The Hostile Operations Team
HOT SEAL: Dane & Ivy
© 2015 by Lynn Raye Harris
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ABOUT THIS BOOK
Sex with the ex… It shouldn’t be this good the second time around.
Navy SEAL Dane “Viking” Erikson has sworn off women—or at least he’s sworn off one woman: DEA Agent Ivy McGill. His ex-wife.
But when they’re forced to work together on a critical military mission, Dane can’t help but notice how the one woman he shouldn’t want is the only one he can’t stop thinking about.
Ivy knows what it’s like to fall for a SEAL’s hard muscles and killer smile—and she knows what it’s like when everything falls apart. So why is she naked against a wall and begging Dane for more?
PROLOGUE
Five years ago…
Ivy moaned as a hand skimmed over her bare skin, coming to rest on her breast. Long fingers toyed with her nipple, sent instant lust rocketing through her core. She could hardly believe they’d already made love twice in the past few hours and she was still ready for more.
“Dane,” she whispered as he turned her in his arms and sucked her nipple into his mouth. His tongue slid around the peak, teasing, tormenting, before he let her go and moved on to the other breast.
“You’re beautiful, Ivy,” he said, rising up to settle himself between her legs. “So fucking beautiful. And you’re mine.”
He plunged into her body then, and she wrapped her arms around him, her heart filling with love and a kind of desperation that frightened her in some ways. Dane was too intense, too big and overwhelming to her senses.
And she loved him beyond reason.
His body took hers to heights she’d never experienced with anyone else. He elicited the kind of cries from her that would have been embarrassing if she’d thought about it from an objective point of view.
More, Dane… Harder, Dane… Fuck me, Dane…
Each time, he responded with exactly what she needed. His mouth took hers possessively, demanding surrender. She gave it to him. Gave herself to him. Wrapped herself around him as he rocked into her, as her body caught fire, as she tumbled over the edge with a sharp cry.
He came immediately after she did, and then he gathered her to him and rolled until she was cradled against his hard chest.
“So what’s it like being married to me so far?” he asked in a whisper.
Her heart thumped. Married. They were married now, had been for all of about twelve hours. She caressed the damp muscles of his chest. “Heavenly. Best decision I ever made.”
“Even if you were drunk during the ceremony?”
Ivy laughed. “Not quite drunk. Just tipsy. And so were you, I might add.”
He laughed too. “The dangers of Vegas, I guess.”
Ivy pushed herself upright to gaze down into Dane’s stunning blue eyes. A splinter of doubt gnawed at her, like always. Happiness wasn’t something she was accustomed to. In her experience, it wasn’t something that lasted for long.
It was spring break and they were still in college, though graduation was only a couple of months away. They were starting the next phase of their lives a little early, but it was okay. It would be okay.
“You don’t regret it, do you?” she asked.
His gaze softened and he reached up to brush her hair back from her face. “No. Do you?”
Ivy shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
When she dropped her gaze, Dane tipped her chin up with his finger. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“Aren’t you a little worried about what your parents might say?”
Dane’s eyes chilled. “I don’t care what they say. It’s my life, not theirs.”
She knew that his parents were a sore spot with him, but she’d never quite understood why. He came from a family where he’d gotten the best of everything, while she’d been bounced from foster home to foster home from the time she was eight years old. Eventually she’d ended up with her grandmother—her dad’s mother—but Beth McGill hadn’t had much to give her other than a grandmother’s love. Which had meant everything to her.
“Okay, baby,” she said. “I just don’t want them to hate me.”
Dane looked fierce. “They won’t. How could they? You’re perfect.”
Ivy’s heart thumped painfully. Dane was the only person in the world besides her grandmother who’d ever said she was perfect. She wasn’t, of course.
“I love you, Dane.”
He grinned and pulled her down for a kiss. “I know, honey. I love you too. Nothing can change that.”
CHAPTER ONE
Colombia, South America
Present Day
The submarine was gone. DEA agent Ivy McGill stood in the jungle with her team, listening to the whop-whop-whop of helicopter rotors as they beat the air nearby. They’d gotten the satellite imagery a few hours ago, and they’d busted ass to get out here in order to confiscate the sub and capture the workers. She hadn’t kidded herself that the drug lords who’d commissioned the damn thing would be here, but she’d hoped to at least get a worker who would talk.
All she’d needed was one. But there were no workers either. There were only bodies and the smell of burning rubber and spent gunpowder.
The jungle had been turned into a shipyard, amazingly, with living quarters for fifty or sixty men and workshops to build submarines. There were generators, gas stoves for cooking, and storage racks for marine parts. There was also a narrow estuary where presumably subs would be piloted out of the jungle and into the river beyond. From there, the subs would be taken to a port and loaded with cocaine before making the journey north to the United States.
“Middle of the fucking jungle,” Ace Martin said, coming up beside her. “How’d they build a fucking submarine in the middle of a jungle?”
“With a lot of money,” Ivy told her partner, her gaze poring over the abandoned shipyard.
