Her SEAL

by Tara Wylde

  Carol gives me a peck on the cheek in the doorway before she leaves for her house in the Hollywood Hills. She told me once that her neighbors on either side are two of the hottest actors in the business — I won’t name names — and that she likes to imagine she’s in a three-way with the two of them.

  She may be frustrating sometimes, and one heck of an over-sharer, but I really do love her. My mom and dad are busy running the family business back home, so Carol has been sort of a surrogate for them, telling me what I need to hear, whether it hurts my feelings or not.

  As I close the door behind her, Jason is pouring himself a bourbon from the crystal decanter on the bar.

  “So here we are again,” he says, knocking back half the glass in one swallow. “Just the three of us. Seems like old times.”

  I’m in no mood to deal with him right now. Jason has been my best friend since I can remember, and I would definitely not be where I am today without his help, but whenever he’s around Xander, his hackles go up and they just refuse to come back down.

  Xander knows it, and he plays Jason like a fiddle just to be a bastard. At least I guess that’s why he does it. I don’t know what started the bad blood between them all those years ago, but I do know that I’ve had enough of it right now.

  “Good night, Jason,” I say wearily as I open the door into the hallway. Suddenly I’m as tired as I’ve ever been in my life. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He goggles at me. “What are you talking about?” he says. “I’m not leaving you alone here with him.”

  Xander raises his eyebrows and looks at me. “I guess he told you,” he says.

  And that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Every emotion I’ve felt since Xander walked through that door a few hours ago comes to the surface and combines into a storm of anger and frustration and lust and plain old excitement, swirling in a huge spiral like the Hurricane Katrina that slammed into the Gulf Coast and almost destroyed our hometown when we were kids. The levee is breaking.

  I stride over to where Jason is standing and yank the glass out of his hand, slamming it back down on the bar and spilling booze everywhere.

  “You are going to your own goddamn room,” I spit. I grab a hank of hair at the base of his skull and pull him towards the door. He scurries along to keep from being scalped.

  “Okayokayokay!” he yelps as I toss him into the hallway. “I’m going! Geez!”

  “I’ll apologize for all this tomorrow,” I say sternly. “For now, be thankful your balls are still intact. Get some sleep.”

  Jason is still standing there with a stunned look as the door closes on his face. I turn to Xander, who is trying to stifle a giggle. I can see his six-pack hitching up and down. His lips are pulled into his mouth.

  “Now that was—” he starts, and I halt him with a raised hand and a withering look.

  “You,” I growl acidly.

  “You get the hell into your own bedroom and lock the door. If you so much as look in the direction of my room before seven o’clock tomorrow morning, you’ll be wearing your balls for earrings. Is that clear?”

  His eyes are wide. “Yes ma’am,” he says without a trace of sarcasm.

  I’m already starting to regret the last two minutes, but I’m not going to let him know that. I turn and stalk into my room, taking great pains to stifle my urge to slam the door behind me. Am I being a bitch? Maybe, but I also think I’m perfectly justified in letting off some steam.

  Bitchy Tina would have made him drop and give me twenty…

  There’s something supremely frustrating in being surrounded by people who all seem to think they’re the only ones who know what’s good for you. Especially when you’re the one who’s making their money for them! Well, they can all kiss my ass.

  Especially Mr. Xander “I’ll-Grab-A-Handful-Of-Your-Flesh-If-You-Don’t-Mind” Tate.

  I pull off my leggings and collapse onto the king-size platform bed that’s about the size of my entire room back home, and already I feel a little bit better. Its softness envelops me and I let the weariness that’s been under the surface for the past several hours overtake me.

  I’m just tired. All the way down to my bones. A good night’s rest will set me right. I can feel the hazy edge of sleep floating around the periphery of my consciousness, and I welcome it.

  And then, without warning, I remember the hard pressure of Xander’s erection on my ass, his hands on my breasts — feel them, as real as if he were here by my side — and suddenly I’m fully awake again. More than. Positively vibrating.

  Rational thought tells me to put it out of my head, to focus on my interviews tomorrow, on my debut performance tomorrow night. There will be ten thousand people in the audience, all of whom are there to see and hear me. It’s the culmination of all my hard work…

  So why is my hand sneaking down the front of my underwear like a ninja on a secret mission?

  The memory of Xander’s touch just won’t go away. The hardness of every part of him. It’s like his whole body is chiseled out of granite. Except his hands. They were soft and warm, just like I remember. His hands always made me feel good; like his arms always made me feel safe.

  I slide a finger down the center of my slit, stopping to say hello to my clit along the way. It responds with an electric jolt that sends vibrations outwards through the rest of my body.

  I think of how I felt in that endless moment when Xander had me under his control, how I wished it would go on forever and how shocking it felt when it suddenly stopped.

  I think of all the times when we were kids that we pushed the envelope, Xander’s hands on my body, my back, my breasts, but never going that final step south.

  I remember the electricity branching across my body, the way he whispered nothings into my ear. I remember the touch of his yardwork-callused hands on my skin, the way he could turn me on with the slightest rumble of desire from his throat.

