Code Name: Forever & Ever (A Warrior's Challenge series Book 5)

by Natasza Waters

  “We’re going to be anchoring soon. A Zodiac will take us to shore. I’d like to escort you,” Patrick said.

  Wide awake now, she stared at him with her beautiful blue eyes. “I need to find my father. He’s probably worried sick.”

  “One of the guys from the Coast Guard is a good friend of mine. He had your dad’s number. I’m sure he called him. Think your father probably drove them crazy with calls during the night.”

  “Could you drop me off at home? I lost my purse. I don’t even know how I’ll get into my condo,” she said.

  He nodded. “Anything you want.”

  The doctor handed her a pair of blue Navy cami pants and a shirt. “You can change into these,” he said, and left the room.

  Marg stood with her head bowed for a moment, then she did something he didn’t expect. She dropped the blanket, revealing her naked body to him. Every sensual sweep and curve. Perfect skin and swelling hips. She gave the pants a shake, ready to step into them.

  Pat’s mouth would have flopped open to reveal his tonsils if he didn’t realize why she’d done it. She was still angry at him, and showing him what he’d never be able to have.

  He bit his top lip and raised his eyes to stare at the ceiling. “Marg, I had no intention of doing anything with that girl you saw me with.”

  Without even so much as a glimpse at him, she raised a leg to put the pants on. “Sure,” she said, her voice lilted with a fake happy note.

  Stubborn… “And what are your plans when you find the guy who saved your life?”

  Her long lashes whisked her cheeks and then she cocked her head sideways, glaring at him. “Probably make him dinner and kiss him senseless. Maybe he likes brunettes.”

  Three short steps brought her within range. He tore the pants from her hands and had her crosswise over the bed.

  “He likes one brunette, so start kissing,” he said, but he didn’t wait, his mouth poured over hers like warm syrup. His hands brushed the roundness of her breast and caressed the contour of her body to her hip.

  She pulled her head away. “Patrick!”

  “I’m sorry, all right. I’m sorry you make me nuts, but I’m not sorry for this.” He slid his palms under her ass and yarded her tight between his thighs and kissed her fucking senseless. Wandering down her body to find her nipple hard and peaked, he drew it into his mouth and licked the tip.

  Her hips bucked gently against him. If the doc walked in now, he’d probably be put on charge.

  Marg moaned and her long legs wrapped around him, her heels digging into his back, trapping him. With two hands, she lifted his head from her breast and kissed him gently. Then whispered against his mouth. “Stop. Thank you for saving my life, but stop.”

  He nodded and placed her bum on the bed. Even with her request for him to back off, he’d never been so happy to feel a warm woman against him.

  “Do you have a date with Bruce tomorrow?”

  “No.”

  “Good, I’m picking you up at noon to go waterskiing and then later we’re going to hang out on the beach with the gang.”

  “I don’t want to go back in the water,” she said, her perfect brow tight.

  “I know, that’s why we’re going to do it. You can’t be scared of the water. You have to get back in it.”

  “Patrick, I just need some time.”

  “We don’t have time. I’ll be with you, but you have to faceoff with the trauma or you’ll never go back in.”

  “I’ll deal with it in my own way, Patrick.” she said, surprising him.

  “Ahh, yeah, excuse me,” the doctor interjected from the door.

  Patrick whirled around to stand in front of Marg. Not that the doctor hadn’t already seen every delicious part of her, but….

  “Just wanted to let you kids know we’re a few minutes from anchoring up in San Diego.”

  Marg waved over Pat’s shoulder. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

  “He called us kids?” Marg grouched.

  “To him we are. He’s probably got children older than us.”

  Marg folded her hands and placed them between her thighs, but her perfect breasts were just inches from him, and the temptation was killing him.

  “You need to get dressed,” he said. What he really needed was to cover her body with his and make love to her, but instead, he picked up the shirt and held it against her. “You might be comfortable with your body, but I’m not.”

  Marg’s long lashes whisked open. “You think I’m ugly?”

  Pat coughed out a laugh and shook his head. “Not exactly.”

  “Nudity makes you uncomfortable?” she asked.

  “No, I’m just…” He turned his head, trying to keep the conversation going and his brain tracking in the right direction.

  “We all have one, you know.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I know that.”

  “Patrick?”

  “Oh, damn.” She wanted him to look at her. He could control himself. Easy.

  He swung his head around and stared straight into her eyes.

  “Not my eyes, Patrick. Me! Look at me.”

  He did as she asked, and it sure as hell wasn’t hard to keep watching when she stood up, her lithe arms hanging by her sides.

  “You made the choice to be with that girl. I made a choice not to let you hurt my feelings anymore.” She paused, then flashed a look at him.

  His jaw moved, but the words weren’t forming. He’d only been on the planet for twenty-one years, but he’d never met a girl like Marg. Beautiful. Brave. Seriously smart.

  “You better get dressed. We have to leave soon.” This was not the place to explain himself.

  Just before they departed the ship, he borrowed a phone and she called her father. When they reached the shore at the Point Loma government wharf, an ambulance waited and so did Marg’s father.

