of railing.

Brent opened his bag once more and withdrew a rope ladder. He clipped the ladder to the railing and flung it over the side of the ship. Emily leaned over the rail and saw a pale blue, blinking light shining from the water below. That was where their craft waited to propel them all to safety.

“Where are they?” she spoke with frustration when the SEALs still had not arrived three minutes later.

Finally, she saw them, sprinting up the balcony toward her. Ben seemed to be keeping up, she noticed with relief. Perhaps his injury was not as dangerous as she had anticipated. As they came to a halt the two men that were with Ben took protective stances, keeping guard in case they were followed. Brent pushed Ben against the railing, forcing him to lean against it.

That was when she realized that he was swaying slightly with the effort to remain upright. The bullet wound to his left shoulder was precariously close to his heart. Emily refused to allow herself to panic. She efficiently poured the powder onto the main source of bleeding. Instantly the blood thickened into a bulbous paste.

Brent nodded with satisfaction and tossed her the roll from which he had been ripping strips of tape and collecting them in a row on the railing.

“Keep tearing until I tell you to stop.” Brent began covering the wound with a patchwork of duct tape while Emily replenished the strips that lined the railing. “You bastard.” He muttered. “Couldn’t you have been shot someplace easy? Why not an arm? But no, it had to be a chest shot. You just had to join the club didn’t you?”

“I’ll pull through.” Ben grimaced as Brent pushed the tape over his diving suit. “You three did.”

Emily felt her jaw drop as she realized that each of these men had, at one point, had a similar injury. She looked with wide eyes at the four men around her before Brent declared that their work was complete.

Brent catapulted over the railing and slid down the ladder. He moved so quickly that Emily wondered if he had even used the rungs. She was instructed to follow him next. The water was icy and the waves rocked the SDV as it floated alongside the massive ship. Brent attached her belt to the watercraft and turned in time to hand the other men their harnesses as well.

From the deck above, Emily began to hear the sharp shout of voices. A figure leaned over the railing and took aim at their group floating in the water. Before she knew what had happened the man had slumped over the railing and toppled, dead, into the water a few years away. Emily recognized him as Val Marquez.

She turned to her left and watched the bearded SEAL casually return a pistol to a pocket of his wetsuit.

Now there were numerous angry voices up on the deck. Multiple shots hit the water around them as the five Americans pulled their masks over their faces and sank beneath the surface.

The force of the SDV towed them along while one of the SEALs, it was too dark for Emily to distinguish between them, monitored a small screen and steered them toward a green mass on the grid that she assumed was the sub.

She was wondering how Ben was doing when she realized that one of the bodies was dragging limply along beside them. In a state of sheer agony, Emily endured the ride to safety.

A month later, Emily sat in her apartment typing her resignation to her editor. She was done writing adventure novels. In her stories, there had always been a happily ever after. In real life, she had learned that it did not work that way.

After boarding the submarine, Ben had been whisked away to the medical bay. She had been told that his condition was critical and that he was to remain isolated.

The very next morning a helicopter had airlifted him away from her, never to be seen again. She had tried to locate him in the weeks following, but found that his security clearance was so high that it was impossible to garner any information about the man. They would not even tell her if he was still alive.

A knock on her door brought Emily to her feet. She opened it to find Brent leaning casually against her door frame.

“Wow, you’re blonde!” he exclaimed. Emily had died her hair back to its natural color.

“What are you doing here?” she breathed. Emily felt as if she were about to vomit. The only reason she would expect Brent at her apartment was if he had come to tell Emily that Ben had not survived. Except, she thought, he would not look so happy if that were the case.

“I have a present for you.” Brent grinned broadly. “Now, no driving allowed until further notice and here is the list of meds and when to take them.” He handed her a sheet of paper and a box filled with prescription medications. She looked into the box and saw that all of the bottles were labeled Ben Portman.