One Hot SEAL (5 page)

“You’re fucking gorgeous.” Too bad
if she didn’t like rough and honest, but he hadn’t memorized any Hallmark
verse. “Wet’s a good look for you, and this is supposed to be my date, yeah?”

It was afternoon. They were
skinny-dipping in a river on public land. Deelie seemed on board with the plan
though, so he was hopeful for the rest of his afternoon. She grinned at him, a
real genuine smile, not one of those flirty looks she liked to send his way. He
liked those too, but they seemed automatic, more like her version of
please
and
thank you
than a true reaction. Her eyes lit up with this smile
though, the tension flowing out of her body. Which he was in the perfect
position to know, seeing as how he was plastered up against her and the only
thing between them were her sopping wet panties and bra.

“I don’t know,” she said, and it
took him a moment to remember what the fuck the question was. His brain shut
down around Deelie, got lost in the amazing feel of her. “We might have moved
onto the hot monkey sex part of our deal.”

Her voice was rueful. It was also
husky, with a little thread of need that had him pulling her close.

“Absolutely.” He slid one hand out
from underneath her ass, loving her whimper of protest, and traced her
collarbone with his fingertips. She was so soft, her bones delicate beneath her
skin. He’d fought beside SEALs who were rough, tough men who were well-trained
killers and lethal weapons. Deelie’s feminine body was fucking nirvana. She
moaned at his touch, and he must not have been a nice guy, because he loved
that little needy sound.

“Luke—” Her lashes drifted
closed.

“Say my name again.” He’d make damn
sure she knew who was holding her. Who was loving her. He hadn’t been lying
when he’d said that night at the waterfall all those years ago had simply been
their first. It damned certain wasn’t going to be their last, although he had
every intention of being her one and only from now on.

“Luke. Luke, Luke, Luke.” She
chanted it without opening her eyes, that small secret smile of hers curling
her mouth.

Love.

Yeah, fuck him, but maybe he believed
in this whole love-at-first thing, because he’d been lost that very first night
at the waterfall. He’d been hers ever since, even if neither of them had known
it.

 
He ran his hand down her arm, dragging
her bra strap with him. Then he did the other arm too. The blue-and-white
fabric was almost translucent from the water. Flicking open the clasp—located
in the front, thank you God—he drank her in. How could she possibly be
even more gorgeous than she’d been in high school? She’d kill him in another
ten years or fifty. The water sluiced her breasts, large breasts that were round
with the prettiest brown nipples. She wasn’t a girl anymore, which was a good
thing because he wanted to do every filthy, loving, wonderful thing he could
think of to her.
With
her.

Rolling, he took her beneath him,
anchoring her on the rock shelf as he followed the droplets of water with his
mouth. Her heels dug into his back as she held on for all she was worth,
rocking up against him. Her panties teased his dick as he explored her breasts
and ass, drawing naughty patterns with his mouth and fingers that made her
groan and shiver.

“You going to look at me?” Because
he really wanted to watch her eyes as she came.

“You giving me a choice?” She
opened her eyes lazily, stretching her hands over her head, and just like that
he needed to be inside her
now
. He’d
gone without her for twelve years; another twelve seconds might kill him.

He swam them over to the edge,
breaking all known speed records. As soon as his feet hit bottom, he waded out
with Deelie still wrapped around his waist. Five steps and he had her on the
blanket, building her a nest of towels and himself.

“Look, I have a leash,” she said, tugging
on his dog tags, but the smile on her face said she was just teasing.

Good. She didn’t need to know right
now that she had him so wrapped around her fingers that he’d go wherever, do
whatever she wanted. Or maybe that went both ways because, as if she’d read his
mind, she leaned up on her elbows and shrugged off the wet bra.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” he
said, cupping her breasts.

A smile touched her mouth. “Perfectly
bad.”

“We should dry you off.”

“Feel free to make suggestions.”
Her smile turned wicked—and was all the permission he needed.

He eased down her body. And then,
fuck it, the ground was hard and he had a rock digging into his knees, and he
wanted this to be perfect for her. Rolling onto his back, he lifted her up over
his face.

“Jesus, Luke.” She sounded shocked,
which was cute. And gratifying.

“Hold on,” he demanded.
Don’t ever let go of me
, he thought but
he wasn’t stupid enough to say it out loud. Not yet. Deelie’s hands latched
onto his shoulders.
Perfect.

“Luke—”

“This afternoon-swimming thing is
working for me,” he said.

