Special Forces: Operation Alpha: December Chill (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Sealed With A Kiss Series Book 4)

by Margaret Madigan

  He tucked a finger under her chin and lifted her face upward. “I have a pretty high security clearance.”

  Leaning down, heat surged through his blood as he touched his lips to her. Just a light sweep to test the waters.

  Her eyes closed and she leaned into him. After he kissed her, she sighed.

  He’d only intended the one brief kiss, but she stood there looking so inviting with her eyes closed and her lips open just a bit, and desire for her rushed through his veins, so he indulged in another.

  This time he moved his hand to the back of her neck where the warmth of her skin met the coolness of her hair, to angle her head and pull her closer.

  When his lips met hers, she stood on her toes to grab a handful of his shirt, and kissed him back. Man, did she kiss back. With enthusiasm.

  She pressed herself to him, and when her tongue met his, she tasted faintly of the sweetness of butter cream frosting, which was a weird turn-on, but fitting.

  The point where he’d want a lot more than just some kissing hurtled at him, and just before it hit him, he broke the kiss and leaned his forehead on hers.

  She released his shirt where she’d bunched it in her fist, and planted her palms against his chest where his heart thundered with excitement.

  “Whoa,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Um, so, that was nice.”

  He chuckled. “It was. But if I stay here any longer I’m going to want to take you right here on top of this table, which I’m pretty sure would violate a number of health codes.”

  Her laugh broke the awkward tension, and after she caught her breath, she said, “As much as I’m on board with that idea, I agree, this probably isn’t the best place.”

  His cock twitched eagerly to comply, but with effort he squashed the urge. Deep breath.

  “I hope this,” he made a vague gesture meant to indicate the two of them and kissing. “Means you’ll go out with me?”

  “Oh, hell yes,” she said. “If you hadn’t asked, I would have.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow and we can make a plan.”

  “You better not be one of those guys who says he’ll call and never does. Because I’ll totally call if you don’t.”

  “I keep my promises, December.”

  “Good. So do I” She held his gaze long enough for him to get the point. She was no soft, shy girl. She didn’t wait around, fretting. She took life by the lapels and gave it a shake. He liked that, a lot. When she thought he got her message, she patted his chest and smiled. “Let me get this cake boxed up for you.”

  She walked him to the door where he turned and, cake in hand, leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Chapter Five

  Dante did, indeed, call the next day, and they arranged a simple dinner out as their first date.

  Their schedules didn’t mesh until a few days later.

  “Are you going to meet him there, or is he going to pick you up?” June asked as she leaned on the door frame of December’s bedroom, watching her try on her third outfit while Rusty happily sat on top of the discard pile.

  “He’s going to pick me up.”

  December flung yet another top onto the bed, unsatisfied by it.

  “You sure that’s a good idea? What if the date goes bad and you want to leave early?”

  “I can take a cab.” But she hoped she wouldn’t need to.

  She shimmied into a pair of tight black jeans and a cute pink sweater that showed just enough cleavage to be interesting.

  “That’s not going to get you laid, if that’s what you’re shooting for,” June said.

  December shot her a sour look. “You just warned me about sharing a ride and now you’re advocating sleeping with him?”

  June shrugged. “You should be ready for anything.”

  “For the record, I’m not trying to get laid. It’s our first date. I don’t do sex on the first date.”

  “Under any circumstances?” The smirk on June’s face said she didn’t believe her.

  “Well, I haven’t yet. Have you?”

  “I can’t believe you’ve never done a one-nighter. I thought you were more spontaneous than that.”

  “I can’t believe you have. I mean, I’d be scared shitless to go home—or anywhere—with a strange guy I just met and then have sex with him. Ew. That’s just creepy,” December said, running her fingers through her hair.

  “When you say it that way…”

  “You know the world isn’t always safe for women, right? I’m just trying to cut my odds of being raped or murdered. You should do the same. Especially in your line of work.”

  “I’ve never slept with anyone from the bar. No customers or coworkers. I keep work and social lift separate,” June said. “Speaking of which, I need to get going.”

  She hugged December and kissed her cheek.

  “Have a good night,” December said.

  “You too. If things go well, bring him by for a drink.”

  As if. December had no intention of taking Dante to meet her sister at a bar on her first date with him. She liked him too much to expose him to that before she had to.

  After June left, December finished getting ready—light makeup, socks, black Converse knockoffs—and just as she’d finished brushing her teeth her phone buzzed with a text from Dante that he was waiting downstairs.

  Butterflies spazzed in a cliché in her belly, and she took a deep breath to calm that shit down. It was just dinner. No big deal.

  She checked her reflection one more time, went back to her room and kissed her sleeping dog, then headed down to meet Dante.

  Out at the curb, he leaned against his car looking sinfully delicious. Maybe she’d need to reconsider sex on the first date. She’d never done it because she’d never had the right incentive. Damn if Dante wasn’t the right incentive.

  He wore jeans and a light blue button down with the sleeves rolled up his forearms. Simple, but sexy.

  When he saw her, he smiled, and she didn’t miss him checking her out, either, which made those butterflies flutter again.

