Indulgence (334 page)

The pain in Gina’s face scared Armando. He leaned forward,
placing his hand over hers.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. Well, not physically.”

“You don’t have to live this way, Gina.” He wanted to say
more, but his feet were sliding into quicksand. Her smooth skin and the scent
of her warm, sensual, places flooded his head with fantasies. She leaned back
to take inventory of his face while their fingers entwined. He found her pink
lips ripe and waiting for him. He’d been dreaming about those lips for the past
twenty-four hours. In a careful move, he kissed her palm. She leaned forward
and kissed him.

She. Kissed. Him.

He slid his tongue along the crease and was rewarded with
her opening to him. The whimper she exhaled as their tongues mingled nearly set
him on fire. The woman was dangerous, but he wouldn’t be able to stop.

The delicious slide into the fires of arousal slammed shut
all the what-ifs bouncing around his head. He turned his back on his own
advice; the words he heard whispered in some distant corner of him, telling him
to be careful. To go slow. And far from taking things slow, he found himself
urgent to be inside her.

He scanned the room, looking for someone who was too
interested in their kiss, but found no one.

“I’m sorry he hurt you. You didn’t do anything to deserve
that.” He delivered this while watching one tear trickle down her right cheek.
“You deserve to—” He looked down at their entwined fingers. He drew them to his
mouth and kissed her knuckles.

“Can you take me home?” she asked, her eyes full and moist.
Her innocence took his breath away. The idea that she wanted to make love to
him in his bed suddenly sent him into full arousal. He had not brought a woman
to his inner sanctum since he became a SEAL.

Of course he would take her home.

They left her rental car parked and he helped her into his
Hummer.

“I like this one better,” she said, admiring the shiny black
paint job, so unlike Fredo’s beater, and the fact that the smooth leather seats
and dark interior smelled like Armando instead of fast food wrappers.

He reached behind her to strap her in, and she couldn’t help
but touch the thick muscle at the side of his neck, following it up with a
kiss.

“I’d like to make it to a bed, if you don’t mind.” His
bright white smile dazzled her insides. The anticipation of what was to follow
gave her butterflies. She was short of breath.

“I don’t mind.” She let her fingers trace down around the
front of his T-shirt, coming up the other side, and then drifting into the hair
behind his left ear. Armando’s dark features reminded her of delicious milk
chocolate. She watched his lips come towards hers, and respectfully catch a
nibble. She rode the crest of his scent as she squeezed his curly hair between
her fingers. Then her palms came to rest on his chest as he leaned into her
touch.

He was pure sexual candy. And he was going to let her
indulge as much as she could handle.

Am I ready for this?

She knew the answer to her question as the door closed and
he walked in front of the truck on his way to mounting the driver’s side. She
knew his sure hands that started the vehicle, shifted the gears, and gripped
the steering wheel would play her body like an instrument. His lips and tongue
would find her in all the ways that mattered. She would give herself completely
to him in every sense of the word.

Except tell him the truth about what she did. That part she
had to keep to herself.

The pulsing down low under her panties warmed her as her sex
felt swollen. She watched his face in profile as they threaded their way through
streets she didn’t recognize, until they drove down a narrow, tree-lined street
bordered with bungalows featuring Spanish red-tiled roofs. That’s when she
noticed the sliver of a view of the ocean beyond. In the distance, foamy water
spray danced and played with the sparkling white beach.

She followed him up a red concrete walkway to a rounded
front door with a metal cross-grate over a tiny center window. He stopped. Even
the way he inserted his key into the lock was sexy, as he stood with one hip
cocked, his muscled arm—the one with the frog footprint tattoos extending from
inside his wrist to the bend in his arm. He opened the door a crack and turned
to her.

“You sure about this?” His smile was far from angelic.

“Absolutely. I like your house already.”

His answer was to take her in his arms, press his lips to
hers and devour any niggling hesitation.