  And I remember way we never went all the way. Never sealed the deal. I remember the torment he’s put me through all these years, when no other man could ever match up. So I saved myself for him, without knowing.

  I know I’ll never sleep like this, so I commit myself to the act. I spread my lips apart with my left forefinger and thumb, then attack my clit with the index and middle fingers of my right.

  No point in starting out slow; half the night has been foreplay, and my furnace is stoked enough for two. I roll the hard little nub back and forth between my fingers, bringing on the waves that signal the beginnings of my orgasm.

  I may never have had a man inside me, but that hasn’t stopped me from learning how to satisfy myself. I switch to pressing down on my clit and moving my fingers rapidly back and forth.

  The waves begin to build with the pressure as I increase speed, all the while dipping the fingers of my left hand into the dampness of my cleft. My heart hammers in my chest and my breath is short and shallow.

  Finally the waves engulf me and drag me along like a tsunami, and I squeeze my clit one last, loving time. I lay there, chest heaving, breath ragged, feeling the tension ebb out of me like a wave on the sand.

  At least I’m gonna sleep well, before my ‘big day’, I think wryly. I wonder if that’s what Carol wanted.

  Chapter Eleven

  XANDER

  If I learned one thing in the Navy, it was how to follow orders. When they come down, you follow them without question. Not because they’re right, necessarily — you could spend the whole day arguing about that.

  No, you obey because it’s an order, and in the heat of combat, any breakdown in the chain of command can get your ass killed.

  Then there’s a case like this one, where you obey an order because it looks like the person issuing it will kill you if you don’t. Herself.

  Tina doesn’t say goodnight as she heads into her bedroom. Can’t say I blame her. She’s been through plenty tonight, and most of it was my fault.

  I’m not gonna try and pretend otherwise.
It’s been a pretty trying day for me, too. I mean, when Carol told me I was going to pretend to be the boyfriend of a gal named Tina Quinn, how the hell could I have known I was going to end up meeting the woman whose heart I broke at what was probably the most vulnerable point in her life?

  It was like tripping into a yard full of cottonmouths, as my daddy used to say. Then again, he had enough empty slogans for a dozen men, and it didn’t do him a damn bit of good.

  I close the door behind me and survey the room: it’s at least fifteen feet square, with its own bar and an upholstered bench at the foot of the king-sized bed, plus a huge en suite bathroom.

  Anyone who’s ever spent time on a naval ship—or worse, a submarine—might get agoraphobic in a room like this.

  I need to get used to it, because luxury hotel rooms like this will be my home for at least the next couple weeks, so I take it in stride.

  I’m not much for drinking, but I need something to take the edge off of this night, so I amble over to the bar and pour myself something brown out of a crystal bottle.

  I’ve always wondered why rich folk feel the need to empty their booze out of the bottle it came in and put it into another one.

  As a Navy man, when I do drink, it’s almost always rum, but this isn’t rum. Scotch, judging by the smell. I down it in one, and focus on the burn as it slides down my throat and into my belly.

  That’s better.

  I strip off my shirt and shorts and stride naked into the bathroom. I don’t know if I really need to shower, but there’s no way I’m passing up the chance to use a shower that’s about the same size as my apartment. I was barely able to turn around in the showers on the ships due to the width of my shoulders, so this is gonna be heaven.

  I open the big glass door and crank the hot tap until it starts to steam, then turn on the cold to balance it out before stepping inside. I let the water sluice over my shoulders and down my torso, turning my skin red.. I put a dime-sized dob of shampoo in my hand and lather up the stubble on my head, then rinse it off and grab the bottle of liquid soap.

  I swear to God, there’s room enough in here for a platoon of strippers. And as soon as the thought enters my head, it’s not strippers on my mind. It’s Tina. I feel her ass pressing against me and suddenly I’m hard as concrete again.

  I try to distract myself with other thoughts as I soap myself up, mainly what I’m going to do with a hundred grand once this gig is over. First things first, I’m driving that truck off the nearest pier and picking up something made in this century.

  Even the thought of that smelly pick-up can’t take the edge of the saber between my legs. I know there’s no way I’m gonna be able to get a wink of sleep with this… situation.

  There’s an old joke that goes, what’s the difference between a light and a hard? A fella can sleep with a light on.

  So I squeeze a blob of conditioner into my hands, savoring the scent in my nostrils — so much sweeter than the crap they gave us in the service — and start running a hand up and down my shaft.

  As I do, I remember the feel of Tina’s ass against me, how hard she was grinding against me. We never went all the way when we dated; Lord knows I wanted to, and I think she did, too. But her ma wasn’t just crazy about weird food, she was paranoid about sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy, and every other possible downside of sex, so I think Tina was just flat-out scared of it.

  But Ma’s not anymore.

  Tina gave as good as she got in her room. Maybe I did take her by surprise, but she knows me. She knew all she had to do to make me stop was say no and that would have been the end of it. Hell, it was the end of it when Carol called in about supper.

  I push that part aside and focus on what happened before, how my cock felt pressed in between the plump cheeks of her ass, the way she slid up and down, her hands on mine as I squeezed those beautiful new breasts that seem to have come out of nowhere.

