by Jaime Lewis
“So, I still have work to do, and you have a mission to prepare for.” He mentally sighed, knowing she was right, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t celebrate her birthday.
He looked up into her green eyes. “We need to do something for your birthday.”
She gave him a funny look. “And what in God’s name do you recommend we do on a military base in the middle of a desert of all places?”
He grinned and, in a flash, had her flipped onto her back with his lips pressed against her neck. She started to giggle until he reached the lobe of her ear and sucked it into his mouth. “I can think of other things to keep you occupied.”
◆◆◆
Ace didn’t want the moment to end. He wanted to keep her in bed and love on her. He knew he had gotten her aroused, and it just made him smile even more.
She put her hands on his chest and shoved him back, and he looked at her, “What?”
“What were the words out of that impressive mouth of yours just a little while ago?”
The corners of his lips curled up, and he gave her a mischievous look. “Oh, I can show you just how impressive my mouth can be.”
She jumped up, almost knocking him off the bed and darted towards the bathroom, grabbing her clothes on the way. When she got to the doorway, she turned around and eyeballed him.
“What?” He said again, throwing his hands up dramatically, even though he knew exactly what she was talking about. He was trying to hold back his laughter as she set her hands on her hips. Hips that he would like nothing more than to hold onto while he slid his needy cock into her wet, hot pussy. Just imagining that almost had his eyeballs rolling back into his head.
“How can you say something like that to me and not expect me to want more?” She pointed her finger at him, “You are a very, very evil man, Lieutenant.”
“It’s called patience,” he said, giving his shoulders a slight shrug. “Patience is key in my line of work.” He was ready to explode in laughter from the shocked look on her face.
Thank God there was a knock on the door because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could last in a room alone with her before he said fuck it and threw her over his shoulder and took her back to bed. Shaking his head, he got up and answered the door. Stitch walked in and looked over toward the bathroom and saw Alex standing there in her pajamas with her arms crossed in front of her chest, glaring at Ace.
Stitch cracked a smile, “Happy Birthday, Sunshine. Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?”
She opened her mouth to say something but then pulled it back, but he didn’t miss the eye-roll.
Ace couldn’t hold it in anymore. He started laughing so hard he was bent over, holding his stomach. Righting himself, he walked over to Alex and hugged her.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have teased you. And, I have to tell you it took a lot of patience to restrain myself.” He leaned back to look at her, and he swore there was amusement dancing in her eyes, but she still gave him the stink eye.
“It’s a damn good thing I like you,” she said as she got up on her tiptoes and kissed him before closing the door to the bathroom in his face. He just chuckled.
He looked over at Stitch, who was watching them, not having a clue as to what the hell was going on. Ace just shook his head, “Trust me; you don’t want to know, man.”
Grabbing a t-shirt out of his duffle, Ace pulled it over his head. “I have to head over to base command and make sure things are ready for Alex’s surprise. Do you and the guys mind hanging out with her for a while to keep her occupied? She mentioned she needed to get some work done.”
Stitch smiled, “She doesn’t have a clue, does she?”
“Nope,” Ace said, grinning.
“Nice. Just so you know, if you pull this off, it’s going to go down in the record books. Nobody has ever been able to surprise Alex for her birthday. Trust me; we tried plenty of times back in the day.”
“Well, I couldn’t have done it without all of you guys. With keeping Alex away while trying to plan and getting Tenley to help back home, I owe you guys. Not to mention we haven’t had much downtime in the last few days.”
Stitch jerked his head toward the bathroom where Alex was. “You know you’ve got yourself one hell of a woman? A woman like her is hard to come by in our world. The guys consider her one of us already.”
Ace stood up, “I do, and I have no plans of letting her go.”
Stitch’s mouth morphed into a wide grin, “Holy shit! You’re falling in love with her, aren’t you?”
He wasn’t going to lie or think it was less manly of him to admit it. “I think so. Like I told you the other day, the moment we met, something just clicked. Now knowing even more about her just validates it.”
Right at that moment, the bathroom door swung open, and he locked gazes with her. Yeah, there was no thinking about it. He was in love with her.
“Are you leaving?” She asked.
He walked over to her while she squatted to grab her socks and sneakers. She was going for comfort today, wearing her hot pink running shorts that, in Ace’s opinion, were too short and a black tank top. When she stood back up, he tugged on her ponytail.
“I’ll be tied up most of the morning with meetings regarding tonight’s mission. Go with the guys, have some breakfast. Afterward, someone will go with you to base command so you can get whatever you need to do for Mason done.” He gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll come and get you for lunch around noon.”
She smiled. “Sounds like a plan, Sir.” She snapped to attention and saluted him.
He pointed at her. “Wise-ass”
◆◆◆
Alex’s eyes followed Ace as he walked out the door. Damn, she had it bad. Then her gaze fell on Stitch, who stood there with a grin on his face.
“What’s that look for? You’re up to something.”
“You love him, don’t you?”
She blew a breath out, “That obvious, huh?”
“I’m happy for you.”
