by Cassie Cole
“Depends. What kind of cheese is on this metaphorical sandwich?”
I made an offended noise and slapped his meaty thigh. We all laughed some more.
Hunter called someone they referred to as their “S2 Intelligence Officer,” who told them CLF chatter was low after the warehouse raid. The terrorists had gone into hiding after over-extending themselves, so we should be reasonably safe for a while.
Cairo took us to a tapas restaurant they were familiar with, and the two of them put on leather jackets to cover their pistol holsters. They still insisted on escorting me inside—Cairo leading the way and Hunter behind me. It gave me a mixed feeling between protection and incarceration. I tried to focus on the positive—that I was finally getting some food, and Cairo’s tight little butt was nice to look at as we went inside. They led me to a table in the back corner.
“Can we sit somewhere else?” I asked. “The air vent is blowing right down on me and it’s chilly.”
Cairo and Hunter shared a look. “We need to sit here.”
“What, is this your lucky table or something?”
Cairo’s face was deadly serious. “This table allows us to simultaneously watch everyone who comes through the front door, and gives us a quick exit route through the back.”
Hunter adjusted his seat. “Here. You can have my jacket.” He removed it, then repositioned his chair so that the gun on his hip was facing the wall where nobody else could see it.
“Thanks,” I said as I put it on. It smelled faintly of his cologne, which I would have bet anything was a designer brand like the jeans he’d worn to the club.
The waiter was a young Spaniard who seemed to know the two SEALs. Cairo ordered “the usual” in Spanish, and the kid rushed back into the kitchen to get it ready.
“What’s the usual?” I asked.
“Little bit of everything. Tapas style, for sharing.” Cairo blinked. “That’s okay, right?”
I shrugged. “It’s not like I have much of a say in anything else that happens. Might as well be the same with food.” After a moment I sighed. “That’s not fair. I’m sorry. I’m taking it out on you guys again.”
“As we’ve already established, we kind of deserve the blame,” Cairo said.
“You know what?” I said, smacking the faded wooden table. “I’m going to choose to think more positively about this entire scenario. This can be more like a first date than two guards sharing a meal with a prisoner.”
“Isn’t the point of a one-night stand that you don’t have to go on any follow-up dates?” Hunter pointed out.
“Oh, we’re well past that,” I said. “If you guys are going to be babysitting me for the foreseeable future then I want to know a little bit about you.”
They glanced at each other. “What do you want to know?” Cairo asked.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Umm.”
“Let’s start with the basics.” Hunter stuck out his hand. “Hi. My name’s Hunter Kershaw.”
My hand disappeared inside his warm palm. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Seth Price,” Cairo said, shaking my hand just like this was a job interview. “But please call me Cairo. I hate Seth.”
“Great to meet you, Seth.”
He groaned. I gave him a playful kick under the table. “Stay on my good side and I’ll call you Cairo.”
“How do I get on your good side?”
“Feed me.” I shrugged. “That’s about it.”
“Good thing I agreed to stopping for food then,” Cairo said.
“So,” I said. “A couple of somewhat attractive Navy SEALs traipsing around Spain.”
Hunter almost choked on his water. “Somewhat!”
“You’d be solid 10s if not for the designer jeans you were wearing at the club.”
Hunter’s face twisted. “Those were my best Bonobos! Salvage Stretch cut, in Manhattan Midnight black!”
I gestured as if that made my point. Cairo cradled his head in his hands and groaned.
“Anyways, do the two of you have girlfriends back home? Or wives?”
“Naw,” Hunter said. “Nothing like that.”
“Seriously? I would’ve thought two guys like you would be able to get whoever you want.”
“Getting isn’t the hard part,” Hunter admitted. “Keeping is. Our schedule’s not what you would call consistent.”
“We don’t get to have normal lives,” Cairo said quietly. “Can’t coach Timmy’s little league team if we’re sent around the world at the drop of a hat.”
“Some guys try to make it work,” Hunter admitted. “Some even succeed. But it’s not for everyone.”
I could tell by his tone that he was saddened by this. As if it was a realization that had taken him a while to come to. I wondered how many long-distance relationships he’d attempted before finally giving up.
It made me profoundly sad, enough to forget about my own personal problems.
“That must be hard,” I said.
“It is,” Cairo said.
We shared an awkward silence.
“You’re a microbiologist?” Cairo asked to break the ice.
“Microbiology student. Working on my graduate degree.”
Hunter blurted, “That sounds super boring.”
“Hey!”
He spread his hands. “Just saying. I bet you stare at a microscope all day.”
“It’s worse than that. Most of my time is spent sorting through datasets on a computer. The thing most people don’t know about science is that most of the time you’re not really doing anything. I’ve been in Barcelona for five months and have barely been outside except to collect water samples.”
“Water samples for what?” Hunter asked.
“Well, my primary thesis was on the effect of external pollutants on warm-water cell division rates.”
Hunter leaned back and mimed a long, bored yawn. I rolled my eyes at him.
