Chapter 2
Vesuvio’s Restaurant was not Libby’s favorite, but it was good comfort food, and her advisor, Dr. Gerhardt was paying for it, so he always got to choose. She’d brought the flash drive that contained the papers she’d graded for him, and a printout of the class roster, indicating the grade she’d assigned.
“I hope I wasn’t too harsh,” she said over the candlelit table. “This Freshman class is very bright, but a number of them seemed rushed, not up to their usual standards.”
Dr. Gerhardt smiled, tapping his fingers against his lips, his elbows forming a tripod on the tabletop. The edges of his grey-green eyes were crinkled with laugh lines Libby had always liked. The wispy white and silver hairs at his temples contrasted against his tanned complexion. She’d always thought of him as an attractive man, but tonight there was a different air about him. Their meeting seemed less business and more personal.
“More wine?” he said without addressing her comment.
“One. Only one. Last time—“
“You had two, and I could have had my way with you.”
She stopped taking a sip of her ice water mid air. He laughed and then she realized he’d been joking.
“You are dedicated, and do Santa Clara proud, but sometimes you have to lighten up a little. I was just trying to add some levity.”
“I know,” she apologized.
An extremely tall gentleman brushed passed her on his way to the men’s room. She watched as the giant’s broad shoulders tapering down to a tiny waist and impossible narrow hips ambled his way through the cluster of little tables, sending titters throughout the restaurant by most of the female population, including the wait staff.
Dr. Gerhardt turned in his seat and watched where her eyes had followed. He nodded and gave her a smirk. “So, you’re getting up early tomorrow morning.”
She realized then she’d been staring at the closed men’s door. “Yes. Megan and I are hitting the road before eight to get down to the Aquarium when it opens at ten.”
“You’ve been there before, of course.”
“No. Megan has. I went to the one in San Diego many times growing up.”
“Well, shall we go, before you throw yourself at that monster?”
“Trying to rescue me? Maybe I don’t need rescuing.”
Dr. Gerhardt’s eyes grew darker and she noticed a quick uptick in his breathing. “Libby, I only want what’s best for you. I have a vested interest in your cause.”
His eyes telegraphed something else, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was she saw there. Concern? After weighing it, she came to the conclusion that Dr. Gerhardt was indeed considering her for the internship in his clinic, which was right around the corner from the University. Wonderful.
“Come.” He stood and took her hand. She blushed at the touch of their fingers. This also had never happened before.
“Of course.” She stood, but took the first opportunity to drop his grasp. Libby slipped her jacket over her shoulders and felt Dr. Gerhardt place his hand up at the back of her neck. Libby shivered and raised her shoulders in a slight involuntary reaction. Dr. Gerhardt removed his fingers. He opened the door for her and smiled, as she slipped by him. There wasn’t much room, and she could have imagined it, but thought he took a quick inhale as she brushed past his shirt. His musky aftershave and the slim space made her feel uncomfortable. Libby couldn’t return his gaze, and peered down at her feet.
The two of them turned to the left and walked past the fogged up small paned windows of the restaurant. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a large shadow sit down at the table on the other side of the glass, but she couldn’t bring herself to look upon the giant stranger who lurked behind the moist windowpanes.
Cooper agreed with Irv’s recommendation of this restaurant, but he hardly ate a thing. Fredo had finished both entrees. He’d had way too much ice water, which was a surefire sign he was nervous. He’d be pissing his way to Monterey, if they didn’t stay over.
He hadn’t paid so much for anything, he thought as he sat back down and watched Fredo shove the last piece of French bread into his mouth. The little SEAL could eat him under the table, since Cooper didn’t drink anymore.
He’d never wanted anything this bad before, like he’d wanted that drone. He simply had to have it. It was a matter of wounded pride that he’d actually paid the full thousand dollars.
