Hot SEALs: SEALed Fate (Kindle Worlds) (Deep Six Security #0)

by Becky McGraw

  “I love full moons, they signal the start of another cycle of life,” she said, and his back muscles tensed under his tight polo.

  “Or the end of it depending how you look at it. That’s always been my experience.” He laid out more ammunition on the table.

  “Half-empty, half-full,” Fallon replied, as she walked around the table to sit on the sofa beside him, but Jaxson held up his hand.

  He wasn’t smiling anymore when his stony eyes met hers. “I’m not in the mood for small talk right now. I need to finish this first so I can get your hands bandaged.”

  Hurt and insult mixed to form anger inside her, but Fallon pinched her lips, refusing to let that anger free. Not a minute more trouble.

  “I can do that,” Fallon said, standing back up. “I have to go to the bathroom anyway, so I’ll look around for the first-aid kit.” When he didn’t even look up at her, she added, “I’ll probably take a shower too, if that’s okay?” This wasn’t her condo and she didn’t want to be rude and act like it was. It wasn’t his either, but she’d feel better having permission.

  “Third door down on the right,” Jaxson grumbled, as he clicked something on the big weapon then pointed it at the fireplace looking down the barrel. “Leave some hot water though, I need a shower too.”

  Fallon stopped at the end of the sofa to pick up her bag, before she walked down the hallway feeling a little sad, and a lot awkward. She wondered what she’d done now to perpetuate his foul mood. Other than breathing.

  If Jax Thomas remained in that mood the next few weeks, or however long it took to get East Coast Willie off her six, those weeks were going to be awfully tense and uncomfortable. So much for hoping they could even become friends.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Fallon took a very quick shower, settling for using the sporty male body wash on the ledge in the shower to shampoo her hair. She’d forgotten to pack her own toiletries with the inordinate time it took to get finished with the police and then their rush to leave the house. Too bad the scent wasn’t whatever Jaxson Thomas used, because she definitely wouldn’t mind rolling in that scent when she tried to go to sleep that night.

  With a steamy, huffed breath, Fallon exited the shower and wrapped a thick over-sized towel around herself. Everything in this condo shouted man, even the bath-sheet sized navy blue towel that almost wrapped around her twice.

  She wondered about the owner of the condo, the mysterious Jon that Jax kept referring to. It was obvious to her now that she’d seen the condo, that Jon was single because there wasn’t a scrap of femininity in the condo. She’d even looked in the bedroom next to the bathroom, and found a plain brown silk comforter on the queen bed and not a throw-pillow in sight. Definitely a male’s bedroom. Maybe Jon was a SEAL too, she thought, leaning forward to wipe the mirror with her forearm, since her hands were sliced up.

  Walking to the linen closet, she opened it and tiptoed to dig around until she found the white-topped box with a cross on the lid. Pulling it down, she placed it on the vanity and opened the lid removing antiseptic swabs, a tube of antibiotic ointment and several Band-aids.

  Jaxson was right, the cuts weren’t deep, but the problem was they were on both hands, and her right elbow she discovered in the shower, but she was determined to take care of herself so she didn’t have to bother him. In the mood he was in, that was probably for the best.

  I’m not in the mood for small talk right now. Well, Fallon was not going to bore him with her chatter again. I need to finish this first, so I can get your hands bandaged. Like she was an arduous chore that needed to be dealt with, much like cleaning his weapons. Well, Jaxson Thomas could clean those guns of his until they sparkled, because she’d be damned if she asked him for help. GAPS doesn’t have another SEAL to send to babysit you. Fallon didn’t need babysitting, she needed protection and that’s why she’d hired GAPS. This she could handle herself.

  After swabbing the cuts on her right hand, she picked up the tube, uncapped it and squirted a line of ointment over each cut. Grabbing a bandage, she stared at it a minute, then ripped the end of the covering off with her teeth feeling a sense of victory. Until she saw the white plastic strips covering the adhesive. Using her mouth to remove those would defeat the purpose of the sterile bandage.

