A SEAL's Surrender (Alpha SEALs Book 3)

by Makenna Jameison

  “What’s up, hun?” Kenley asked. Lexi could hear the television blaring the background along with the whirring of machines and wondered if Kenley was at the gym.

  “I’m at your parents’ condo.”

  “What happened to the hotel?”

  “I’m avoiding someone,” she said with a sigh. She dropped her purse and keys on the kitchen counter and then strode over to the sofa, collapsing. All she had were her own gym clothes, which were still in her bag in the car. At least they were clean. She hadn’t chanced returning to the hotel since she knew Christopher would be lurking around there, ready to pounce and kiss her senseless.

  Senseless really was the right term for it, because whenever she was around that man she couldn’t even think straight. How he managed to make her so mad and simultaneously aroused was beyond belief. They needed to bottle that stuff up as an aphrodisiac and sell it to the highest bidder. That man could convince her to do damn near anything. She’d loved him when she was younger, but that love had been young and innocent. So far their time together this week had been passion-fueled, fast, and furious. Unstoppable. Put them together and you didn’t have sparks, you had a damn explosion.

  Making love on the beach had been sweet and sensual, but yesterday morning on base and last night in the shower? Holy hell. That man got her hotter than anything, and she didn’t trust herself to be left alone with him. He’d actually ripped her panties right off. And damn if that didn’t make her hotter than ever for him. No wonder no other man was able to live up to Christopher—he took control, knew exactly what he was doing, and didn’t let up until she was sated. She’d fallen for the sexy Navy SEAL when she was younger, but this commanding alpha male thing he had going on now was sexier than hell.

  The more time she spent with him, the more she realized how hard it would be to return to the Pentagon. Harder than leaving years ago when she was furious with him. Maybe she could forgive and forget the past, but could she forget this week? He’d try to convince her to do the long-distance thing, no doubt. That or move down here and right in with him. How ironic that she’d been half considering transferring to a military base on the water. Not that she’d mention that to him—he certainly didn’t need more reasons to convince her to stay.

  “Would this someone be a tall, handsome, SEAL by any chance?” Kenley teased, bringing her mind back to the present.

  “Is there any other kind?” Lexi asked with a laugh.

  “I’m going to have to get down there sooner rather than later.”

  “To keep me from making a terrible mistake?”

  “Hell no. To meet some of his hot SEAL friends.”

  “They’re all as hard-assed as him.”

  “And what do you know about their asses? Have you engaged in a little sex with the ex yet?”

  “No comment,” Lexi muttered dryly.

  “You have!” Kenley squealed. “I was planning to come down this weekend. Maybe I should take a few days and get there sooner.”

  “I’ll be working on base all day. But we can hang out in the evenings if you want. Did you talk to Cassidy?”

  “Yeah, she can’t come this weekend.”

  “That sucks.”

  “You still have me. I’ll come down Friday. I can chill out on the beach while you work all day—just as long as you promise to drag some hunky SEALs out for drinks with us Friday night.”

  Lexi sighed. “We’ll see. I’ve got a crazy number of fires to put out down here first.”

  “Is everything okay?” Kenley asked, concern tingeing her voice.

  “Yeah, it’s just a little more complicated than I originally planned.”

  “The guy or the job?”

  “Both,” Lexi admitted. “The job is more complicated than I ever anticipated, and the last man on Earth I expected to see here was Christopher. But I’m glad you can come down this weekend. I’m not so sure this will be wrapped up in one week like I originally thought, so it’ll be nice to get in a little girl time at the beach.”

  “Think we can watch those hunky SEALs training?”

  “You’re relentless,” Lexi laughed. “But I promise, whenever I see Christopher again, I’ll be sure to ask him about his single friends.”

  “Perfect. Talk you later, hun.”

  “Bye.”

  Lexi hung up and glanced around her friend’s condo. It was a little ridiculous to be fleeing here. She didn’t have her suitcase, didn’t have any food or toiletries. She blew out a sigh. Maybe she’d head back to her hotel after all. No doubt Christopher would be swinging by later on, either asking to talk or whisking her off her feet. Maybe both.

  She’d tell him she needed some time to process everything. Certainly he could understand that. Just because they’d been together once long ago didn’t mean it was the right move right now. And until this entire mess on base was settled, she didn’t have the time or energy to devote to man troubles. He made her lose all sense of control when they were together, and she couldn’t think clearly if she spent another night in his arms. Maybe he did want to protect her, but it’s not like anything could happen while she was tucked away safely in her hotel.

  Standing, she walked back to the kitchen and grabbed her purse. Maybe she could order room service back at the hotel and have an early night. Christopher had kept her up until dawn several nights in a row, and with a couple of early mornings at Little Creek, she was running on fumes. Looking around the condo, she realized she’d left her briefcase down in her SUV. This wasn’t a high-crime area, but leaving her laptop and tablet unattended was a bad move. She was more exhausted than she realized.

