“Drake,” she managed on a broken breath.
“Hmm,” he responded a lazy time later after nuzzling her neck.
“If you don’t do something more and damn soon, I’m going to have to kill you.”
“Hmm,” he kissed her on the mouth while his hand slid down her body and returned—traveling somewhere between dead slow and full stop.
Her body was begging for engines full ahead. Her life always begged for that. She’d been born her father’s daughter and never looked back—charging into the fray whether it was playground tag or full-force suppression of a terrorist training camp.
“I don’t know how to do this.” Nikita curled against his hand as he slid it between her legs. She could feel his smile against her temple when his lips brushed there.
“Just be yourself, Nikita.”
“Myself,” she breathed in deep, pressing herself harder against his hand, “is expecting the men’s shower wall.”
But he didn’t give her that. He coaxed and teased and enticed until she finally gave up, having no idea what was happening next—not from him, not from her.
Instead, for only the second time in her life, she was completely out of control. The first time was when everything went south during the operation in the Congo and the bastards had turned the radio on continuous transmit so that she couldn’t leave, couldn’t do anything but listen. It never stopped though she begged it to. No one could hear her with the transmit key locked down on the other end.
And now with Drake, she was past reason. Her body and her emotions were in as helpless a whirl, but this time she spent every second begging that he wouldn’t stop. She rose to meet his every touch, ached for him until it was a full-body sensation.
When he finally entered her, there was a rightness, a completeness that she’d never found before. As if, for just this once, she was somehow whole.
Drake didn’t know what to do with the tears soaking his shoulder. He tried to brush them away, but Nikita clung to him so tightly that he couldn’t do anything more than hold her in turn.
She didn’t weep or sob, but the salty tang of her tears was a thousand times stronger than the mid-ocean air drifting in through the open doorway to the verandah.
“What’s with the tears, honey?” He cradled her gently. Never had a woman so responded to him. He’d meant to make love to her, but had become so involved that it was more as if “making love” was a third thing that would have interfered if it had been in bed with them. There had only been him and the magnificent woman now clinging to him so tightly.
“What tears?” Nikita’s voice was rough with them. “I’m crying? But I never do that. Not since—”
And he held her tighter as she froze. She didn’t struggle to get free, but she didn’t relax either.
“Not since… It’s been a long time,” she faded to a whisper.
“Then I’ll take it as a compliment that you felt safe enough to cry on me.”
“Felt safe? That is not at all what I felt. Well maybe it is. But that’s not all it was. It was—I’m rambling.”
“Don’t stop now,” it never did his ego any harm to hear how he’d made a woman feel. And he truly and deeply wanted to know how he’d made this particular one feel.
His answer was a gentle fist in the ribs. “Not feeding your fantasies of male prowess, Duck-man.”
“But they’re such good fantasies.”
This time she pushed away, not hard, just as if she was ready to go. He didn’t want her to, but he never argued with what a woman wanted. She didn’t turn on a light, or head to the bathroom while scooping up her clothes. Instead she went to the edge of the verandah and leaned on the doorframe, looking east over the ocean, silhouetted in moonlight.
She looked strong and mysterious. Warm despite the cool light.
He slid out of the bed and wrapped his arms around her from behind. She leaned back against him, wrapping her arms over his.
“I heard every word of their deaths. Every cry. My father must have known they were transmitting. The only words he ever said were, ‘I love you, Nikki. Tell your mom that you two are the best thing that ever happened to me.’ Other than that, he never made a single sound, even when his torturers promised they’d stop if he did.”
There were no tears in her voice or sliding down her cheeks now. Somehow he was now holding both his lover and an ST6 SEAL at the same time.
“Barry never said my name once. For all the pleading and begging and crying he did, he never once said my name.” Then she turned slowly in his arms and looked up at him from a breath away. “I haven’t let anyone past my guard since.”
Drake studied her in the moonlight, memorized every feature from the curve of her cheek to the shape of her lips as well as he could.
She waited and he knew what she was asking.
It should be a hard question. It was certainly one that he’d been an expert at avoiding for an entire lifetime. A lifetime that so far had been filled with no one like Chief Petty Officer Nikita Hayward.
He had wanted to make love to her to bring her closer to him. It had worked. The catch was that it had worked both ways and now he couldn’t imagine letting her go.
“I would say your name: first, middle, and last.” And once he said it, he knew it was true.
And still the SEAL watched him as the woman held him.
He slipped sideways onto one of the wide loungers and tugged her down beside him. There was a shelf with handy blankets and he pulled one over them.
She curled up against him and together they watched the night sky.
He had nothing to say. His life had been so easy compared to hers. All he could offer was to hold her.
There was only one word that would describe how incredible she felt. How important she felt. He kissed the top of her head where it rested on his shoulder and whispered it into the night.
“Nikita.”
Chapter Twelve
Storm’s coming.”
Nikita raised her head enough to look over Drake’s chest and out the master bedroom’s doors. She didn’t remember exactly when they had moved indoors. Cygnus had flown out of sight over the other side of the ship and Pegasus had proclaimed the zenith when they shifted locations.