  She met him at his car and without even thinking about it, leaned in to hug him.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “You look amazing.”

  A blush heated her cheeks. “Thanks. You smell good.”

  He chuckled. “Thanks.”

  “Sorry. That sounded stupid. I’m just nervous.”

  He opened the passenger door for her. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, stepping off the curb. “I guess I like you and I’m looking forward to tonight.”

  Oh my God. Why would she admit that before she’d even had a drink?

  But he held her gaze, his pale blue eyes intense on hers as a wickedly sexy smile crept across his lips, sending the butterflies fluttering south of her belly.

  “Me, too.”

  Did he mean me too he liked her, or me too he was looking forward to tonight? Or both? She couldn’t very well ask him without sounding stupid, so instead she climbed into the car.

  They’d agreed on a local gourmet burger place, and the drive consisted of awkward small talk. How’s work, fine. You? Fine. How’s the family? Fine. You look nice tonight. Nervous laughter because they covered that already. How about some music? Sure.

  Thankfully the music gave them an excuse not to talk. Why had things suddenly become so stilted? Did they expect too much? Like they were supposed to fall into an easy conversation as if they’d known each other for a while? Maybe she’d made him think twice when she told him he smelled good. That was a creepy thing to say to a guy unless you’re in an intimate moment.

  Hopefully they’d be able to loosen up. A beer would help. She really wanted a beer.

  Dante pulled the car into the restaurant parking lot and shut it off. The sudden silence settled on the car like a thick fog.

  He reached across the space between them to take her hand in his. “Relax,” h
e said. “You’re really tense.”

  “I am,” she agreed. “You’re clearly not.”

  “I don’t rattle easy. That’s why my buddies call me Chill.”

  “Your SEAL buddies.” She’d stored that bit about him away because it seemed intimidating and he was complicated enough to sort out without it.

  “Those are the ones. How about we go get a seat inside and order a beer and we can talk.”

  “Please,” she said, relieved.

  They ended up out on the patio in the warm evening, candles in ornate iron holders on each table, and fairy lights strung from the eaves. He ordered a bacon cheeseburger well done with onion rings, and she ordered a mushroom Swiss burger with steak fries. After the waiter left, she took a long draw from her beer and leaned back in her chair, finally allowing some of the tension to seep away.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes. Sorry. Sometimes I just get wound up. So tell me about the SEAL thing. I know nothing about military, so wow me.”

  “No pressure there. Okay. I grew up with a single mom and an older brother. Neither of us had great grades, so traditional college wasn’t really in the cards. Dwayne—my brother—chose to be a firefighter. I joined the Navy. I thought I wanted to be a pilot, you know flying jets from a carrier. But then I learned about the SEALs and I was sold.”

  “I hear it’s not easy to get through the training?”

  He snorted. “No. It’s not.”

  “So how’d you get the nickname?”

  “I’m cool under pressure.”

  He grinned and waggled his brows and her panties melted. She suspected he was probably chill with the ladies, too, and she had a sudden pang of jealousy for all the women he’d ever dated. Or slept with.

  “What made you quit?”

  He guzzled some beer before answering. She must have hit a sore spot.

  “I haven’t quit. I’m on leave, for now at least.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a long story that involves a lot of family drama that I don’t want to dump on you on a first date.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s your choice, but I don’t mind. Gives me an idea what I’m getting into,” she said, offering a nervous chuckle that she hoped came across as self-deprecating.

  He laughed. “Good point. Okay then. I’ll give you the abridged version. When my brother died, his will named me guardian of his daughter, so I took a leave to sort out family issues. I was the medic on our SEAL team, so when I got back to Chicago, I took a job as a paramedic to stay busy and pay the bills.”

  “Good thing, too. If you hadn’t been the one to respond to my accident, I never could have completed that delivery. And we wouldn’t be here now.”

  He held up his bottle to toast and she clinked the neck of her bottle against his.

  “What about you?” he asked. “How’d you become a cake decorator?”

  She smiled, the beer finally doing its job of relaxing her uptightness. “I was in art school and one summer I took a job at a bakery on a whim to get by and discovered a way to merge art and my abiding love of cake.”

  He nodded. “Did you grow up in Chicago, or stay after college?”

  “I grew up in the suburbs. My family is a depressing cliché of the traditional white American Dream. Mom’s a housewife, Dad’s an engineer, and I have an older sister, June. We lived in a split level in a middle class neighborhood, and went to the local public schools where we worked hard on our grades, played volleyball and ran track, and joined FBLA.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Oh, it gets better. We all went to church on Sunday because Mom insisted on it, and June and I sang in the kids’ choir. It was all painfully tedious, but somehow I still nurtured my interest in art and when I graduated I got a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago, and the rest is history.”

  “As white cliché as that is, my story is every black cliché you’ve ever heard. My father stuck around only long enough to father two kids, then ditched his family, and Mom worked three jobs to raise us. We lived in shitty projects, went to shitty schools, and were dirt poor all my life. The only difference is my brother and I managed to stay out of drugs and gangs.”

