She’d thrown her whole life into doing this thing, preparing for it for more years than she cared to count. Swimming, running, martial arts. Hell, she’d even been an All-American rifle marksman in college. The SEAL instructors were going to have to kill her—literally—before she quit of her own volition. She was that horse who would die in the harness, still straining to pull its load.
Her face was on fire. Her legs and back and shoulders were on fire. Her lungs were self-combusting. The heavy pack of combat gear and survival equipment felt like it was hammering her feet down into the ground with every step she took. In a word, it sucked. But onward she staggered. Step after miserable step. At this point, any reasonably fit person could walk beside her faster than she was running. But she. Did. Not. Stop.
She’d run plenty of marathons before, but never in this blistering heat, never wearing a rucksack full of heavy, rattling stuff, and never, ever, without the slightest warning that it was coming. An instructor had merely stuck his head in the dorm door after lunch and told them to suit up for a run in combat boots and to bring their packs. Just like that. Another day at the office.
She’d asked for this insanity—begged for it, even—which made her misery even worse. It stripped away her right to complain. All she had left was anger. She reached for her old friend, Fury. Born of rage at being powerless to control her life, it rose from her determination someday to become a strong, independent woman whom no man would ever push around. This career—this calling—to be a SEAL was the pinnacle of all of that.
She wrapped her childhood anger around her like a cloak, warming herself with it until she found her second wind. Or maybe her twentieth wind—she’d lost count at this point. Her steps stabilized. Her stride stretched back out into a full run as the finish line finally began to grow larger and draw nearer. Less than a quarter mile to go, now.
“Dammit. Thought we had you, there, Zarkos,” a male voice said sardonically from behind her.
She didn’t bother turning around to look. She recognized the voice as belonging to a SEAL whose nametag said Alambeaux. He always wore mirror shades and a baseball cap pulled low over his face, but he had a great jaw. Lean, chiseled, and strong. He’d been hanging around the past few days, watching her a lot. Either he was observing her or stalking her. Whatever. They could throw their best head games at her and run her till she dropped. When she got back up, she would just keep on running.
“Ahh, well. We’ll break you next time. Or the time after that. If you won’t quit chasing after us, we won’t quit chasing you, either.”
His lightly delivered comments were ice water on her soul. He was not lying. They would keep coming after her until they destroyed her.
God, and this wasn’t even the actual BUD/S course. It was hard to imagine anything worse than this. This was just the fitness training before the actual INDOC phase started. The good news was she wasn’t the worst trainee here. There were slower and weaker men here, and many less determined than she. She even had that magic balance of enough body fat to ward off the hypothermia of being wet constantly with not having so much body fat that she couldn’t haul her body weight around.
She did, however, struggle with upper body strength relative to the male trainees. Even though she could do twenty pull-ups and pop out men’s push-ups by the dozens, fact was, she just wasn’t as strong as the boys no matter how hard she tried. But hey. Everybody had an Achilles’ heel at BUD/S.
And the men here were going to shoot at hers until they hit it and killed her, just like it had killed Achilles. To which she merely said, so be it.
The finish line of today’s “sprint” finally loomed close, and she pushed herself the last hundred yards to reach it by envisioning a big glass of ice water just across the white tape laid on the ground. Hell, warm water would be fine with her. Civilian marathons had stations every mile along the course with perky volunteers passing out cups of water and electrolyte drinks. Not so on the SEAL course she had just run. The trainees had run it dry.
She crossed the finish line, and stopped cold, not taking one more running step as she panted in the oven-like heat. Triumph surged through her. She’d done it. One more time they’d failed to break her. A stone-faced SEAL looked at a stopwatch and recorded her time on a clipboard without comment. She caught Alambeaux looking over Clipboard Guy’s shoulder at the time the guy had written down. Both men pulled disgusted faces.
Screw them, she thought tiredly. That was as fast as she could possibly have run the course. She’d given it everything she had. Just because her triumph was their failure didn’t make it any less of a triumph for her.