“You don’t think it seems crazy? I’ll admit the first couple of days, I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t worth the trouble to get involved with him. But then every time I saw him, I kept gravitating toward him. I can’t explain it.”
“Alex, I’ve known you for your entire life. You don’t just jump into situations without thinking it through and wouldn’t have admitted it if you truly didn’t feel that way. You two are good for each other. On the other hand, I can’t wait until Derek finds out.”
She laughed and slapped his arm, then hugged him. She looked up at Stitch and smiled. He touched her head where the stitches were.
“This is healing nicely. How about we stop by medical and see about getting the stitches removed?”
“Really?” They were starting to bother her with the itching. Well, that was at least a good birthday present.
◆◆◆
Hours later, Alex found herself buried in work as if that were anything new. Come to find out Mason’s “little” translation project wasn’t exactly so little. They were trying to track down a Russian man, Yegor, who the Chinese alleged was a spy. The United States had credible evidence that the man was playing both sides. It was just a matter of who was willing to pay more money for information. The United States could care less about the rift between the two countries. What they were interested in was getting their hands on the blueprints of a new nuclear-powered attack submarine the Russians were rumored to be building, and the word on the street was that Yegor had a copy of the plans. However, judging from a surveillance recording she was currently listening to, Yegor wasn’t fairing too well against his interrogators. It seemed the Chinese had uncovered Yegor’s years of double-crossing them and weren’t happy about it.
With her earbuds in, she couldn’t help but wince and squirm in her seat each time she heard Yegor grunt or scream. Yegor was getting a beat down and then some. Finally, after what seemed like hours of torture, she heard one of the interrogators mention the
words blueprints. Turning the volume up, she waited.
Come on…give me the answer I need; then I can turn this shit off.
Yegor’s labored breathing could be heard clearly. She knew he wasn’t going to last much longer. He started mumbling something about the ocean breeze. It wasn’t making any sense to her, so she searched the internet for businesses with the name ocean breeze, specifically places where someone could hide something, like banks or places with storage lockers. As she scrolled through a list, her eyes zeroed in on a banking entity, Seabreeze Banco, located in Switzerland. With a couple of clicks on her keyboard, she browsed through Yegor’s background. When she read Yegor had a sister who lived in Switzerland, she wondered if ocean breeze could relate to Seabreeze? She was deep in thought when a shrilling scream erupted through her earbuds, followed by a gargled noise she knew unfortunately all too well and was aware that Yegor had lost his battle.
She sent a quick email to Mason, letting him know what she found out and what her opinion was on the situation. She smiled when she got an immediate reply. She swore the man never slept and worked non-stop. But that was most likely why his company was one of the most sought after. She pulled the earbuds from her ears and threw them onto the table. Leaning back in her chair, she closed her eyes, trying to scrub the last couple of hours of audio from her mind.
She found her thoughts drifting into a direction she hadn’t seen coming. For the first time, she started to question her career choice. Was this the life she wanted to live for the next twenty or so years? One, where she had to put her life on the line and constantly look over her shoulder? She was compensated very well for her services but was the stress of the job worth it? Money wasn’t an issue. Between her inheritance, savings, and investment accounts, she wasn’t hurting financially.
The main question was, could she just give it all up? She would have to consider what she wanted to do post “fieldwork.” There was no way she could just sit around and do nothing. Maybe once she got back home, she’d take a few days and visit with her uncles and run a couple of ideas by them and get their thoughts. She let out a long sigh.
“That bad, huh?” The deep voice from across the room echoed.
She opened her eyes and met Potter’s dark eyes where he was sitting with his feet propped up on the mini-fridge. Being inundated at work, she had forgotten he was even there.
“Could be better. Having to listen to an interrogation isn’t how I imagined I’d be spending my birthday. But then again, who thought I would be here? I should be on the beach, enjoying my vacation with a cocktail in my hand.” She ran a hand down her face.
Potter dropped his big feet to the floor with a thud and sauntered over to the table she was working at. Pulling out the stool next to her, he sat down. He studied her, and she knew his eyes were focused on the dark circles under her eyes. She noticed them this morning, but sleep hadn’t been her friend lately.
“What’s really bothering you?” He asked, and she wondered how he could tell things were festering under the surface because, in her mind, she thought she was doing a good job at concealing it. She went to deny it, but he held his hand up, “Don’t tell me nothing. I thought you knew by now that you could talk to any of us.”
She looked him over. By a good two or three inches, Potter was the tallest man on the team and undoubtedly the meanest looking one. It was rare to catch him with a smile on his face. With his darker complexion, high cheekbones, firm jaw, and black hair, she wondered if he came from a Native American background. Like Ace, the feature that caught her eye the first time she met Potter was his eyes. Instead of the blue of Ace’s, Potter’s were a very dark blue, almost appearing black the majority of the time, and they gave him a furtive look.
She recalled Ace telling her that Potter didn’t have any living family. She felt sad for him but was glad Ace’s family had welcomed him to their family. Since meeting and interacting with Potter, she sensed he was an observer. He liked to watch from afar and analyze what’s taking place, just like he was doing now with her.
