SEALed with a Kiss (Alpha SEALs Book 2) (9 page)

“Thanks for coming over to help,” Rebecca said Saturday morning, pushing a strand of wavy brown hair from her eyes.  Standing there in cut-off jeans and a tank top, she looked like she could pass for a college student rather than a successful lawyer, Alison thought.  Get her in a courtroom though, and she’d completely tear you apart.

Alison wished she could be tough-as-nails when need be like her best friend.  She was used to taking care of others, helping them.  Not tearing people down.  She knew Rebecca only did what she had to for her clients, but Alison could use a little of that gumption some days.  Like now, for instance, when days later her mind was still swirling with thoughts of Evan.  She was angry at herself for letting him get to her the other night, for letting him kiss her and carry her off to her bedroom.

She was livid he’d made her want him so damn much.

She was mad at herself for making him leave.

She was upset he’d actually gone.  Not that she’d given him much of a choice.

“No problem; I have a few days off,” Alison said, shoving another box of toys and stuffed animals aside.  They’d been hard at work for an hour but barely had anything to show for it.  How much stuff did one kid have anyway?  Rebecca’s house never looked cluttered, but when you cleared off all the shelves lining the family room, it added up to a massive amount of belongings.

Rebecca surveyed the stacks of boxes around her family room and massaged her temples.  “I have to clear out everything before the carpet installers get here on Monday.  Waiting until the last minute was a bad call, but things have been so crazy busy at work, this is the first chance I’ve had to get anything done around the house.”

Alison walked over to the coffee table and picked up her vanilla latte, taking a sip.  The hot liquid seeped down her throat, and she briefly closed her eyes.  After three twelve-hour shifts at the hospital, plus a few hours of overtime, she needed all the caffeine she could get.  Adding in the sleepless nights she’d had over the past several days, and she felt like she was running strictly on fumes.  “Where’s Patrick?  I figured he’d be over here first thing.  We could use some muscle,” she joked.

Rebecca and Patrick had been practically joined at the hip all summer long.  The man barely let her out of his sight after the stalker incident—not that Alison blamed him.  She’d been scared for her friend, too, once the entire story had come out.  There was security at Rebecca’s office building and the courthouse, but on the weekends?  Rebecca and Patrick were always together, their kids not far behind. She’d half-expected to see him already hauling boxes around when she showed up early this morning, the job half-done.  Those SEALs didn’t joke around about getting up early and getting in their PT.  Even though it was just after nine in the morning, this was practically late with the hours they kept.

“He was supposed to help me.  Something came up on base, so he’s over there with the rest of the team right now.  I don’t know if he’ll be able to come over at all.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I have a bad feeling they’ll be deploying again soon.  Patrick’s been really tense this past week.”

“Do they know ahead of time when they’re leaving?”

“It depends, I guess.  They don’t usually go into base on Saturdays though.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was gone by next week.”

“Next week?”  Alison paused, her coffee cup halfway to her lips.  She’d just seen Evan…what…three days ago?  He hadn’t mentioned he was leaving.  That the team was
deploying
to what was likely some dangerous warzone.  He’d kissed her until she was breathless and gotten more than intimately acquainted with her.  He’d made her come for God’s sake.  How could he not mention that he’d be leaving soon?

“He’ll be fine.”

“Who?”

“Patrick.  Didn’t you just ask about him?” Rebecca tilted her head, eyeing Alison curiously.  Alison could practically see the wheels turning in her best friend’s head.  And she hadn’t even told Rebecca about dinner with Evan on Wednesday—or the life-changing orgasm that followed.

Try as she might, she couldn’t get the blond Navy SEAL out of her head.  Her mind had been replaying Wednesday night in her bedroom like an endless movie—except it was strictly the highlights reel.  Couldn’t the man at least be a bad lover or something?  Now she had
that
to remember him by as well.  And remember was all she would do, because if she ever saw Evan again, she’d be running the other way.  He was way too tempting for her self-control.

