The Stripper and the SEAL

by Jenna Bennett

  She tossed her head, and the turban swayed. She must have forgotten she had it on, because she took an involuntary step sideways. There was a lot of hair under that thing.

  Max could feel his lips twitch, and she noticed. Her eyes narrowed. “I have nothing to say to you. And if you don’t leave, I’ll call the police.”

  “Sure.” He pulled her old license plate from behind his back and put it next to him. “You can explain this to them. And also how my plate ended up on your car.”

  Some of the air went out of her at that. She slumped. “You knew?”

  “I watched you do it,” he told her. “Good use of the butter knife.”

  Maybe that sounded condescending, because she put her hands on her hips. Either she’d determined that the towel was secure for now, or she’d forgotten that she’d been worried about it. “Let me guess. You were sitting in your truck waiting for me to come out.”

  He shrugged. Not much point in denying that, either.

  “Why?”

  “Curious,” Max said.

  “About what?”

  Her, specifically. But more specifically... “When I walked into the FUBAR tonight, you took one look at me and turned pale.”

  She didn’t have anything to say to that. Or if she did, she chose not to share it with him. But she didn’t deny it.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in my life before tonight. Not to sound like I’m trying to talk my way into your pants—” The ones she wasn’t wearing at the moment, “—but I think I’d remember you. You might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  She snorted, but he thought he might be making some headway. And the way she had folded her arms under her breasts was quite distracting. He could have told her that if she was hoping to keep the towel in place, that wasn’t the way to do it, but did he really owe her any favors?

  “And if I’ve never met you,” Max added, “you haven’t met me, either. So you couldn’t have recognized me. I was just some guy in a bar, in a town you’d probably never been in before. You had no reason to be afraid of me. But you looked terrified.”

  “You’re a scary-looking guy,” Bree said.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that. Most of the time, he knew how to make use of it.

  This time it didn’t sit so well. “Jim knows me. He must have told you who I am.” And that he wasn’t dangerous. At least not to her.

  She shrugged.

  “How about you put on some clothes and we talk about it?” Since the way that towel was hanging off the tips of her breasts was becoming something of a distraction.

  He saw something move in her eyes. Just before her lips curved. “Does my being naked distract you, Lieutenant Vasiliev?”

  Yes, Jim had definitely told her who he was. He smiled back, without taking the bait. “I imagine you being naked would distract a lot of people, Bree.”

  He laid a heavy emphasis on her name, which seemed to suit her less and less the longer he talked to her. He still wasn’t sold on Brianna, but he liked it better than Bree.

  She wasn’t good enough to hide her reaction to that, and he almost laughed. “Why don’t we both just cut the bullshit and get to the point. If you don’t care about putting clothes on, I’ll just tell you what I think, and you can tell me how close I come.”

  She shrugged, but she didn’t say no. So he continued. “A couple of days ago, you lived in Washington, DC. And whatever you did there, paid you enough to keep up with the payments on a brand new Mercedes-AMG GT R. Those don’t come cheap.”

  She didn’t answer, and he continued, “Now you’re working as a waitress in a dive in Little Creek, Virginia, living in a fleabag motel that probably rents by the hour, and you just committed a crime by stealing someone else’s license plate and putting it on your very expensive Mercedes.”

  She jerked like he’d hit her. Or at least like she’d been stung by a mosquito.

  “That leads me to believe you’re afraid that someone’s looking for you. Add that to the fact that I scared the shit outta you when I showed up tonight...”

  “All right, all right.” She hiked the towel up and fastened it more securely.

  Max did his best to look like he didn’t care. “What are you running from?”

  “It’s a long story,” Bree said, and that’s when there was a knock on the door.

  She froze, like a deer in the headlights. Those big, light brown eyes darted from side to side, the panic in them unmistakable. No way could she be faking that.

  It was the same look she’d had when he’d walked into the FUBAR this evening. She hadn’t been faking then, either.