A few of her male classmates were sprawled on the ground beyond the finish line like road kill. Tempting as it was to stop, drop, and flop, she would not collapse. No way would she give the bastards the satisfaction. She did bend over, though, planting her hands on her thighs, sucking in great, awful lungfuls of parched, scorching air.
“Zarkos!”
She looked up sharply at her barked last name.
“My office. Now.”
Crap. That was Lt. Commander Perriman summoning her. He was in charge of PTRR—Physical Training, Rehabilitation, and Remediation. This course was a second chance for guys who got hurt during BUD/S training, but it was also where they stuck all new SEAL recruits nowadays to toughen up before the real training began. The several month-long pre-SEAL conditioning program supposedly cut down drastically on wash out rates in the actual SEAL course. At least, that was the Navy’s story and the trainers here were sticking to it. Which was to say, they washed out the physically and mentally weak here instead of in the official course.
In an act of bald-faced defiance, she forced her protesting legs into a jog and ran to the door of the Quonset hut Perriman loomed in. One corner of his mouth quirked sardonically for just an instant before settling back into its usual tight, disapproving line.
A dozen women had started PTRR in the first training cycle where women had been allowed into the SEAL pipeline, and Perriman had personally washed out every last one of them. Trina was the only woman dumb enough to start this training cycle. Word had apparently gotten around to military women in the know not to bother trying for the SEALs, but she’d been too dense or too focused on her crazy dream to get the memo and give up.
Perriman turned and disappeared inside the building as she trotted up the steps after him.
“Sit.” The commander pointed at a wooden chair in front of the desk he’d moved around behind.
She slipped off her pack and sank into the chair not a moment too soon. Her legs felt entirely boneless. They would have collapsed on their own in a few more seconds. In fact, her entire body felt like a marionette’s with the strings all cut. She was going to hurt like a big dog in a few hours.
“Enjoy the run?” Perriman asked wryly.
As if she would give him the satisfaction of showing even a hint of weakness. Not a chance. She shrugged. “Nice scenery. And I’ve done worse.” Which was a total lie.
He opened a cabinet behind his desk, and when he turned back around, he tossed her a bottle of water. She snagged it neatly, mid-air and downed it greedily. Meanwhile, he opened a brown manila folder on his desk and lifted out papers one by one, glancing through them at his leisure. She just enjoyed being still and letting her body temperature return to something resembling normal.
At length, he closed the file and stared at her long enough and hard enough that she had to consciously tell herself not to squirm under the scrutiny. She’d gotten used to the head games they played around here and had learned not to break awkward silences unless she had something specific to say.
“You’re out,” Perriman announced without warning.
Out? As in out of training? Her mind went completely blank. A single word took shape and popped out of her mouth. “Why?”
“You are underperforming. Your run and swim times aren’t coming down fast enough and your PFT scores are not coming up fast enough for you to
stand a chance in INDOC. You’re out.”
Ten years. Ten grueling, miserable, painful years she’d been training in hopes of one day having a shot at the SEALs—practically around the clock. God, the things she’d sacrificed for this. A normal social life. The relationships she’d let pass her by. The friendships lost. Jobs turned down. She’d geared her entire life around this.
Besides. She already met all the minimum required scores for entrance into SEAL training! And just like that, she was out?
“Are Jones and Winslow out, too?” she blurted. They were men in her class. Men whom she consistently outperformed and outscored.
“I’m not discussing any other trainees with you, Zarkos.”
She looked up at him, then. Stared into his pale, icy eyes that did not for a second flinch in the face of her silent outrage. Arguing with him would be useless. Both trainees and instructors called him Permafrost behind his back because the bastard never thawed.
The SEALs did not want her. They had tested her and found her wanting. And they were not going to debate the decision with her. Just, “you’re out.” Done. Pack your shit and leave.
