One Hot SEAL (4 page)

And those shoes… fuck if he wasn’t
going to get hard from now on whenever he saw polka dots.

When he pulled into the entrance of
the campground and flashed his fire credentials at the ranger checkpoint,
Deelie stirred sleepily. “Are we here?”

“Almost,” he said gruffly.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Then
she proceeded to take down her hair and reconstruct a new tower. And… just like
that, he was hard again. Apparently, everything about Deelie gave him an
erection.

“You may not like what we find,” he
warned as he started down the side road leading to her illegal campsite.

“Story of my life,” she said
lightly, but he couldn’t help but notice that she looked worried. The burn
wasn’t too bad near the checkpoint, but the further they drove, the more damage
he saw.

His heart sank when he pulled up to
Deelie’s campsite. It was every bit as bad as he’d feared. The fire had turned
the bottom two-thirds of the tree trunks black, stripping off the leaves and
leaving behind black char. A few patches of red paint peeked through the
charred sides of her car, but the glass was gone and the inside looked like a
barbecue pit. The air stank of smoke.

“Oh,” she said in a small voice,
already pulling open the door and hopping down. Fuck. He threw the truck into park
and went after her. Her pretty shoes weren’t made for this, and it wasn’t like
there was anything to salvage here. She stopped next to the wreck of her car,
wrapping her arms around her middle. Instinctively, he pulled her back against
him, wrapping his arms around her. She stiffened for a second, then relaxed
into him.

“Sorry, baby,” he said against her
hair. He should have come out here and done a precheck. Should have spelled out
the possibilities or done
something.

“It wouldn’t start.”

“At least you weren’t in it,” he
pointed out, and she sniffed.
Wrong thing
to say, asshole
.

“What kind of insurance did you
have on it?” Maybe she’d insured the damned thing like it was a Lamborghini and
the carnage was actually a bonus.

She gave him The Look. “Basic
collision.”

Yeah. She’d get about a dollar and
some change from her insurance company on that policy. Her only collision had
been with a wall of flames, and he didn’t think her insurance company would buy
that. Needing to do something constructive, he pulled out his phone and took
some pictures.

“File a claim anyhow. See what they
say. The campground should have some kind of insurance too.”

Of course, her illegal choice of a campsite
wouldn’t help, plus he was fairly certain that forest fires fell in the “act of
God” category, but there was always the chance that someone would pony up.

She started poking through the
ashes, clearly determined to salvage something. He fetched work gloves from his
truck and then came over to help her sift through the stuff. An hour later, she
sat back with a groan. They’d found precisely zero possessions still intact. He
was just grateful that he wasn’t pulling her body out of the mess.

She sighed, surveying the burnt-out
wreck. “My butt’s going to be a whole lot smaller once I’m walking everywhere.”

He gave her points for trying to be
optimistic, although there was no missing the note of sadness in her voice. She
had to be worried about money if she’d been camping in her car to save a few
bucks, but she didn’t need to worry now. She had him.

“We’ll get you set up with a new
car.” At the thought of her worrying, his gut clenched. She shouldn’t be
walking home alone after a shift at Ma’s. Strong was about as safe as a place
could get, but bad shit happened everywhere and they were right on the highway.
All sorts of people passed through, and he couldn’t give her a ride home every
night.

She clapped her hands together. “We
must have passed a money tree on our way into the campground! You pull over on
our way back, and I’ll load up. Problem solved.”

Apparently, a bank loan wasn’t an
option. An underemployed cocktail waitress probably didn’t cut it. That was
okay. He had enough for both of them.

“Money’s just money. If I’ve got it and you don’t, I can fix
that. In the meantime, we can share the truck.”

“I’m not taking your money. Or your
keys.” The way she looked at him, you’d think he’d just offered to roast her
puppy or pay for sex.

“There aren’t any strings,” he said
gruffly. Why was he the bad guy here? He was just trying to do something nice
for her.

Without looking at him, she stood
up and headed toward the truck. “I was living in that car.”

And he’d picked her up at Laura
Jo’s last night, so clearly she didn’t have the cash to just go and rent a
place.

“You’ll stay with me.” The words
flew out of his mouth before he could think them through, but they felt right. Really,
they’d known each other for years, since high school, and life as a SEAL had
taught him the importance of seizing the moment. Sometimes tomorrow didn’t
come, so a smart man made the most of today.

“Hello. How about
ask
instead of
tell
?” Clearly, Deelie didn’t share his
carpe diem
sentiment. Damn it. The woman had a stubborn streak a
mile wide.

He stalked toward her. “Please move
in with me.”

