Pleasing Her SEAL(28)

       
           


       

She exhaled, and ran her hands up his bare chest. The holiday fling had  been out of her comfort zone, and look how that had turned out. So she  could do this, too.

"Marry me?" She smiled and grinned at him. Live large. Be brave. "Say yes."

She couldn't look away. She had to see his face, watch his reaction as  he processed her impulsive question. A few days of getting to know Mason  wasn't much compared to a lifetime of marriage, but she didn't need  another year or ten to know Mason was one of a kind. He was bedrock and  safety and a good guy, through and through. Fifty more dates wouldn't  make her know him any better than she did now.

* * *

MASON HADN'T SEEN this coming.

So he had to ask. "Say that again?"

She stared at him as though he was speaking Greek, when he was the one  clearly experiencing hearing loss, but then she repeated her question.  "Marry me? I know it's quick and we haven't known each other all that  long, but when something's right, it's right. Right?" She frowned, her  words picking up speed and tumbling out. "I love you."

Normally, he had some idea of what to say. He wasn't a dating  virgin-wasn't any kind of virgin-and he had, after all, been married  once, even if it hadn't worked out. Nothing, however, had prepared him  for the look on Maddie's face. He had no idea how she managed to look  both bold and tentative at the same time, but she did. He liked her a  whole helluva lot. Maybe even loved her. But he'd been dating her under  false pretenses and for a matter of days. He'd led beach assaults that  had taken more time than they'd had together.

She plowed on though, clearly undeterred by his silence. Instead of  waiting for him to say something-and he honestly had no idea how long it  would be before his brain unfroze and started giving orders to his  tongue again-she walked her fingers up his chest, stopping with her  fingertips pressed against the spot between his ribs.

Then she opened her mouth and he knew he was finished. "I've got you in  my heart, Mason Black, so I'm hoping you've got room for me right here  in yours."

He didn't deserve a woman like her, and that was the truth.

"Maddie-" The hopeful look on her face about killed him. Damn it. She'd  fallen in love with his cover story and she needed to know the truth.  She wanted to marry him. She'd believed every word he'd given her, and  now she thought he was her Mr. Perfect. Shame flooded him. There were  lines no man should cross, and he'd driven the emotional equivalent of a  fucking Humvee over them.

"Maddie-" He said her name again, but finding words to come next was hard.

"Oh, my God." She froze on top of him, smile fading. "You're telling me no."

"It's not that." It was precisely that.

"Are you married? Am I an idiot? Of course I am."

That almost made him choke. "You're not an idiot." Because that honor  went to him. How had he possibly thought any of this was a good idea?  He'd had sex with her...and now look where that had gotten them.

Into bed and then into a huge heap of trouble.

His first response to her proposal was a hell no. He couldn't handle  being married again. He could admit that to himself. As a SEAL, he'd  trained to never accept less than his personal best from himself, and  his first marriage had been an epic failure. He'd made promises to love  and honor forever, but his forever had lasted a lousy eighteen months.

"It's me," he said, and her lips tightened. Now that he had his shock  dialed back, her proposal was actually kind of sweet. Fantastic, too, if  he was being honest.

Except he didn't do honesty, did he? Any more than he did marriage.

"Are you trying to check all the boxes in the breakup-speech-clichés  list?" She stared down at him, her face a mask of embarrassment and  hurt. She didn't move, though, and he wondered if she even knew her  thighs were gripping his hips. She flushed angrily, her eyes taking on a  wet sheen. He couldn't tell if she was angry, sad or a combination of  both. God. What if she cried?                       
       
           


       

"I'm not married," he said carefully, uncomfortably aware that he  wasn't telling her the entire truth. Because if he was lucky enough to  have a woman like Maddie as his own? There was no way in hell he'd cheat  on her. "I'm divorced."

Maddie's mouth flew open, and he could practically hear her playing mental Ro Sham Bo to pick the first question to ask.

"I don't want to discuss Bethany," he said, right as his pager went  off, recalling him to their base camp for immediate deployment. Fuck.  Seriously? Uncle Sam had the worst timing ever. Surely whatever needed  to be blown up or assaulted could have waited a couple of minutes more.  "I have to go."

She glared down at him. "So that's it? That's the best you can do? I  don't even merit the ‘honey, I work for the CIA and now I have to go'  excuse? Because it's actually okay to just say ‘no, thank you' to a  marriage proposal." Hitching in a breath, she swallowed hard. "In fact,  the thank-you is entirely optional and could be replaced with something  else."

Yeah. He had no problem imagining the alternatives running through her  head. She shoved off him. Unfortunately, he should have shifted her off  his dick before he told her the truth. While he sucked in a pained  breath, she shot upright.

"I just proposed to you." She looked horrified. At least she didn't  look as though she was going to cry anymore. And he...still had no idea  what to say, not that she was waiting around for him to explain. She  bolted out of the bed, and that was his cue to get up and go to work.  Her bed. Her heart.

Her rules.





12

I threw my first wedding yesterday! Okay, so it was more of a dress  rehearsal, because no one was actually getting married, although I did  score some awesome pics for you all. Mr. Fantasy Fodder came out to  assist, seriously upping the hot-scenery quota while he helped set up  the bridal arch. Weddings are a good look for him, and let's just say  that the man knows his way around a palm tree...and he's a 12 out of 10  on the kissing scale. You all voted for Sex on the Beach in our last  poll, and who says I can't take direction? I did my best to get busy on a  palm tree, and let's just say that, while it was kinky awesomeness, our  strategic retreat to the bedroom was a wise move. I've got palm-tree  burn today!

-MADDIE, Kiss and Tulle

THE ENTIRE SEAL team had assembled on the beach by the time Mason  reached base camp, geared up and ready for the Zodiac that would land in  five minutes. It was a quick, rough ride out to the waiting Navy  vessel, and then they would board a Black Hawk and fly forty minutes  inland to the jungle compound the Marcos brothers had built on the  Belizean mainland. Which gave them approximately thirty minutes of  ground time to get in, search for Santiago Marcos and get out. Not that  he had anything or anyone to rush back to. Not anymore.

He had no business thinking about Maddie when he was on a mission, but  she was stuck in his head and under his skin. Would she miss him? Sure,  things had ended about as badly as they could, but he'd never worried  about the people he left behind. He had his family back in California,  but they had lives and families of their own. They'd miss him, mourn  him, but he wasn't part of their everyday lives and they'd go on just  fine without him. For that matter, so would Maddie. Maybe he'd been  fooling himself, thinking what they had was love. He'd simply gotten  caught up in the whole Fantasy Island thing and had turned a few days of  sex into a relationship.

But, as stupid as it sounded even in the privacy of his head, this  thing with Maddie had felt like a possibility. Not just a hookup, but a  chance for something more. Clearly, she'd been thinking along the same  lines, given the proposal that had come popping out of her mouth. And  the stricken look on her face when he'd turned her down still gutted  him. He'd hurt her when that was the last thing he'd wanted to do. But  accepting was out of the question. Full-time relationships and SEALs  didn't mix well, although he liked to think that his older self could  handle things better than the eighteen-year-old kid he'd been. Of  course, Maddie thought he was a chef. She had no idea he wasn't baking  bread while she recovered from their marathon sex sessions. If she could  see him now, face paint camouflaging his skin, geared up to assault a  drug lord's jungle compound, she'd probably KO any possibility of the  two of them taking things to the next level.