Claiming Her SEAL(11)

The barb sank in, hitting its intended target better than she'd let him know. She swallowed the hurt.

It was all smoke and mirrors anyway and didn't deter her from the goal.  Dex was holding out for some reason and she'd uncover it if it was the  last thing she did. She just wished she could figure out why it mattered  so much. To either of them.

"I didn't say you did! The point is that there's a give and take between  people when they want to get to know each other. Maybe you don't want  it to work that way, but you don't get that choice. You're a human  being. We all crave connection."

That elusive vulnerability flared up in his gaze, flitting around like a  fragile butterfly just emerging from a cocoon. And then, just as  quickly, it was gone. "Maybe I'm a robot. Did you think of that?"

She refused to smile, though he clearly wanted her to so the subject  would be effectively changed, no harm, no foul. Except he wasn't  weaseling out of this conversation under any circumstances. "And maybe  you use any method you can think of to push people away. Stop it."

With a strangled sigh, he shook his head. "Fine. Have it your way.  Please, Emma. For the love of God. Tell me what happened to make you so  afraid of the water."

Blinking, she stared up at his hard, uncompromising expression and  faltered. When Dex had been kissing her-oh, my God. All of the loose  pieces in her world had suddenly clicked into place. He was the answer  to all the questions, no matter what they were.

And then he'd withdrawn. He couldn't have slammed the door any harder.  Prying it open like this didn't feel anything like what she'd wanted.  But what had she wanted? For him to take her hand and smile gently so  she'd be encouraged to share the darkest episode of her life with him?  For Dex to provide the wisdom and guidance she desperately needed?

Yeah. Actually she had. That was how he did things. He'd jumped into the  middle of her plights without asking, knocking back her unwanted suitor  and taking charge of her mission to get in the water.         

     



 

What was so different about this? Simply that she hadn't given him a problem to solve?

That was easy enough to fix.

"It's not the water itself, exactly. It's that I can't get over what  happened last time I was in the ocean. I don't know how, and it's  killing me," she admitted honestly. "I feel myself wasting away  sometimes. When I'm at home in Boston. Like I'll never be able to take a  deep breath again."

That had not been what she'd meant to say. How was this virtual stranger  supposed to fix that? She couldn't heal herself, and she was the most  invested in the outcome.

Something broke open in her chest and a sob bubbled from her throat  without her permission. Where had that come from? She'd stopped crying  about what had happened with Chris months ago.

"Emma." Dex's soft voice drew her gaze and gone was the hard, shuttered  man. Concern etched lines around his mouth as he cocked his head. "What  happened in the water? You said you nearly drowned. But that's not the  whole story, is it?"

She shook her head, helpless to break free of their locked gazes.  Somehow he'd heard the wish of her heart to have an empathetic audience  for her explanation, and the story poured out of its own accord.

"Chris. He was my fiancé. I …  Rachel didn't like him from the first.  Creeped her out she said. Then he started checking my phone. Covertly,  of course, but it's not hard to put two and two together when my e-mail  app is open. Followed me to and from work a few times, or at least that  was how many times I caught him."

Fear of her fiancé hadn't developed yet. That would come later. Too  late. She'd tried to chalk up his obsession with her activities to the  fact that he cared about her. He was interested in her and what she was  up to, which came part and parcel with a devotion she'd never  experienced before. Chris had flowers delivered, bought her jewelry and  clothes. Declared romantic things like, "You're mine forever."

She wasn't experienced enough with stalker mentality to know that it  wasn't a romantic statement, not the way Chris meant it. No, she'd  gotten caught up in the promise of a stable life with someone who doted  on her-the opposite of what she'd had growing up.

"I started to feel smothered," she recalled. "He was going too far, but  we'd already agreed to get married. I felt obligated to stick it out for  a little while longer. Then he spun this pretty picture of how great it  would be to live together. He moved in, and that's when it got really  bad. He tried to cut me off from Rachel and would only let me go to work  if he drove me."

She hadn't talked about this in a long time. And never with a man. Only  Rachel and Dr. Morris, the therapist Emma had seen twice a week until  she fooled both of them into believing she'd gotten better.

In a lot of ways, she had. She'd vowed to be free of the past, free of  the belief that a man could fix her life. But the final step-putting her  head under the water-eluded her.

Still did. Even at this moment, the ocean surrounded her and she hadn't  frozen, thanks to Dex, but the thought of continuing out into the depths  had her hyperventilating. Shallow, quick breaths rattled her ribcage,  and pinpoints of light erupted behind her eyelids.

"Shh." Dex's hands came up and covered her shoulders, drawing her closer  to his heat and good heart, both of which she desperately craved.

She snuggled into his chest as he held her, and the quaking stopped.  Instantly. This man was like a security blanket that she could not get  enough of. How did he make her feel so safe without saying a word?

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me the rest," he murmured, and the words rumbled under her cheek.

"Oh, but I do." She drew back enough to glimpse his face, which was  rather breathtaking in the moonlight. A smattering of stars provided a  backdrop that, combined with Dex, could well be the most beautiful thing  she'd ever seen. "It's important that you understand. Rachel had been  begging me to get out, to break up with him. Finally, I did it. It was  horrible. He didn't take it well."

A fierceness stole over his expression. "I'm not going to like how this story ends, am I?"

She started to say no, but then realized the story didn't have an  ending. Not yet. That was the whole point of this. To come up with a  different future for herself than the one Chris had tried to dictate for  her. He hadn't succeeded in killing her, but he'd very effectively  ended her life as she'd known it.

It was time for a rebirth.         

     



 

"I had to call the police to get Chris out of the apartment." She  shuddered as she relived barricading herself in the bathroom with her  phone and a can of Raid, the only thing that passed for a weapon in her  house-or rather the only thing she could have conceivably used on  another human. "Three days later, he called me. Said he wanted to talk.  It was the calmest he'd ever sounded. Said he wanted to apologize,  nothing more, and I believed him. What he meant was, he wanted to drive  off a bridge to punish me for breaking up with him. When the car went  under the water, I was still strapped into the passenger seat."

Dex's grip tightened around her, pushing all the air out of her lungs,  but she didn't care. His skin smelled of pine and salt and man. It was a  heady combination when coupled with the hard planes of his body. His  scent swirled through her, signaling safety, shelter. Nothing could  touch her while she had the powerful force field of Dex surrounding her.

"Tell me where to find him," he demanded hoarsely as his hands wound  gently through her hair, cupping her head to cradle it closer to his  skin. "Now."

A smile stretched her mouth in spite of what would be the probable  outcome of that meeting. "The morgue. He didn't escape the car. They  pulled his body out later. I watched, though I had to fight the  psychiatrist the hospital appointed. I had to make sure he was dead."

"Then it's over, Emma." He said her name like a prayer and it washed  through her, wiping away the filth of talking about the past. "You have  to stop associating the ocean with death. You lived. That's what water  is-a building block of life. You came out of the water shiny and new and  free. The ocean is a place where you battled evil and won."

Oh, God. Her fisted hands loosened and she spread them across Dex's  back, yearning to increase contact with him as she absorbed his words.  "I never thought about it like that."

"The ocean, it's an amazing place. Full of strange creatures you can't  see on land." His voice remained calm and even, but it took on a hint of  wonder that spoke of his love of the ocean as clearly as if he'd said  exactly that. "The laws of nature are fierce and absolute under the  surface, far more so than any other place. There's a pecking order.  You're prey or predator. There's a swift justice. You were meant to  live, so you did."