She looked at him. “No.”

Hell. He paused. “I don’t even
merit a
no, thank you
?”

She shrugged and leaned against the
truck. “I don’t need rescuing.”

They seemed to be focusing way too
much on what she didn’t need when he’d rather be talking about what she did
need. He’d been kind of hoping he topped that list, hence her wild-monkey-sex request.

He shook his head. “Your problem is
that you
don’t
want rescuing. You
think everybody who comes into your life is already on his way out. You don’t
give them a chance to stay.”

Deelie snorted. “If we’re listing
character flaws, let’s talk about how you think you’re Mr. Fix It. You’ve got
everything planned to a T. I’ll bet you were that guy standing in the back of
the plane yelling
Go, go, go
as the
soldiers bail out with their parachutes.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having
a plan.” He’d loved the discipline and structure of military life. And, okay,
so he was kind of an old sobersides, and the fire team routinely called him
Gramps.

She shrugged again, whistling for
Vicious, who promptly jumped in and curled up on the floor.

“Do you even know how to have fun?”
she asked pointedly.

Absolutely. He racked his brain
trying to think of an example to give her. In the past week, he’d worked four
double shifts, run thirty miles, and… gone to the bar. “I went to Ma’s.”

“To pick up your keys.”

“I’m not the kind of guy who
dances.”

“And yet you danced last night with
me,” she pointed out. “Badly, but it counted. Makes a gal wonder.”

“I told you I don’t dance.” Although
if it turned out to be a deal breaker, he’d learn.

She smiled again, like she was lost
in her own head. “I thought you meant you didn’t
like
to—not that you flat-out
couldn’t.
”

He caged her against his truck, his
hands on either side of her head. “Are you questioning my dance moves?”

4

Insulting her ride out of the woods
probably wasn’t Deelie’s wisest move. A prudent carless person would shut up
and smile sweetly now. Maybe toss in a little admiration for his buff forearms
and incredible patience as she sifted through what was left of her car (not
much). Unfortunately, she’d always lived dangerously, so keeping her mouth shut
wasn’t happening.

“I’m
laughing
at your dance moves,” she said. “There’s a difference.”

“That’s even less nice.” He shifted
closer, which shouldn’t have been possible. His jeans rubbed against her bare
legs. She should have worn more clothes. Or fewer. Yeah.
Fewer
. Getting naked sounded like her best idea ever.

She tilted her head back. Luke
being nice and supportive was kind of strange and had to come with strings
attached, but the sexy pressure against her legs—and
higher
, oh yeah—
that
was familiar territory. She loved the closeness, the way it felt like her body melted
into his and her only anchor to reality was eight inches of hot, hard penis. He
nipped her mouth with his.

“No woolgathering,” he said. “You’ll
give me a complex.”

“Are we still working on the
date
portion of today, or have we moved
on to the next item on the agenda?” Her car was a total loss, but her sex life
didn’t have to be.

His eyes darkened. “Hot monkey sex?”

“Only if you promise to be really
good.” She could feel her mouth curving up into a smile. She seemed to do a lot
of smiling around Luke. “Or really,
really
bad. I’m flexible.”

“God, I hope so,” he groaned.

He scooped her up, opened the door,
and dropped her onto the seat. While she gaped—because, darn it, hands-
off
hadn’t been what she’d been going
for—he moved rapidly around the truck. Sex was so much better than
worrying about her lack of a car. Or her lack of a paycheck, home, or
meaningful personal life. Luke Dawson should be good for at least an hour of
hot, sweaty, toe-curling oblivion.

Except that he slid behind the
wheel, and instead of dragging her onto his lap and finishing their kiss, he
turned the key in the ignition and backed the truck out of the clearing. Maybe
he needed a map. Or directions.

She turned and looked at him. “You
do understand how sex works, right?”

He grinned but kept his eyes on the
road. “We can play show and tell in about ten minutes.”

Oh. She thought about that for a
moment. “Change in venue?”

“You really want to do it in the
front seat of my truck in a burned-out patch of woods?”

“I’m not romantic.” She shrugged. “I’m
not holding out for an overwater bungalow in Bora Bora. Plus your truck has a
bed. There’s more room there than here.”

She patted the seat beside her.

“I’m suddenly understanding your
reputation,” he said, and a pang of hurt shot through her. If he’d been hoping
for a vestal virgin, he had the wrong woman in his truck. She’d be lots more
fun though.

“The guys on the team said you run
through men like crazy.”

“This is
not
a good way to get laid,” she said, interrupting him. “Slut
shaming went out in the nineties.”