“Yes, Patrick,” she stammered.  “Who else would I be talking about?”

Rebecca nailed her with a gaze.  Her whip smart lawyer instincts seemed to be calling bullshit on Alison’s maneuvering around the subject.  Why did Rebecca have to know her so well? 

“Well, maybe the Navy SEAL that drove you home the other night for starters,” Rebecca teased.  “Evan, was it?”

She sighed.  “I saw him again the other night.”

“Again?  You mean after last weekend?”

“He made me dinner on Wednesday.”

“What?” Rebecca asked, pausing in the midst of grabbing Abby’s stuffed elephant from the armchair.  She tossed it back down and turned to face Alison.

“Evan.  Made.  Me.  Dinner.”  Alison repeated, as patiently as possible.

“He asked you out?”

“No.  It’s kind of a long story…,” Alison said, turning away.  She grabbed some throw pillows and a blanket from the sofa and stuffed them into a box.  “…starting with us running into each other in the parking lot and ending with him cooking me dinner in my kitchen.  Well no, technically, it ended in my bedroom.”

“Sounds promising so far,” Rebecca teased.

“I don’t know.  It wouldn’t work,” she mumbled.

“Did he stay the night?”

“I told him to leave.”

“That bad?”

“That good.”

Rebecca laughed.  “That’s why you’re so upset Evan is deploying?”

“I’m not upset,” Alison huffed, cramming more stuff into the overflowing box.  Honestly, if she couldn’t count on her best friend to be on her side, then who could she count on?  And was it so much to ask for the man who’d been in her bed to let her know he was leaving on a mission with no idea when he’d return?  Or if he’d even return at all?

A chill snaked down her spine.  Those guys deployed all the time.  She’d known what Rebecca went through each time Patrick had to leave.  The reality of the situation began to sink in when she imagined Evan in Patrick’s place.  He’d leave.  Frequently.  She’d have no clue where he was, how long he’d be gone, or if he’d ever return.  Fan-freaking-tastic.

The way his face had turned to stone as he walked out of her bedroom had left her uneasy for the past several days.  He hadn’t just been disappointed, it almost seemed like he’d been hurt.  Like
she
had somehow hurt him.  If he didn’t mean anything to her, then why did she care so damn much?  And more importantly, if he was just looking for a good time, why would he be offended she wanted him to leave?  Those guys had women hanging all over them.

She glanced over to see Rebecca looking at her in disbelief.

“I’m not upset,” Alison repeated.

“Uh-huh.  And I’m not madly in love with Patrick.”

Alison continued packing, ignoring her friend’s last statement. “Where’s Abby?”

“My parents have her for the weekend.  I didn’t think my packing up all her toys would go over so well with a four-year-old.”

Alison laughed for the first time all morning.  “I hear you.  Abby’s a sweetheart, but you might only have one box of stuff packed by Monday if she were here helping.”

“Exactly.  Some days it’s a wonder I get anything done.”

“Want to go out somewhere tonight?  Maybe grab a drink?” Alison asked.  It was rare that the two of them had any girl time alone.  If they met for dinner, Abby usually came along.  Alison could use a few drinks and a night out with her best friend, not to mention something to get her mind off of Evan.  The sooner she could forget about him, the happier she’d be.

“Absolutely.  Want me to swing by and pick you up at seven?”

“Sounds perfect.”  Maybe the weekend wouldn’t be so bad after all.

***

Evan slammed his shot glass down on the table at Anchors Saturday night, listening to the other guys on his team flirting with the women there.  The whiskey burned down his throat, warming his insides. 
Too young for her. 
Fuck that.  If she didn’t want him, he’d find another woman who did.  First, he needed another couple of drinks to erase the images floating through his mind.  Alison, legs splayed over his shoulders as he pleasured her.  Fuck if he hadn’t ever tasted anything so sweet.  The look on her face at the front door as he’d kissed her after dinner.  Despite her protests that they were all wrong, she’d clung to him desperately, pulling him closer as he’d swept her mouth with his tongue.