He eased her higher.
Perfect.

Her position gave him the sexiest
view of her panties. White and blue, those panties matched her bra. Even
better, their time in the river had made the fabric see-through wet. “I really,
really like your panties.”

He ran a finger down her center.
Up. Then down.

“Oh.” The greedy little sound she
made set him on fire.

“More.
Please.
”

“Everything for you.” He touched her
softly, then deeper. Harder. Teased her beneath the edge of her panties before
shoving the soaked fabric to one side. And much, much later as she shrieked and
tightened her thighs around his head—because Deelie wasn’t quiet, and she
didn’t leave him in any doubt about how she felt—he lifted his head for
just one moment and asked, “You sure about this, sweetheart?”

Because
he wasn’t ever letting go of her now
.

“Yes,” she demanded, yanking on his
head and wriggling against him in not-so-silent demand. “Yes, please.”

And since she’d asked so nicely and
he hadn’t had
his
turn twelve years
ago, he did, sending her over the edge, holding her tight as she came.

~*~

Deelie was riding Luke’s face like
she was a cowgirl and he was the pony called Sexy Stud. Water dripped from her
hair, but she wasn’t cold. Nope. She was so hot she was about to catch fire.

Again
.

Twelve years ago, she’d had a taste
of this man and walked away before he could dump her ass. She’d known then that
Luke Dawson was dangerous, and time certainly hadn’t softened him. He didn’t
give her so much as a moment to come down from her orgasm high before he was
rolling her underneath him.

Luke was a hell of a lot of man.
Fully dressed, he’d made an impression on her hormones, but naked… her girl
parts squealed in pure ecstasy. Or maybe that was wicked glee, because she was
absolutely certain there was nothing
pure
about how she felt toward this man. All he wore was a pair of dog tags around
his neck. From there to his waist, he was all chiseled muscles and six-pack abs
so hard they should be illegal. She might have spent too much time eating and
not enough time exercising these last twelve years, but Luke had clearly been
honing his body into a finely tuned weapon. Her sailor was gorgeous—and
primed for business.

He braced his arms on either side
of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair. Yeah, he looked pretty pleased
with himself. Well, that made two of them. Luke was amazing in bed—or on
the riverbank—and she’d been a fool to walk away from him twelve years
ago. Or maybe it was a question of practice made perfect? Which strangely
wasn’t an idea she liked. Right now, right here, Luke was all hers, and sharing
him was off-limits.

“Earth to Deelie,” he said huskily.
“Come back to me, baby.”

Come
.
She could do that. She giggled, and he shook his head.

“You’re hell on the ego.” He didn’t
sound like he minded much though, and he brushed his thumb over her lips with
something that almost seemed like tenderness. She could get used to this. Used
to
him
.

“Your turn,” she said, shimmying
out of her panties because those other thoughts of hers needed to stop. Luke
was a loaner man, and eventually he’d hit the road and she’d be left behind.
Funny how the river looked exactly the same as it had twenty minutes ago, but
yet she felt different. When he raised a brow, she tossed the panties over his
shoulder with a grin.

He laughed, and reached beside him.
Condom
. Thank God, because the last
thing she needed right now was a baby. Seconds later, he pressed against her
and she open up for him, wrapping her legs around his waist.

He smoothed her hair away from her
face. She probably looked more
drowned
rat
than
sexy beach babe
, but he
didn’t seem to mind. Not one bit. Instead of hurrying to get to the good part,
he rested against her, hard and slick, and pressed his mouth against her
temple. Followed the trail of water down her face, over her cheek, to her neck.

“I’m not complaining if you want to
hurry up a little.” She angled herself against him, doing a little pressing of
her own.

“Shhh. I’m enjoying you,” he
ordered gently. He braceleted her wrists with his fingers, pulling her arms
over her head. “Have I told you how much I love your breasts?”

“You could show me,” she said,
knowing she sounded breathless. God, this man got her going. He drew his mouth
down her neck, then lower, skimming over her heated skin with the lightest,
naughtiest of kisses. He licked and she moaned, his mouth closing over one
pouting nipple.

“More,” she ordered, digging her
heels into his mighty fine ass.

“Demanding,” he said. “I like it.”

She liked it too. Or maybe too
much, because she needed him as crazy for her as she was for him. She slid her
hand down his stomach, reveling in the tension in his body. He knew where she
was headed. When she grasped him, he groaned.