He shook his head. “I’m pretty sure
you terrified them and they ran.”

The man was blunter than a pickax. “You
don’t date much, do you?”

“I’m pretty much a dating virgin,”
he said cheerfully, turning the truck down an unfamiliar road. She was pretty
certain that the highway and Strong were in the opposite direction. “Think of
the next two weeks as a public service.”

“I was thinking of it more as
doggie obedience school.” She patted him on the thigh. “But you can call it
whatever you want.”

“The guys you’ve slept with are
damned lucky,” he said roughly. “At least, that’s what I think. I’m planning on
finding out for myself.”

She was totally on board with that
plan. She probably should have had more pride though. Or been less damned
lonely.

“I don’t care about who’s been
first. I care about who’s
last
. And
best.” He grinned. “I plan on being your best. Fair warning.”

While she stared at him,
speechless, he pulled the truck off beside a river. The spot was pretty,
showing no signs of the recent fire. It was also private. The river was
partially dammed up here, spilling over the rocks in a foamy cascade to form a
deeper pool. If she’d known this place was here, she’d have come out every
weekend. It was the perfect place to go swimming—and to do other, sexier
things.

While she admired the
scenery—
slowpoke
—Luke got
out, pulling his shirt over his head.

“Hello.” She put her feet up on the
dashboard. Might as well be comfortable while she enjoyed the view. “You didn’t
tell me that there would be entertainment.”

He laid the shirt over the side of
his truck. Vicious started yapping, clearly onboard with the whole plan, so she
let the dog out so it could run around and pee on trees. She, on the other
hand, had a man to ogle.

Luke bent over and unlaced his
boots, toeing them off. White socks shouldn’t be so sexy. It just wasn’t fair.

He looked up. “You’re slacking.”

“Excuse me?” Because she hadn’t
been planning on fingering herself and taking care of all the foreplay on her
own. That was
his
job. It really was.

He made an up-and-down motion with
his fingers. “Get undressed.”

Apparently, Luke thought sex was a
self-serve operation, more like a cafeteria-style buffet with plastic trays than
fine dining at a five-star restaurant. Maybe he’d be worth it. She could give
him one short. She pulled her tank top over her head, dropping it on Luke’s
empty seat.

Fortunately, today’s bra was a really
good one, blue-and-white checked with a little bow between her boobs and enough
padding to put her in Dolly Parton territory. When she moved her hands to the
button of her shorts, she felt kind of like she’d time traveled back to high
school. That wasn’t so bad, but she also didn’t
look
like she was still seventeen. Or, hell, eighteen, twenty, or
even twenty-eight. Gravity and Cheetos were a bitch.

Sex in the front seat of a truck
was doable, but it wasn’t ideal. Maybe he’d be up for moving to the back where
there would be more room. Luke wasn’t a small guy. They’d be banging elbows and
knees on the dashboard. When she leaned out the window to holler at him with
the suggestion, he was rummaging in the silver toolbox. Holy. Wow. What did he
need in
there
?

While her mind went to a dozen
different kinky places, he pulled out a perfectly boring blanket and a couple
of towels. Then he strolled toward the river and dropped the towels on a handy
branch. Even better, he bent over and arranged the blanket—
hello,
fine butt—before he
finished unbuttoning his jeans. She definitely wouldn’t mind watching him clean
a house naked.

“You coming in?”

Swimming.

He wanted to go
swimming
? Disappointment trickled
through her, followed by something else. She wasn’t sure what that something
else was. Date nights—or afternoons—were pretty straightforward. Go
to the bar, have a couple of drinks, go back to his place and screw. Afterward,
she’d get up and leave. Leave it to Luke to be complicated. The man seemed
determined to make sure she didn’t get laid anytime fast.

Luke wasn’t waiting around though.
He shoved his pants and his boxer briefs down his thighs and strolled toward
the water. God. He was even more gorgeous than he’d been in high school. He’d
bulked up some, adding muscle to his lean form. He also had the most amazingly
tight ass and powerful legs that ate up the ground. He was a tasty golden brown
all over, except for the slightly paler skin of his butt. Either he swam naked
a lot
or he sunbathed in the nude. She
was making a mental note to ask him which one when he turned around by the
water’s edge and gave her the money shot. His penis was every inch as
spectacular as it had been twelve years ago, thank God.

Getting out of the truck, she
padded over to the blanket in just her bra and shorts. “You sure you want to
waste
that
on the river?”

She pointed a finger at his dick.
The man had an impressive hard-on, and California river water was notoriously
cold.

He smiled slowly. “You can still
have your way with me in the water.”

