Risking It All

by Stephanie Tyler

  She shut the camera off and put it down. “How about we start with just a voice-over?”

  “No pictures?”

  “No. Just a tape recorder.”

  “And no names?”

  She wondered if they were all so paranoid, and figured that in their profession, erring on the side of caution was the safest way to survive. Name, rank and serial number, and half the SEALs wouldn’t even reveal that much to her.

  She was even lower in ranking than the enemy. Way to go, Rina. You’ve hit the big time.

  “What good is just a voice for your video?” Justin asked. He was still eyeing her suspiciously, but he’d moved back over to the table.

  “I can use it as a voice-over during one of the action sequences,” she suggested. “For instance, if I’d filmed the run this morning, I could voice-over the part where Cash beat your time.”

  Justin snorted, pulled out a chair and flipped it around so he could lean his chest against the backrest. “That was a freakin’ fluke.”

  She bit back a smile and hoped she had enough tape because she had a feeling shutting Justin up wasn’t going to be easy.

  CASH HAD SHOWERED, finally gotten in to see the doc about his ribs and received his clearance for training the next day. When he’d arrived back at the meeting room, he discovered Justin exiting the interview with Rina.

  For now, they’d housed her in Rev’s office, mainly because he tended to be the neatest of the group and there was less crap to move around. But Cash had been gone for an hour. A full sixty minutes of Justin yacking.“What’s happening in there?” he asked Justin, who shut the door behind him fully and motioned for Cash to move to the side.

  “She’s good,” his friend said with a shrug. “You’d better warn the others.”

  It was definitely time for another strategy meeting because the one they’d had before their run obviously hadn’t hit home. “I told you she’d try and catch us off guard,” he told Justin, as Rev and Hunt joined them.

  “Looks like she’s already caught you and Cash.” Rev punched Justin in the arm.

  “Hey, she could get a job doing interrogation training or something,” Justin protested.

  “She hasn’t caught me,” Cash said to Rev, and to Justin, “and she appealed to your ego.”

  “Which is huge,” Hunt added.

  Justin continued to mutter that he had a lot of other huge things on his body that any woman would be interested in, and that he could get signed witness statements for, but Cash ignored him. “I don’t want this interfering with training. Do what you have to do, say what you have to say. We’ve got final approval of the edits.”

  “We do? When did that happen?” Rev asked.

  “It happened,” Cash said and left it at that. As if he wasn’t getting himself into enough trouble these days, his loyalties were split in so many directions he was having a lot of trouble keeping track of them all.

  “You’d better hope so, buddy, because you’re up next,” Hunt said.

  “How did that happen?”

  “You got the second worst time today,” Justin reminded him. “And that’s only because I felt sorry for you and your screwed up ribs, by the way.”

  “Yeah, right.” Damn, his ribs did ache and he had a feeling that his head would follow suit as soon as he walked through the door to where Rina waited for him. Rina, in those dark jeans that showed her soft curves that looked like water to a drowning man, and that black top with the V neck that he could easily pull lower without any effort at all.

  Rina, who he’d forget about as a woman he had taken to bed and think about as strictly forbidden. The other men might’ve turned their attentions to drool over Stella, but she didn’t do a thing for him. Not the way Rina did.

  He asked himself when had the balance of power shifted out from under him, and knew, just knew, he was screwed.

  ETIENNE’S OFFICE got smaller, more intimate and much, much warmer when Cash walked in the room, and it was hard for Rina to know how to greet him.

  She went with professional, since he didn’t say anything, either, merely closed the door behind him and stood there, surveying the tape recorder and the camera, red light on and set up on a tripod in the corner, below Etienne’s personally signed Pamela Anderson poster.Seeing that got a small smile out of Cash.

  “Please, have a seat.” She motioned to the other side of the desk, and when he sat, she pushed a bottle of water toward him. “This shouldn’t take very long—”

  “Look, I know what you’re going to try and do,” Cash interrupted and leaned forward across the desk so they were closer. Too close. “You’ll smile, make me comfortable, maybe even tell me a story about yourself to find some common ground and get me to open up and talk.”

  She leaned back in her seat, crossed her arms and gave him a small smile. “And that won’t work with you, right?”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “Because you’ve been questioned by bigger and better than me.”

  “Damned straight.”

  “No one could break you.”

  “No one has yet.”

  “Lots of tall strong walls up, which is what you’ve always had to do, right?”

  He opened his mouth to answer, and then frowned and shook his head.

  She wasn’t giving up that easily. “I’d love to know how to do that,” she said. “I always seem to end up giving things away too easily. I find it very hard to hold things in.”

  “Yeah, I noticed,” he muttered.

  “Exactly. If I feel something, it’s out there for everyone to know. I’d love to not do that.”

  “You have to stop wearing your emotions on your sleeve.”

  “You wear them on your sleeve when you’re surfing.”

  “There’s nothing I need to hold back when I’m surfing.”

  “Because you love it.”

  He sighed, rolled his eyes and looked around the room. “Yes,” he said finally, in the most bored tone possible.