  Patrick backed away after seeing her safely into her father’s arms. For a moment, they locked gazes. As the ambulance attendants helped Marg, her father stepped up to him.

  “I want to thank you for saving my daughter’s life,” Alex Stines-Foster said and shook his hand.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re the Patrick she told me about.”

  He remained silent.

  “Margaret is my oldest daughter. She has a bright future.”

  Patrick took a shallow breath and exhaled. “She does.”

  “I expect that if you care for her, you’d want her to have the best.”

  He cleared his throat and darted a look at the ambulance. Patrick nodded.

  “You have a future in the Navy. I’m sure you have goals of your own,” Mr. Stines said.

  “I do.” Pat squared a look straight into her father’s eyes. “I suppose you’re telling me that I’m not part of her future.”

  “Since you jumped to my final point—yes. Marg might be rebelling right now, but she’ll grow out of that. Her grandmother has filled her head with romantic dreams of living a life with a sailor. The truth is, it’s lonely and in your line of work, deadly. My daughter does not have to live through that. Back away like a man. You can’t make her happy. You’ll never amount to anything she needs.”

  Alex Stines-Foster gave him a final harsh nod, and joined his daughter at the ambulance.

  Shouldn’t Marg’s future and his be determined by them, not her father? If he was a man, he’d lay his cards on the table and let Marg decide if she wanted him, because Patrick Cobbs sure as hell wanted her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Finally home, all the grains of sand swirled down the drain as Marg wrapped the soft towel around her wet skin. The shoot on the beach lasted forever. With a swipe of her hand against the steam covered mirror, she stared into the glass, not looking at herself, but imagining Patrick behind her. He popped into her head at least thirty times today. An improvement from the day before. Uninvited, his image lying by the pool last weekend, with that slut
leaning over him, curdled Marg’s blood. It replayed over and over again in her head.

  He’d left several messages on her phone after he’d rescued her from the yacht. Apologies were fine, but what she’d seen couldn’t be unseen. She created a fog bank ten miles thick between her thoughts and Patrick as she dried her hair.

  Sitting on her couch, snuggled in her white fluffy robe and The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller propped on her lap, she sighed and reached for her glass of wine. A purple cloth bookmark draped from the core of the novel onto her bare leg. She intended on finishing the story tonight. At least the characters, Francesca and Robert, didn’t ignore their passion for each other, even if their lives started out worlds apart. A bridge brought them together. Why couldn’t a model and a sailor find a bridge to each other? Oh right, she forgot, because she was a Stines and he was a Cobbs.

  Anger creeped over her shoulder and dug its evil claws into the pulse of her neck. Then there was the little problem of a tramp with her hands all over him. After this book, she’d never read another romance as long as she lived.

  “Stupid happy endings,” she muttered, and took a big gulp of wine. Her phone rang twice, indicating someone calling on the complex intercom. She didn’t answer. Everyone could go to hell.

  It rang again.

  Maybe it was Grams making a surprise visit and she begrudgingly answered. “Hello.”

  No one responded and she hung up, tucked her feet underneath her bum and flipped open the book. A minute later, someone knocked at the door. She considered grabbing the frying pan on her way, she wasn’t in the mood for Percy.

  Another knock.

  She strode to the door and yanked it open. Heaven help some slimy salesmen who’d snuck into the complex. She stared at him long enough that he took a step back.

  “Not a good time, I guess,” Patrick said with a sheepish tilt to his head.

  She bit back on a snarky response. “Your guess is correct,” she blurted and shoved the door to close it.

  His hand shot out to stop her. “Can we talk?” His brow rippled. “Just for a second.”

  “No.” They didn’t have anything to talk about. “Since you only have days left to enjoy your down time, I’d think you’d want to be getting into some slut’s pants.”

  Patrick gripped the doorframe and ran a slow hand through his hair. “I don’t want her in my pants.”

  “I don’t know what you want, but it’s not going to be me making a fool out of myself anymore.” She didn’t care if he stood in her doorway for the next century, she just wanted to get away from him, but he followed her into the living room.

  Taking a seat on the couch, he knelt in front of her while she stared up at the ceiling, steeling her nerves. Tears of frustration burned in her eyes.

  Patrick’s hand roved down her arm and wrapped around her fingers. “I didn’t know you were there.”

  “Obviously,” she said, her words fueled by hurt. “But I’m glad I was. Glad I saw what I saw.” She withdrew her hand from his. Feeling like utter shit, she reacted exactly the opposite of what her mother had ingrained into her head. Decorum flew out the window, chasing her heart. “You’re right, you deserve the cheap tramp that you’re used to from your crappy neighborhood.”

  Patrick backed away and sat in her leather chair. Why wasn’t he backing out of the room and her condo? That’s what she wanted, right?

  “Probably.”

  “Then you’re wasting your time and mine,” she fired at him with a sharp tone.

  “It’s never a waste when I’m with you.”

  “See this book?” Marg hurled it across the room at him.

  With a lightning fast swipe, he snapped it from the air and glanced at the cover. “Never read it.”

  “It’s about two people who cross each other’s path and fall in love, but it’s not going to end well. It’s a love story that’s doomed to fail.”