  Curling her fingers, she flicked one end of the covering with her nail until the end came up and she could remove it. With the number of cuts she had, this process was going to take all night. But what else did she have to do? Lay in bed awake all night quaking while she wondered when Willie would catch up with them again? One thing was for sure, she would not be trying to talk to her uncommunicative bodyguard.

  But she sure wouldn’t mind a little non-verbal communication with him.

  Disgusted with herself and her thoughts yet again, Fallon yanked off the second white protective covering and laid the bandage over the cut near the fleshy part of her hand below her thumb. She was just horny because she hadn’t had sex in a year, and her surly bodyguard put off enough testosterone and pheromones that her body was reminded of that fact every time he got near her. Human mating cause and effect was something else Fallon had studied in detail in her off-time from studying the law in college, because she wasn’t mating.

  If someone saw the box of books at the back of her closet at home, they’d probably think she was a human reproductive major instead of a law major. Or a degenerate. The law books she’d read in her father’s study when she was a teenager she’d soaked up like a sponge. The other recreational reading came under her bedcovers at night with a flashlight. Her younger sister Hannah seemed to be born with a knowledge about the subject that Fallon had missed out on.

  Since her ugly duckling transformation three years ago, Fallon Sharpe had plenty of dates. More than she wanted really, with men she definitely didn’t want. Those dates included a med student who was nice enough, but recounted over dinner the procedure he’d performed on a huge cyst. Another was with a senatorial aide who was carded when he bought their drinks because he was barely old enough to grow facial hair. Then she dated two older lawyers, fortyish but definitely not past their prime. Fallon knew that because she had sex with one of them and some pretty heavy petting with the other. The sum of her actual sexual experience.

  None of those men interested her one damned bit though. They were practice runs to test out her books’ theories. But put one brooding, hard-bodied Navy SEAL in front of her and her body was ready to detonate, her mind wanted to know everything there was to know about him right down to what he was thinking, so she could figure out what made him tick.

  Was it because he was a puzzle she couldn’t figure out?

  Most likely, because, along with being a book nerd, Fallon was obsessive-compulsive when it came to figuring out things she didn’t understand. Jaxson Thomas fit into that category well.

  Usually, she could get her answers by reading books, but there wasn’t one on the puzzle that was Jaxson Thomas. Maybe she could Google SEALs to find out exactly what they did other than rescue Girls Gone Wild, whose stupid friends mentioned they were federal judge’s daughters to drug cartels in Mexico. But she wouldn’t be able to do that until she got back home, since she’d forgotten her phone at home in the rush to leave. But Jaxson would be gone then so the research would be useless, as useless as thinking about him was now.

  A whoosh of warm air accompanied the bathroom door swinging inward. Fallon grabbed for her now loosely wrapped towel, but realized she couldn’t hold it with the Band-aid in her hand and her other palm filled with ointment so she just prayed it didn’t unwind. Or disintegrate from the heat in Jaxson Thomas’ eyes.

  “Sorry to intrude, but Jon’s bathtub is full of…” Jaxson’s voice trailed off as his eyes locked on her breasts before floating down to her toes. “Um, full of duffle bags he has soaking in some kind of solution.” Finally, he dragged his eyes back to hers to walk into the bathroom and stand beside her. “Let me help with that.”

  Fallon took a quick
step back, because between the steam in the bathroom and his heat she was definitely burning up.

  “I’ve got it,” she protested, turning away to rip open the second bandage with her teeth, flick off the film over the adhesive with her nail before carefully laying the sterile pad over the cut on her index finger. Wrapping the ends around, she turned back. “See, all fixed, so you can go clean your guns. I’ve got this under control.”

  “What about the other ones on your other palm, and your elbows. You had a blood streak down the back of your forearm when you walked out of the living room.”

  He’d been watching her walk off?

  Other than his short, rude words, Fallon hadn’t even been sure Jaxson Thomas knew she was in the condo with him. “I don’t need your help, but thank you.”

  Jaxson grabbed her wrist and fire shot up to her arm. Her eyes met his and electrical current flowed between them through an invisible but very potent connection.

  “But I want to help, so I can get a shower sometime tonight. You’ve been in here for over an hour,” he replied gruffly, as he turned her palm over to smooth his thumb over the bandage beneath her thumb to press it more firmly to her skin.