Their information indicated there was only one submarine at the moment, with more commissioned to be built, but it represented a step up in design from the usual homemade fiberglass subs the drug runners used. The new sub was steel, fitted with Chinese engines, powered by lead-acid batteries, and capable of traveling for ten days without refueling. It could submerge to a depth that rendered it silent to the US Navy—and it could hold three tons of cocaine.
That was a lot of fucking cocaine hitting the streets of the United States.
A Colombian soldier shouted something, and Ivy took off at a run. Ace was right behind her. They skidded into one of the workshops to find a soldier pointing a gun at a grease-stained man who held his hands high and begged the soldier not to shoot.
“Are there others?” Ivy asked the soldier in Spanish.
“No,” he told her. “Just this one.”
She spoke to the man, told him not to fear them. But his eyes were wide as he darted his gaze between her, Ace, and the soldier. Outside, the shouts of other soldiers and DEA agents carried through the jungle.
“What happened here?” she asked the man.
All he did was repeat his plea not to shoot. Ivy wanted to growl in frustration, but instead she went over and handcuffed him. Then she told the soldier to lower the gun. He did, and she jerked her head at Ace.
“Get this one on a chopper. I want to talk to him when we get back to HQ.”
“Aye, aye, captain.”
Ivy frowned. “Very funny with the nautical stuff.”
Ace grinned and walked over to collect the worker. Ivy marched back int
o the jungle. The humidity was thick out here, and the stench from the nearby mangroves was strong. Men moved through the shipyard, searching for any signs of life.
Unfortunately, there was no one else alive. Whatever had happened out here, it hadn’t been pretty. It wasn’t unlike the Ruiz family to turn against the people who had helped put them where they were, but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to kill everyone. These were the workers who’d built the sub. They were skilled men, recruited from the shipyards and navies of South and Central American countries. It took a lot of time and money to assemble this kind of crew. It made no sense to kill them, especially since getting the men out would have been far easier than getting the sub out. Hell, the way the thing was built, you could fill it with men and sail away.
So why the slaughter?
Ivy shuddered as she raised her gaze to the sky. That was what she didn’t understand about these bastards. What she could never understand. They killed when they didn’t have to. Because they could.
Ivy took one last look around before she headed for the chopper. She had work to do, and time was running out.
*
“You want to do what?”
Dane “Viking” Erikson stared at the two men standing across from him. He’d been training with his men at the Virginia Beach facility when he’d been summoned to this meeting. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but right now he was staring at an admiral in white and an Army colonel in desert camouflage and wondering what they’d been smoking.
The colonel—Mendez was his name—was the one to speak. “I need a SEAL team, Lieutenant. Your name came up as the one to lead it.”
“For the Hostile Operations Team.” Dane shook his head. “I thought that was a myth. Just a tale the Army guys told when they were feeling inferior.”
Mendez snorted. “Not a myth. And not strictly Army anymore either. HOT is joint service, and the SEALs are the next step. We’ve got a state-of-the-art facility in Maryland and more money than you can imagine. The missions are critical to national security, and their scope is widening. We need you.” Mendez glanced at Admiral Carter.
The admiral’s mouth was a grim line. “You’re the best fit, Dane.”
Dane’s gut tightened. “Because my dad is General Erikson, you mean.”
Mendez nodded. “Doesn’t hurt. You know the Army. Understand it.”
“I joined the Navy. I’m not interested in the Army. Sir.”
Mendez’s look could best be described as disgusted. For some reason, that made Dane feel contrite. He cleared his throat and stared at the wall behind the colonel’s head, not liking that this man could reduce him to feeling like a puny child in his father’s home.
Just like old times.
Mendez’s tone, when he spoke again, was conversational. But Dane didn’t kid himself that the man was as mild mannered as he appeared. No, there was steel in that tone and steel in his eyes.
“So you don’t care for the Army. I don’t much care for the Navy. But here’s the thing, son. We’re in this together. We’re fighting for the same goddamn thing, and if I need a SEAL team on my roster, I’m getting one. You can come willingly, or you can come with a grudge. Your choice. But you are coming. So pack your gear and get your ass up to Maryland. I’ll expect you at oh seven hundred the day after tomorrow. Any questions?”
“What about my team?”
“They’ll get their orders. In the meantime, you can come and get cozy with us while you wait. We won’t hurt you, I promise.”
Dane wanted to say something sarcastic. He very wisely didn’t. The colonel was yanking his chain at this point. He’d set himself up for it, so he could hardly blame the man. “Yes, sir.”
“Excellent.” The colonel pulled his cap from his belt as he turned toward the door. “Welcome to HOT, Lieutenant Erikson. We hope you enjoy the ride.”
CHAPTER TWO
The colonel hadn’t been kidding that the facility was state of the art. It took about half the morning to get clearance, a Common Access Card, and all the codes and various protocols needed to enter and exit on his own power, but finally Dane had everything and found himself in a locker room staring at a group of faces that looked at him curiously. There was no hostility, which he found encouraging.
“You the frogman?” one of the dudes asked.