Oookay. Before she could extort a
promise from him, he dove in. It wasn’t hard at all to imagine him as a SEAL.
He cut through the surface in a sleek, fast line and disappeared.

After a minute, she started to
worry when he didn’t pop up for air. Damn it. He’d been a SEAL. That made him a
Navy boy and pretty much guaranteed he was a world-class swimmer. He couldn’t
drown in a river. Could he? Just in case, she shucked her shorts. The rest of
it—her bra and her panties—could stay on. She was vain enough to
want both the extra lift and the fancy packaging. Not that Luke would
appreciate it if he was drowning. Shoot.

He was fine. He had to be, right? Guys
like him always were. But just in case… yeah, she had no idea what she’d do.
He’d rescued her once, so this was just kind of an evening of the scales. No big
deal. The right thing to do, even if she usually chose to do the wrong thing.

Jump first, ask questions later.

The river water was icy cold, the
bottom dropping away in a matter of feet.

“Luke?” She’d lost all feeling in
her feet, thank God, because she hated slimy river bottoms.

Strong arms wrapped around her
middle, scooping her up and against a muscled chest as Luke erupted from the
water. She glared up at him, torn between wanting to drown him for real and
pulling him close.

See?
Her inner good girl chortled.
Everything’s
fine. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
She twisted her fingers in
his dog tags and yanked his head down.

“Let’s not play drowning games,
okay?”

He looked momentarily confused. “Sorry,
honey.”

He actually seemed sorry. Of
course, she’d one-night-dated plenty of guys who’d also parroted “Sorry, honey”
in one form or another—usually as they walked out the door on her.

“Fuck.” He tightened his grip. “Okay.
Oversight on my part. What do you know about BUD/S and drown-proofing?”

Apparently nothing. “Keep
explaining.”

“You go in the pool with your feet
tied together and your hands behind your back. As soon as you hit the bottom,
you kick for the surface. Then you go back down and do the whole thing again.
You don’t worry about drowning after that. I can hold my breath for over two
minutes.”

“So the one of us who is a super
stud at holding his breath should notify the other party that he’s perfectly
happy hanging out on the bottom of the river for obscene amounts of time.”

“Yes, sir.” He flipped her a
teasing salute. “We good now?”

“Okay.” She didn’t want to hold on
to her mad. The water felt too good after poking through the ashy remnants of
her poor car, and her SEAL felt even better. “I guess you swam in places that
were way more dangerous than a puny little river.”

“Trust me,” he said, rolling onto
his back so she rode his chest like he was her own personal merman. “I’m having
way more fun here.”
           

He finned through the water with
her, making for the little series of waterfalls where the river cascaded down a
few feet over slick, wet rock. Rivulets of foam streaked the surface, tiny
currents eddying around his shoulders. This whole back-to-nature thing was
really starting to work for her. Plus he was
naked,
and that just made her whole afternoon.

“I didn’t get a chance to kiss you
our first night together,” he said, the rough-tender note in his voice making
something inside her melt. Where she saw
last
,
he saw
first,
and how screwed up was
that? The water poured down around Luke’s shoulders in a littler version of
that night’s waterfall. The waterfall might be smaller, but the feelings were
larger. God. She was in trouble here. She specialized in uncomplicated, hot
sex. Luke, however, didn’t seem to be playing by those rules.

As if he sensed her brain going
into overdrive, he reached up and tugged her mouth down to his. His lips were
firm and knowing, as determined and focused as the man himself. She whimpered,
clenching her fingernails against his shoulders, marking his skin in a faint
echo of the way he branded her mouth.
Yes.
He wrapped the long, wet tail of her hair around one big hand, holding her in
place when, truth was, she had nowhere else to go.

Nowhere else she’d rather be.

He kissed her and she kissed him
back, her tongue stroking into his mouth, tangling with his tongue. He tasted
good, better than good, like Luke and mint and some flavor for which she had no
name but knew, in those heart kind of places she didn’t like to think about,
that she wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon. Luke Dawson was going to
single-handedly ruin her for any other man, and right now, she didn’t care. He
kissed her and kissed her, and she kissed him right back.

~*~

Cold-water swims in BUD/S training
hadn’t been half the torture swimming with an almost-but-not-quite-naked
Deelie. Her nipples were hard pebbles beneath the translucent fabric of her
bra. Her panties had to be see-through too, although his view through the
surface of the river wasn’t perfect. So he cupped her ass, lifting her over his
dick even as the water poured around them.

“I’m soaking wet,” she said in that
tone of voice he’d learned meant:
I think
I look like a hot mess even if you think I look like your best
Playboy
fantasy.