by Zoe Dawson
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he glanced at her, the set of his jaw indicating he was stressed. Curiosity as well as attraction mixed and warred. What had happened to him, and who was he before that devastation?
He held her gaze briefly, then turned and stared at the equipment behind her, his tone clipped when he answered. “Fins, towel, and goggles.”
This man had once been different. It was as if an identity war raged before her eyes. But now there was something remote and unapproachable in his whole demeanor, and Charlie got the feeling that this man had no intention of sharing that information any time soon.
Well, that was okay. Other than tying him up, she had no business getting involved. She was here to learn and pass her class so that she’d get one step closer to master diver. Everything else was peripheral and unimportant.
The way he was now would not be comfortable to be around, yet she held an uncontrollable curiosity to delve deep into him. Throw her reservations to the wind and push him a little to see how he reacted. He commanded attention, probably always had, the kind of man who, with his hard, dark leveling stares, could make any man…or woman…think twice.
Charlie’s interest wasn’t that easily squashed.
“Blue?” A man appeared and waved to him. He looked like he’d rather chew glass than go with him, but the resignation in his eyes told her he had a reason to toe the line.
“The gear, admiral?”
She quickly got what he needed, and he turned away without a goodbye. His heavily muscled shoulders and his equally thick back drawing down to his lean waist and, yeesh, nice butt retreated out of her sight. Blue? Maybe a call name? SEAL? She released a breath, trying with all her might for the rest of the day not to think about him.
When she was relieved of duty, she left the school, got home and changed. Not wanting to eat alone, she headed for Flight of Seagulls, a bar and restaurant not far from her place located right on the beach. She didn’t bother to drive, enjoying the tropical, heavily salted air as she walked. She entered the bar, sighing at the view of the ocean. She was seated not far from the square bar that took up the middle of the hardwood floor, decorated in yellow, turquoise, and red mosaic, cross beams and open air above.
After ordering avocado fries and a cheeseburger, she sat back and enjoyed the atmosphere. The dinner hour was casual and crowded. There were several families at several of the tables, the others occupied by couples.
About halfway through her meal, she stiffened when Blue walked in, moving with a grace and stride broadcasting danger in every line of his body. His alpha attitude rolled over her in invisible wavelengths like a developing storm. He was with a few guys, and they all sat down at the bar. He didn’t see her, and she was glad about that. It gave her a chance to watch him. Any woman in her right mind couldn’t help but stare.
Once again, he made an impact dressed in a tight-fitting baby blue shirt and a pair of jeans that fit his big body to perfection, gloving his ass and muscular swimmer’s thighs.
The three of them started drinking and by the time she’d finished her meal, the bar lights were glowing, and the ocean was a dark silhouette in the distance.
She knew she should leave, but she couldn’t seem to. He drew her with an intriguing aura of deep-seated pain. Either his friends weren’t very observant, or they chose to ignore it. Guys weren’t likely to discuss their weaknesses amongst themselves. And if he was a SEAL, all the more reason to keep everything that had happened to him close to the vest.
But something terrible had happened to him, and damn her, she wanted to know what it was.
She ordered an ice cream sandwich for dessert, and as she started to eat it, she felt a prickle on the back of her neck. She glanced over to the bar to see Blue staring at her. When they made eye contact, he didn’t look away. She hadn’t expected it, but now she was caught in that scrutinizing gaze, as if he was trying to figure her out.
Finally, she was the one who pulled her eyes from his. He ignored her after that. When she was about ready to pay the bill, the three guys left, but Blue was still drinking. She noticed it was the hard stuff, and he was looking even worse for wear.
She gave the waiter her card and waited for him to come back. In the meantime, someone knocked into Blue, and he mumbled something. The guy shot something back, and Blue ignored him until the guy shoved him. Blue lost his balance and slammed hard against the bar.
Without thinking what she was doing, she rushed over there and got between them. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.” The guy who had been picking a fight backed down, and the tension in Blue eased.
She wasn’t sure if it was because he wasn’t interested in a bar fight or if he wasn’t about to slug the guy when she was standing between them. The feeling of protection she got from him caught her off-guard. Maybe this guy wasn’t such a jerk after all.
He was wasted. He glared at her, then turned back to the bar. “Whoa there, mister. You’ve had more than enough. Let me get you into a cab home,” she said, keeping her voice low. He stumbled, and she caught him against her, his body hard and hot beneath her arm and hand. Wrapping it around his tight waist, she steadied him. She wished she hadn’t worn the pretty sundress. It left her shoulders bare, and everywhere he touched her she felt scorched.
“Hey, he hasn’t settled his bill,” the bartender said. She looked up at Blue and found him swaying. No help there.
She reached into his pocket, looking for his wallet, something bumping against the back of her hand. He bent down and whispered in her ear. “That’s not my wallet, babe.”
She huffed and pulled her hand out. “Where is it?”
“Do I have to tell?” he asked with a soft smile.
The alcohol had effectively done away with his inhibitions, and beneath the whiskey scent, a bold fusion of something spicy, warm, seductive and exotic made her breathe deeper. She caught the hint of cardamom and cinnamon. Cool yet warm, fresh but fiery. He smelled like a man who loved contradictions.