  Before December could respond, a black woman with lots of makeup and sleek hair approached the table. Up close, her makeup didn’t quite hide the used-up look of her.

  “Are you following me, Dante?”

  Dante’s expression shifted from the amiable man December had come to know to a hard, no-nonsense glare that left no doubt about how he’d become a SEAL.

  “Shonda. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m having dinner, what else?”

  The eyes of the few other patrons who occupied the porch had all turned to watch the spectacle. December hardly blamed them. Shonda’s strident voice was impossible to ignore.

  “You just happened to choose the same restaurant we’re at?” Dante asked.

  “I have a social life, too, you know.” She turned to look at December. “Who’s this trash? Are you shopping for another mom for Tamera?”

  The woman didn’t even try to disguise the disgust in her voice as she gave December a once-over.

  Dante came out of his seat and loomed over the woman.

  “Stop stalking me, Shonda. You can’t intimidate me, and it won’t help you get custody.”

  Shonda leaned in and poked Dante’s chest with one of her long nails. “Tamera’s my daughter and the court’s going to give her to me. It won’t matter if you marry some white woman and pretend to be a family. I’ll have my daughter back, no matter what.”

  Dante tilted his head and considered her. “Why do you want her so bad? She doesn’t want you, and you were never all that interested in being a mother until Dwayne got custody.”

  She pulled herself up and put on a sweet smile. “I love my daughter and it breaks my heart to be away from her.”

  Dante rolled his eyes. “Get lost, Shonda.”

  She stewed for a moment, her jaw muscles twitching, before she said, “I’ll see you in court.”

  She disappeared into the restaurant as quickly as she’d appeared.

  “Well. That was something,” December said, trying to process what she’d just experienced. The porch remained silent for a few heartbeats while the other people continued to stare at them, then the buzz of gossip started.

  Dante took his seat again. “Sorry about that. She’s not all there. Now you know what I mean by family drama. She’s Tamera’s mother and now that my brother’s gone, she’s fighting me for custody. The hearing is soon, so hopefully it’ll be settled and we won’t have to worry anymore.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, I know that was unsettling. If you’d rather cut the date short and head home, I’ll understand.”

  December focused on Dante. His sincerity warmed her heart. He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable, and it wasn’t just that it had been a public embarrassment. He meant it.

  “No. I’m good. Besides, I want my damn mushroom Swiss burger.”

  Her heart went out to him, and especially little Tamera. She couldn’t imagine having to worry about being torn away from the family you love to live with someone you don’t, and having no control over it. Despite their situation being nothing like what Shonda accused them of—creating a family to solidify Dante’s chances of getting custody—if there was anything she could do to help, she would.

  People finally lost interest in the couple who’d made a scene, and went back to their own business, and after the waiter brought their burgers, December put it all behind as she enjoyed her dinner and Dante’s company.

  Afterward, Dante drove her home, parking in front of her building again.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  But she wasn’t ready for the evening to be over. With a full belly, and a warm buzz, she didn’t want to go upstairs alone and daydream about spending more time with him.

  “You want to come upstairs? My sister’s at work and I’m not ready to sa
y goodnight,” she said.

  “You sure about that?”

  “I’m not inviting you up for sex, so chill, Chill. I told my sister this earlier tonight: I don’t do sex on the first date. But I have a brand new half-gallon of cherry chocolate chip ice cream I’m willing to share.”

  “Well, it’s not sex, but it’ll do,” he said, smiling.

  “Patience, my friend.”

  “I can live with that. And ice cream’s a fair trade. For now.”

  The heat in his eyes when he added ‘for now’ melted all the right parts of December’s anatomy, and tempted her to put aside her no-sex-on-the-first-date rule.

  Her overall impression of Dante had been, up until now, pleasant. He was kind, polite, gentle—a nice guy. But instinct, and his smoldering gaze, told her he hid another layer. The man didn’t get to be a SEAL by being pleasant. Sure, he claimed his calm attitude had earned him the nickname Chill, but there had to be some steel underneath, or he’d never have survived SEAL training, or the missions.

  And…he was effing easy on the eyes. He moved with the confidence of a man who knew what his body was capable of, and was comfortable in his own skin. He didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, though at this point she definitely wanted to see him again so he could prove to her exactly what he was capable of.

  “Well, you’d better come upstairs, then.”

  “My pleasure.”

  The deep, smooth timbre of his voice resonated through her insides. Maybe his charm was a sneak attack. Instead of an in-your-face alpha, he came in under the radar with his appeal.

  She led him up the stairs and could all but feel his gaze burning all the way up her back side.

  She suddenly craved the warmth of his fingers cupping her bare butt cheeks.

  Not tonight. Hopefully the reminder would stick. Maybe if she repeated it like a mantra.

  Not that she wouldn’t eventually agree to sex with him, but the logical part of her brain insisted that, number one, it was a standing rule for her regardless of the man she was dating, and; number two she hadn’t known him very long, which was why she had the rule in the first place. Sex was better after she felt more comfortable with a guy, and could trust him.