Navy SEAL Seduction (7 page)

At the challenge, he leaned forward. “You’re on, sweetheart. I can eat five straight. I bet you can’t eat two whole.”

“Stakes?”

“If you win, I’ll sleep alone.”

“You’re sleeping alone, anyway, buddy,” she warned.

“And if I win, you give me a kiss.”

Her mouth watered. Since the moment she’d seen him in the hotel, her body had tingled with memories of the hours they’d spent in bed, pleasuring each other. Jarrett was such a great kisser. Her female hormones sang out, “Lose, lose, lose!”

He watched her, his green gaze intent on her face. Lacey licked her lips, aware he tracked the move. She longed to kiss him. Seeing him this afternoon after his run around the compound had reminded her of what they once shared.

As she’d stared at him swigging down the water, she’d admired the curves of his muscled calves. Dusted with dark hair, his legs were firm and trim. Not an ounce of fat on the man, and seeing his wet gray shirt plastered to his body reminded her of the time years ago when he’d returned from a long run when they were married and he was home from a recent deployment.

Sweat streaming down his temples, he had drunk a bottle of water and wiped his face with the corner of his shirt. She’d been standing behind him, staring at his butt. Jarrett had a terrific butt, tight and smooth, and then her gaze dropped to the curves of sinew and muscle lining his long legs.

Her need had been so very great. Lacey had stolen behind him, wrapped her arms around him, very glad that he was hers.

The impromptu hug had led to him seating her on the counter, pulling off her panties and thrusting deep inside her. The sex had been quick, hot and very satisfactory.

That was in the past. But one kiss now wouldn’t hurt. Wouldn’t lead to other things. She could control her raging libido. Oh, yeah.

“Do you have any milk handy?”

She went to the refrigerator and poured two glasses and set them on the table, along with a loaf of French bread. Milk and bread were essential for eating these peppers raw.

On second thought, if she lost, she wouldn’t want him to taste pepper juice and get all turned off. Lacey found a tin of butter mints and put those on the table, as well.

Clever guy. He grinned as he sampled a mint. “I play to win, sweetheart.”

“Oh? Get ready, tough guy. I have an immunity to hot peppers.” Lacey uncapped the jar and pushed it toward him. “You’re on, Jarrett.”

He shook his head. “Challenger goes first.”

She bit into one and wheezed. Oh wow, that was bad, bad, bad. She managed to swallow and gasped.

Jarrett took one and didn’t blink as he ate it. Of course. The man was forged from molten steel, despite his SEAL nickname of “Iceman.”

After the second pepper, her eyes watered, and her throat felt on fire. Lacey gripped the table. “Holy crap.”

She gulped down the milk and her stomach roiled, but then finally settled. Jarrett broke off a piece of bread. “Eat this. Helps with the burn.”

As Lacey gulped down the white bread, and then more milk, he ate two more peppers and then leaned back in the chair. He took his glass of milk and sipped as if it was a cocktail and he hadn’t eaten five raw peppers that could bring a grown man to his knees.

“I win.”

“How the heck did you do that? Part of your SEAL training?”

He grinned, setting down the milk. Jarrett ate two mints. She ate three and wiped her eyes with a napkin. “Confess, mister. How did you eat those peppers?”

“I cheated. I didn’t bite the pepper. Swallowed it whole.”

Lacey sputtered. “You what?”

“Learned that from a buddy during a contest. You can do it with peppers that are small enough. Works every time.” His grin dropped and heat smoldered in his eyes. Jarrett was all business. No more joking around. “Now, about that kiss.”

Her mouth curled into a wicked smile. “On the forehead, like a good ex-husband.”

“The hell with that,” he growled. Jarrett pushed back his chair so quickly it nearly fell, pulled her upright. As she sagged against him with a startled whumph of air, he bent down and she had time to register his warm breath feathering against her trembling lips before he claimed her mouth.

He didn’t kiss her like any other man ever did. He devoured her, his mouth moving hotly over hers, his tongue thrusting past her lips and licking the inside of her mouth. Jarrett kissed like the times when she knew he’d have her naked and in bed, her legs spread wide for him. He kissed with the arrogant confidence of knowing he’d have her screaming his name.