The air was still infused with a jasmine scent, probably from that beauty with the auburn hair that was leaving the restaurant with the old guy. It made him sick how older men could scoop up all the nice women. But then, anyone who would be interested in older men probably wouldn’t be the kind of woman he liked to spend time with.
Besides which, he was not nearly ready to consider such things. Still, her full red lips barely protruding out from flowing red-brown hair that hid her face from him were definitely kissable. He liked women with full lips.
Pillows of flesh. He’d read that term somewhere in a men’s magazine. One of those articles about erotic romance and how men were buying it now.
My own mind can do that. Don’t need a book to help me, either.
He and Fredo would go to the Monterey Aquarium tomorrow, then head home, probably driving the rest of the trip without stopping for anything but gas. He couldn’t wait to go for a swim, and then hit the sack at his motor home by the beach. If he were lucky, Daisy would drop by with her cuffs and fetish for uniforms and stuff. He didn’t mind playing along. She knew she was entertainment. He sure as heck didn’t mind being hers, either.
So, he and Fredo would have to finish up, and he’d just have to dream about little miss red pouty lips while he lay awake in the motel room and listened to Fredo snore. Yup. They’d done it many times before. Maybe he’d make up a story in his mind. Thinking about those lips he could sink into, suck on. Those red lips on his private parts, about her white teeth and tongue that could explore places. Thinking of the places that would rise to the touch of his fingers and his mouth, and turn deep pink.
She’d be pink, all right. And she’d probably wear white, which made him smile. It also made him hard.
“You having another one of those erotic dreams?” Fredo said across the table, bringing Cooper out of his reverie.
He didn’t understand at first. “Sorry?”
“You have all the girls back in San Diego all over you all the time. Why fantasize about someone who belongs to someone else?”
“You think I was fantasizing about her?” He pointed his thumb out the window and saw the couple hug. Then he watched her get in her own car and drive off.
Looks are deceiving. So, she hadn’t belonged to him after all. He felt a little sad he had only seen her profile.
He heard fingers snapping in front of him and realized he had been staring out the window, watching taillights on the car disappear into the night air.
“Yo. What is it with you and Kyle? You two get your bead on a woman and that’s it.”
“Kyle’s a married man, now.”
“I rest my case. He was lookin’ real hard for Mrs. Kyle.”
Cooper laughed.
“Come on, you know how he used to be. He even swore off girls just before he met little miss Christy big eyes. He was bad, but I think you’re worse. You not getting’ laid enough, Coop?”
“Why, you offering?”
Fredo pulled his white oversized napkin from his throat and threw it at Cooper across the table.
“That’s it, man. Dis me when I drove all the way up here with your bony ass so you could buy a toy airplane.” He got up and stormed away. Cooper paid for the meal and joined him in the truck. He knew Fredo’s nasty mood would last about five minutes.
They traveled the freeway all the way to Monterey and found a cheap motel outside town. Cooper had stashed the drone under Fredo’s customized front seat. The front metal kick plate had been removed, leaving a compartment big enough to slide the case under the seat. They snapped it back in place so t
he metal piece covered the hole.
Cooper lay back on one of the two double beds, inserted earplugs connected to his iPhone, slipped off his shoes and closed his eyes.
“Good night to you too,” Fredo said as he stripped down to his superman shorts and tee shirt and tucked himself under the thin bedspread.
“Sorry, man.” Coop said and then fell back on the bed. The music annoyed him a little and he wondered why. Then he thought about his new toy, resting in the cold front cab of the beater.
Not right.
Coop got up, and without putting his shoes back on, grabbed Fredo’s keys from the little bedside table between their beds, and dashed out the door to the parking lot. He swung open the passenger door, and pulled aside the metal protective covering. Grabbing his new toy’s black coffin, he yanked it by the handle and then replaced the metal plate. He locked the truck up and danced in his bare feet to the door.
It was locked.
He banged on it several times, calling out Fredo’s name. He felt like a shit that he’d forgotten his room key.