The waiter came over to her and she signed for her bill. With a roll of her eyes and a wry look at the bartender, she handed him her card. After the transaction was completed, she made the mistake of looking at him again.
He was in deep sexy territory with those soft bedroom eyes, his lashes thick, veiling and filtering the aching blue of his irises.
She tried to get her overheated brain to work, and with sheer willpower, she pulled him into motion, steadying him as they staggered out of the cover of the bar to the sidewalk. She looked for a cab.
“Where do you live? The school?” He shook his head. “Where?”
“You know something, Admiral Tadpole? You have one hell of a sexy voice. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
“Blue. Address?”
He didn’t answer, and she couldn’t stand here balancing all that…man against her. There was no alternative. She would have to take him home with her. She started to move down the sidewalk, wishing she was big and strong enough to sling him over her shoulder.
He stumbled, and she lost her balance. As he recovered, he caught her, swung her into the shelter of his arms. She scrambled for footing when her back slammed into a wall that separated them from the beach.
Then he was there, looming over her, his stubbled jaw so close. He stared at her, then said, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” All that anger and control he’d had outside the airport and at the dive locker was gone, leaving only anguish. It hurt to look into his bruised and lost eyes. “They took what I was. I don’t know how to get it back.” He leaned in closer, his mouth hovering over hers, looking like he needed so much more than comfort, something raw and dangerous flashed in his eyes and it slammed into her until she was breathless. She felt the hard, hot length of him, a definitive bulge at his groin.
So, this attraction was mutual.
He pushed a lot of her need-to-tie-him buttons—wanting to see how she could reduce this alpha male into submission to free him, get him to con
nect to her so she could connect to herself. He did all that without even trying. From the moment she saw the demons that chased him in his eyes, she wanted to understand and face her own.
She closed her eyes at his words. They barely knew each other, but it seemed they had a lot in common. He wasn’t doing well. That was easy to see.
“You’re a tough beauty,” he said softly. “I like that. Damned distracting. I’ve had a hard-on for you from the moment you shook me awake. Why don’t we just find someplace to fuck?”
She tried to move, but he wouldn’t budge.
Instead of trying to move an unmovable object, she reached up and cupped his jaw. “It’s going to be all right. Come with me. You just need to sleep this off.”
He pushed away. “I need a swim,” he said.
Then he bolted for the water, discarding his clothes as he went.
“Oh, damn,” Charlie muttered, sprinting after him.
5
Blue hit the water, feeling like he could breathe it into his lungs. Needing to get away from everything trapped inside him. The memory of him seeking out the water as solace after what had happened to him when he’d been a boy had built a strong correlation to sanctuary.
This woman, this beauty, was pushing his buttons. From the moment he’d seen her on the plane, his uncontrollable reaction to her had kept him aroused on and off for days. He wanted her to watch him jack off. He couldn’t get the thought out of his head. It permeated his waking and sleeping moments. He didn’t want her to see him, his scars still so red and terrible that he couldn’t even look at himself. The shame of not being in control of something so fundamental and outside of societal norms only made him feel even more deviant.
He’d never talked to a woman like that in his life. Was it that he’d had too much to drink? Was it the way he was feeling…ousted, banished, and betrayed? He no longer had the brotherhood and his place in the SEALs to ground him. All of a sudden, after being in such a close-knit group, he was on his own with nothing but a therapist to talk to, a stranger.
The salty scent of the ocean, the life, even the decay, all part of the circle filled him with a sense of the vastness not only of the world but the void in him that was as massive as the universe.
He got lost in the blackness hanging on him, the color of Natasha’s eyes, the color of shame and revulsion. A darkness so deep maybe he couldn’t pull himself out. Maybe he could just let the ocean take him into her, and there he could forever sleep.
“Blue!” the woman’s shout knocked him out of his thoughts. He was in the warm surf in nothing but his briefs.
He turned around, and she was standing in the sand, her chest heaving, her eyes wide. “Stop this now. You’re coming home with me, and you’ll be all right.”
He wanted to believe those words. Her face was pinched tight after she said them, as if they affected her as much as they affected him. What was her trauma? Like knew like, and he saw the darkness on her as easily as she was seeing it on him. Kindred souls. Broken people.
He hated being shattered, pieces of him all over the place, and he couldn’t seem to pick up the shards fast enough. But the worst part was he knew he could never go back. Speed was gone, and there was nothing he could do to change that either. Elena had made the ultimate sacrifice for him, and he’d been violated in so many ways. Ways he was trying to understand and come to grips with, but his mind kept spinning and he couldn’t seem to get a hold of the wheel as it whirled in his head. Important places zipping by without an ability to stop the spin, to examine those bruised and battered places. How could he figure this out if nothing stood still?
“It would be fast and peaceful,” he said above the surf.
Her chin lifted. “It would be a fucking cop out,” she said, and that snapped him to attention. She marched right into the surf and wrapped her arms around his waist. With the force of a linebacker, she pushed him onto the sand where he lost his balance, ending up on his ass. “I don’t know you very well. I have no idea what you’ve been through, but you don’t give the hell up. You fight until you get out of it. Now get your ass up. You’re coming home with me, and you’re sleeping this off. Then if you want, we’ll talk.”