  “But you love your job, too, right?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Because you’re not passionate about your work?”

  “Wrong. I couldn’t think of a better…wait a minute.” He stood, his chair clattering on the floor. “I know what you’re doing.”

  “I was asking for your help,” she said, much too innocently to be believed. “You’ve already seen my temper, how it comes out when I work. But, if what you’re saying is true, and emotions can’t be held in when you feel passionately about something, then you must not feel as strongly about your job as a SEAL.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You minored in psych, didn’t you?”

  “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

  “It hurts. Trust me, it hurts.” He paced a little and then sat back down. When he spoke again, it was right into the mike on the minirecorder set in the middle of Etienne’s desk, right beside the minihula girl who doubled as a pencil sharpener. “I joined the Navy to serve my country,” he said. “Are we done here?”

  Oh, he was done. So completely done. He just didn’t know it yet. “Tell me, how do you handle the danger?”

  “Danger from what?” he asked, like he genuinely didn’t get what she was asking him.

  “Your job,” she said.

  “Rina, I told you before, just living is dangerous.”

  She laughed. “Most civilians would probably disagree with you.”

  “Most civilians don’t take the time to look at things the way I do,” he said.

  “Well, now’s your chance to tell them, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I have a problem. I don’t want kids to watch your show and think this job is all about the adrenaline rush.”

  “It’s not a recruitment video. And you seem to have no problem with the adrenaline part.”

  He sighed. “Videos like this always bump recruitment, even if that’s not their purpose. If I was only in this job for the adrenaline, I’d have dropped out a long time ago.”


  “Why don’t I believe that for one second?” she asked. “You’re an adrenaline junkie. Have to be.”

  He raised his eyebrows and the corner of his mouth lifted a little. And, for a few seconds, he sat there as if he was considering whether or not to blow this whole thing off. But he didn’t.

  First, he stood, walked over to the camera and switched it off. And then, when he started talking, his voice was low and rough, the way it had been that night, when he’d whispered in her ear and made every nerve ending tingle.

  “Surfing, my job, sex—they’re all made up of the same, basic elements,” he said. And it was only then that she understood she was done, as well. So completely done and she didn’t want to look back.

  He continued. “They all bring on the same, base physical reaction. Your chest tightens, skin starts to get sensitive, everything gets brighter—”

  “More in focus,” she said, because she understood.

  “Right. Sharper, even though things move so fast, you don’t even have time to breathe. And you don’t need to. Your body moves on complete animal instinct.”

  Somewhere along the way, during his explanation, her breath became short in supply. Somewhere along the way, she’d risen from her seat because he’d gotten up from his and ended up standing next to her. So close.

  “What’s the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done?” she asked, since she wanted to stay in control, of herself and of this interview.

  He rubbed his chin and his eyes took on a sudden, faraway look. “Too many to say.”

  “Pick one.”

  He pulled his khaki-colored T-shirt out of his pants to expose his chest. He’d taken the tape off his ribs, and she saw a mass of bruises around his right side. “Why don’t you pick?” he suggested, and she let her eyes drift over the various scars on his chest and abdomen. Scars she’d noticed that evening and hadn’t had time to ask him about because he’d kept her too busy to talk—scars she’d assumed were badges of honor from his extreme-surfing days.

  She put her finger out, traced a healing line that ran from his lower abs around to his back. “This one.”

  “Pirates caught me boarding their ship off the coast of Indonesia.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “Blew up the ship, jumped overboard with the hostage I was saving. Swam until another ship picked us up. Good thing, too, because the sharks were starting to circle.”

  Her eyes widened, she put a hand to her mouth and he smirked, pulled his shirt down and tucked it back into his jungle BDUs. But he didn’t back away from her. If anything, he seemed to be closer to her.

  “Weren’t you scared?” she asked.

  “Every time I go out there’s a chance I won’t come back. It’s a choice I make every time. This job’s not just a way to get your rocks off, even if you choose a career showcasing such bullshit.”

  “You have no idea what my work is all about. You barely know me, so how can you be an expert on my career?”

  “I know your work’s just as dangerous as mine,” he said. “Or it can be, if you do it well. If you’re not too afraid to do it right.”

  She didn’t bother analyzing why his words stung because she knew. “Yeah, right,” she said. But when she looked into his eyes she saw he wasn’t kidding. “Somehow, I think what you do rates a little higher than what I do.”

  “We all take risks, Rina. And all risk counts. Living, really living, and doing something you love is all about taking chances. It’s always a crapshoot, and that’s the way it should be.”

  “I prefer to stay behind the camera and film other people taking the risks.”

  “Because you’re scared.”

  “Because that’s my job,” she said, and wondered how the tables were suddenly turned on her.

  “So what’s the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done?” he asked.

  Be this close to you.

  Even though she didn’t say the words out loud, his mouth tugged up at the corner as if he’d read her mind.

  “Does it scare you? The danger?” he asked. She could only nod, her mouth completely dry as he gazed at her with serious blue eyes. “That’s a part of it.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of this.” He motioned between their bodies as he moved even closer to her, and she leaned toward him as though pulled in by the heat of his body.

