Teasing Her Seal (Uniformly Hot!)(28)

Did he know how to get the holding thing right? Because she wasn’t just asking him to put his arm around her, was she? It was part of that whole Gray, you’re amazing problem. She was asking him to cozy up emotionally and for that she needed a different man.

Over my dead body, his traitorous heart protested.

“Don’t overthink it.” She grinned up at him sleepily. “Holding me isn’t rocket science.”

No, but getting it right mattered. Making her happy mattered. He was screwed here in ways far beyond the sexual. He tucked an arm around her and settled back against the mountain of pillows she’d accumulated from somewhere. One bed. One pillow. That was how his bed had always worked, because he didn’t do sleepovers. Instead, she had enough pillows for two SEAL units.

“Scoot down some,” she mumbled. “We need to work on your cuddling skills.”

As he processed that, she proceeded to bang her head around his rib cage, her chin digging into his chest, as she made herself comfortable. Eventually, she settled for draping one leg over his, her arm tucked around his middle. He had no idea where she’d managed to store the other arm, but it seemed like an anatomical impossibility.

“See? Isn’t that better?” Her hair tickled his armpit, and if she moved too quickly, he’d be singing soprano. So okay. It was also pretty damn perfect. He could do this. He should probably tell her how amazing she’d been or how gorgeous she looked. She’d complimented him, after all, so he needed to level the playing field some.

“Thank you,” he said, instead. Because it turned out that was what he meant.

He felt her smile against his skin. “You’re one hell of a rebound guy.”

Ouch. So maybe he wasn’t so amazing, after all. Maybe he was just fantasy fodder, the guy who could bring her dreams to life temporarily. Feeling hurt was stupid. He should let it go.

“Who was he?” Nope. Apparently, he was holding on with both hands.

“Who was who?” Her drowsy mumble wasn’t encouraging. Laney was clearly no night owl. He had no idea how she’d made it through med school—likely on sheer determination. That fit the Laney he was coming to know.

“The first guy.”

He waited for her to say something. Her fingers played with his dog tags, brushing against his skin. The pale band of skin he’d noticed on her ring finger during their first massage was getting steadily harder to see as the Caribbean sun turned her skin a rich golden brown.

“Harlan was my fiancé,” she said finally.

“Past tense?” Had to be, though. She wasn’t the kind of woman to cheat, and she’d come to Fantasy Island minus a ring.

“This was supposed to be our honeymoon.” Her voice sounded wistful. “He cheated on me. I caught him with a nurse, having sex on a gurney. Guess he had fantasies of his own.”

White-hot fury lashed through him. He could make a few calls, round up a SEAL unit to go after Harlan. Instead, he tightened his arm carefully around her. “He’s an idiot.”

“I know that. Now.” Amusement colored her voice. “And truly, it was better to find out before we got married. It’s just—”

He wasn’t good at this talking thing. He was probably supposed to make sympathetic noises or curse the guy out. Instead, he petted her hair, smoothing his hand over strands that were even silkier than the ties he’d used to bind her in place. Little pieces stuck up, tickling his nose when he leaned down.

“But what?” He made a sound, low and rough, but it wasn’t right, either. He sounded as if he had a mutant-sized frog in his throat. She didn’t seem to mind, though, because she kept right on talking.

“But apparently, I wasn’t his fantasy. I just wasn’t...enough. Or right. He didn’t even give me the chance. I thought we were friends and partners, as well as lovers. And I had that wrong, too.”

“You’re right for me.” He waited for the urge to leave to hit him, but it was AWOL. Still, he didn’t have a damn clue what he was doing here. Pleasing her body, bringing her to orgasm—those were things he was good at. He also knew how to write a rent check and pay the electric, but otherwise he was a relationship virgin. If she wanted anything more from him, she’d got the wrong man.



GRAY’S HEART BEAT out a rock-steady rhythm beneath her cheek. She figured he’d face down any number of crises with the same calm. For a moment she let her imagination place him in various ridiculous scenarios. Stampeding elephants, a zombie invasion, the Colombian Navy storming the beach on Fantasy Island...