Fredo opened the door wide and examined him carefully as he rushed passed his friend. Coop set the case on his, opened the flaps and took out the drone.
He was almost stiff with excitement. Fredo was shaking his head retreating to his bed, where he promptly rolled over onto his side.
In the filtered light coming through the bedroom window, Coop stroked the smooth white plastic surface of the drone. He felt her power. Her lovely lines like creamy thighs of a good bedmate. But no bedmate had ever made him feel like this before. He held the drone, depressed the recessed button on her belly and felt the whir of the motor, vibrating his hand.
You dumb frog. Get a grip, Cooper. It’s not a woman.
No, he realized. It was even better.
Cooper was dancing around the room with it high above his head. Fredo finally sat straight up and, with earplugs still ensconced in his ears, bellowed, “Cooper, would you stop your fucking playing around and put that thing away?”
Someone banged on the wall next to them. They could hear the occupant next door complaining through the double sheetrock.
Cooper instantly became self conscious. He carefully wiped down the machine with a hand towel and laid it to rest inside the plastic foam packing material, like it was Snow White.
Fredo was right, of course. Putting the case back on the cheap dresser next to the TV with rabbit ears, he patted the top and said good night to it.
He dove into his bed, which sent the headboard into the wall and earned him another bang on the wall next door and some choice comments. It made him smile, as he lay back with his hands underneath his head. He was happy. Really happy.
Then he did what he always did. Made up a story, a little erotic romance of what that tasty brunette looked like in the flesh. It was how he used to fall asleep over in Afghanistan, now that he no longer drank himself to sleep. Fantasy ladies made way better dreams.
He closed his eyes and could see every square inch of her. He felt the reddish brown curls over his lap as she gave him a blow job. Those red pouty lips on his unit, lolling him to sleep. It was his idea of being tucked in.
She wasn’t wearing a thing. All her perfect pinkness spread out for him to examine. To kiss. To taste. He’d make her scream for release and yes, he knew how to do that very well. After all, he was part of the Navy’s finest, trained to perfection. Waiting for him to open her up and turn on her motor just like the drone.
For just a second, he almost forgot how much he’d wanted the drone.
He might have wanted her more.
What the hell’s up with that?
Chapter 3
Libby and Megan got to the Monterey Bay Aquarium a half hour before it opened. A small café nearby served them coffee, yogurt and homemade granola. They passed the time by people watching before a small line began to form at the Aquarium entrance. That was their cue to go. Libby pulled her hair through the back of her Giant’s baseball cap into a ponytail and donned her sunglasses. They walked downhill in the bright morning sunshine, to the entrance.
“Can’t believe you’ve never been here before, Libby. You’ve been at Santa Clara what, five years now?”
“Yup. You know me. I’ve been practically a nun, too.”
“That’s for sure.” Megan glanced at her from the side. “You and Dr. Gerhardt are getting kinda chummy, though.”
Libby wrinkled her brow. “Nothing to that.”
“You know everyone talks…”
“About me?” Worry dampened what had been a nice morning doing something just for fun. “He’s not interested in me that way, and I sure as heck aren’t—“
“Shush.” Megan slapped her forearm. “I can keep a secret, Libby. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“That’s not it, Meg.” This was beginning to irritate her. “We aren’t sleeping together, and I wouldn’t believe it if anyone else says they did. He’s just a very kind man, a great mentor, and someone I trust 100%.” She did feel a shadow creep around her shoulders with what she’d felt last night during dinner. Had he pushed the envelope a bit into the arena of adult recreation?
Maybe it was because she hadn’t dated much, been pretty focused on her double degree. She was hoping Dr. Gerhardt would get her an intern position at his clinic after she completed her Masters in Psychology and got her MFCC license. He had hinted a bit about it, but never came out and offered her the position. It was still early.