  Whoever was outside knocked again, and Max made a decision.

  “Just a sec!” He made sure his voice was rough-edged and sleepy; it was, after all, the middle of the night. With one hand he yanked the bedspread down so it would look like he’d been sleeping, and with the other, he pulled the T-shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor.

  Bree—or whoever she was—was still rooted to the same spot, so terrified she was shaking. If he touched her, she’d probably scream. He snapped his fingers to get her attention instead, and pointed to the closet.

  She gave a single look to the open door to the bathroom, but didn’t argue, just scurried the couple of feet across the floor and into the space below the clothes. On her way past, he reached out and snagged a finger in the towel and ripped it off.

  She gasped, but had the sense not to make any loud noises. And the tiny sound she made was hidden by whoever was outside the door, who was getting impatient by now. “Open the fucking door!”

  “It’s the fucking middle of the night,” Max yelled back, “and I’ll open the goddamn door when I’m good and ready!”

  He rubbed the towel over his head before tossing it across his shoulder—there was still steam coming from the bathroom, and he had to explain it somehow; maybe this way it would look like he’d taken a late shower before bed, and had only put his pants on because of the knock on the door—and reached for his gun before shifting the security bar to the side and opening the door. “What the fuck do you want?”

  The man outside was as obviously Russian as the face Max saw in the mirror every morning, and he gained an immediate understanding of why Bree had reacted so strongly to seeing him earlier.

  The man outside—shorter than Max by half a foot, and with dark hair, but the same broad cheekbones and Russian nose—also recognized a fellow countryman, and launched into a spate of the mother tongue.

  It had been a while since Max had had to use the Russian he grew up with. Most of the work Alpha Squad did was in Europe and the Mediterranean, and Arabic got them a lot farther than Russian. He’d taught Cisco, though—Alpha Squad’s language specialist—and anyway, you didn’t forget something you’d heard every day of your life growing up.

  Slipping back into it was like slipping on a pair of jeans he’d forgotten he owned, but that still fit perfectly. For a second he was back in Brighton Beach, in Little Odessa, running the streets with his friends, a lifetime ago.

  “That your car down there?” the Russian wanted to know. “The Mercedes?”

  Max made a split-second decision, and grinned. “Yeah. I took it off this girl yesterday. She was so desperate to get rid of it, she settled for a ten-year-old Jeep Wrangler in trade.”

  “A girl?”

  “I met her in a bar,” Max said, which had the benefit of being true. Not that he couldn’t tell a lie with equal ease when he wanted to. “Pretty thing. Long, red hair. Killer body. Said her name was Bree.”

  “Gabrielle,” the Russian said. “Which bar?”

  “It was down by the beach.” In the opposite direction of the FUBAR. “I think it might be called the Sandbar? Has one of those women out front, that you see on the front of an old sailing ship?”

  The Russian nodded. If he didn’t swallow every word, he acted like he had. “So you had a Jeep Wrangler...”

  “And she had a Me
rcedes she wanted to get rid of. I figured I’d do her a favor. You know.” He grinned. And wondered how Bree—Gabrielle—was doing in the closet. Did she understand enough Russian to follow the conversation? Did she understand any?

  “Did she say where she was staying?” the Russian wanted to know.

  Max shook his head. “It was yesterday, though. She’s probably long gone by now. I didn’t get the feeling she was planning to stick around, you know? She seemed nervous, if you know what I mean.”

  The Russian nodded. “I’m gonna have to take the car.”

  Max had already figured that. “What about my Jeep?”

  “Sorry, buddy. Just be glad I’m not hauling you in for receiving stolen goods.”

  Like this guy had any kind of authority to be hauling anyone anywhere. But when he moved his jacket aside, sort of casually, to reveal the gun holster belted to his hip, Max figured it was just as well to let the guy have what he wanted. He didn’t know enough about the situation yet to know whether Bree—Gabrielle—had stolen the Mercedes or not. She might be the bad guy in all of this.