Then his mouth left hers and Jarrett kissed a fiery trail down to her ear, right behind the lobe where he knew she loved being kissed. Her knees buckled, but he held her up with one strong arm as he fisted a hand in her long hair.

Lacey slid her arms around his neck as he skimmed a hand down the curve of her spine. She wanted him inside her like he’d been before. Moving inside her, creating a dance that set her body humming like a live electrical wire. Making her feel sore and used and dazed with sweet pleasure. Claiming her so thoroughly, going into her body so deep that she’d feel him days later, after the front door had quietly shut and he’d gone off to yet another mission, and she’d wondered if he’d come home to her this time. The smell of his spicy aftershave lingering on his pillow, in her nostrils, the remembrance of sweat and the musk of sex.

He pressed her closer and she felt the rigid length of his erection. Awareness pushed aside the sensual heat licking through her body. This was Jarrett, determined and ruthless in his pursuit. The man had chased after her, determined to marry her and bring her home as his wife.

No longer his wife. And her life had changed. Lacey reluctantly pulled away. As he stepped back, his eyes darkened and grew stormy.

“You said a kiss,” she whispered. “That wasn’t a kiss. That was...a take-no-prisoners move. Why, Jarrett?”

“Had to do that. Like the first time I kissed you. I had to kiss you quickly, in case you changed your mind. Because if I didn’t kiss you, damn it, I was gonna die.”

Shaken by the intensity and her own reaction, she sank back into the chair. He pulled out his own chair and quietly regarded her. She touched her mouth, swollen by his kisses. “I remember our first kiss. And the first time we made love. That’s in the past, Jarrett. I’ve changed. And so have you. We can’t recapture what we once had.”

Expecting denial, she was surprised to see him nod. “I know.”

“Maybe things would have been different if...” Lacey stopped, not wanting to provoke an argument.

“If I wasn’t a SEAL? If I hadn’t been gone so much?”

She looked at him directly. “Yes. And I had issues, too. If I hadn’t been so lost, maybe it could have worked out.”

Two lines dented his dark brows. “Lost? You?”

“I always felt like I searched for my place in the world. While you were off fighting the bad guys, keeping the country safe for us, I was shopping and waiting for you to return home, trying to deal with the fear that one day you might not come home at all.”

He stretched out his long legs and folded his arms across his broad chest. “There are bad people in this world, Lace. It’s my job to protect civilians against them. The world is getting very dangerous.”

“You don’t need to lecture me about that.”

“I didn’t mean to sound condescending. Was just stating a fact I wish I could change.”

She pushed at the jar of peppers. “I used to insulate myself from your world, your work, when we were married. I figured if I made you a safe little cocoon, far away from the nasty things you had to see, and do, it would protect us both. I guess it was a little self-centered, like the shopping I always enjoyed. And then I came here to live and there it was, in my face.”

Silence draped between them, but for the dripping of water into the sink. She’d meant to fix that. Another thing she had needed to get done around here. So many little tasks left undone because there simply wasn’t enough time.

“I want Fleur to have all the opportunities she can, get the help she needs to heal. But in a way, when I go back home it will be an adjustment like the one you always had to make after deployment. Even when I lived here as a teenager, I was insulated from the poverty and the misery. Now I’m not.

“My friends from the States don’t understand. They want to discuss theater and fashion and how they beat the stock market and I’ve been helping a woman beaten so badly that she’ll never walk correctly again. They worry about their kids not getting into a prep school that will guarantee them an Ivy League entrance and feeding them organic whole foods, and I’m worrying about women with kids who won’t even live to see their fifth birthday because they don’t eat, period.”

She took a deep breath. The world was evil, but there were good men like Jarrett who fought the evil and pushed back the darkness a little.

Jarrett’s expression softened. He started to reach for her hand. “Lace, you were never self-centered. You were one of the most...”

A scream sounded from the hallway, cutting him off.

CHAPTER 7

“F
leur,” his ex-wife breathed. “No, not again.”

Jarrett followed her as Lacey ran into the hallway toward the back bedrooms. Was it a threat? Did someone break in? He’d checked the house twice, but damn, maybe he should have checked it again.

