Teasing Her Seal (Uniformly Hot!)(29)

He was never jealous, any more than he was monogamous, committed, or any other relationship word. In fact, he and Laney didn’t really have a relationship. They had sex. Hot, rough, mind-blowing sex. He shouldn’t want anything more. But he looked at her and he wasn’t empty or emotionless. He was the opposite. She made him feel too goddamned much, and he’d picked a hell of a time to figure that out, too. Sex with a near-stranger was more his style, a meaningless hookup that meant he didn’t have to worry about pleasing an exclusive lover.

He didn’t want to have fantasy-suite date-night sex or whatever the reality TV shows were calling it these days. He just wanted...Laney. Wanted to hear the soft, whimpering noises she made, lose himself in her smile. Danger. He wasn’t emotionally attached. He couldn’t be.

“Maybe we could skip the fantasy stuff and just...”

“Have normal sex?”

“That, too,” he said, knowing he sounded gruff. But damn, was he really going to use the words making love?

“You have a fantasy about doing it missionary style?” A smile curved her lips. Jesus. He needed to make a strategic retreat.

“What’s wrong with making love face-to-face?” He rolled over, pinning her beneath him. Maybe he needed to be more show and less tell.

“Nothing.” She curled her arms around his neck. “Step one? Accomplished.”

“That way, you can tell me how I make you feel. What you enjoy and what you want more of.”

“Uh-huh.” She leaned up and brushed her mouth over his ear. “I feel like I’m melting.”

Melting was good. He settled between her thighs as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

She wasn’t done talking, though. “And do you whisper back?”

“I do. I’ve got lots of things to say to you.”

“And do?” He wasn’t sure which was better—the hopeful note in her voice or the way her fingers tightened on the back of his neck, pulling him closer until his lips grazed hers.

“Absolutely,” he said and proceeded to show her.





13

GRAY WOKE UP at zero-dark-thirty as he always did, years of training kicking in. His side ached liked a bitch, and he had a cramp in his left shoulder because—wait for it—he’d apparently spent the night cradling Laney against his chest. She had one arm draped over him, the other smashed somewhere beneath the blanket. The ache in his shoulder wasn’t the problem. Nope. The problem was the urge to do it again. Over and over, if he was being honest.

Which he’d been last night.

First about his upbringing, and then about his feelings. Memories came flooding back, of him telling her how special she was. Of how she made him feel. He’d all but spouted poetry, and he probably would have done that, too, if he’d known anything besides country music lyrics.

He stared at the window, but there were no answers there, either. The window provided a prime view of several overgrown palm trees. The screen had a hole, and the window itself was a liability, but he liked the fresh air, and he wasn’t expecting snipers in the coconut palms. The bed was small and that was the only reason why he’d draped Laney on top of his chest like the best kind of blanket. Nope, no other reason at all.

He looked down at the woman in his arms. Laney’s sleek hair wasn’t so sleek. Brown curls stood up on one side, and she looked adorably disheveled. She was also naked and seemed extremely comfortable curled up against him. As if she belonged there. Which probably explained the feeling of panic that roiled through him.

The sensation was unpleasantly similar to one he’d enjoyed during BUD/S training, when his instructor had tied his hands behind his back and then Gray had voluntarily stepped into the training pool, hit the pool floor nine feet down, and bounced back to the surface. Could you drown-proof your emotions? Because this wasn’t simply sex anymore. In fact, there was no just sex about it at all. He was on the bottom of the pool, in the deep end, and he wasn’t bouncing back from this anytime soon.

Laney mumbled something in her sleep. He needed an exit plan. A do-over. Some sage advice.

Instead, he got a sharp knock on the door. Somehow he doubted it was room service. Laney immediately opened her eyes, shoving upright. He woofed out a breath, because she didn’t pussyfoot around.

“Coming,” she groaned, batting around the bed with her hand. He had no clue what she was looking for—pager, stethoscope, bone saw—but he was glad he didn’t make a habit of sleeping with loaded weapons under his pillow. She was a hazard half-awake.