  Her skin felt alive with little sparks that danced up to her elbow, but Fallon pulled her hand away. The irritation in his voice irritated her. Gathering up the things on the vanity, she tossed them back into the kit and picked it up.

  “I’ll just take this into the living room, so you can shower. I apologize for being a bathroom hog, but I did leave you plenty of hot water.”

  Jaxson grabbed the box from her and slammed it back on the counter then flipped back the lid. He pulled out a cleansing wipe, opened it with his teeth then wiped it over the small cut at the outside edge of her left hand. He picked up the ointment, squeezed a line over the cut then grabbed a bandage, and in a flurry of efficient movement had it on her hand.

  His eyes fixed on her mouth before dropping to a spot on her chin. “How in the world did you get a nick there?” he asked, his warm hand moving to her cheek. Fallon shivered when his thumb whispered over the area where he focused.

  “The glass from the window was all over the floorboard. I must’ve had some on my hands when I put my face on them to sleep.” Hot waves of awareness washed through her when his thumb stroked her chin again.

  “Why didn’t you say something?’ His thumb came to rest at the corner of her mouth making her lips buzz.

  “I didn’t want to distract you from your job. That wouldn’t have been very healthy for me.” As her face moved, the slightly rough pad of his thumb raked her skin, igniting nerve endings that sent sparks up to her scalp to raise every hair.

  “You’re different now,” Jaxson commented, surprising her, because after his rudeness earlier when she tried to start a conversation with him it appeared he wanted to have one with her because he leaned a hip on the vanity. “What happened to cause that? A boyfriend?”

  Jaxson reached up to slide his fingers down a strand of her wet hair, forcing a cold droplet of water to plop into the well of her collarbone and she shivered. Her face heated, because he sounded almost amused at the suggestion, like her having a boyfriend was just unthinkable to him. Fallon wanted to say yes, just to wipe that superior look from his handsome face, but couldn’t force the lie past her lips.

  “No, not a boyfriend,” she replied, a little too sharply. “I decided the awkward bookworm look wasn’t conducive to being appointed a federal judge. I found an image consultant and she worked wonders on the outside and eye surgery did the rest.” With a short dry laugh, Fallon tapped her chest above the towel. “That girl is still in here though, wearing those thick glasses, sporting that frizzy red bush better than Ronald McDonald ever could.”

  “Making assumptions about people and situations that are dead wrong, just doing it while wearing a black robe now?” Jax asked, his words bouncing off the walls before spearing right through her heart.

  Anger surged up her body causing pressure to build behind her eyes. “I don’t make a habit of that no—I’m very fair in my decisions. Even with William Crifaso, who deserved twenty years in prison, but I gave him ten.” Fallon crossed her arms over her chest. “I made a mistake in your situation and I’ve apologized. Do Navy SEALS not make mistakes?”

  “If a Navy SEAL makes a mistake, it’s usually his last. So no, we don’t make them often, and our commanding officers don’t tolerate them well. We screw up, and live to tell about it, we may wish we were dead when they finish with us.” Jaxson’s heated eyes dropped to her lips before darting back up to hers. “There’s a price to be paid for mistakes.”

  Fallon huffed a frustrated breath, and put her hands on her hips. “Okay, what’s the price of your forgiveness, Jaxson? A pint of blood? My firstborn child? Just tell me and I’ll gladly pay it. I want to move past this with you.”

  His lips pinched and blue fire sparked in his eyes as he tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor. Fallon’s eyes took inventory of every muscle in his broad chest as he reached for his belt buckle and unfastened it.

  “What’s my price?” Jaxson asked with a dry laugh, as he slid the zipper of his slacks down the track. “Tell me, Judge Sharpe, since you’re so fair…” He bent to push his pants down to his ankles before stepping out of them. Fallon’s heart stopped beating when he stood back up. Her eyes locked on the front of his tight white boxer briefs that hid nothing, including the fact that he was fully erect under them. “What do you think would be the appropriate price to be paid for ruining my career? For making me live without my dignity for the last five years when you knew the truth for at least half of those years but didn’t tell anyone to save your own self and your father embarrassment?”

