SEAL My Home: Bad Boys of SEAL Team 3, Book 2 (SEAL Brotherhood Series 9) (5 page)

It was a Bikram, or heated class, and she was drenched from forehead to toes in a matter of minutes. Her breathing was labored. She used the anonymity of her own perspiration to allow the hot tears to flow down her cheeks. The cathartic purging of something deep inside her felt like a painful birth. It left her weak afterwards, yet grateful it might help her toughen up quicker.

Time would heal everything, she knew. Day one was the worst. Then day two, and then day three. After that, she could relax and let in those random thoughts of the feel of his mouth on hers, on her sex, the deep guttural moans he made when his body was loving hers. But she was forcing them out into the cold today.

She hadn’t noticed Lindsay in the class, so when her friend came up to her with her bright face and expectant smile. Megan didn’t know what to say at first.

“Tell me you had a fabulous time last night,” Lindsay said, stabbing her with a sly half smile.

The yoga class had drained her of emotion, and she didn’t feel like pretending or playing nice. “We did.” She retied her shoes one by one, hunching over the bench while Lindsay blotted her wet body with a towel.

“Megan, what are you hiding from me?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come on,” Lindsay pressed while they walked out together. “Over coffee. You gotta tell me.”

Megan started to protest but Lindsay would have none of it and interrupted, “I couldn’t sleep last night. I was tossing so badly, Brady finally made me sleep in the living room.” She dipped her face down low and tried to make eye contact. “Megan, what’s wrong?”

Megan touched Lindsay’s upper arm. “Nothing. Look, why don’t I meet you at Starbuck’s?”

On the way to the rendezvous, Megan wondered what exactly she was going to tell Lindsay. Anything she would say would get right back to Rory, in all likelihood. She drove to the strip mall, stopping first at the convenience store next to the coffee shop to get some milk.

The Middle Eastern attendant was new and didn’t smile. He was wearing a wrinkled shirt and his hair was uncombed. He sported a light dusting of the beginnings of a beard. She smelled alcohol on his breath, which surprised her. His eyes wandered to her chest and Megan suddenly felt undressed.

She took her milk, declining a bag, and hating the feel of his eyes on her backside as she headed to the exit of the store through the gauntlet of liquor bottles, nearly colliding with a young dark-haired man who could have been his brother.

She retrieved a cooler bag from her trunk and placed the milk inside it, zipping it shut. Just before locking her car, she eyed the dark cave of the little store and mentally decided she’d not shop there any longer. Something was caught in her radar, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

Lindsay, who had already ordered them two lattes, was seated in an overstuffed green velvet chair across a tiny rounded table from another one. Megan collapsed into the generous reading chair, resting her arms and crossing her thighs. With her eyes closed, it felt good to relax and allow the chair to comfort her.

When she leaned forward and grabbed her coffee cup, the warm liquid tasted delicious and settled Megan’s nerves. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lindsay studying her. She raised her drink. “Thanks. Can I pay you for this?”

“No, silly. My treat.” Lindsay bent over the table, the zipper of her hoodie clanging on the plastic tabletop. “So I want to know all about it. Every detail.”

Megan knew Lindsay’d be asking questions until she got what she wanted. She thought she was ready, but her resolve evaporated as soon as she opened her mouth to speak. She rolled her shoulder and pursed her lips. “We had a good time, but Lindsay, it just—,” she was searching for the words, “—It just went up in smoke. Something happened. All of a sudden, he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

Lindsay nodded to her paper cup. Without looking at her friend, she asked, “So, how was it?”

“The sex?”

“Um hum.”

It was a good question. Up until the end, she would have said twelve on a scale of one to ten. He was responsive, attentive, appeared into her, and could barely leave her alone, even when she slipped into the shower. He’d followed her. And then it all vanished.

“It was nice. Real nice.”

Lindsay frowned into her cup and hesitated before she asked her question. “He hurt you?”

“No! Nothing like that.”

“So what do you mean it all vanished?”

“Well, he was there one minute and then gone the next. Like that.” Megan snapped her fingers. “I’ve thought about what I said or did, and I just don’t get it. But there was no question that he needed to get out of Dodge.”

“You must be interpreting it wrong, Megan. Why the sudden change?”

“Beats me. I have no idea.”

“Must be some misunderstanding. I’m sure he’ll explain himself. Team guys are private. They don’t tell you much. Either I have to be okay with it, or sometimes I just insist he talk to me, and then he does.”

“Not sure I want him to be honest.”

Lindsay stared out the window as a couple walked in front of them on the outside, hand in hand. “Give him a chance, Megan. They’re worth it. You’ll regret it if you don’t give him a shot, maybe more than one.”

‡

M
oustafa thought he’d
catch the military man slinking off early from her little love cave, but instead he found her leaving alone, dressed in the spandex women should never wear if they were decent. Seeing her alone, he was glad he’d snapped the pictures yesterday with the bearded one.

He watched her enter a yoga studio, with her mat rolled under one arm. He didn’t have to meet the two new recruits for another hour at least, so he sat back and decided to take a nap, checking his phone for messages first.