The worst image of all was the one of her clutching the blanket around herself right before he left.  Her face had been flushed from the screaming orgasm he’d given her, her hair was tousled and sexier than fuck, and the panic in her eyes had been overwhelming.  What the hell was the woman so afraid of?  She’d been more than happy to be swept into his arms and carried off to bed.  But the moment he’d held her close, tried to be more than just some guy who’d gone down on her, she’d panicked.  Froze him out.

Evan had the distinct impression Alison didn’t let men into her life very often—not into her townhouse, and definitely not into her bed.

Hell, didn’t all women want a man that would hold them close?  A man that wanted more than just sex and a one-night-stand?  They hadn’t even lasted until the sex or one-night part.  He’d licked her senseless, loving every fucking second, and she’d practically kicked him out.  All that had been missing was her shouting not to let the door hit his ass on the way out.

It just figured that when he’d found a woman he wanted more than one night with, she couldn’t handle it.  No wonder most of his SEAL team was still single—women were just too damn confusing.  A mystery most men would never solve.

Other conversations hummed in the background at Anchors, glasses and beer bottles clinked, and women swarmed around their table.  A cute little brunette kept trying to get his attention, but the coy way she bit her lip and gazed at him through hooded eyes did little to tempt him.  Mike pulled a sexy blonde onto his lap, and Evan’s jaw almost dropped at the extremely low-cut top she was wearing.  Why the hell did women think that was attractive?  A little cleavage was enticing, but what man would want the entire bar to see his woman’s goods on full display?

His mind flashed back to slowly undressing Alison in her bedroom.  Kissing her small and supple breasts.  She was the type of woman who was completely gorgeous without flaunting it.  She didn’t dress provocatively, but the way her clothing sexily draped over her curves drove him wild.

Hell.  So much for forgetting about the strawberry blonde beauty for the night.  He needed something to get her off of his mind, but the ladies trying too hard at Anchors just didn’t interest him.  At all.

“Hey baby,” Brent said, flashing a grin at the brunette who’d been hitting on Evan earlier.  She winked but wondered off with some of her girlfriends.

“Shit, what the hell was that about?” Brent muttered.

“She only has eyes for Evan,” Christopher joked.  “Didn’t you see her falling all over him earlier?”  He downed the last of his beer and nodded at the waitress walking by, who collected his empty bottle and went off to get another.

“Fuck this,” Brent said.

Mike wrapped his arms more tightly around the blonde he was holding and laughed.

“I know Brent’s problem,” Matthew drawled, a grin spreading across his face as he glanced between the others.  “He didn’t get laid the other night.”

“I told you, you should’ve gone for that redhead at the party,” Mike said as the blonde he was holding excused herself to go to the ladies room.  “She was smoking hot and totally into you.”

Evan’s ears perked up. 
The party as in…the barbeque at Patrick’s?
  Because the only redhead there had been Alison.  And there was no way in hell he was letting Brent anywhere near her.

Underneath his bad-boy persona, Brent was a decent guy.  His sister had been killed years ago by a jilted ex-boyfriend, and he’d been seething when Rebecca had been in the crosshairs of a stalker a few months ago.  Brent would protect anyone in danger, especially a woman, with his own life.

But the rest of the time?  The guy was a complete player.  He’d been with more women than any of the men on their SEAL team.  He channeled his anger and rage over the death of his sister by seeking the pleasure of a woman.  And just one woman would never do—that guy needed a constant stream of them.  Preferably a new lady every night.  No way was Alison going to be his flavor of the week.

“Hell no.  She’s way too sweet for me.  And what the fuck makes you think I didn’t get laid?”

They other laughed as Evan bit back a curse.  All that shit about Alison didn’t mean a damn thing.  Brent wasn’t even interested in her, so why the hell was his head pounding and blood boiling after listening to that little exchange?