  Fallon had no idea at all, but her instincts had only steered her wrong once—that night in Cancun. Surely Jaxson Thomas wasn’t suggesting it, but at the moment it was exactly the price she wanted to pay. Dropping to her knees in front of him, Fallon looked up at him when she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of his shorts.

  Jaxson’s nostrils flared, his breaths rasped and his eyes dilated as she slowly pushed the shorts over his tight rear end then slid her fingers around the band to push them over his thickly muscled thighs to his knees. She ran her palms back up the silk covered steel columns of his legs and he groaned, a tremor rocked him and his erection thickened.

  “Is my dignity for yours a fair price?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Oh, God, yes it would definitely be a fair price, Jaxson thought, with every muscle in his body rigid as Fallon Sharpe took his painfully hard cock in her hand. That mouth, those full lips wrapped around him would make him forget everything.

  Her determined brown eyes left his to focus intently on his cock, her head drifted toward him and her breath fanned his swollen head. All the blood in his body split to rush up to his head and down to his cock. Her breath got hotter as those soft lips touched him and a tremor rocked Jaxson. But his damned conscience wouldn’t let him let her do it. Not for this reason.

  Why in the hell did he have to be so damned conscientious? With a growl, he shoved his hand into her wet auburn hair and closed his fist. She whimpered and looked up at him with confusion in her eyes.

  “I’m not letting you off that easy,” Jaxson growled, tugging her hair until she stood.

  He pulled her to him and slammed his mouth down over hers. He had to at least taste those lips he’d been thinking about all day. Her mouth opened on a gasp and Jaxson’s fist loosened in her hair as his tongue found hers and he absorbed her sweet, minty mewl. With a shuddering sigh, she leaned into him to press her soft breasts into his chest, making his present condition infinitely worse.

  Jaxson decided as her talented tongue danced with his that having a conscience sucked. If he wasn’t afflicted, Fallon Sharpe would be on her knees right now putting her hot mouth on his aching cock, rasping her tongue over his sensitive skin, and sucking him like she was sucking
at his lips. He would have come quick and hard, like he needed to so badly right then.

  The adrenaline crash he was suffering from was one of the worst he’d ever had. That was why he was so damned edgy and itchy and he knew how to fix it. He planned on doing that in the shower, but she’d taken so long in the bathroom, he couldn’t wait any longer.

  When his balls tightened in warning, Jax suddenly realized his cock had somehow split the towel to find her heat. The tiny gyrations she made with her hips dragged him deeper inside the cleft between her legs, and Jax knew if he didn’t end the kiss, he was going to go with his gut and throw her down on the bathroom floor to bury himself inside that heat.

  Considering the dark need clawing at his insides right then, it would be violent and fast, and would probably scare the crap out of her. But when her hands slid up his chest to circle his neck and pull him closer, her hips changed directions so her wet heat slicked over his length, Jax just couldn’t make himself pull away.

  She moaned, kissed him deeper and her hips rocked faster, enticing his to move too. With a shiver, he absorbed the sound into his mouth, as her body drew his come to the end of his dick. The towel slipped lower with every movement of her body until her puckered nipples scraped his chest, her hot little needy mewls filled his mouth, and Jax was lost. Tightening his fist in her hair, with a growl his hips shot forward violently as endorphins drowned him and his body jerked with the hot waves of lava that flowed out of him.

  Knees weak, heart pounding in his ears, Jax dragged his mouth from hers to breathe in ragged breaths as regret swamped him. Putting his forehead to hers, he said, “I’m sorry, that went too far, and it was my fault.”

  “No, not far enough,” she mumbled into his shoulder, before she put a wet, open-mouthed kiss there. A tremor shook her, and that’s when Jax’s head cleared and he felt her swollen flesh pulsating on his still rigid cock.

  Fallon had been through the same ordeal he’d been through today and was probably just as amped up as he had been, and he’d just been a selfish dick. He pushed her back, and her lips sagged, her eyes begged him to finish her off, and he would as soon as he had a quick shower.