It was easier than imagining this thing they had going anywhere further than bed. She had no complaints about their chemistry. The sex had been amazing and erotic and also scary as hell because he hadn’t let her hold anything back. She’d been open to him in every way possible and open meant vulnerable. And that vulnerability definitely meant she should stop asking him questions. Eventually, she’d get an answer she didn’t like because he clearly wasn’t into sharing how he felt. Possibly because he didn’t feel anything remotely Hallmark-like for her. They’d had hot vacation sex, and she shouldn’t overthink things.

And yet...

Yeah. She was doing a lot of thinking.

She wanted to get to know him. Not just his body or what got him off. She already recognized the way his breathing got harsher and faster when he was close to coming, the way he fisted the sheets and the hungry edge to the way he touched her. He drove her crazy, turned her on and gave her the best sex of her life. She’d be an idiot to complain about that.

On the other hand, she was feeling emotionally bare and she hated that. She shifted his dog tags through her fingers, turning the metal so she could read it in the dim light. JACKSON GRAY R. A blank line and then his social security number and blood type. NORELPREF. Somehow, the lack of information didn’t surprise her.

“What’s the R for?”

He tugged lightly on her hair. “Would you believe Radcliff?”

“It doesn’t sound as if I should.”

“Rafe? Remus? Rochester?”

“Be serious. Is your middle name really a national secret?”

He shrugged. “Randall. After my dad.”

“Was he a SEAL, too?”

“He didn’t stick around after I was born. It was just my mom and me.”

“That sounds like it might have sucked.”

“Only sometimes,” he said softly. “I was a trailer park kid in a farming community. My mom worked her ass off to put food on the table and keep the electric on. We might have had canned peaches instead of fresh, but she did the best she could even if sometimes the canned stuff came from the church pantry and not the grocery store.”

“She sounds special.”

“Uh-huh. I gave her plenty of hell. Fighting came easier than words, and between the kids at school and my cousins, I was always fighting.”

The words came sliding out before she could bite them back. “So how did you become a SEAL?”

“My cousins and I, we ran as a pack, got into trouble as a pack. We rode bikes from an early age, made the highway our racetrack. My oldest cousin got himself in trouble with a neighbor’s daughter. I never did find out exactly what he’d done, but her dad and his decided it was my cousin’s golden opportunity to enlist in the US Navy. It was the only get-out-of-jail-free card they’d give him, and he took it. And where he went, I went.”

“To BUD/S and the SEALs.”

He grinned. “I may have taken it a little further than my cousin.”



“IT’S YOUR TURN.” She stared up at him expectantly. “Pick a drink. Share your fantasy with me.”

Not in a million years. He shouldn’t have come here, but apparently, self-control and restraint were words that didn’t apply when he was around Laney. Unless the restraint in question was a pair of fur-lined handcuffs. Who knew the gift shop stocked novelty items like that?

He’d grown up on the wrong side of the tracks—hell, he’d driven his bike down the track at eighty miles an hour and played chicken with the oncoming train. Laney had no idea what she was unleashing if she dared him to name his fantasies. Still, her naughty grin was contagious. If she wanted to play, he was game. “A Short Southern Screw?”

“Ugh.” She made a face. “What makes sex Southern versus Northern? Or Eastern or Western?”

Good question, but one he couldn’t answer. Next suggestion. “Ball and Chain?”

“Sounds like a bad wedding joke.” Her smile died, and tracking down her ex-fiancé moved to the top of his to-do list.

“Bikini Line? Cowboy Up? Geisha?”

“You’re into costumes and having sex incognito? Oh. Right. Covert SEAL op. Check, check and check.”

He’d had her already tonight and it seemed as if she was offering seconds. Except that wasn’t how he really thought of her. She wasn’t a count or a notch on his belt, or even a hot woman who’d come on to him. She was just Laney.

His Laney.

And that scared him more than a little. So, yeah, he had fantasies. He’d fantasized about taking her a dozen different ways, each kinkier than the last. Tying her up, spreading her open, licking and sucking and tonguing her until she came. Then he’d do it all over again. Maybe the drink he should be ordering was the Green-Eyed Monster, because when he thought about her douche-bag ex, he wanted to rip the man apart. Mostly because he’d hurt Laney, but also because Gray was jealous. The J word.