“Well...” She could feel his pulse knock under her fingers. “It’s too late now.”
In a lot of ways. With the way he was looking at her, she knew he was a breath away from kissing her. And with the way she was looking at him, she was making it clear she wasn’t going to do anything to stop him.
He bent his head. But instead of the blistering kiss she’d expected, he brushed his lips over hers. Softly. “You sure about this?”
She shook her head. Not at all sure. But at the same time— “Just shut up and kiss me.”
He laughed. And then he kissed her. And there was nothing soft about it. About him. He was hard everywhere. His mouth. His hands in her hair. There wasn’t much hair left for him to grab, but he tried. His body against hers. His ass, when she put her hands on it to pull him closer, so she could rub against that other hardness.
He boosted her up on the kitchen counter and stepped between her legs, never lifting his mouth from hers. Because he was so tall, he hit her right there, in just the right spot... and it was so good her eyes damn near rolled back in her head—and that’s when someone started slamming their fist against the front door.
“Dammit, Vasiliev! What have you done with my fucking waitress?!”
Max froze. So did Gabrielle. And not just from the interruption, but the realization that in another minute, she’d have been having sex with him on the kitchen counter—and while maybe that was every woman’s fantasy, the situation was not conducive to falling in love with a man she’d known less than twenty-four hours, especially when he’d essentially just warned her off.
She had to clear her throat twice before her voice deigned to cooperate. “That sounds like Jim.”
Max nodded. “I’m gonna need a minute.”
Gabrielle thought she could use a whole lot more than that to recover, and she didn’t even have to deal with the very obvious signs of arousal he did. Nonetheless, she slid from the counter and had to steady herself on his arm for a second since her knees were rubbery. “You sure do know how to knock a woman off her feet.”
He chuckled, even if it was a little unsteady. “We’ll finish this later. For now, we better go see what Jim wants.”
Gabrielle thought it was pretty obvious what Jim wanted. “I’ll get the door. You just stay there, behind the chair, until you get yourself together.”
She headed for the living room, but was aware of him moving behind her. He wasn’t going to stay behind the chair, that much was clear.
“Check the peephole,” he told her. “Make sure he’s alone.”
She’d recognized Jim’s voice, so surely that was unnecessary, but she did as he said anyway. “It’s him. He’s alone.”
Max nodded. “You can let him in.”
She opened the door and Jim barreled through the opening. “Excuse me.” He passed her by without a second glance. “Vasiliev! What the hell have you done with—”
And then it registered and he turned back to her, his eyes narrowed. “Oh.”
“The Russian mob is after her,” Max said, and Gabrielle realized that with everything that had happened, she still hadn’t gotten around to telling him the whole story. “She can’t hang around your place all night. They could walk in and see her.”
Gabrielle opened her mouth to argue—she had to work; how else was she going to live?—but Jim got in first. “I need her! It’s a Friday night. I need a waitress.”
Gabrielle glanced from him to Max and back. “What about Misty?”
“She’s there,” Jim said. “But I need more than one waitress on a Friday!”
He pointed a finger at her. “You agreed to work for me. You can’t just leave without giving notice! Why are you letting this squid tell you what to do?”
Because the squid had gotten Sergei off on the wrong track, and had saved her ass last night. And because he’d taken her home with him and given her a safe place to sleep. And because he’d told her about his mother and sister, and had kissed her like he needed her more than air just a few minutes ago.
“I’m not,” Gabrielle said, and turned to Max. “I have to work. I can’t access my bank accounts or use a credit or debit card without leaving a trail, so I need a way to get my hands on some cash for the short term. And no, I won’t let you give me money.”
Given the direction their relationship was going, that was cutting a little too close to her past for comfort. “I appreciate your getting me out of the motel last night, but I can’t stay inside your house forever.”
He looked mutinous, and she added, “I’ll be safe at the FUBAR. Jim won’t let anything happen to me.”
Jim shook his head.
“You know yourself that the place is full of Marines and sailors. They won’t let anything happen to me, either.”
Max still looked unconvinced.
“And once you get yourself together, you can sit at the bar all night, and you can make sure nothing happens to me.”
Jim looked less than thrilled at the prospect, but Max looked more cheered. “All right.” He nodded to Jim. “You can have her. Take her in yourself. Guard her with your life.”
He turned to her. “I’ll be there in an hour. Stay inside the bar until I get there. Do not go anywhere without me. Even if it’s just outside to the dumpster.”
She nodded.
He turned back to Jim. “If you let anything happen to her, I will personally kill you in a lot of very unpleasant ways. I know you know I can.”
Jim looked unimpressed. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, Bree. Grab your purse and let’s go.”
Gabrielle ran for her bag and sneakers. While she was in her bedroom, she took two minutes to change into her waitress uniform of jeans and T-shirt, too, and to take a look at herself in the mirror for the first time.
And... holy shit. The woman who looked back at her was almost unrecognizable. Max had cut her hair almost as short as his. It cupped her head in a platinum cap, with ends that spiked out crazily here and there because of the natural curls.