  I’ve been with women, all of them beauties, but none of them ever consumed me like Tina did tonight. The motion and the memories combined to make me feel something I’ve never felt before.

  Before I know it, my hand is moving so fast it practically blurs under the flow of water and my hips are bucking back and forth. My breath is galloping like I’m on a desert march, and with one final squeeze I let loose against the shower door. I’m amazed I don’t crack the glass.

  I prop my hands against the wall side of the shower and stand there, letting the water flow over me and willing myself to rein in my heartbeat and breathing, until my palms are as pruny as a peach pit. Finally I turn off the water and wrap myself in the plush towel hanging on the wall next to the toilet.

  After I’m dry, I take the complimentary bath robe off the hook behind the door — you better believe I’m not passing that up — and wander to the giant bed.

  I flop down onto my back and feel the tug of sleep dragging me down.

  One hell of a day, I think, and then blackness overtakes me.

  Chapter Twelve

  TINA

  “Can I confess something?”

  I’m sitting across the table from Janelle Thompson and I’m just punchy enough from this day to do something crazy. The first interview this morning with Teen People was fine, and the second with Vogue was… all right, even if all she seemed to want to talk about was sex.

  And even if she kept looking over at Xander. Which she did.

  A lot.

  But this is Janelle Thompson. Of Rolling Stone magazine.

  I mean, somebody pinch me.

  She looks at me through her John Lennon glasses, eyebrows raised, a forkful of Chilean sea bass in her hand.

  “Of course,” she says. “It’s what I’m here for.”

  I take a sip of my chardonnay, followed by a deep breath. I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

  “When I was young,” I say, “I’d spend hours in my room by myself, singing along to my CD player. I suppose that’s not really unusual for a little girl. What was probably more than a little weird was the fact I would always follow up my singing with a fictitious media interview.”

  To her credit, Janelle isn’t rolling her eyes yet.

  “My interviewer was always Mary Hart, of course, and she’d use my trusty pink hairbrush to ask me probing questions that would satisfy the curiosity of the teeming millions breathlessly watching me on Entertainment Tonight.”

  Janelle indulges me with a sympathetic smile. “I think that’s pretty normal, Tina.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But then, when I got older and started to get seriously into music, I would devour Rolling Stone. I’d read every issue cover to cover, and I’d always search out your articles first. I know, it sounds like I’m sucking up, but it’s true.”

  She nods knowingly. She can see where this going.

  “Let me guess,” she says. “By then, I was your interviewer.”

  I try my hardest not to blush, and fail miserably. I just revealed one of my deepest secrets to a Pulitzer Prize winner. It’s moments like this that I feel like such an imposter. Like someone’s going to tap me on the shoulder and tell me I’m not supposed to be here.

  I wait for Janelle to call me the world’s biggest loser. But she doesn’t.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” she says, cocking her head to one side. “It’s actually quite flattering. So what were our interviews about?”

  I shake my head. “That’s the thing,” I say. “It was all so dumb. You know, all those incredibly complex secrets that only a teenage girl can possibly have to suffer through. I look back on it now and just shake my head at how ridiculous it all was. How ridiculous I was.”

  Janelle chuckles as she chews her fish. She’s so nice in person, and she really is everything I imagined she’d be back then. I hope I haven’t just made a fool of myself.

  She washes down her food with a sip of wine and looks me in the eye.

  “Since we’re on the topic of confessions, can I make one?” she asks.

 
Okay, I definitely wasn’t expecting this. What on earth could Janelle Thompson possibly have to confess to someone like me?

  “Of course,” I say.

  “I reeallly didn’t want to interview you.”

  My eyes widen, and my stomach drops like an express elevator. With faulty brakes. She must see it in my eyes because she shakes her head quickly and smiles.

  “No, no, you don’t understand!” she adds quickly. “I meant… I’m getting too old for pop music, and for pop musicians. I thought you were going to be just another — well, for lack of a better word, diva. So many singers these days are chosen for their looks, and then the talent is added later in the studio.”

  I can’t argue with her there.

  “But then I listened to your album,” she says. “And I could tell that wasn’t you. Now, after talking to you, I know that you’re the real deal. You’re genuine. I think your fans realize that. And so will everyone who reads my article.”

  I blush again. “Thank you so much,” I say. “You can’t possibly know how much it means to hear you say that.”

  “Of course I can,” she says, raising her wine glass in a toast. “Hell, I’ve been interviewing you since you were a teenager.”

  We both burst out laughing at that, and a wave of unreality washes over me. This has been the most unbelievable day since — well, I suppose since yesterday, when Xander Tate showed up out of the blue. But today is like a beautiful dream that I don’t want to wake up from.

  I glance over to the nearby table where Xander and Jason are actually having a civil conversation. I think, anyway.

  Carol finally gave in and let Jason join us for tonight’s interview after he ate some crow about being an ass yesterday.

  Xander hasn’t brought up anything about last night, thank God. I’m having a hard enough time keeping the memories of our… indiscretions out of my mind’s eye without having to talk to him about it, too.

  That’s all I need, to suddenly have my nipples harden and start poking through my top in the middle of a Billboard photo shoot.