  Locking up, she walked back out into the parking lot to her vehicle. It stood alone where she’d parked only half an hour earlier, and immediately, she sensed something was wrong. Hurrying over, she saw glass shards from the passenger side window scattered all over the black asphalt, gleaming in the late afternoon sun.

  What the hell?

  The glass crunched under her heels as she hurried to the door. An uneasy feeling of dread washed over her, and she quickly glanced around, making sure whoever had committed the crime wasn’t still around. Her heart quickly palpitating, she scanned the area, clutching her keys tightly in her hand. The metal bit into her skin, but she gripped them even more tightly. If someone was still here, she wasn’t going down without a fight.

  The parking lot was empty, the only sound coming from a few birds chirping in the trees and some traffic down the block. A light breeze blew, rustling the leaves. Goosebumps coated her skin, but she spun around in a complete circle, and there was nothing. No one.

  Her stomach dropped as her gaze fell onto the empty passenger seat. Her briefcase was gone.

  Damn it.

  Should she call the police? Call Christopher? Uncertainly, she looked around again. She could check with the condo office to see if they had surveillance cameras in the lot. Or hack into the nearby traffic cams to see if they’d caught something. A vehicle speeding away would be suspicious, not to mention highly noticeable, but what if the person had been on foot? People were coming and going all the time since they were right near the beach. It might be difficult to pick one person out from a stream of many. They had to have broken in during the past thirty minutes.

  She groaned. All of the info she and Christopher had pulled was stored on her thumb drive. She’d stupidly tucked it away into a zippered compartment in her briefcase, but if the wrong person got a hold of it, they’d have clear insight into all of the research she and Christopher had done on Edwards. Phone records, bank accounts, emails, everything was stored there.

  Shit.

  Hopefully the thief was just some jackass looking for money or electronics. If somehow Edwards or someone else on the IT staff had realized that she and Christopher had been snooping around where they didn’t belong, that could be bad news for everyone. She’d made sure to thoroughly cover her tracks, but damn. She was so exhausted she’d carelessly left her bag in the car. What if she’d mad
e some other careless mistake on base today?

  Worry bloomed inside her chest as she realized the seriousness of the situation. The information they’d retrieved couldn’t fall into the wrong hands. It would jeopardize the investigation, not to mention her and Christopher’s safety. Her chest constricted at the thought of harm coming to him. He was a freaking Navy SEAL—certainly he could handle himself. Why hadn’t she kept the thumb drive on her person? Hell, she could’ve put it in her purse or tucked the damn thing into her bra, just to make sure it never left her sight.

  She closed her eyes briefly as she tried to gather her thoughts. She needed a game plan. First, she’d go back to the hotel. Hopefully the concierge could assist with finding someone to repair her window. She’d call Christopher from there, letting him know they needed to meet ASAP. Maybe they’d involve the police, but if Edwards was somehow behind it, they should notify someone on base instead. And she’d have to call Kenley back, telling her not to come. The situation seemed to be growing more dangerous by the hour, and she didn’t need her friends dragged into this mess, too.

  ***

  Christopher drove down Atlantic Avenue after work, heading to Lexi’s hotel. She’d seemed skittish today, and he wasn’t sure if she was worried about Edwards or worried about him. Hell. He didn’t need to be pressuring her into deciding what to do when this whole incident wrapped up. She’d go back to the Pentagon like planned. He’d drive up to DC to see her some weekends. Give her time to figure out what she needed. And then convince her that he couldn’t live another day without her in his life—forever.

  Now if they could just get this shit with Edwards taken care of, he’d be breathing a hell of a lot easier. The guy seemed suspicious that Christopher had been nosing around the other day—rightfully so. As a SEAL, he didn’t really have a damn good reason to be hanging out in the server room with Lexi. He’d been called to sit in on the initial briefing, but otherwise? He had to lie low, even though he wanted eyes on the bastard every second.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out, glancing down to see his commander’s face flash across the screen.

  Fucking perfect.

  He’d just left base ten minutes ago. If they were calling him back in or sending the team out on an op, he was going to lose it.

  “Walters.”

  “Something’s happened to Lexi,” his CO said.

  Christopher nearly slammed on the brakes as his blood ran cold. He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “Is she okay? What happened?” So help him, if anyone so much as touched a hair on her head, they were a dead man.

  “Her car was found abandoned in a garage on Atlantic Avenue. Door was wide open, engine still running, and Lexi and her belongings missing.”

  “God damn it!” he shouted. “Where the fuck do you think she is?”

  “Don’t know. The Virginia Beach PD contacted security at Little Creek. Apparently her temporary parking ID was hanging from the rearview mirror. They got word to me a few minutes ago, and I figured you’d want to be the first to know.”