Instead of platitudes and pleading, she gave him attitude, and fuck him, if that didn’t make him want to see what else this cute little package had inside of her. If it was anything like the external, it would be a second mind blown moment.
His head spun, and he closed his eyes, the sand still sun-warmed against his back. The disconnection he felt swirled with the whirling in his head, as if he could slingshot into the velvet blackness and get lost in a dark sky without stars.
He’d never felt so unsubstantial in his life. He swallowed hard, his stomach protesting. He should have eaten something. When her hand curled around his wrist, he simply reacted. Coming upright, he shoved her away from him. She sprawled into the sand, the surf rolling over her. He crab-walked backward until he lurched awkwardly to his feet. “Don’t touch me,” he said, low and lethal. His heart pounded, and he was sweating.
His chest heaved as the uncontrollable fear rushed through him along with an arousal he couldn’t control. He closed his eyes, laboring to get ahold of himself. He bent over and put his hands on his knees and breathed in the briny air.
When he opened his eyes, she was standing again, his clothes in her arms. “Blue?”
His gaze slammed into hers, and in her eyes, he saw…sanctuary. She didn’t seem to be affected by his actions. His head hurt and felt full and thick. She looked at him with those pretty blue-green eyes. A huge lump in his throat made it hard to breathe. “I’m okay,” he said, backing up another step. She smelled so good—clean with a tangy scent. Nothing like Natasha. That cloying smell even now made him sick to his stomach.
She started up the beach, past him, and he followed her, his brain fuzzy. When she stopped and went into an apartment complex, she turned, and he swayed. “Can I help you up the stairs?”
He pressed his hand against the doorjamb and knew that climbing stairs was going to be a challenge. “Elevator,” she intoned, and before he knew what was happening, she slipped her shoulder under his armpit as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Her hair smelled even better, and he found himself breathing deep of the tantalizing scent. It reminded him of his meditation room.
She directed him toward the elevator and up they went. He was beginning to sag a bit by the time they got to her door. She pressed him against the wall, and he murmured, “Don’t touch me.”
He heard the sound of the lock releasing, then she was moving him again. When she stopped, she pushed on his chest and he sat down on the edge of the bed. She dropped his clothes on the floor. “Lie back,” she said. I’ll be right back.” He drifted until a touch on his shoulder startled him awake. The room was dim, and for a moment he was back in Kirikhanistan, Natasha forcing him, and Boris—that fucking sick creep—watching his wife rape him under the influence of drugs.
“No,” he growled and flailed madly, knocking against something. He vaguely heard the sound of water splashing and a short cry from a woman.
“You have to take some water. I brought you some ibuprofen.”
He was losing her as she wavered in and out of his vision. Before he knew it, she was back, and she slipped her hand under his nape, helping him to take the tablets and sip the water. “Drink it all.” He gulped as the cool water ran over his tongue. “Get some sleep.” She prodded him, and he twisted and turned until he was under her covers.
Then he slipped into sleep.
He had no idea how long he had been asleep when he woke up. It was still pitch black, and he had no idea where he was. There was a soft glow under the door, and he followed it. When he silently pushed the door open, she was toweling off.
She looked up with a gasp, and he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Elena,” he whispered. He entered the bathroom as she took a step back. She said something, but he was intent on touching her
, his heart breaking, and he couldn’t figure out why. Elena was here, and she was okay.
Her hair was a wet mass of darkness falling on either side of her face, and he cupped her chin in his hand and said, “I thought I had lost you.”
She made a soft sound and a protest, but he was overcome with his guilt and his need to feel her against him again. With heat settling in his groin, he lowered his head and pressed his mouth against her softly parted lips, giving her an aching, deep kiss.
“Elena,” he said again, his voice breaking because he knew this was wrong, but not understanding how she could be here. “Don’t leave,” he whispered desperately. Her arms went around him, and he was pressing against her naked flesh. His hands slipped down the small of her back, over her buttocks. “I missed you. Thank you for saving my life. I’m sorry you were injured.”
He tried to hold on to the feeling for as long as possible. Then she spoke. “It’s all right,” she whispered, her hand cupping his head, then soothing down his back. “It’s not your fault.”
Something snapped in him, and he clutched her closer, her warm body and scent filling him up. “It was my fault. If you hadn’t picked me up after the explosion, I would have died out there alone and wounded. You risked everything to shelter me and nurse me back to health. And I destroyed everything, including you. I’m a medic. It’s not what I’m supposed to do. I’m a SEAL. I don’t put innocents in harm’s way. It’s part of our code.”
“I’m sorry all this happened to you. Why don’t you lie down again and go to sleep?” She didn’t sound like Elena. She didn’t have her accent, but she had Elena’s face.
“Will you come with me? I just need to hold you.”
“Yes,” she said and took his hand. “Come on.”
She led him through the darkened house. When they got to the bed, he slipped in and she joined him. His body responded to the warmth and softness of her supple curves, hardening him in a scalding rush of need.
He buried his face in her neck, the comfort unbelievable.