“Would it sound awful if I said all of the above?” When he didn’t answer, she continued. “This mission has got me all twisted up because all we are dealing with are setbacks. I feel like someone is purposely toying with us. You know, dangling that carrot in our faces and then just as soon as we get close enough to get a nibble, they snatch it back. I’m missing something, and it’s pissing me off!” Her voice rose on the last sentence.
“Is that all that is bothering you?” He calmly asked, and she wondered how he could be calm now, considering he was part of the team that had to keep following up on all these somewhat bogus leads and each time come back empty-handed.
She didn’t say anything, and he just cocked his eyebrow as if telling her he was waiting for her to answer. Damn, he was good at reading people. She crossed her arms and huffed out an annoyed, deep breath.
“I don’t know if I want to continue with my career.”
Potter sat there for a moment with a stoic expression staring at her, and after a few seconds studying her, he stood and held out his hand. When she took the offering, he gently helped her off the stool and pulled her into the biggest hug she had ever gotten. The impromptu gesture had totally shocked her because Potter didn’t appear to be a person to give cuddles. She wasn’t sure if she should hug him back, but she was a hugger herself and couldn’t help it as she tried to wrap her arms around the guy’s massive body.
“One thing that I’ve learned over the years in my line of work is not to hold shit in. In most cases, it will only do more harm than good. You hear me?” He told, half lecturing her.
She nodded against his chest. “Yeah, I got you.”
He nudged her chin up. “Good. First, as for your concerns about the situation here, there is definitely something suspicious about it, and hopefully, we’ll get some answers soon. You have been working your ass off, so don’t think for a second, we don’t realize that. Second, the dilemma concerning your job. Let me ask you a question. Do you enjoy what you’re doing?”
She chewed on her lower lip, thinking about how to answer. She must have taken too long to answer because Potter said, “It is a simple yes or no, honey.”
Do I really enjoy it? She asked herself and was pleased when her inner thoughts gave her a quick answer.
“I don’t think I enjoy it. I like what I do because it gives me a sense of feeling I’m helping or contributing to something bigger than myself, but no, in all honesty, I can’t say I enjoy it. I mean, come on, do you honestly think I enjoy hearing a man get the shit beat out of him before being executed?” She rubbed her forehead in frustration. “Does that even make sense?”
“If you told me you actually enjoyed listening in on an interrogation, I’d ask Derek to order a psych evaluation for you.” He made a grunting noise, “Nobody should enjoy that shit. Trust me, I run and oversee most of our team’s interrogations, and I hate it with a passion. But I do it because I know I have too. And, because I love being a SEAL, and I love my country and what we stand for.”
“I get it, Potter, I love my country as well, but deep down, I believe there are bigger adventures I’d enjoy even more while still doing good for others.”
He graced her with one of those rare smiles of his, “Well, I believe you have your answer.”
Throwing caution to the wind, she decided to hug Potter again and gave him a big squeeze. “Thank you.”
“If my best friend weren’t crazy about you, I’d throw you over my shoulder right now and hide you away from the world.” She giggled and smiled up at him. Potter was a good man and a great friend.
“Potter, why in the hell do you have your hands on my woman?”
They both turned to see Ace standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips and one of his eyebrows arched.
At the same time, Potter and Alex both started laughing. Potter bent down and kissed the top of her head, “You’d better get over there before he blows a gasket.”
Ace gave Potter a questioning look, and Potter signaled to him that he’d talk to him later. He gave her a quick kiss on her cheek before setting her feet back down on the floor.
“Did you get that project done for Mason?”
“Yes, actually just finished up a couple of minutes ago.”
He grinned. “Good, because the Colonel needs to see us for a quick chat.”
“Is everything okay,” she asked, wondering if there was some news on the hostages.
“Yeah, it’s about tonight’s mission.”
“Okay, let me just get my things.”
Potter grabbed her bag for her while Ace took hold of her hand and laced his fingers with hers. Together, the three of them walked down the hall to another room. When they arrived at the closed-door, Ace let go of her hand to let her enter first.
Alex sensed something was up. Ace was acting funny, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She shrugged it off, telling herself she would ask him later. All the scenarios she was drumming up were so far off from the surprise that greeted her on the other side of the door.
“SURPRISE!”
Alex screamed and jumped backward, almost knocking Ace over. She did a double-take as she stood there speechless, taking in the room that was decorated with red, white, and blue streamers and balloons. Not to mention the rest of the team and Colonel Johnson were standing there grinning. Ace leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Happy Birthday, baby.”
She spun around and looked at him as the tears leaked from her eyes. Yeah, there was no stopping them. She was so overcome with emotion; she almost couldn’t even speak. “You did this?”
He smiled, and she could tell he was thrilled they had surprised her. “It was my idea, but everyone had a part in pulling it off.”
She raised up on her toes and put her arms around his neck, “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me,” she whispered and kissed his cheek.