“You the ground pounder?” Dane returned.
One of the other guys snorted. “Yeah, that’s Iceman all right. He pounds the ground pretty regularly. When he’s not pounding a certain senator’s daughter.”
“Shut up, fuckhead,” the one named Iceman growled. “That’s my fiancée you’re talking about.”
“Sorry, Ice. Couldn’t resist.”
“You’d better be sorry or I’ll pound your face for you. Then what, pretty boy?”
Dane turned away and opened the locker he’d been assigned. All his gear was there. He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do with any of it while here, but he supposed Colonel Mendez would waste no time in letting him know.
“Hey, frogman, we didn’t mean to insult you or anything,” the second guy said, and Dane turned around again.
The man walked over and held out his hand. “Chase Daniels. Welcome to HOT.”
Dane eyed the guy for a second before he gripped the offered hand. “Dane Erikson.”
They engaged in that age-old ritual guys have of squeezing the daylights out of each other before they let go again.
The other guys in the room stood and came over to thrust out hands. After introductions and handshakes all around, the bones in Dane’s hand felt decidedly bruised. He couldn’t tell if they’d done it on purpose or if they were being nice. Though he nearly laughed to think of a roomful of Special Ops warriors being nice.
But they were a brotherhood, even if they were different services. SEALs worked with other services on operations. Dane had worked with Delta Force, Marine Force Recon, Air Force PJs, the CIA, ATF, and DEA in the past.
But he’d never worked with HOT. Hell, he hadn’t thought they existed. If Delta Force was the Army’s secretive arm, then HOT was their invisible one. The guys just didn’t exist.
Except they did, because he was standing here with them. Idly, he wondered if his father knew. General Erikson had been an Airborne Ranger back in the day. He worked at the Pentagon now, doing God knew what since Dane rarely spoke to him.
In fact, he didn’t particularly like being within close driving distance of the old man. Not that he felt compelled to visit or anything. Their relationship was best when carried out over the phone.
But his mother would expect him, and he could hardly refuse her. He drew the line at regular Sunday dinners, though he’d have to show up for a couple here and there.
He didn’t plan on informing his parents of his new assignment for as long as possible. For all he knew, it wouldn’t last anyway. He’d piss this colonel off, and he’d be bounced back to Virginia Beach before he could count to ten.
Hell, he kind of hoped that was the case. Except, fuck, he was definitely curious now that he was here. This facility was equipped with stuff he’d thought was still in the testing phase, and the gear was more than a little bit interesting. He at least wanted to be here long enough to explore.
“Colonel wants us,” a man said, peeking his head into the room.
Everyone dropped what they were doing and headed for the door. Dane wasn’t planning to go, but then Chase stopped and looked at him.
“He means you too.”
Dane shut his locker and trailed after the group of men walking down the hallway. They passed into a big conference room and took seats around a table. There was a whiteboard on one wall and a projector overhead.
Dane took a seat in a leather chair just about the time someone shot to attention. The rest of the men followed suit. Dane automatically joined them as Colonel Mendez walked into the room.
“At ease,” he said, and they sank back down on their chairs. His gaze landed on Dane.
Dane glanced at the others. There were puzzled looks on a few faces as the whiteboard flashed to life.
A satellite shot of a jungle appeared on-screen. There were white-roofed buildings spread out around the area and a fence around the perimeter. Drug runners, probably.
There was also a curl of dark water winding through the jungle near the compound. And then Mendez zoomed in and revealed an object in a small clearing. It was big, torpedo-shaped—
Dane stood before he realized he’d done so. All eyes turned to him. The colonel was watching him with an uplifted brow.
“What do you see here?”
Dane moved closer, studying the object. He’d heard of these things, but this one was bigger than was typical. Yet it was what it was.
“I see a submarine, sir.”
Mendez nodded. “That’s right. Intel indicated there was only one of them finished, but another was in the process of being built.” He pressed a button and a new slide flashed up on the screen. This one contained specs for the submarine. Specs that chilled Dane. This wasn’t your typical floating coffin the drug runners used. This was something different.
“Sir,” Dane said, and the colonel looked at him. He cleared his throat. “Isn’t this the kind of thing the Navy usually deals with?”
Or the DEA since the damn thing belonged to drug runners. He hated thinking about the DEA because that inevitably brought thoughts of his ex-wife, but this was exactly the kind of thing they would be interested in.
“Typically, yes.” The colonel brought up another slide. “But here’s the reason we’re involved.”
This picture was of bodies strewn about the compound. The next picture showed a wrecked shipyard with charred debris—and no sign of the finished sub. There was another sub form, but it was clearly in the process of being built.
“We’ve had intel indicating the Freedom Force is pursuing a plan to make a dirty bomb and detonate it somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard. That’s not anything new. But then we received information two weeks ago that said they were in active negotiations with the Ruiz family to have them build a sub. There was supposed to be a meeting, an exchange of money—but it seems our friends from Qu’rim were impatient after being taken to inspect the equipment. They ambushed the makeshift shipyard and absconded with the finished sub.”
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