If Megan saw the doubt on her face, she did a good job hiding it. “Don’t let them get to you. Just rumors. The guy is so gorgeous, I think people just like to make up stories. No worries, Libby. I think he’s smart enough not to do anything unwise.”
“Not only unwise, it’s against the rules.”
“Well, there’s that, too. Certainly.”
Libby searched her feelings and couldn’t find any jealousy at the mention of possibly other girls. Nothing there but a business relationship, mutual respect between two people who had to work closely together.
“Meg, tell you what, I’ll tell you first if he becomes available, okay? He isn’t my type.”
“Oh stop it.” Libby noticed how easy she and Megan reassumed their places as friends, although their friendship wasn’t particularly deep. It was all that she needed.
They were one of the first few members to walk through the door. Libby went for the world famous Kelp Tank, wanting to see it before the crowds started to grow.
The blue three-story glass room was even more striking than she’d expected. Huge silvery fish in a variety of shapes and colors sliced through the water, surrounded by schools of smaller fish that darted around the artificial reef. Sea ferns the size of a man, twenty-foot kelp plants and other greenery swayed back and forth in rhythm to the tidal current.
Megan sat down next to her on a metal observation bench and leaned into Libby.
“I just love looking at this. Could do it all day,” Libby said to her friend.
“Can you imagine swimming in there? They have times listed when they send divers in to feed them,” Megan said.
Something had been stirring inside her. The blue liquid pulled her into a fantasy and for the minutes she sat and watched all the life teeming before her, she began to feel a new adventure was just beginning.
Coop and Fredo stood in front of the large window behind a family with children. The little ones had their hands on the glass and were asked by an attendant to remove them.
“Dang. And I thought the one in Florida was nice. This is incredible,” Fredo said.
“I think the biggest one is in Bahrain. Not that I’ll ever get there to see it.”
“Not that you’d want to.”
“Not while being on active duty. No, probably not.”
He watched a large silvery torpedo shaped fish break up a school of hand-sized yellow and black striped angelfish. Through the clear blue-green water Cooper could see the larger window on the other side. People had begun to
gather, their faces pressed close to the glass. Just before a crowd of teenagers advanced into the window opening he thought he caught the sight of a beauty with auburn hair. Her pale skin made a perfect canvas to the ripples of green and blue coloring reflected from the waters of the tank.
Her hair reminded him of the lady he’d seen last night in San Jose.
Get a grip, you horny squid. Only been a day and a half since Daisy’s enormous boobs and expert tongue had worked all the kinks out of him. Even though his wrist was sore today from the new handcuffs she’d brought. He pressed his forefinger onto the red mark, which hurt. He searched for the auburn hair and couldn’t find her.
“Coop, I’m real glad you’re having a peaceful Zen moment, but there are other exhibits,” Fredo said, nodding toward the dark passageway.
“Uh hum.” He continued to search the crowd of people that had gathered in the room across the tank. There she was. All he could see was that she had wisps of hair tucked under a dark baseball cap. She’d picked his team too, the Giants.
Something stirred inside him. Only part of it was his small brain.
“Come on. Let’s go look at something else,” he said to Fredo as they backed up. Immediately, a group of onlookers, grateful for the departure of the giant and his little friend, consumed the hole they had left behind in the crowd.
Around the corner, Cooper traced the doorway he had seen her walk through. But he couldn’t figure out which way she went. They walked past smaller porthole-sized tanks with sea life ecosystems made from old hubcaps, tennis shoes and old glass bottles.
Fredo was delighted when they came upon the Penguin exhibit. It wasn’t hard for Cooper to see why the little birds delighted him so. They were like miniature cousins of the diminutive Mexican SEAL the rest of the team occasionally called Frodo.
Not that Fredo liked it one bit. But as long as one was willing to run fast, the Team guys could use that moniker. If they ever made the mistake of getting caught, Fredo would wrestle and successfully pin down any of them, even six-foot-five Calvin Cooper.
SEAL Endeavor Page 2