She paused. He knew the moment she realized she was naked, because the blush came back. “That wasn’t my pager.”

At least she’d had nonlethal intentions. The knock at the door was repeated.

“Stand down, Doctor.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead and got out of bed. When he cracked the door, he found Levi standing in the hallway.

Levi eyed him. “R&R?”

“Off-limits.”

Levi nodded. The man was already geared up. “Party time. We’ve got a helicopter incoming in thirty minutes.”

“At the crack of dawn?” Who brought his girlfriend to a romantic island getaway before the sun even rose?

Levi grinned. “Marcos is an early riser. Or he hasn’t been to bed yet. Possibly, he knows that the fewer people who see him arrive, the better. Ask him yourself when we bag him.”

He nodded. “I’m ready to roll in two minutes.”

Shutting the door, he started pulling on his clothes. “I have to go.”

Lame. She wasn’t deaf. She’d heard Levi.

“I’ll go, too.” She didn’t seem upset, but he kept an eye on her as they got dressed.

Falling asleep with Laney had not been part of his plan. The sweet-whispers thing was fantasy material, sure, but this was real life. He’d intended to have sex with her, hold her some because he knew that mattered to her and then walk her back to her bungalow where she’d be safer. And, as an added bonus, returning her to her place would have avoided the whole awkward morning-after conundrum because, yeah...he felt naked and not because he was only half-dressed.

Last night he’d enjoyed the hardest, fiercest orgasm of his life, and she’d been right there with him. He was fine with that part of the night’s agenda. But then he’d wrapped his arms around her. He’d held on and rubbed her back, and he might have...said things. Needy things along the lines of You were fucking amazing and Thank you and I can’t believe someone like you has time for someone like me. And when she’d drifted off to sleep, he hadn’t let go then, either. He’d held her and breathed her in, burying his face in her hair and pretending he’d never forget the apple scent of her shampoo or the way she curled a delicate foot around his leg. She was supposed to get up and go. And, if she didn’t, he was supposed to pick her up and carry her back to her own bed. He could have done it, too.

But he hadn’t.

He’d fallen asleep, still cuddling her, and now his entire team knew it. He never slept with his lovers. Sleeping was a private thing. It was one thing to strip down to his bare skin, and he’d never had a problem with serving up raw, gritty sex acts. Bluntly put, he had an expiration date. He wasn’t a long-term guy, and sleeping together was the kind of thing a woman did with her keeper man. He’d touched Laney everywhere, put his fingers inside her body. He’d kissed her, caressed her, licked her from head to foot. Those things didn’t bother him. The sleeping thing, however, was unnerving, and he felt out of control. Mission gone sideways, although not FUBAR. Just...uncharted waters. He grabbed a T-shirt while he thought that one over.

She ran her fingers through her hair, braiding it loosely. “You’ve got a thing.”

Busted. He couldn’t tell her the details, and that was just one more reason in the con column for having a relationship with a SEAL. He had to go, and he couldn’t tell her where, why or even for how long.

“You okay walking back to your bungalow alone?” he said instead.

There was a pause as she fished for her sandals with her toes. “I think I can manage,” she answered dryly.

“You can stay here if you prefer.”

“Alone.” Now she sounded put out.

He jammed his feet into his boots, bent over and started lacing. “Those are your only two options.”

She sighed. “We need to work on our mornings after.”

He didn’t think they’d sucked so badly. “I’m not complaining.”

“Because you’re the one leaving to go to work.”

“How did you think it would go?” Genuinely curious, he started grabbing weapons. He had a .40-caliber Glock model 17 with four magazines, a KA-BAR knife, and a Heckler & Koch MP-5 machine gun holstered to his thigh. He’d need to grab more multiple magazines for the machine gun, .40-caliber Teflon-coated hollow-points designed to pierce any body armor, including the SEALs, because he didn’t know how well prepared Marcos would be. She made a choked sound and he looked up. “What?”

“They let you bring all that stuff onto Fantasy Island?”

He snorted. “We didn’t have to worry about the TSA. We rode a commercial airliner into our drop zone and then we bailed out.”