  Patrick’s strong torso leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “Why is that?”

  “Because neither of them can change what they are. One of them would have to give up the life they lived.” She picked up her glass of wine and sipped a mouthful of courage. It didn’t help. “Why are you here?” she asked, not wanting to belabor the thought that she and Patrick would never be more than friends now.

  “Marg, will you just listen to me for a second?”

  She shook her head. “The door is around the corner. Go find the tramp you were with and finish what you started. Or I should probably say, Round Two. I’m sure you got what you wanted.”

  Patrick’s shoulders squared, and he breathed out a sharp gust of air. “I wanted to invite you out with us tomorrow. We’re going waterskiing, but I guess you’re not interested.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said fiercely. “What’s the matter with the tramp? She already rolling around in bed with someone else?”

  Vaulting from the chair with his silver eyes firing on all cylinders, he glared at her. “Woman, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She did the same. “Don’t bother, Patrick. I know what I saw, and I saw her hand down your pants and big sloppy smile on your face. The rest, I can fill in.”

  He stepped toward her, anger firing in both his eyes. “No, what you saw was a few seconds of her coming onto me, and then you were gone. So you didn’t see me stop her.”

  “You’re so full of it,” she said with swipe of her arm. “I’m not an idiot. You didn’t mind her touching you, but you don’t want me to.”

  “Marg—”

  “Zip it. The only reason you stopped that girl’s grabby hands is because you saw me.”

  Patrick cleared his throat. “I didn’t then, but I do now.”

  His eyes ran down her body, and she glanced down. Her robe had come undone, all the way undone. Her breasts, stomach, all the way to her toes were bared to him. She swept her robe shut, and cinched the belt.

  “I had too many beers. That’s not an excuse, it’s just the truth. Annie and I were talking and then she came onto me.”

  Straightening her back, she glared at him. “That I could see.”

  “I ran after you, but you were already halfway down the street. That’s why I’m here.”

  “For what?” She flopped her arms in frustration.

  He took a step closer. “To tell you what really happened, which was nothing.”

  “Fine, you told me. Not necessary, but thank you.” Her pulse thumped. Her heart hurt. Worse, she was railing like some low class harlot whose customer had just run without paying.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “No, I don’t.” She whisked the book off the table. “Now, I have to finish this stupid book and get on with my life and stop thinking about you.”

  Patrick got the message and nodded. “I screwed this up. I wanted to make it better, not worse.”

  Marg plopped down on the couch and opened the novel. “You didn’t make it worse. There was nothing to make worse.”

  Patrick jerked his head and tucked his hands in his jean pockets. “But you just said you think about me.”

  Had she? “Not anymore.”

  “Guess I’ll go.”

  She nodded, meeting his gaze straight on, not caring if he saw the sheen of tears building in her eyes. Stupid man. She heard the front door open and close, then she hurled the book at the far wall. Tears came in earnest, she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. She hated feeling like this. More than that, she hated that Patrick could make her feel like this.

  “I don’t deserve your tears,” Patrick whispered beside her, making her jump. She thought he’d left. Instead, he pulled her into his arms and cradled her against his chest. “Please don’t cry. I can handle a lot, but I can’t handle the thought I’ve made you cry.” She thumped his arm with her fist, and he squeezed her tighter. “Marg.” He nuzzled his cheek against the top of her head. “I like it a helluva lot better when you’re angry at me.”


  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not. It means you care, and I don’t really know what to do with that, except maybe hold you and hope that what I can’t say is translated some other way.”

  “I don’t want to forgive you.”

  “I drank too much, nervous about seeing you at the BBQ. It’s not an excuse. My old man has a thousand reasons for why he drinks. None of them are the truth. For me, there’s only one truth when it comes to you.”

  She sniffed and looked into his face.

  The pad of his thumb swept away a tear rolling down her cheek and then he lowered his head. “I want to put your dreams before mine, but I keep failing because all I want is to kiss you every time I see you.”

  Her toes tingled when his mouth met hers. It was the kiss of a man, not a boy. A man who wanted more. Knew more than she did. The robe slipped off her shoulder as he laid her back against the pillow and his lips grazed her collar bone, driving her crazy with each touch.

  “You make me so fucking hard, I can’t think straight.” He stopped and stared into her eyes. “Crude, but it’s true.”

  Her robe fell apart, exposing her chest and her body seized, wanting his firm lips to taste her breast and…and…what? All she knew is she was just as lost and probably weak and stupid, and…

  His gaze raked her skin and his lips hovered just above her nipple. “Oh God,” she breathed.

  Pebbles formed with just his heated look. Slowly, his fingers splayed across her bare stomach and his eyes snapped shut, as if he’d given in against a monumental internal debate as his mouth closed around the tip of her breast. Flicking the straining peak with his tongue, he moaned.

  More.

  Impatient.

  “Patrick!”

  He blew a whisper of cool air across her damp breast before he raised his head and sought her mouth. His tongue teased her lips and she opened, not knowing what to expect. Seeking with certainty, he tasted and tempted her until she puddled into liquid. Once, a guy at school tried to stick his tongue in her mouth and she hated it, but she didn’t hate it now. She wanted more.