  “The danger’s what makes it so good, Rina. What excites the hell out of you.” His finger played along her jaw, her earlobe, as she tried not to shiver visibly under his touch.

  She didn’t succeed.

  “It’s what makes you want me so much,” he murmured, and how could she argue when she knew it was probably true.

  His finger traveled down the side of her neck, played along the collar of her shirt before reaching her breast and brushing her already taut nipple. She heard her breath rasp between her teeth, fought the urge to push her breast harder against his touch and lost.

  He licked his bottom lip slowly as he gave her nipple a gentle squeeze between his thumb and forefinger, a move that shook her at her very core.

  She would’ve given anything at that moment for him not to stop. His other hand snaked around her waist, pulled her against him. There was no mistaking the intensity of his arousal and he didn’t bother trying to hide it. And he was close enough that his whisper brushed her ear, hot and sexy, made her tingle with anticipation.

  “The danger’s what will make you leave every single time. And you can quote me on that,” he said. And then his hand dipped inside her shirt, undid the first button easily and he smiled. When he took his hand away he was holding the small hidden camera that was built into the microphone she’d been wearing all morning. “But you’ll have to do that the old-fashioned way—by writing it down.”

  Her eyes opened and her breath caught when he pulled back and pushed away.

  “By the way—I minored in psych, too.” He took the camera with him and walked out of the room without a second look.

  Game, set and match were definitely Cash’s. She never had a chance against him, not in Hawaii and certainly not now, in his element.

  That didn’t mean she wouldn’t try again.

  CASH WENT OUT the makeshift back door because he didn’t want to go past his team now. Not after the way he’d almost allowed himself to be played, or the way he’d almost laid her across Rev’s desk. He was definitely sure that that wasn’t the kind of cooperation Mac had been talking about.

  He shouldn’t have touched her, not like that. And especially not on base. Completely unprofessional, and he blamed Rina’s video. And Rina.He recognized her fear—but also, her drive. Although they sounded like two conflicting emotions, they were actually two sides of the same coin. Mac had asked him, in no uncertain terms, to push Rina past what she thought she couldn’t do into that area of letting the fear actually work for you.

  No easy feat, to be sure. Particularly when his own team wanted Rina to quit as much as Mac wanted her to succeed.

  And him? What the hell did he want out of this?

  Now would be a great time to figure this out, man.

  He was walking a very fine line here, especially by confiscating that Hawaii footage. She could easily go to Mac and yell about sabotage, but something told him Rina didn’t work like that. She was too stubborn not to come to him herself.

  Tomorrow. He’d deal with all of it tomorrow.

  9

  ALL EVENING Rina hadn’t been able to stop stewing about Cash, and the interview tape he’d confiscated from her. By ten o’clock it was apparent that it wasn’t stopping. She’d tried to piece their discussion together from memory and pair it with the footage Zoot and Keith had captured of the guys doing a few training exercises, but without Cash’s exact words, it wasn’t going to work.

  This had déjà vu written all over it, and that didn’t make her happy. She pulled out the piece of paper that Jenny had written Cash’s address on the previous night, when Rina had admitted all to h
er, and wondered if she should use it.“You’re brooding,” Stella said. Her friend was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his script strewn around her. She’d appeared deep in thought, but Rina should’ve known better.

  “I’m not brooding, exactly. I just really, really want that interview tape. I have the perfect segment for parts of his voice-over.”

  “Maybe he’s testing you,” Stella said. “You know, seeing how much you can take. What you’re willing to handle.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So, what are you willing to handle?”

  “Being willing to handle and able to handle are two completely different things,” Rina pointed out.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you didn’t seem to have a problem handling Cash in Hawaii.”

  “Yeah, it was more like Cash handled me,” she muttered. Expertly, too, and enough so she was probably ruined for an average Joe type. Maybe she could’ve dealt with it better if she wasn’t dealing with Mr. Anything-But-Average and his band of above average men.

  “Helloo-oo, earth to Rina.” Stella waved a hand in front of her face and smiled in satisfaction. “I’m not seeing a problem here, beyond your stubbornness. Which is a major trait for Taurus, by the way.”

  “Yes, you’ve mentioned that before.”

  “Hmmm, interesting. Says here the key words surrounding a Taurus are stable, patient, secure and stubborn. It also says, you know you’re a Taurus when you don’t have a problem looking but have a major problem leaping.”

  “Please put that book down,” Rina begged, but Stella, a Capricorn with Scorpio rising, ignored her.

  “Hey, do you happen to know Cash’s sign?”

  “No, I don’t. And don’t you dare ask him, or any of them,” Rina warned, but Stella had stopped listening and was busy flipping through her sexual astrology book.

  “You’d do well with a Capricorn. Not an Aries or a Leo so much. I have a feeling Cash is an Aries or a Leo. Fire signs. You’re earth. But actually, I think you two could make it work.”

  “Stel, the problem with all of this goes well beyond Cash’s astrological sign.”