And he was right about the other thing, too. While she’d looked good with her long, red hair, this almost colorless, barely-there hairdo put the focus on her face. If she hadn’t been so worried about someone recognizing her, she’d have appreciated the way the short cut highlighted her cheekbones and made her eyes look bigger and darker.
As it was, she agreed with his concern from earlier. Nobody would overlook her face now, in favor of her oh-so-noticeable hair. And that might not be a good thing.
Maybe they should color it mousy brown. Maybe that would help.
But that would be for another day. Right now she had to get her stuff and get going. Or Jim would give her hell the whole way to the FUBAR.
She grabbed her bag and ran.
In the living room, the two men were still squaring off. She didn’t get the impression that fists were about to fly, but neither one of them looked particularly happy. Max still didn’t want her to go to work, obviously, and Jim equally obviously wanted her to stick to the commitment she’d made. It was hard to blame him, even as Max’s protectiveness gave her a warm little spiral of happiness in her chest. It was a long time since anyone had taken care of her.
“I’m ready.”
They both turned to her. Max looked her up and down and nodded. Some of the heat from earlier still lingered in his eyes, and it made Gabrielle’s stomach swoop.
“Let’s go,” Jim said. He turned to the door.
“I’ll be there soon,” Max told her as she went past him. “Stay safe until I get there.”
She nodded. And gave him a look over her shoulder before she went out. Part of her wanted to steal another quick kiss, just another brush of her lips against his, to get her through.
And he must have known it, because he smiled. “Later.”
Later.
* * *
After they left, Max thought about taking another cold shower. He could have used one, especially in the first minute or two after Jim knocked on the door. But by now,
it was probably better to let nature take its course, and focus on getting changed and driving himself to the FUBAR as soon as possible.
It wasn’t that he thought anything would happen to her. He could trust Jim to get her there in one piece. Her Russian friends would have to be crazy to try to grab her out of a bar filled to the brim with sailors and Marines. They’d have a riot on their hands if they tried, one they wouldn’t be able to walk away from. And she’d promised she wouldn’t go anywhere without him. He had to trust that she’d stick to that.
The truth was, he just didn’t want to let her out of his sight.
It wasn’t that he was worried about the bar full of sailors and Marines, necessarily. She’d come home with him. She’d kissed him like she meant it. And that look she’d given him as she left... well, they’d definitely finish what they’d started later tonight.
No, he wasn’t worried that she’d throw him over for someone else in the hour it took him to get there. He just didn’t want her there with all those sailors and Marines drooling over her.
So he changed into his usual T-shirt and cargo pants, and drove the mile or two to the FUBAR. And took the same stool at the bar that he’d sat on yesterday. A minute later, a bottle of the same beer landed in front of him.
He grabbed it and toasted Jim. “You got here.”
The bartender nodded. “No problem. I kept an eye out, but I didn’t see nothing that shouldn’t be there.”
Good.
“Maybe you’ll tell me what to look out for?”
To be honest, Max wasn’t entirely sure. “We got a little caught up this afternoon. She was supposed to tell me what was going on, but one thing led to another, and...”
Jim held up his hand. “That’s enough.”
It hadn’t been near enough, actually. If Jim had given them another ten minutes, maybe.
“I followed her to her motel last night. When I was sitting in the parking lot letting the beer settle, so I wouldn’t blow high and disgrace the Navy—”
Jim snorted.
“—she came out with the trash, and I watched her use a butter knife to take the license plate off my truck and put it on her Mercedes.”
Jim’s eyebrows rose, and he turned his head to look across the room, where Gabrielle was serving a table of jarheads.
“After that,” Max said, “it wasn’t like I was going to drive home. So I waited for her to come out, and followed her. And then I asked her about it. And while we were in the middle of talking, there was a knock on the door. I answered it, and this Russian guy asked me if it was my car that was parked in the space that had the room number on it. I told him yes, and that I’d taken it off a redhead in a bar in exchange for a Jeep Wrangler.”
“Smart,” Jim remarked.
Max shrugged. He had no idea how smart it had been, but it had worked at the time, and that was what he had been concerned with. “I got her out of there and took her home with me. But I’m still not sure what’s going on. It was late and I had to get some sleep before I had PT this morning. All I know is that a Russian guy in a bad suit and with a gun is looking for her.”
“Mob?”
By now the other SEALs had gotten involved in the conversation, too. There were three of them again tonight. Andy and Rusty were back, but John-Boy was not.
Probably at home nailing Tansy Leighton to the wall. He’d been both exhausted and full of energy when he’d shown up for PT this morning, and they all knew what that meant.
Anyway, Gus was here instead, and he was the one who’d asked.
Max nodded. “I’d lay odds.”
Gus glanced over his shoulder at her. “Why is the Russian mob after this girl?”
“We didn’t get that far,” Max said. She’d managed to learn rather a lot about him, but he still knew very little about her. Hardly more than he’d known when he’d sat here yesterday. “It took a long time to deal with all that hair.”
Andy and Rusty exchanged a glance. Gus said, “Was she a redhead, by any chance? Long, curly hair?”
Max stopped scowling at the other two to focus on Gus. “How would you know that?”