Pushing open her daughter’s door, she raced into the room and flipped on a light.

The child thrashed on the bed, screaming pitifully, her arms waving. Lacey gathered her close and rocked Fleur back and forth in her arms. Fleur woke up and began to sob.

“The bad man, the bad man, he was hurting her! Chou Chou!”

Lacey’s troubled gaze met Jarrett’s as he entered the bedroom.

“Always the nightmares. I thought they were going away. I feel so damn helpless. She needs more than she can get here, Jarrett. And I can’t get her home. I can’t get her home where she’ll be safe and I can really take care of her.”

Jarrett’s heart twisted as he looked at Lacey, her long hair tumbling down her back, her mouth swollen from his fierce, possessive kisses, her eyes wild with frustration and grief.

He sank to the bed. “Let me try.”

Her lower lip wobbled, but she nodded and rose, standing near the bed.

Jarrett gathered the child into his arms and began to sing a lullaby in French he’d learned from babysitting one of his teammates’s kids. At first Fleur stiffened and kept sobbing high-pitched cries like a frightened bird. And then as he kept singing and rubbing her back, she gradually relaxed.

Finally, he felt her little body grow slack and her breathing even.

He laid her gently back into the bed. Lacey tucked the covers around her. Tears glistened in her eyes as she studied her daughter.

For a full moment he looked at her, mother and child. The pain in his chest trebled. This should have been them. Both of them, sitting on their daughter’s bed, soothing away the bad dreams, reassuring her that the bogeyman didn’t live in the closet or under the bed. Singing to her songs that made her eyes close and the bad things go away.

But he knew from hard experiences that the bad things didn’t go away so easily. And though children were resilient, no child should ever have to experience the horrors Fleur had.

Finally, he drew Lacey aside. They left the bedroom and she cracked the door open.

“Thank you, Jarrett. That’s the first time she’s fallen asleep that quickly after a nightmare.” Lacey’s face tightened. “Usually it takes warm milk and lots of hugs, and even then...”

She turned and fled into the kitchen.

At the sink she braced her hands on the counter. “I try so hard, but some days I feel so damn overwhelmed. This place, the work, and all the attention Fleur needs. I’d give anything to make her feel normal again. To have a normal childhood. I love her so much, and she’s starting to respond...it hurts to see the terror in her eyes, know she could have been her father’s next victim...”

Jarrett said nothing. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against his chest. Stroking her hair, he rested his chin atop her head.

Lacey pulled away, and he inwardly swore. It felt so good, so right, to have her in his arms again. All those times after returning home from missions, he’d turned to her in bed and the release he’d found in sex had pushed the haunting images back a little further. Connection. Bonding. He found release in sex, and she found it in talk.

“Get some rest,” he told her gently.

Jarrett watched as she climbed the stairs. He rubbed his tight chest and went outside to check the perimeter one last time. He’d find a way to bring Lacey and her little girl home.

* * *

In the morning he woke before dawn, jogging around the complex and scanning for new threats. Usually he loved this time of day, before the world awoke and the sky was leaden and gray. He found solace in running, listening to the sound of his lungs working hard, his feet slapping against the ground. Always he’d pushed himself harder and harder.

Maybe he should have pushed himself harder with Lace, too. He’d had a restless night, knowing she slept only footfalls away in the next room. His arms itched to hold her close once more.

Man, those were the things he’d missed the most after returning home after an op. Sex, yeah, the sex was mind-blowing, but he missed cuddling, one arm secured around her waist, listening to her breathe, feeling her warm, soft skin against his naked body. Curling up next to a pillow didn’t cut it. It was Lacey, holding her close next to him, listening to her soft breaths as she slept, that fueled his purpose each time he went downrange on an op. He’d keep that memory close as he had to sleep at night in the field, remembering the reason why he fought to keep his country safe.

By the time he returned to the house from his run, showered and dressed and sent a few emails from his laptop, there was movement in the kitchen and the smells of frying bacon and peppers. Jarrett rubbed a hand over his clean-shaven face and grinned, knowing he would never eat another pepper without remembering the taste of Lacey beneath his tongue.