Once inside, he closed the door quietly behind them as she
examined the rough-hewn beams of the living room’s vaulted ceiling. It looked
like a home from a 1930s movie set. He snuggled up to her backside and warmed
her, nibbling her neck and saying something in Spanish in her ear.

Armando’s palms swept from her thighs up under her shirt,
sliding it up over her head in a very smooth move. He kneaded her breasts as
she leaned her head back onto his shoulder. She liked being able to feel the
steel of his massive arms and the hardness of his abs.

“You should know better than to go braless when you’re near
me.”

“Note to self. Show up naked as often as possible,” she
whispered as she turned, balanced her arms on his shoulders. She felt his
arousal as she pressed her lower torso against him. “Now let’s have this off
you,” she said as she slipped off his shirt and pressed her already-tingling
breasts to his chest. She ran her hands down the sides of both their bodies,
feeling the connection of her flesh against his.

Her body melted into him. His hands grasped her ass and
pressed her into his groin. She slid her fingers down his waist and worked on
his button fly. He let her find him inside, and she squeezed him gently,
surprised to find him commando. He slid her pants down her hips while she
stroked him. His jeans dropped and he removed them and his shoes quickly. He
stood before her completely naked. She still had on a pair of pink lace
panties.

Armando quickly kneeled and pressed her knees apart, seeking
the warm, wet juncture between her legs that so desperately wanted to be
kissed. He slipped his tongue under the elastic of the panties’ thin fabric and
easily found her opening. With lazy movements he stroked her up and down,
darting for a deep taste between long probing movements. Her quivering sex was
ultrasensitive as he buried himself deeper between her legs. Her knees began to
vibrate.

Still on his knees, he watched his fingers slowly remove the
panties covering her. Armando sat there absorbing the sight, then began tracing
one forefinger up her inner thigh until it found her folds and, with the same
lazy motion, he impaled her.

Gina braced herself on his shoulders, spreading her knees
wider, and then drew his head toward her belly. She squeezed the back of his
neck as his fingers worked their way to fill her. The glorious feeling of his
hands on her in the most intimate of ways filled her with ecstasy. He dipped his
head lower, and now his tongue joined his fingers as he lapped and sucked her
lips, pulling her soft tissues gently with his teeth. She felt her body lying
in wait, anticipating his huge cock. A rolling orgasm took hold of her, sending
her floating.

When she stopped shuddering, Armando stood and took her
hand. He led her down the hallway to a light-green-colored bedroom that was
sparsely decorated. The king- sized bed was covered in a black satin coverlet.
A filigreed steel bedframe and footboard looked oddly feminine in the otherwise
masculine room. Several hooks at the side of a closet door were filled with
jackets, backpacks, pouches and straps.

He dropped her hand to spread back the coverlet. He helped
her into the cool white sheets underneath. The pillows her cheeks brushed
against smelled like him. Her thighs smoothed over the cotton until they found
his warm legs. He moved over her as he pressed himself against her.

He handed her a foil packet. He watched her face as she
sheathed him, kissing his pecs and squeezing his cock.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“My pleasure.”

Back and forth he slowly moved his cock until his head found
her. He stopped pressing and took her face in his palms, kissing her from her
shoulder up to her mouth. She moved her torso up to meet him, pressing his
buttocks with both hands, spreading her knees to the sides.

Armando began the rhythmic motion in and out, stroking her
body with his girth, pushing deep inside until she saw stars. His long lazy
strokes became more intense. She wanted him deeper. She wanted him to fill her.
She needed to feel the size of him stretching and loving her insides. Gina
never wanted it to end. They said not a word to each other.

The glow of their silent joining was shattered when she
cried out as her body twisted and clutched under his, desperate to feel his
enormous size deep inside her. She reveled in the way his strong arms held her
as she arched back and gave herself to the orgasm that crashed over her. She
tasted his sweat as she nipped at his shoulder, feeling the urgency of his own
climax. For a few seconds he held her close to him while their bodies shuddered
in unison.

She could still feel him spending inside her. It suddenly
seemed important to take every bit of him he would give. She squeezed his
buttocks and pressed him hard against her for those final seconds of his
release.