  “Shit.” He ran a hand over his head as if coming to terms with it. In reality, it was nothing much to come to terms with. He didn’t want the Mercedes. And if the Russian had used it to track her down, she didn’t want it, either. It was just as well to let the guy take it, and then figure out what was going on, and how to get her another ride. “Fine. But I’m taking my license plate back. You can have the one that was on it.”

  He let go of the door. The Russian stepped into the doorway to keep it from shutting all the way. He took a look around the dingy hotel room while Max walked over to the bed and picked up the old plate. “Just gimme a minute, and I’ll have this back on again.”

  And his own plate back off, since he certainly didn’t want anyone to have that. It would be no problem to trace him through it. And once they figured out that he was Lieutenant Maksim Vasiliev of the US Navy SEALs, they’d also figure out that the story about how he’d gotten the Mercedes was a lie.

  The Russian didn’t object. He also didn’t notice Gabrielle, huddled in the closet a mere three feet or so from him. Max could see her out of the corner of his eye, the pale blur of her naked body, and the white towel wrapped around her wet hair, in the corner behind the mirrored door, when he made his way back to the door.

  “This’ll only take a second.”

  He had no idea whether she’d understood any of the conversation or not. He had no idea whether she’d understand that. But if she did, maybe she’d feel reassured.

  He nudged the Russian out and left the door unlocked, with the security bar flipped into the crack to keep it from shutting and locking.

  Downstairs in the parking lot, it was a matter of a few seconds to unfasten his own license plate and reattaching the original. The multipurpose tool he kept in his pocket for this kind of situation was much better suited to the job than the FUBAR’s butter knife.

  “There.” He took a step back to admire his handiwork.

  The Russian nodded. “Key?” He held out his hand.

  Max stuffed his hand in his pocket. And then his other hand in his other pocket. “I must have left it upstairs. Just a second.”

  He headed for the stairs. “Just stay there,” he told the Russian over his shoulder. “I’ll drop it over the railing to you.”

  The Russian hesitated, but didn’t follow. Max took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. “Car key. Car key.”

  Gabrielle was still in the closet. Good girl. After a second, a handbag scooted across the floor and out in front of his feet. He stuck his hand in and rustled around, among all the shit women carry in their purses. Lipstick and tampons and tissues and other things.

  There!

  “Just another minute, and then he’ll be gone.” He headed back out without waiting for an answer. Truth be told, he hoped she wouldn’t answer. Just in case the Russian had followed him back upstairs.

  But no. When he got outside and leaned over the railing, the guy was still downstairs, walking around the Mercedes like he was inspecting it for damage.

  “Here,” Max told him. The Russian looked up, and Max let the key fly. The Russian snagged it out of the air, and nodded.

  “Spacibo.”

  “You’re welcome,” Max said. “If you come across my Jeep Wrangler...”

  The Russian grinned and got behind the wheel. The Mercedes started right up. Max waited for the Russian to reverse and drive out of the lot before he headed back into the room.

  He locked and barred the door, but didn’t stop on his way across the room to the front window. “He’s gone.”

  He parted the curtains just far enough to see the Mercedes’s taillights disappear down the street. A dark sedan rolled out from a parking space at the opposite curb and followed. Max squinted to try to bring the license plate into view, but it was too dark.

  In the front of the room, Bree—Gabrielle—scrambled out of the closet. She was still naked, and after a quick look—one that sent blood rushing to his head; the small one, in his pants—Max looked away again. “Better get some clothes on. We don’t have much time.”

  The street outside was quiet. If they’d left someone behind to keep an eye on the motel, whoever was there was good.

  Nothing happened behind him. And he didn’t hear movement, so he risked another glance over his shoulder.