“In,” she demanded, and he gave her
what she wanted, the slick length of him pushing through her grasp and into her
body. There was nothing slow about him now. Instead, he drove deep inside her,
not stopping until his balls smacked against her butt and she’d taken every
inch of him.

“Okay?” He lifted his head,
watching her face like he’d find his answer there.

“Do it again,” she ordered. “Give
me more.”

“Bossy.” A smile touched his mouth,
and then he did exactly as she’d asked. He slid hard and fast inside her, and
her brain turned off. She slammed up to meet him and he thrust. Right now,
right here on this blanket, they were in agreement and she loved it.
Could—almost—love him.

Danger
.

He pulled back, drove forward,
taking her over and over, pushing her closer to her orgasm with each hard
stroke.

She came before him, slower this
time. As she floated down from the blissful place he’d brought her to, she hung
on to his shoulders. Hung on as he pounded into her, finding his own orgasm. Plenty
of blue sky peeked through the lacy canopy of the trees over their heads, and
it was pretty. She had birds and waterfall sounds and shit to go with her wild
monkey sex, and it was just like screwing in the middle of one of those
woodland sound CDs or a postcard. And yet, as he groaned and buried himself one
last time inside her, it was funny how the only thing, the only person, she really
saw was Luke.

“Why’d you cut me loose before?” Luke
sounded sleepy, sprawled out beneath her, his big, beautiful body temporarily
hers—and he wanted to
talk
? She
had a bad feeling about this.

“You really want to revisit the
past?” Because she was all about
today
and
right now
. Her head hadn’t been
in a good place in high school, and she’d made more than her fair share of
questionable decisions.

He lifted a shoulder, opening his
eyes. “I do. I thought we had something, but then you disappeared on me. You didn’t
answer my calls or my texts.”

“We had sex, not a relationship.”

“I had a blow job. You got nothing.
So, yeah, I agree with you there. You cut us off before we had a chance to see
where we could take things.”

She had no idea what he meant by
things
, but they wouldn’t have lasted.
Couldn’t have.

He reached up to cup her jaw. “I
liked you then, Deelie. I still do.”

No doubt, Luke thought he meant
what he said, but things said while naked didn’t count. Plus she was no longer
the girl he’d dated briefly in high school. Even outwardly—more’s the
pity—she’d changed, and he needed to accept that.

 
“That Deelie, the girl by the waterfall,
she doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Got it,” he said, running a hand
down her back to cup her butt. As the punctuation to his sentence, the move
guaranteed she wasn’t doing a whole lot of listening. She turned her head and
stared at the river, wishing there were easy answers there. All she heard was
the steady beat of Luke’s heart beneath her cheek, and damned if that wasn’t
distracting.

“Now what?” God, she wished she
smoked. Or that she had a working car, wings to fly with, or a whole different
life.

He sighed and sat up, shifting her
onto the blanket beside him. “Come home with me.”

Right. To the ranch. She bet his
family would just love that. “It’s not a good idea.”

He stood up and grabbed his jeans.
Playtime must be over. “Your sleeping on couches and in your car is the bad
idea.”

Apparently, while
she’d
changed and moved on, he’d stayed
the same in some fundamental ways. He’d always been a white knight, and now
here he came, riding to her rescue.

“Deelie.” He nudged her face around
to meet his gaze, and she considered knocking his fingers away. Or nuzzling
them because, God, she was conflicted, wasn’t she? “Would you really rather be
sleeping on Laura Jo’s couch?”

“We just had sex,” she said.

He looked at her, clearly trying
not to laugh. “Yeah. Is that ‘just,’
as
in
we recently had sex a few minutes ago,
or ‘just,’ as in
we had meaningless
monkey sex and a smart man wouldn’t try to read anything into it
?”

If they lived together for even a
few days, she’d probably kill him. “Sex by the river isn’t a relationship or a
roomie tryout. How do you know you won’t regret asking me home with you?”

He shrugged and helped her to her
feet. Somehow her bikini top had ended up in a nearby bush, and her bottoms
were lying in the grass. Nice.

“All I know,” he said, “is that
I’ll regret not giving us a shot. So work with me here, okay?”

She meant to get up and go, but
somehow the next word that came out of her mouth was, “Okay.”

~*~

The Dawsons ran cattle on a thousand-acre
ranch that was one of the oldest in the county. His family had owned the place
since the eighteenth century. They had the kind of roots that ran even deeper
than the large collection of springs, reservoirs, and wells dotting the
property. From what she remembered of her high school days, Luke had two
brothers, one younger and one older.