“Let’s pretend I don’t know what that means,” Cairo said.
“Basically, ocean temperatures have been steadily rising for the past century. One basic result of this is that bacteria multiply faster. My specific research is on certain types of contaminants introduced to the water, and whether they accelerate this bacteria growth or slow it.”
“So like, slime from a factory?” Hunter asked. “Because I saw a documentary on how pollutants like that can cause extreme cell mutations in sewer reptiles.”
“Oh?” I said, surprised. “What documentary?”
His big smile ruined the joke. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
If I was in a worse mood, I might have taken offense to his joke. But I was trying to stay positive, and it actually did make me laugh. “Okay, you had me going,” I said.
“Ignore my idiotic teammate,” Cairo said. “He’s not as clever as he thinks.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, face beet-red as he tried to contain his laughter. “I’m not trying to diminish what it is you do.”
“It’s not as cool as mutant turtles,” I admitted. “There’s really no visible difference at all except under a microscope. The difference between 10,000 bacteria cells and 30,000.”
“What do you want to do with that?” Cairo asked.
“Oh, it’s important data in a bunch of different fields. There’s a lot of bacteria in the ocean. If we can determine the effect pollutants have on that bacteria we can plan ahead to keep it from growing out of control, or to keep it from disappearing entirely.”
“No,” Cairo said. “I meant what do you want to do with that Microbiology degree?”
“Oh.” I blinked. “That’s the million dollar question. My parents have been hounding me about it. I’m still not entirely sure.”
“What can you do with it?” Hunter asked. “That seems like a good place to start, then you can narrow it down.
“Pretty much anything.” I consulted the mental list that had been bouncing around my head for the past few years. “I could work for a big industrial cor
poration like DuPont or Dow Chemical to ensure their ecological footprint is as small as possible, or on the R&D side of things if I wanted to sell-out. On the other end of things, I could go into the non-profit or regulation sectors to beat those chemical companies with sticks whenever they try to cut corners. Umm, what else. There are a lot of jobs popping up in Homeland Security to study the worst-case scenario of a biological attack.”
“Okay, I’ll admit: this is less boring than I thought,” Hunter said.
“Oh, it’s still boring,” I replied. “Like I said: I spend most of my days staring at data on computer screens.”
“Still though.”
“You must be really smart,” Cairo suddenly said. He immediately looked embarrassed, as if saying such a thing was overstepping the bounds of our pretend first date.
But I felt my cheeks heating at the compliment. Somehow, it meant more coming from him than some random guy flattering me with praise. Like he was genuinely impressed.
“I’m just a grad student,” I said, fiddling with my hair to give me something to do with my hands. “I have to finish my degree first, then try to find a job.”
“I’m sure you’ll have no problem with that,” Cairo said definitively. To my surprise, I believed him. Even though he knew nothing about me and my actual microbiology resume, his simple comment filled me with confidence.
I found myself intensely attracted to them in that moment. I knew it was probably the severity of the situation. Traumatic experiences pushed people together, and today had been about as traumatic as I’d ever experienced. I wanted to do something crazy, to prove I was still alive.
I wanted to do stuff with Cairo and Hunter.
“I’m gonna wash my hands,” Cairo said, rising from the table. I watched his delicious shape walk across the tapas bar and down a hallway.
I glanced at Hunter, who was checking his phone. Not paying attention.
I rose from the table. “I’m going to wash my hands too.”
Without another word, I followed Cairo to the bathroom.
17
Karen
The bathrooms were crammed in a back hall next to a storage closet. There were two of them, unisex, and I caught up to Cairo just as he was closing one.
He blinked as I slipped inside, then locked the door. “Umm.”
“Hi.”
I unbuttoned his pants and pulled down the zipper, then dropped to my knees. “What are you—”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I took hold of his cock, which was rapidly stiffening. “I want to suck you off.”
He moaned as I took him in my mouth, just like last night. I moved quickly up and down the tip, keeping my lips tight while my tongue swirled. Here in this public place, I wanted to make him come quickly. Then I could tease him about it later.
“Oh my God,” he moaned. His fingers laced their way into my hair and pushed on the back of my head, guiding me up and down. “Karen…”
“Mmm hmm,” I moaned around his thickness. There was nothing hotter than knowing a guy was turned on. I cupped his balls with one hand, giving them a gentle squeeze, and ran my other hand up under his shirt. The lines of his muscles jumped out against my fingertips, one, two, three, four rows of abs.
Cairo moved his other hand to the back of my head, then proceeded to push me up and down on his throbbing cock with both hands. I could tell he was close. I wanted to feel his seed shoot down the back of my throat. I wanted to catch every drop and then smile at him, knowing that I’d been able to bring him to completion so quickly.
Before I could, he suddenly yanked my head away, then pulled me up to his lips. He kissed me and said, “I want you.”
“Do you?”
“I have to have you. Now.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
He bent me over and hiked down my pants and swimsuit bottom. I could feel my wetness on the cool air. I put my hands on the wall as his cock thrust inside me, penetrating me from behind in one smooth motion.