The tinkle of women’s voices and the roar of car motors and slamming of doors awakened him. He knew her red car was gone when he saw the vacant curb, so he traveled toward the little shopping center to see if perhaps she decided to run an errand before going home to shower. He was in luck. He found her going into a liquor store, so he parked and followed, urgently needing to be close to her flesh, spread some of his sweat on her.

They nearly collided as he entered the store. She brushed past him and he allowed himself to become aroused with this slight touch. He turned, watching her deposit the bag of items she’d bought into her trunk. She closed the lid and then approached the coffee shop next door.

The clerk looked Indian or perhaps Pakistani, and it was plain he didn’t care much for Moustafa, but there wasn’t anything he wanted to say to the man anyway.

The Prophet’s Warrior returned to his vehicle and watched as the woman sat with a friend. He toyed with the notion she might recognize him but told himself she wouldn’t. He couldn’t resist the thrill of getting close to her again, so tried making eye contact with her as he approached. She paid him no attention at all as he walked past the American women to order his double espresso.

He took one of the tables outside, where he could watch through the glass as the two of them spoke, heads close together. She looked worried, but the other woman was smiling.

He weighed back and forth whether he should call off the meeting with the new recruits and instead take the time to follow this new woman to her home. Then he would have a second prospect, but he resisted, deciding he’d follow her around another day. No doubt this young lady would be a good source of young innocent female flesh. There was plenty of time for that. Weeks or months even. Something big and coordinated would be coming, and he became hard thinking about the death and destruction which would rain down on such an unsuspecting population.

He did love America for its abundance. Abundance of people who would die for his teacher. It mattered little that they hadn’t chosen it. It mattered that they’d pay the ultimate price in blood.

‡

R
ory was slammed
in the face with a pillow and, for a second, he didn’t know where he was. Before bed, he’d been watching TV accounts of hostages being murdered overseas. He and T.J. had viewed the reports without saying a word. He realized Shannon had been making comments for several minutes before she gave the baby to T.J. for a goodnight kiss and retired for the night. Rory was left staring at the black screen after T.J. followed her.

He’d been thinking about how it was for those overseas, especially the women, innocent ones, and children, dealing with the carnage and death and the sheer insanity of the situation. He would have to call it mass hysteria. His thoughts came back home as he realized what they’d all been told by command. It was coming to their shores. There would be innocents here in the U.S. who would be victims of terrorism. He hoped the country had the stomach for it. It was going to be brutal, but always more brutal for the ones who weren’t trained to deal with it like he was. Not that you could ever become acclimated to the senseless killing.

He also felt for the vets who had paid their price, and perhaps had come home less than whole, hoping to put all that behind them. How would it feel to them to experience the evil he knew was going to rain down on everyone within the U.S. borders? Americans were big talkers, especially in the government.
Let’s see how they organize and take care of the population.
Unfortunately, Rory knew they’d been raised with silver spoons, living off the ample teat of the money from special interests. Not sure he’d take many of them into a firefight. But there were a few. Sadly, only a few.

Time to step up, America, and see how much you value your freedom.

His brain had been ruminating on all these thoughts, vivid dreams putting him in an ice-water chill of sleep until the pillow hit him.

He was up and in T.J.’s face.

“Wow. Hold on there, cowboy!” T.J. hollered as he backed up and pushed his palms out toward him. “Now I know you weren’t dreaming of Megan.”

“Shut the fuck up. When I dream of the ladies, I don’t go hugging your ass in the morning, do I? How can you fuckin’ tell me what the fuck I was dreamin’? And besides, it’s none of your goddamned business.” He was irritated at himself for being irritated at T.J. He knew the frog prince was only trying to help.

“Boy, she really picked a scab.”

“Look, asshole, you can try to make me believe otherwise, but you and I both know this shit on T.V. affects us.” Rory was hoping T.J. would fall for the ruse and get off his case. He’d much rather discuss working in the arena than in the bedroom, even if T.J. was one of his best friends, a man who would die for him in a heartbeat.

“No, you was as sore as could be before all this happened. Point of fact is the T.V. mellowed you somewhat. That and the beers.”

Rory picked up the pillow and hurled it back at T.J., almost overturning a lamp.

And that got to T.J. “Asshole,” he said as he slammed the pillow to the ground, “So you’re having a bad day, a bad evening. I don’t care if you have a bad fuckin’ life, but don’t you fuckin’ mess up my wife’s house, understand?”

Rory backed up, scowled and couldn’t believe himself. His emotions were all over the lot. T.J. was too perceptive. Something had gotten under his skin, had started to breed and had little ones with little pointy heads and a death wish like when he was an orphan kid. He knew he was skirting on the outsides of acceptable behavior. Had already crossed the line, in fact.

“I’m going to get out of your face now, T.J. I owe you an apology,” he finally said and headed for the door.

T.J. stopped him. “Nope. Not that simple. We’re taking you up to the snow.”

“Who? You and your fairy godmother? No. I don’t want to go to the snow.”

“A bunch of us. It was arranged this morning. And you’re going, too.”

“I hate the fuckin’ snow.”

“Kyle says to get used to it.”

Oh fuck. That meant our next deployment in three months was going to be someplace cold.
Merry Christmas. They usually trained in Alaska.

“So we doing a training soon?”

“We thought we’d get a warm-up this weekend. Then when we do leave, we won’t be so rusty. We don’t get the tough winters here.”