An hour later, when she woke up to find him asleep but still
inside her, she looked down at the muscled torso and smooth flesh of this
warrior. She’d found some scars, as she’d loved him, things she hadn’t seen or
felt in the truck the first time they had made love. He had an inner thigh
wound, a scrape over his shoulder blade and a scar on his left bicep that had
been mended with stitches. His chest expanded and contracted, pressing her deep
inside the bed’s foam mattress and then releasing her to catch her breath. Her
fingers lightly skipped along his strong upper thigh, onto the round buttock
muscles that were firm as steel.

She found the scar below his right eye worrisome, as well as
a long, healed slice to his right upper lip. God willing, she’d be able to kiss
away those scars and in time they would heal soft as a baby’s bottom. If she
kissed him enough. If he would let her tend to him, take care of him. His one
arm was underneath her back, the thick fingers of his right hand grabbing for
the flesh at her waist even in his sleep. He was possessive, didn’t want her to
leave without him knowing.

And that made her hotter than hell, and ready for round two.

Much later, over chowder at the Crab Pit, Armando thought
he’d bring up the subject of his sister. “Can I ask a favor of you?”

“Sure.”

“We’re going on a training this week. Will be gone until
Friday night. I want to ask you to look after Mia while I’m away. Can you keep
her out of trouble for me?”

She frowned at his request.

“I know we haven’t talked about it—”

“It’s fine.” She patted his hand. “I’d be happy to look out
for her for you.”

“Thanks.” He wanted to ask more. “How did the two of you
meet?”

“At Babes,” she avoided his eyes again. He knew she’d lied.

“
You
went there?”

“Why, you think I’m too good for Babes?”

“Absolutely you’re too good for Babes. Bad crowd there.”

“I can handle it,” she said. She was avoiding eye contact
with him again.

“You know, I just don’t get you. You’re way too classy to
get caught up with the guys who hang out there.”

She reached for his hand. “Armando, let’s not talk about it.
Let’s not spoil this perfect day.”

But Armando couldn’t let it go. “Why do you go back there,
to that place inside yourself? You’re not the type of girl who belongs there.”

“Oh yeah? Where do I belong, besides in your bed, of
course?”

“Well, not in that cheap strip joint. I don’t know. I don’t
understand you, that’s all.”

“Nothing to understand. I’m a simple gal.”

“But you could have so much. You have so much going for you,
Gina. Why are you throwing your life away like this?”

She was getting annoyed. “I’m not throwing my life away. I
have a great job. I found you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but I was going to ask you not to go to that bar
anymore. Those guys are dangerous, Gina.”

Her eyes glazed over. “And you’re not?”

“No, I’m—” he struggled for the words. “I’m a different kind
of dangerous. Not like Carlos and those creeps.”

“I think they’re headed for a fall.”

“How would you know that?”

Gina was thoughtful and then answered. “Just a hunch. Come
on, Armando, give me a little credit. Don’t you trust me?”

And there it was. He was forced to say that yes, he trusted
her, to keep Mia on ice until he could figure something out. He had to trust
her because there weren’t any other options.

Fifty men from SEAL Team 3 stepped into the military
transport and flew to an abandoned, dusty airfield somewhere in the Nevada
desert. There were no structures visible for miles, but Armando knew there was
a whole surveillance complex just ahead. The “buildings” looked like foothills
and cattle sheds. Most of the structures were underground.

They gathered up their gear and jumped into seven unmarked
dark-covered trucks. The back was open to the desert air and all they had was a
hard bench to sit on.

Cooper, Fredo, Marky, Jones and Kyle all sat next to each
other. Cooper and Fredo were discussing the pros and cons of married life, not
that Fredo was any closer to it. Armando had to hand it to him, though. The
little SEAL never stopped trying.

“The fuckin’ movers, man,” Cooper began, “mixed everything
up. I went to unpack the kitchen box so at least we could prepare our first
meal in the place, and found Libby’s underwear.”