  She was standing in the hallway outside the bathroom, with the white towel still on her head, but otherwise as naked as the day she was born. And it didn’t seem to bother her at all. She scowled at him. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “They took your car,” he pointed out. “And when they get down to the Sandbar and realize that no one there has seen you, or me, chances are they’ll figure out that I was lying.” He and Gabrielle were both pretty distinctive, and if they’d been there, someone would remember them. “And then they’ll be back. I’m not sticking around here to wait for that. You can, if you want.”

  She chewed her lip.

  “Or you can come with me, and tell me what the hell’s going on. I’m involved now, too, whether I wanna be or not, so I’d like to know who’d be coming after me if they come back.”

  It took another second. But in the end, she must have decided she was more afraid of them, whoever they were, than of him.

  “Two minutes.”

  “We can spare a little more than that.” The street outside was still quiet and dark. Nothing moved in the shadows. He pulled out his phone to call Rusty. While he dialed, he told her, over his shoulder, “But I don’t wanna stay here any longer than I have to. So put some clothes on and pack up whatever you want to take with you, and let’s get the hell outta this place.”

  She didn’t answer, but she started throwing clothes into a suitcase, so he figured she was onboard. And since she was doing it naked, which was distracting, and since he really couldn’t afford to be distracted at the moment, he looked out the window for any signs of a lookout while he waited for Rusty to pick up the phone.

  4

  “I’m ready,” Gabrielle announced, and Lieutenant Vasiliev turned from the window.

  Those icy blue eyes raked over her from top to bottom, and then he nodded. “Good.”

  Gabrielle tried not to feel a little warm glow at that, but it was hard.

  She had no idea why she cared what he thought of her. Two hours ago, she’d been terrified of him.

  Hell, twenty minutes ago, when he showed up inside her motel room unannounced, she’d been terrified of him.

  Now, for some reason, his approval made her feel warm inside.

  Or maybe that was just because he’d offered to help her. Or offered to listen to her side of the story, when he could have just handed her over to Sergei and washed his hands of her.

  When Sergei first knocked on the door, and he had greeted Lieutenant Vasiliev like an old friend, she’d feared the worst. All those thoughts she’d had at the beginning of the night, when s
he’d first seen him walk into the FUBAR, had come back.

  So what if Jim swore he was a lieutenant in the Navy SEALs? He was Russian. Navy SEAL or not, he could have a connection to Alexandr Volkov, and through him, to Trent.

  But now she allowed herself to cautiously hope again. He’d gotten rid of Sergei. He’d gotten rid of the Mercedes, too, and that was probably a good thing, since now Trent and Alex wouldn’t be able to trace her through it.

  She was without a ride, and that might not be such a good thing, but for the near future, she could manage.

  The near future was all she had, anyway.

  Vasiliev’s cell chirped, and he glanced at it. “Our ride’s here.”

  Their ride? “Why do we need a ride?” He’d followed her here in his truck, hadn’t he? And now he even had his license plate back, that he could put on it.

  “The truck’s parked out front,” he told her. “I can’t see a lookout, but he might be good. I’d rather not risk it. So I called for a ride.”

  “Lyft?”

  His lips twitched. “Rusty.”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard of that.”

  “You’ll meet him in a minute.” He picked up her suitcase, but let her carry her own purse and shoulder bag. “Let’s move.”

  They moved, outside and down the stairs to the parking lot. Gabrielle couldn’t help but notice that he kept himself in front of her most of the time. And he kept his gun in his hand, which explained why he was only carrying one suitcase instead of all the luggage. If it hadn’t been for the gun, he’d probably insist on taking it all.

  Downstairs in the lot, she headed for the car entrance, and he shook his head. “He’s meeting us in the back.”

  “I don’t think there’s a back entrance to this place,” Gabrielle informed him.

  In fact, it was one of the reasons she’d liked it. There’d only been one entrance to worry about.

  “On the other side of the fence.” He nudged her toward the corner of the back building, and around. When they came to a seven foot block wall, he hesitated for a second before he let out a whistle.

  It was answered from the other side.