Saving the Seal 2: A BWWM Navy Seal Interracial Romance (5 page)

Genny’s entire form quivered in relief and pleasure as her cheeks flamed. So much for asking him!

She smacked her boyfriend’s arm in annoyance, only to end up wincing herself as her hand connected with the hard marble of his bicep. “That wasn’t funny.”

“Of course it wasn’t.” Owen chuckled lowly, taking hold of both of her hands before she could hit him again. “It was hilarious.” Any protests she might have had were stifled by his mouth against hers.

It was a very long time indeed before Genevieve had the opportunity to speak again.

Chapter Three: Unease

It was quiet.

After two weeks of running around trying to get all of Genny’s things moved into his house before she went back to work, Owen’s first day without her was almost eerie. There was no more tension, no more waiting for the next damning news report – though there were plenty of them. It was finally time to just relax.

Which had never come easy to him.

That morning, he had gone to the base shooting range to practice his marksmanship. He was worried to find that he was a little rusty. He couldn’t quite hit a target dead center from one thousand yards anymore, and the fact irked him. He’d stayed for three hours trying to hit that target, until Sean convinced him to stop beating himself up.

His friend and commanding officer was preparing to ship out on a nine month deployment – one of his longest in years. Though he wouldn’t say so, Owen knew that he was upset to be missing the first six months of his son’s life. He assured Sean that he and Genny would be available to help support Gina.

Though he knew that because of that promise, he was now bound to watch a baby being born. The thought made his stomach tighten in nervousness. He knew very little about childbirth, other than that it included a lot of pain and screaming on the part of women. God knew Gina screamed at him enough as it was.

Aside from that nervousness, however, he couldn’t help but feel envy watching Sean prepare to lead their team back to the Middle East. The captain knew him well enough to pacify him with the hope that the next time they shipped out, they’d be going together.

Owen could only hope.

He glanced over at Eddie, who was lounging on the couch beside him, chewing on one of his favorite rawhide bones. The damn dog was lucky. He got to do whatever the hell he wanted all day. Thanks to Genny, Owen now had a concerted schedule he had to follow. He knew it was supposed to be good for him, but the mantle was difficult to take up after nearly a year of being idle.

Exercise in the morning was no big deal. What was a big deal was making recordings of nightmares that he had. According to Genny, recording the material and then playing it back to himself was supposed to help him face his fears. In his opinion, it was nothing short of torture. It was hard enough to talk about what haunted him out loud, but to have to listen to it? Christ, he could barely get through half of one dream.

It was supposed to get better in time, but he’d been dealing with the shit for almost two weeks and he still dreaded it.

The green-eyed man eyed the digital recorder on the coffee table before him with an intense hatred before turning away from it.

Another thing he was supposed to do was write in a journal every day. He hadn’t told Sean about that one because he was sure his CO would tease him to no end about it. Owen had only ever heard of angst-ridden hipster teenagers journaling, but apparently, writing about what he felt was supposed to help him get it out of his system.

Several times, he came close to trashing the small white notebook Genevieve had supplied him with in frustration, but he could never bring himself to do it. He trusted her, and if she said this would help him, he knew it would.

He would just have to be patient.

The thought made him groan. Anyone who knew him well was aware of just how much of a task that would be for him.

Goddamn, he hoped Genny was having a better day than he was. For all the hoops they’d jumped through in the last year, they’d been together for almost every one of them. Any place he was felt empty without her in it. It stripped away a bit of his masculinity to admit it, but he missed her. Even though she’d yelled at him for accidently bleaching one of her favorite dresses just the previous night, he was tempted to call her.

But he knew better. As it was her first day back, she would undoubtedly be busy. He would just have to wait until she got home – and he was prepared to wait for as long as it took. He wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to hear her moan and sigh as he eased all the tension out of her body with his fingers and tongue.

Christ, the
thought
was enough to make him rock hard.

With a groan, Owen rose from the couch, glancing down at Eddie as the dog looked up at him curiously. “Stay, bud.”

He needed a cold shower –the sooner the better. However, the man hadn’t taken two steps towards the bathroom when his phone went off. He had to search for it for a moment, remembering that he had lost it in the couch, before he finally retrieved it. The caller ID wasn’t showing up, and he frowned as he answered, expecting a telemarketer. “Hello?”

There was silence on the other line. Owen’s gaze narrowed in annoyance. “Hello?”

Well, it wasn’t completely silent. He could definitely hear someone breathing on the other end of the line. “Hello?” He repeated, more harshly this time.

“I left her a present.” This time, an answer came almost immediately. The tone was completely unfamiliar and sounded vaguely as if it had been run through a modulator of some sort. Owen could tell from having faced the same situation countless times while he’d been on active duty. “I left her an
amazing
present, and I can’t wait for her to unwrap it.”

“What the hell?” The SEAL demanded, his tone hard. “Who is this?”

But the line had already gone dead.

Frowning deeply, Owen stared at the device skeptically. It must have been a wrong number, as he had
no
idea who would call his phone speaking like that. With a sigh, he tossed the phone onto the couch before making his way back to the bedroom.

He was stripping his t-shirt over his head when he paused, mid-motion.

I left her an
amazing
present, and I can’t wait for her to unwrap it
. There had been something chillingly sinister in that statement. A malevolence that he could sense, even if the voice had been disguised.

Who the hell would have sent a present though? Nothing had arrived at the house in the past two weeks, and Genny would have gotten anything from her old address after she’d posted his as a forwarding location. If she had received something, he thought she would have told him about it for certain.