Fleur sat at the table, eating spaghetti. He joined her and poked at the bowl. “You like this stuff for breakfast?” he asked in French.

At her nod, he wrinkled his nose. “Looks like worms. Yuck. How can you eat that big, messy bowl of worms?”

She giggled. “It’s paghetti,” she said in English.

Surprised at her use of English, he tilted his head. “Spaghetti,” he corrected.

Jarrett poured himself coffee and thanked Rose as she set a plate of eggs scrambled with bacon and peppers before him. As he dug into it, Lacey appeared in the doorway.

“I overslept. Why didn’t anyone wake me up?”

He didn’t reply. Too busy staring. Her blond hair rumpled, her eyes still dazed from sleep, she wore a gray sleep shirt and pink pajama bottoms. For a moment he stepped back into time, remembering those mornings when she’d rise like this, her hair tangled, her face smudged with sleep, her nightwear rumpled. And he’d think how beautiful she was, and how damn lucky he was because she was his.

No longer his.

Jarrett mumbled good morning and turned his attention to the eggs to hide his raging emotions.

Lacey’s gaze met his when he finally looked up. She sat at the table sipping her coffee, and he noticed the smudges of fatigue shadowing her face. “Fleur’s classes start at 0800. School lets out at 1400.”

Two o’clock. She still used military time, a habit Lacey acquired while married to him. He set down his fork. “What are your plans for today?” he asked in English.

“Trying to salvage whatever’s left from the fire, paperwork and then setting our plan in motion that we talked about last night. I’ll drop hints at the packing house, gauge reactions. Those women are hard workers, but they adore good gossip. I have a meeting with Paul at 1300 here at the compound. He’s having a driver bring back my SUV. You’ll get to formally meet him.”

At her stern look, he flicked out his hands. “What?”

“You know what. No paint on his car or tinkering with his battery. Be nice.”

“I’m always nice.” To those who deserved it.

Fleur picked up her empty bowl and carried it to the sink. He lowered his voice. “Call your dad. If anyone can expedite the visa, he can. Get the old man to pull whatever strings he can.”

She nodded. Jarrett polished off his eggs and then stood. He dropped a hand on Lacey’s shoulder. “I’ll take care of her. Try not to worry. Worrying sucks out your energy.”

* * *

This vehicle sucked.

Lacey’s elderly pickup truck had a finicky clutch and rumbled like an old horse with colic. Used for transporting mangoes, it made a lousy passenger vehicle. As he navigated on the main road toward Fleur’s school, he asked Fleur about her classes, careful to mask questions about the “bad men” so he wouldn’t scare her.

The bad men hung outside the school. They were there each day before classes and remained through recess and lunch break. When she left, they were still there.

She had noticed them about four weeks ago.

Jarrett passed a small market, keeping his eyes open for threats. Vendors grilled corn on small charcoal stoves on the sidewalk. A woman clutched a little boy’s hand as she walked him to school, his blue backpack hanging against his back. A girl in a red-and-white-checked uniform like Fleur’s bit off the plastic to a bag of chips.

He reached the school, beeped the horn and the security guard opened the tall metal gate. Jarrett drove inside, noting the guard held a shotgun. Held it the right way, too, not like Lacey’s guy who’d missed the dead chicken at the gate.

He parked the SUV in the yard and they hopped out. Jarrett straightened her backpack and stared at her solemn face. “I’ll be right here when school lets out. Don’t leave the yard. Rose packed you a nice lunch, so you’re all set. If anyone or anything scares you, call me on this,” he told her in French. “Do you know how to use a cell phone?”

“Yes.”

Palming one of the local cell phones he’d bought in the city, he slipped it into her backpack. Fleur gave him a dubious look far too wise for a five-year-old. “We’re not supposed to have cell phones.”

“It’s our secret. Only for emergencies. You call your mom and I’ll be here before you can say ‘paghetti.’ Deal?”

The shy smile she gave him melted his heart. He reached down and hugged her. The child barely came to his thigh, and she felt all skin and bones.

“I’m going to keep you safe, Fleur. No one’s going to hurt you or your mom. They have to go through me first.”