Cairo groaned. “You feel so good.”
“So do you.”
He wrapped his arms around me, and I arched my back and stuck my ass out as he fucked me from behind, taking me in the public place in a way I’d never done before, and when my moans grew louder he clamped his hand over my mouth to muffle my cries of ecstasy, and when he blew his load inside me he grunted and gasped as if I had stolen the breath from his lungs.
“Karen,” he said when he could breathe again.
I twisted and kissed him, holding his beautiful face with both of my hands. There was nothing else to say. The kiss said it all.
I left the bathroom first. “You guys are gonna draw some looks going to the bathroom at the same time like that,” Hunter said.
“Good point. Next time I’ll wait for him to get back.”
Cairo returned a few moments later. “Food not here yet? I wasn’t hungry before, but now I’m starving.”
Hunter, oblivious, said, “Good thing I convinced you to stop then, wasn’t it bro?”
I patted his hand on the table. “I owe you one.”
The waiter returned with six dishes of food. As soon as he left Hunter spread his hands and announced, “I think this date is going pretty fucking well.”
18
Hunter
Karen was a shitload of fun to tease.
“What did you think of the water at the restaurant?” I asked as we got back in the car. “Average amount of contaminants? Below-average?”
“It doesn’t work like that!” she laughed. She had a great laugh, rich and easy. I’d spend all day telling her jokes as long as it meant listening to that laugh.
“Come on,” I insisted. “On a scale of one to sewer water, how likely are we to get sick from what we drank?”
“Actually, you know what the filthiest part of any restaurant is?”
“What?”
“Go ahead. Guess. Out of everywhere in the modern restaurant, what’s the dirtiest?”
“I know the answer, so I won’t guess,” Cairo said as we pulled onto the street.
“Is this a trick question?” I asked. “It has to be the bathroom.”
Karen’s grin was full of satisfaction. “Nope.”
“Shit. The air vents?”
“Wrong again, cue-tip.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Hey!”
“Give up?”
“I do, since this is totally a trick question.”
“The ice machine,” Karen said. “Ice makers, like the ones attached to soda fountains, are the most disgusting part of any restaurant.”
“Gross!”
“The inside is usually greener than an aquarium…”
I felt myself gag. “That’s enough explanation for me, thanks.”
Karen shoved me playfully. If this were a date, then it would have been going great. “The good news is water isn’t served with ice here in Spain, so the water we drank today was probably cleaner than anything you’ve ever had back home.”
“I’m buying a Britta filter the second I get back to Georgia.”
“You’re from Georgia?” she asked me.
“Atlanta, born and raised.”
“And not a hint of a hick accent.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, not a hint of a southern gentleman’s accent.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ha ha. Never heard that one before. My parents made me speak proper English growing up. They were both journalists. Dad was a war correspondent in Kosovo.”
“Oh, wow,” she said. “Is that what made you join the Navy?”
Cairo snickered in the front seat.
“What?”
“Mom and dad did everything they could to keep me away from combat,” I explained. “Guess how well I listened to them when I was a teenager?”
Her eyes widened. “What are you saying? You joined the Navy just to spite them?”
“Pretty fucking stupid, huh?”
“If I’m being totally honest? Yes!”
“I wouldn’t change anything, now,” I said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but a frogman is what I was meant to be.”
Cairo reached a fist into the back seat, which I bumped with mine.
“Frogman?”
“Anyone trained in SCUBA for combat purposes,” Cairo explained. “SEALs, German KSM swimmers, British SAS.”
“Poland’s got some wicked frogmen,” I added. “We did some training exercises with a Polish JWK unit two years ago. Dudes are nuts.”
“Wow,” Karen said. She turned her attention to Cairo. “And how’d you get into the Navy?”
“I’ll tell you over a few beers.”
“But Logan said you don’t have any alcohol back at the command center.”
“Exactly,” Cairo said. “Which means I won’t be telling you.”
I busted out laughing at her shocked face.
“Oh, come on!”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “He’s more tight-lipped about his recruitment story than real national secrets. He’ll take that story to the grave. Game over, man.”
She gave me a look that said she knew of a way to get the information out of him. Fuck, that look could bring a man to completion all by itself. As if she knew what I was thinking, she grinned.
I grinned back.
We stopped at a stop light. Suddenly I was reminded of how vulnerable we were. Now that we were finally seeing action against the CLF—even if it was just a quick smash-and-grab at the warehouse—I didn’t feel as safe as I had when I woke up this morning. Tactically, we were vulnerable to attack while we were stationary. I felt my pulse quicken as I gazed out the window at the pedestrians crossing the street and looking into shop windows. It seemed like a perfectly calm evening. But that was deceptive. The worst attacks happened when you least expected, as cliche as that sounded.
I relaxed when the light changed and we were driving again.
Karen’s hand brushed against my leg. “Do you know why Cairo joined the Navy?”
“Sure do.”
“And you don’t want to tell me?”
“Sure don’t.”