She pressed words past her clenched teeth. “I get why you guys are resisting allowing women into your hallowed band of brothers. But it’s a mistake. Not many women have what it takes, but a few of us do.”
He leaned back in his leather executive chair and merely continued to stare at her, his entire demeanor cold and emotionless.
She warmed to her subject and ignored his body language hint to shut the fuck up. “We have talents and skills that would be an asset to the teams. The SEALs are weaker because of our exclusion. Some other country is going to figure that out, and then you’ll be scrambling to play catch up. But by then, the women you need will be so pissed off we’ll have moved on to other jobs. Other lives. You’ll be poison to the very women you need.”
“Are you done?” he snapped.
She crossed her arms defensively over her chest and pressed her lips tightly together, the rest of the rant she so badly wanted to throw at him barely contained.
He said more mildly, “You’ve got orders.”
“To where?” she blurted. God, that was fast. He’d already gotten her assigned to some other base? The man didn’t mess around when he tossed someone out of his program.
“Phoenix.”
What the hell did the Navy have for her to do in landlocked, desert dry Phoenix, Arizona, about as far from water and ships and things naval as it was possible to get?
“Lambo!” Perriman called.
Alambeaux poked his head in the door, hat and sunglasses gone for once, and she did a no kidding, wrench-her-neck double-take. She’d seen some beautiful men in her life, but behind the disguise, this one was in a class all his own. His features were…perfect. The guy was a walking recruitment poster. Join the Navy and become a living god.
His dark gaze took her in coolly. Thoroughly. And everywhere his scrutiny touched her, she abruptly felt naked. On fire. Holy crap. He looked away from her like she was about as interesting as a cockroach. She sagged in her chair, and let go of the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“Sir?” the god asked in a smooth, confident voice.
Oh, man. Her ovaries just melted.
The god stepped fully into the doorway and liquid heat pooled in her groin. The guy was hotness personified. Raw sex appeal rolled off him in waves that made her feel like she was drowning in lust. God, what a way to go, though. Hubba hubba.
“You have your orders, Lambo. Escort Zarkos to the airfield. Put her on a plane and get her off my base. You know what her follow-up orders are. See to it she follows them.”
Asshole. Perriman didn’t have to be nasty about it. He’d already won. She hefted her pack wearily over one shoulder and headed for the door after Lambo. She would lay odds he got that handle not entirely because of his last name but also in honor of a Lamborghini—the sleek, gorgeous Italian sports car. Her impromptu babysitter stood back in the doorway, waiting for her to join him.
“What about my stuff back at the dorm?” she asked.
Perriman bit out, “It’ll be shipped to you.” Wow. He really had it in for her, didn’t he?
She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. She spoke with quiet certainty, not by way of a whine, but stating a fact. “You’re making a mistake, Commander.”
“I’m absolutely certain I’m not. And someday you’ll come to agree with me,” he retorted.
Never.
The walk of shame from the quonset hut to the parking lot with Adonis at her side like a jailer was perhaps the worst hundred yards of her life. She felt the eyes on her. Everyone…everyone…noted her departure. She could physically feel on her skin the satisfaction of the boys’ club as it closed ranks against her. It was all she could do not to vomit up Perriman’s bottle of water in her humiliation as she climbed into a Hummer.
Alambeaux backed out of the parking spot and did, indeed, head for the airfield. She commented, “I knew folks around here hated the idea of women SEALs, but this dramatic expulsion is a little excessive.”
Her escort merely shrugged. Even that casual gesture of his shoulder, fraught with rippling muscle under smooth, bronzed skin, was sexy as hell. At least Perriman had given her one last piece of eye candy to enjoy before he dashed her dreams and ended her life.
Lambo drove her onto the airfield’s tarmac without saying a word to her, but disapproval rolled off of him in tangible waves. All these guys were flaming male chauvinist pigs. Too bad she was so wasted from the run she couldn’t think up any better epithets to call him in her mind.