Now, the rising sun was masked by deep red clouds. The sky above was still blue, but the old sailor’s adage had more truth than not: Red at night, sailors delight. Red in the morning, sailors take warning. A storm arriving from the east across the open reaches of the Caribbean Sea.
That wasn’t the only storm coming. Last night Drake had awakened something in her.
Not merely an insatiable need, but the firm conviction that her need had only one focus: Drake Roman. Up on one elbow and looking down on him as he sleepily rolled his head to look at her, she was captured as well as any swamp bullfrog staring into a flashlight.
His smile for her was soft and gentle, but she could feel where her leg lay thrown over his hips that his need for her was awakening fast—even faster than he was.
No complaints from her. This time, when she straddled over him, there was none of the confusing tenderness of last night. No new experiences that she’d never imagined possible. But neither was there the frantic satisfying of their bodies like after their race.
Yes, the sex was fast, hard, and ripped through her body with mind-wiping pleasure. But afterward he pulled her down until she lay full upon his chest and she had her face tucked into his neck so that all she could smell was the rich warmth that was so distinctly Drake’s. That too was amazing. More amazing than the sex in many ways.
There was no hurry to get up and get dressed. No impatience. She’d learned that when men were done, they were done. Not Drake. He stroked her body from her knee—still tucked up in kneeling position—down thigh to hip, up and over her back, into her hair or brushing her cheek, even tugging lightly on her ear, before returning via her shoulder, the side of her breast, her ribs, and back to her hips. It was soothing, gentle, loving…
“Wait!” she mumbled into his neck.
“Wait what?”
“What are you doing to me?” She pushed up onto her elbows and looked down at him.
“What do you mean?” But there was a smile tugging at his lips that said he knew exactly what he was doing.
She was never, ever the slow one in the room. SEAL training had only enhanced her natural tendencies to observe and analyze any situation. “You’re trying to slip something by me?”
“Me?” Now he was definitely smiling, no attempt at innocence other than his tone. “When would I ever be able to slip something by the incredible Nikita?”
“Wait a minute! There was something…last night…” and then she had it. She’d asked without asking if he cared enough about her that her name would have been somewhere on his lips if he’d been in Barry’s position.
First, middle, and last.
“I was only asking if you’d think of me if—” somehow everything went that wrong.
“I would,” his smile shifted toward leer. “I’d think about your breasts,” she had pushed herself up high enough that he managed to get his hands on them. “I’d think about the incredible things you can do with those beautiful hips,” he wriggled his own beneath her.
“Roman.”
“I’d think of your beautiful, ever so expressive face that shows exactly what you’re thinking and feeling no matter how much you think it doesn’t.”
She put her face back into his shoulder to hide whatever it was saying without her permission. That forced his hands back to her ribs.
“And,” his voice shifted to completely serious, “I’d spend my last moments thanking the lucky stars for every instant I got to be with you.”
Nikita pushed back up to glare down at him. “I don’t need poetry. I need truth.”
“Oh. I can do both. I know for a fact that I will never meet another woman like you. Known that since the first moment you stepped onto my aircraft a year ago. And now that I’ve discovered that making love to you is beyond spectacular,” he wriggled his hips again, but his tone remained oddly serious. “I’m completely sold. All in. Sign me up.”
“Making love to me? Is that what last night was?” Compared to Drake Roman, even everything with Barry had been merely sex. But she wasn’t comfortable with—
“That’s what I’d thought to do.”
“But instead?”
“Instead,” he shifted his hands up to cradle her face, then kissed her ever so lightly. “Instead I made love with you. There will never be another woman for me other than Nikita Hayward. You’re stuck with me now.”
“Sure, until the Duck-man finds another willing babe.”
“I’ve been with three women since I first met you. I didn’t even bother sleeping with the last one, which pissed her off quite a bit, and that was nine months ago. None of them were up to your standard.”
“But you are?” Nikita wasn’t sure where the tease came from. And for the first time this morning, Drake frowned.
“No. No I’m not,” he looked aside for a long moment before looking back into her eyes. His had gone almost black and his expression was once more shifting to the powerful warrior she hadn’t met before their treadmill race. “But I’m sure as hell going to do my best to live up to your standard from this moment forward.”
She wanted to make a joke about all the grunts who aspire to DEVGRU standards but didn’t stand a chance. She could have teased Duck-man the gunner about that. But Drake Roman the warrior? No. The tease dried up in her throat as she looked down at him. Him she believed.
This time, when she leaned down to kiss him, it had all of the power of last night’s gentleness as well as this morning’s heat. How could she not believe in a man like him?
It was even more true than she first understood as his arms slid around her.
She didn’t believe in men, had trained herself not to. Oh, she believed in Luke Altman, but as her SEAL commander, not as a man.
But Drake Roman? Him she believed in with all her heart.
“This is our last shot at figuring out what’s going on. Our ship is in Roatán Harbor only for today. We sail at midnight.”
Not sure what to do with Esly in public just yet, Drake had ordered morning coffee into the suite as the ship docked. The butler had delivered it along with fresh croissants, then been quite put out that he hadn’t been allowed to stay and hover. Apparently, high-roller guests would never deign to pour their own second cup of coffee.