He also had his own place on the
ranch, which was a relief. The two-bedroom redwood home was tucked away in a
grove of California oaks. It had floor-to-ceiling windows for watching the nearby
mountains and wood-beamed ceilings. There was a stone fireplace in the great
room and a decent-sized kitchen. It was easy to imagine Luke here, raising a family.

It was harder to imagine herself
here.

Or maybe that was because Luke,
when he had a plan, was pretty much unstoppable. He’d swung by her storage unit
since, as he’d pointed out, he had both a truck and a garage. Paying rent on
the unit was a waste of money when she could leave her stuff at his place for
now. Since the sooner she could save up the money for the deposit, the sooner
she could get her own place, she’d agreed. Or maybe that was because Luke, in
the sweetest, nicest possible way, was kind of oblivious to her resistance.

After two hours of loading and
unloading boxes—because, no, she wasn’t going to sit in the truck’s cab
and watch Luke haul her things around like she was a princess—she was
exhausted. Worse, he’d still done the bulk of the heavy lifting, because it
wasn’t like she could arm wrestle him into submission. Maybe there
were
ropes in their future, because
tying him up was about the only way she could come up with to regain some
semblance of control.

Now, standing in Luke’s living
room, the only thing she could think about was finding the nearest soft surface
and face-planting. Actually, even the hardwood floor didn’t look so bad. He had
some kind of fuzzy, white-fur-looking rug in front of the fireplace, and she
could definitely crash there.

“Are you sure it’s okay, my being
here?” She was pretty sure the room had just dipped. Or swayed. Whatever it
was, the floor wasn’t entirely steady beneath her feet. “Your family isn’t
going to mind?”

She was pretty sure she’d run into
Luke’s mother once or twice in the grocery store. The older woman hadn’t seemed
particularly harpy-like, but Deelie hadn’t been sleeping with her son then
either. Long-term sex always complicated things.

Luke watched Deelie sway on her
feet. He gave her two minutes max before she passed out standing up. While he
enjoyed camping himself, he was willing to bet that sleeping in the back of a
modified Caddy wasn’t particularly comfortable. Plus Deelie seemed to be
perpetually short of cash, which couldn’t be helping her in the peace-of-mind department.
It was nothing short of a miracle that she’d agreed to move in with him
temporarily.

“I’m all grown up,” he said
agreeably, pointing her gently toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
Vicious curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace, which should work for
tonight. Tomorrow would be soon enough to pick up some more doggie supplies.

“Yeah,” she muttered sleepily, her
gaze dropping to his crotch. “I’ve noticed.”

He grinned. His woman had no
filter. Sex with him also seemed to be one of her favorite topics, which made
him feel like he was a ten-foot-tall sex god. It was also kind of cute when she
blurted stuff out and only
then
realized what she’d just said.

“People will talk about my being
here,” she warned even as her eyes drifted shut again.

Ordinarily, he didn’t give a shit
what other people thought about him. He did his job, and he lived his life by
his own rules. If that wasn’t good enough for someone, that someone could take
a long walk off a short pier. For someone who professed to be equally ruleless,
Deelie seemed awfully concerned about what other people would think about their
new relationship. And, if he was honest, his parents would have questions. He’d
never so much as brought Deelie home, and now he’d brought her
home
. Once they saw that it was serious,
however, he figured they’d get on board. At the very least, they’d keep their
doubts to themselves.

“Let them,” he said and steered her
down the hallway. He’d debated offering her the guest bedroom, but he was a
selfish bastard. He wanted her curled up in his bed with him. He wanted a
relationship with her, which meant figuring out a way through her all prickly
defenses. Still, his mother had taught him some manners.

“You want to crash in the guest
bedroom, or do you want to share with me?”
Pick
me
.

“You,” she mumbled, and that ten-foot-tall
thing was definitely happening again. As soon as she stepped into his room, she
headed straight for the bed, dropping her bag on the floor, and toed off her
shoes.

Definitely down for the count. She
hit the bed hard enough to bounce, rolling onto her back. He pulled the covers
back, scooting her beneath.

She reached for the buttons on her
shorts. “Give me just a minute,” she mumbled.

Jesus. Did she think she had to put
out because she was in his bed?

“I want
you
here, not a sex slave.” Games were one thing, but they clearly
needed to work on their relationship skills.

“Kinky man,” she muttered, but she
was still smiling when he slipped into bed beside her a few minutes later.