She spied an airplane, apparently waiting for her, and stared. It was a twin propeller airplane that would probably carry about eight passengers. Except there didn’t appear to be any other passengers milling around waiting to go. That was weird. In fact, as she glanced around, there was nobody else out here. At all. The entire airfield was deserted. Surely, Perriman hadn’t ordered up an entire airplane just to get rid of her!
Lambo hopped out of the Hummer and came around to open her door for her as she stared back and forth doubtfully between aircraft and man.
He glanced down at her sardonically. Potent male charisma reached out and grabbed her by the throat. All the oxygen in the vicinity disappeared, and she caught herself swaying toward him slightly. God almighty, that man was attractive. Like a giant, freaking electromagnet. The pull of him crackled through her individual cells, realigning them into his orbit whether she willed it or no.
She took a step out of the vehicle—or tried to, at any rate—and pitched forward, straight into her escort. He caught her and dragged her upright in a single swift move.
God, he acted like he barely noticed her weight. His strength was breathtaking. Literally. She had a little trouble inhaling properly as her entire body melted in a puddle of unwilling lust. Oh, who was she kidding? It was totally willing lust.
“You gonna kill me and throw my corpse on that plane?” she mumbled.
Ford Alambeaux stared down at the smoking hot woman plastered against him. “Don’t tempt me,” he bit out. God knew, he meant those words in more way than one.
“What are your orders, anyway?” she demanded. “Let me guess. Put me on that plane and make damned sure I don’t bolt before it goes airborne.”
If only. She would find out soon enough what his orders were. Not that he was in any hurry to put them into effect. If only Perriman weren’t so freaking smart, not to mention right all the damned time. Otherwise, he would be calling the old man all kinds of names involving stupidity and insanity. As it was, he could kill the rat bastard for giving him this job he was guaranteed to hate with every fiber of his being.
The girl shrugged back. “First a public humiliation, and then this. The place is deserted like Perriman didn’t want any witnesses to whatever comes next.”
She was right that there had to have been at least a hundred witnesses to her departure from Perr
iman’s office. Silently gleeful witnesses. Ahh, if only the guys knew that the old man was up to, they wouldn’t have been so smug to see Zarkos go.
Aloud, he replied, “That’s closer to the truth than you know.”
She looked at him quizzically, but he offered no explanation.
When he’d leaped forward and caught her under the armpits, his right knee had given a mighty shout of protest, shooting daggers up and down his leg in retaliation for that stunt. He tuned into the pain now, breathing through it until it gradually subsided. Zarkos made no move to stand on her own. Probably couldn’t. He knew all too well the shooting agony of the entire body transforming into one giant cramp. He wasn’t far from that, now, in fact.
His pain lessened until his body was finally able to register the sensation of a woman’s body snuggled up close to his. She was curvy. And springy in the right places. She felt like sex in a bottle. “Aww, hell,” he muttered. “You really are a girl, aren’t you?”
She glanced down at her chest. Mashed against his like that, the display of cleavage above the neck of her tank top was impressive, to say the least. “Last time I checked, I’m definitely a girl,” she declared.
An unwilling crack of laughter slipped out of him before he was able to bite it back.
She felt small and weak and…feminine…in his arms. Which went against everything he knew about her. He’d seen her PFT scores and run/swim times. She was a beast by female standards. Best they’d seen come through the pipeline so far.
He felt a little stunned and a whole lot aware of her as every sexual part of her pressed against every sexually corresponding part of him. Worse, she looked ready to have hot monkey sex with him right this very second. All he had to do was say the word. And damned if the word wasn’t hovering right on the tip of his tongue.
He took a small step back, continuing to grasp her upper arms until her legs steadied. Something primal and hungry roared through him as she stared up at him, eyes wide and shocked.
He wanted her. And she wanted him. It was written on her face as clear as day. Which was, of course, madness. He was too appalled by how violently his body was demanding sex—with her—to question what on earth she actually saw in him.
Hot Alpha SEALs: Military Romance Megaset Page 19