“I’m hoping that going out and being very public will attract someone’s attention. That’s why I didn’t order breakfast; we’ll eat ashore as well. As much as I’d like to leave the women behind—”
“Screw that!” Zoe managed to beat Nikita’s protest by only milliseconds. Esly may have kept her mouth shut but her look said plenty.
“But as I don’t want to be lynched by my own mob,” he offered Altman a shrug and received a grimace of commiseration. “You do understand that so far you women have been the main targets?”
“Part of that was my fault. Again, Nikita, I am very truly sorry I shoot at you,” Esly apologized sincerely and the other two seemed to forgive her with easy smiles. God help him, he was never going to understand women.
“So here are our rules of engagement today. No one leaves the group. Zoe, you’re glued to Altman. Nikita, you to me. Even if J-dawg shows up across the street and Asal is choking on a French fry—no one leaves the group.”
He glared around the table until he received nods from both of them.
“What about me?” Esly stared straight at him with her impenetrably dark eyes. “I do not want another day handcuffed to a bed.”
“How do I trust that I’m talking to police sergeant Escarra and not Daylin’s lover?”
Actually her face said a lot about the latter no longer being true. She had said she would miss Daylin only “a very little amount” and she seemed to be over that already.
Esly shrugged. She was smart enough to know that no amount of promises would count.
Drake saw Zoe and Nikita exchange glances and knew the decision was already made. He could fight it or go with the flow.
“You’re with us,” he said it before the women could say it for him. “Anyone asks, you are extra protection for Drake Roman because you walk like a policeman.”
“Policewoman,” Zoe and Esly said together.
Drake sighed, then looked at her across the table. “If anything happens to Zoe or Nikita while you’re with us, whether by you or because anyone else gets past you, I’m going to take it out of your hide personally. Comprende?”
Nikita destroyed the moment by remarking drily, “See! I knew that you spoke some Spanish.”
She’d clearly been hanging around with Zoe too much.
Nikita, in all her missions, had never wandered about a tropical island like a tourist before. A well-heeled tourist.
Drake had simply called back the butler, who had been ecstatic to have something to do. By the time they reached the dock, a late model Toyota Hiace van, complete with driver and a bilingual tour guide, was waiting for them. They were an older couple, but it was clear that the wife, Mercedez, had once been a great beauty.
“I am fourth generation in Roatán. I will show you the best of everything.” Her energy was cheerful without being overbearing. Before they even traveled the few kilometers to the far side of the island, she had already made it clear that they were all one friendly group for the day.
“Where is the fifth generation, Mercedez?” Zoe asked.
And the brilliance of her light dimmed for a moment. “My daughter was murdered during the riots following the 2009 coup. I have no future generation. I now live through my sister’s son. His father is mayor of the island and a good man. They both are good men.”
Nikita knew full well that kind of pain. To lose a daughter must be even worse. She offered her sympathy, but couldn’t think to do anything more.
“We wish to se
e the island, Mercedez,” Drake replied when she asked. “And as odd as this may seem, we wish to be particularly visible while we are doing it.”
That earned them all a long, assessing look, which she then covered with a radiant smile. “Of course. To fellow tourists or to…locals?” She was sharp and was making it clear what kind of locals she was talking about.
“I wish I knew, Mercedez. I wish I knew.”
She nodded firmly, “Then we must start with breakfast at the Lobster Pot on Sandy Bay.”
Crab and lobster omelettes were served under big umbrellas. The sandy beach at the Lobster Pot was fine and white. The score of sailboats anchored close ashore explained the dozen other tables with couples and families enjoying a casual meal—and their table was particularly prominent.
For a few lazy hours they seemed to pass every person from the cruise ship several times as they wandered through Carambola Botanical Gardens, lush with a zillion plants Nikita had never seen before. Plants weren’t exactly high on her list—other than the edibles she’d learned about during survival training—but the gardens were spectacular. Trails wound through the forty-acre patch of jungle revealing trees with leaves that were bigger than she was, in the form of fronds, twists, and massive banana leaves of green so pure it almost hurt to look at. Impossible flowers grew at every turn from tiny lavender-tinged stars to cascades of white-and-yellow orchids so alien looking that they could be creatures from another planet.
Zoe started making up wild science fiction stories about their evil plans to conquer the earth.
Drake joined in on the same theme.
In the poor flowers’ defense, Nikita countered with wild tales extracted from Dr. Seuss about a lovely tropical princess and the flowers that tried to be as beautiful as she was when she walked among them each day.
The laughter was easy. She’d never been so thoughtlessly comfortable in a group. In a way, she walked beside herself, separate from the smiling woman with her hand tucked in the handsome gunner’s elbow, laughing with trained killers and two tour guides. Who was this woman acting as if she was in love with the man beside her? Nikita knew it was herself, and yet it wasn’t. Maybe she and not the flowers was the one wrapped up in a Seussian tale, trying to live up to an impossible standard.
Target of Mine: The Night Stalkers 5E (Titan World Book 2) Page 15