Gus shrugged. He was almost as tall as Max, with shoulders that were almost as wide. Max was pretty sure he could take him, though.
And where had that thought come from, suddenly?
“I think I may have seen her before,” Gus said. “In DC.”
That fit, anyway. “Let me guess,” Max said. “You just happened to find yourself in a strip club, and there she was, making love to a pole.”
Three sets of eyes turned to him. Four including Jim’s.
“No,” Gus said evenly. “I was there for a meeting. With Senator Engelhart and a couple of guys from Idaho.”
Where Gus happened to be from, too.
“It was about six months ago. They wanted to talk about starting a search and rescue operation up in the Bitterroot Mountains.”
And it stood to reason that they’d want Gus’s help, since nobody could track anyone better than Gus.
“They wanted to hire you?”
Gus shrugged. “I saw your girl when I left. Waiting for one of them.”
“Which one?”
“It couldn’t have been Engelhart. He’s married.”
“Uh-huh.” There was definitely a silent ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.
“But it looked like Engelhart.”
Great. The married senator from Idaho.
“Isn’t Engelhart’s wife ill?” Andy wanted to know, from the other side of Gus.
Gus nodded. “Cancer. I guess maybe the senator got tired of having a sick wife and wanted some action on the side.”
“Are you sure?” Max wanted to know. “That it was Gabrielle?” And not some other random redhead. Who looked like her. In Washington, DC. Where she’d been until a couple of days ago.
Gus glanced at her, taking orders on the other side of the room. “Might have been.”
But they all knew the chances of that were slim. When Gus said he’d seen someone, he’d generally seen them, and right where he said.
“Damn,” Max said.
Andy slid off the bar stool. “On that note, I’m gonna get out of here. Amy’s in town.”
“Your sister?”
Andy nodded. “She’s taken a job at Hampton General. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but she’ll be there for six months, anyway. Longer if she likes it.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing her,” Max said politely, while Gus smiled.
“Me, too.”
Andy pointed at him. “You stay away from my sister. The last thing I want is for her to end up with a sailor.”
“Trust me,” Gus told him sincerely, “a Marine would be worse.”
Max snorted. Andy rolled his eyes and walked out. Rusty, as usual, said nothing at all, just sat there looking inscrutable.
7
“So,” Max said several hours later, in the truck on their way home. “Trent Engelhart.”
And got the confirmation he was expecting but not hoping for when she turned to him, her eyes wide with shock and her mouth hanging open.
She looked sexy even like that, but at the moment he had no desire to go where Trent Engelhart had gone.
“A married man whose wife is dying of cancer?” he added. “Dammit, Gabrielle. That’s low.”
She flushed. And while he’d thought she might try to defend herself—that she might have an excuse that made some sort of sense; he wasn’t picky—she just hung her head and nodded. “I know.”
They drove in silence for a minute. Max kept an eye on the rearview mirror, but couldn’t see anyone following them.
“What happened?” he asked eventually, when Gabrielle didn’t say anything.
She sighed. “I’d like to tell you it wasn’t my fault, and that I didn’t have a choice. But it wasn’t exactly like that.”
She was silent another minute before she gave him a sideways look. “There were mitigating circumstances, I guess
. Or at least I like to tell myself that. But I slept with a married man for a year. I went into it knowing he was married, and I kept doing it after I found out that his wife was ill. And nobody held a gun to my head.”
“But?” There was clearly a qualifier coming.
She leaned her head back against the seat. “I’ll just start at the beginning, OK?”
“Sure.” Whatever she needed to do. They were still a few minutes from home. “Start wherever you want.”
“I was twenty-two,” Gabrielle said, “and I needed money. I left high school early—long story—and never got my GED, so well-paying jobs were few and far between.”
Max nodded. He’d heard—and seen—this story many times before.
“I waited tables for a while. And then I became a cocktail waitress. The money was better, but still not great. And I couldn’t get a job at the really upscale places, because I lived in a dump, and I didn’t have the money to look like someone who should work in a really upscale place.”
She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye. “There really is something to that, you know. If you look like you have money, they’ll hire you. If you look like you need money, they won’t.”
He could well imagine that.
“I had scraped by for a while. Hand to mouth, you probably know how it is.”
He did, indeed. A large part of his childhood had been hand to mouth. The couple of years after his mother died certainly had been.
“One day, this guy handed me a business card. He was in the club where I was working, and I’d noticed him looking at me. He told me he could get me a job where I’d make a lot more money than I was making serving drinks.”
“So you became a stripper.”
“I thought about it first,” Gabrielle said, defensively. “When I realized the address he’d given me was to a strip club, I thought long and hard about whether that was the kind of job I wanted. I had to audition, so I made a deal with myself. I’d do the audition, and if I didn’t get hired, I didn’t get hired. And if I didn’t like the job after I’d auditioned, I wouldn’t take it, even if they did offer it to me. And if I didn’t make enough money—because it was an audition in front of an audience, and they voted with their wallets—if I didn’t make enough money, I wouldn’t take it.”
The Stripper and the SEAL Page 6