“Promise?” she whispered.

He hugged her again, his throat closing tight. “Promise.”

She nodded and hitched up her backpack. “And jump rope after school.”

He laughed. “Deal.”

Jarrett watched as she trudged off to class.

He went outside the gate, scanned the area and saw two men hovering near the school’s front gate close to where men played dominoes. Both men had tell-tale bulges in their jeans he instantly recognized as sidearms. One was short and dark-skinned, but muscled like a bodybuilder. The other had dark blond hair, stood about six feet and was trim and athletic.

As Jarrett leaned against the wall, he pulled out his phone, pretending interest in checking his messages. A bystander watching the game had ten red plastic clothespins on his arm. So the man had lost. Bet he’d love to have the chance to make a little money.

Time to create a distraction.

He ambled up to the game and struck up a conversation with the clothespin man. Five minutes and two US twenties later, Clothespin Man began arguing in a loud voice with the players.

He knew from experience such arguments tended to be more boisterous than violent, for people in St. Marc loved to express themselves. But if these guys, Americans from the looks of them, didn’t know much about the island, they would check it out. At least one of them.

Jarrett walked back to the gate, passing the men, ignoring them.

Sure enough Blond Guy walked toward the game, leaving his pal behind. But the dark-skinned man turned his attention to the game, watching his buddy. Jarrett stole toward the dark-skinned man and snuck up behind him. He pressed his Sig into the back of the shorter man’s head.

“Talk to me. Who are you, why are you here? Talk fast unless you want a head full of lead,” he said in English.

The man didn’t budge. “What do you want?” he replied in the same language.

“Never question the man holding the gun. Why are you hanging out at a private school attended by ex-pats’ kids?”

No answer. Jarrett pressed the gun barrel deeper. The man stiffened. “I’m only here to watch over Fleur.”

Watch over her before hurting her? “What do you want with her?”

“Senator Stewart hired us to watch Fleur’s school in case there was trouble.”

“Hired you? Who are you?”

“Sam Pendleton. Her bodyguard. What do you want with Fleur?” To his credit the man didn’t even flinch.

“I’ll ask the questions. Why are you here? And why not tell her mother?”

“I’ll answer when you tell me who you are.”

“I’m her personal bodyguard. Why doesn’t Lacey know about you?”

His quarry seemed to relax a little. “Her father didn’t want her to know because she’d put up a fuss about him interfering.”

That sounded like Lace. “ID?”

“My wallet and ID are in my back pocket. There’s a white card with a phone number with the senator’s private cell phone. Call the number and tell him who I am.”

Training his weapon on the man, he fished out the wallet, flipped it open and saw the ID and the card. Sam Pendleton, Security. Flipping out his phone, he called the number.

His ex-father-in-law’s gruff voice answered on the first ring. “Stewart speaking.”

“Hello, Alex,” Jarrett drawled. “Remember me? Your ex-son-in-law.”

Sam turned his head and gave a slight guffaw. “Oh, shit.”

“Adler! How the hell did you get this number?” Senator Stewart bellowed.

“Nice to talk to you again, too,” he said. The man had never liked him, always resenting the fact that Jarrett, a kid from New England who’d joined the Navy as enlisted, had stolen away his only daughter. Nothing Jarrett had done was good enough. Not even the fact he’d gone to school and gotten his college degree and became an officer. Not the fact he was SEAL, certainly, because Stewart thought SEALs were “hot dogs.”

“Got it from the man who said you hired him. Who is he?”

“He and Gene work for me. I hired them a month ago when Fleur’s visa wasn’t coming through.”

“And you didn’t think it was a good idea to tell Lace that armed men were watching her daughter’s school?”

“That’s my business,” the man snapped. “Why are you there, Adler?”

“I’m here to take Lacey back to the States.”

Silence on the other line. Finally, the man sighed. “She won’t budge without Fleur.”

“Then light a fire under the asses of those paper pushers. Use your clout and do something useful instead of hiring muscle and scaring her daughter and your daughter.”

“Leave those men alone, Adler. They’re employed directly by me.”

“I will if they check out with my references.” Jarrett flipped off the phone, tempted to give it a one-fingered salute.