Biting his lip, Owen unzipped his jeans, shimmying out of them. Why was he worrying for nothing? It was probably some teenager trying to play a prank. His number was unlisted. How the hell could anyone have found it otherwise?

He was about to step into the shower, but somehow, he found he couldn’t. Every muscle in his body was taut with some unexplainable tension.

I left her an
amazing
present…

With a sense of foreboding, Owen returned, naked, to the living room. Eddie whimpered, giving his master a questioning look as Owen dialed the psychiatric department at Riperton.

“Hello, Riperton Psychiatric Department. How may I direct your call?” He recognized the voice of Tina, the day receptionist.

“Hey, Tina. It’s Owen. I was just wondering if Genevieve has received any packages today?” He knew it was a strange thing to ask, but he figured there’d be no harm in assuaging his gut instinct.

“Not that I know of.” The young, chipper girl returned brightly. “There have been a couple of orders of flowers for her, congratulating her on the new position, but no packages.” Owen breathed a sigh of relief, shaking his head. He was being stupid, he knew.

“Thanks, Tina.”

“No problem, Owen. Wait, hold on one second.” There was a muffled exchange as she spoke to someone in the office, and Owen found himself errantly tugging on Eddie’s toy to placate him as he waited for her to return. “Owen.” When Tina came back on the line, she sounded somewhat surprised. “Actually, Stella tells me that Genny did get a package while I was at lunch with an unmarked sender. Did you send her something?” Her voice became low and conspiratorial. “That’s super sweet of you.”

Owen froze in place, effectively allowing Eddie to snatch the toy from his hand triumphantly.

Fuck
. “Did she open it yet?” He tried to keep the alarm from his voice, though his tone was audibly curt.

“What? No…not that I know of.” Tina returned hesitantly. “Actually, I think she might have taken it to open on lunch break. She stepped out to Harry’s across the street-”

That was all Owen needed to hear. He hung up quickly, racing to the bedroom to throw his clothes on. The long-legged man strode to his truck at a fever pace, his heart pounding in his chest. It was a ten minute ride from where he was to Harry’s. He prayed to God that Genny waited to open the package until
after
she ate her lunch.

**

God. She was exhausted already and it wasn’t even two o’clock.

Genny slumped in her chair as she sipped at her raspberry lemonade. If she thought her life as a psychiatrist had been hectic, serving as head of a department made her head spin. She had to approve everything and commit paperwork for prescriptions. She had to check and double check patient intake forms as well as make sure that everyone arrived on time and stuck to their schedules.

The pace she had to keep was fairly mind-blowing.

When she collapsed at the booth at Harry’s, it was the first time she’d sat down the entire day. She was strongly tempted to nap for her one hour lunch break, but she made herself order a chicken salad. Maybe it was time for her to upgrade from tea to coffee. It certainly seemed like she was going to need it to get through a twelve hour shift sitting in the big chair.

As she ate, Genny‘s hazel eyes fell on the long box at her side and she smiled. There was no return address, but she was fairly certain Owen had sent her something. The first time the man had sent her flowers, he’d nearly worked himself up into a fit until she assured him that she liked them. Since then, he’d taken to sending her small things every once in a while – tokens of the love he had trouble putting into words.

This box was light and long, making her wonder what it could be. She’d decided to wait until she was finished eating to open it, for fear that she’d spill anything on it. At least if she had to kill herself for a solid twelve hours, she got to open a nice gift on her lunch break.

Genny took a leisurely thirty minutes to eat her lunch, leaving an additional half hour to prep herself before she headed back to the hospital. After finishing her lemonade, she finally reached for the box on the booth next to her.

She had barely started to untie the lavender ribbon around it when a loud shout made her jump in alarm. “
Genny!
”

She whirled to see Owen striding across the restaurant to her. The man looked disheveled, as if he had dressed in a hurry, and every muscle in his body seemed wound tighter than a crossbow ready to let fly.

“Owen?” Her tone was disbelieving. “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”

“Don’t open that.” At this point, they had the attention of the entire restaurant. Every patron was staring at them in curiosity. Without hesitation, the SEAL plucked the box from in front of her, eying it as if it might explode at any moment.

“Well, alright. I can wait until I get home if you want-”

Without answering, Owen sprinted from the establishment, leaving his very confused girlfriend in his wake. It took Genny about thirty seconds to recover from her shock, but when she did, she quickly threw some bills on the table to cover her check and hurried after him. She found the man in the center of the parking lot, ripping the ribbon from the box as he eyed it suspiciously.

“Owen?” She called his name, worried now. “What’s the matter?”

He hesitated visibly before answering her. “Someone called me about twenty minutes ago. It was an unknown number. They said they’d sent you an amazing gift.” He scowled down at the unmarked white box he held.

So it wasn’t him who had sent her the gift? What was so wrong with that? She knew that Owen could be the jealous type, but snatching the box away from her completely? That was a bit of a stretch. “Well, let me open it then!” She proposed, with a small smile. The moment she took a step towards him, however, the man held out his hand in warning.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer, Genny.”

Alright, now she was
beyond
confused. Scowling, she crossed her arms over her chest to eye her boyfriend in irritation. “Owen, this is childish. Come on. Give me the box.”

“I can’t.” He replied curtly. “Not until I’m sure it’s safe.”

Safe
? For a moment, Genny thought he might be joking. A glance into the man‘s genuinely anxious gaze put the notion from her mind. Was he
really
scared someone was trying to hurt her?