  “Damn right,” Christopher said, his voice cold.

  “I’m calling the team in. The fact that Edwards was playing dirty and Lexi was involved in tracing the attempted hackings means we need to track that mother-fucker down. I’d bet my life he’s somehow involved. Get your ass over here ASAP.”

  “Already on my way,” Christopher said, pulling an illegal U-turn in the middle of the road. Cars honked around him, slamming on their brakes, and his tires squealed as he sped up. The engine of his truck roared as he floored it, speeding back to base. If the cops were around to see that, they’d have to chase him all the way there. No way in hell was he stopping. Not when his girl needed him.

  His heart was beating so furiously, it felt like it might pound right out of his chest. “God damn it!” he shouted again, punching the dashboard. His instincts had told him something was wrong, that Lexi could be in danger, and that was the whole damn reason he’d planned to be at her hotel each night. Hell. He should’ve been looking out for her more. He should’ve hacked into the phone network and tracked her GPS, known where she was at every moment.

  The second he arrived on base, he was pulling up her phone records, consequences be damned. He didn’t care if he didn’t have legal authority to hack into the databases, but he wasn’t wasting another second knowing harm had potentially come to his girl.

  And what about the guy at her hotel that had spooked her the other day? Did he have something to do with it, to? That seemed as far out there as any other reason at the moment, but what else did they have to go on? A strange man watching her at her hotel, a traitor on base, multiple attempted hackings. Could anything else go wrong?

  He flew down the road, cruising into the tree-lined street leading to base. He better slow down or the guards would be shooting at him, assuming he was planning to crash through the security barriers. With the way he felt at the moment, he’d take on the whole damn Navy if it meant getting Lexi back to him sooner.

  Chapter 15

  Lexi glanced around the darkened room in a daze as she slowly came to. Her brain felt foggy, like she was trying to remember something but couldn’t quite grasp what it was. Shadows danced across the window, and she couldn’t tell if it was morning or evening. She was cold. Uncomfortable. Her mouth was so dry it felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Her muscles were stiff and sore from the position she’d been sleeping in on the hard floor. She’d been tired earlier, but what the hell had happened after she left Kenley’s condo? Where was she?

  The room was empty save for the thin blanket and lumpy pillow on the ground. She cringed as she sat up, wondering the last time either of them had been washed. Bare cinderblock walls surrounded her, cold and sterile. The concrete floor was equally unwelcoming. Her hands clutched the dingy blanket beneath her as she tried to get her bearings. She still had on her suit from yesterday—or was it today? What time had she left Kenley’s condo?

  She leaned back against the cold wall, her head pounding. She had to think clearly—panicking in this situation wouldn’t do her any good. Had someone taken her here? Was she hurt? She had to try to remember something, to fill in the gaps from leaving the condo and waking up here.

  Glass shards had been all over the ground. Her window, her laptop….

  She heard voices down the hall, arguing, and her chest clenched in fear. Were these the men that had taken her? Bile rose in the back of her throat as the sound began getting louder, the men getting closer. What did they want with her?

  Her heart began to pound as the footsteps approached the room she was in. She felt nauseated and dizzy. She desperately wanted lie back down as the room began to spin, and she forced herself to take a deep breath, drawing in precious oxygen. She was tired. Disoriented. She needed to stay alert.

  The footsteps stopped at the door. A key turned the lock.

  She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest as the door opened. A man’s designer shoe stepped in, and she looked up, taking in the man in the slick suit from her hotel. Another expensively tailored suit hung from his tall frame now. He was almost the height of Christopher, but not nearly as broad or strong. Not a piece of slicked back hair was out of place, and without his sunglasses, she could look right into his black, beady eyes. The overpowering, potent scent of his cologne permeated the room. She resisted the urge to vomit.

  Hell.

  He smirked as he watched her, a smile playing about his lips. “I don’t think we’ve properly met,” he said in a thick foreign accent.

  “Where the hell am I?”

  “Feisty, I like that. I can tell you’re going to be a lot of fun.”

  She hugged herself more tightly so he wouldn’t see her tremble. This guy wasn’t so big—she could get in a few good jabs. Too bad her head was so foggy. Given the chance, she’d rip his balls right off if he tried anything. But certainly he wasn’t here all alone. She’d heard voices in the hall a moment ago. Even
if she did somehow manage to harm him, then who would come for her? And which was worse, the enemy you knew or the one you didn’t…?

  “Why am I here?” she asked, struggling to stand. Her legs felt like jelly. She couldn’t run from him if she wanted to.

  He appraised her, beady eyes scanning over her body. The hunger in them scared her more than her confinement in this room. This man had watched her at her hotel. Followed her. Found her. The last thing she remembered was driving back after leaving Kenley’s condo. She’d made it to the parking garage, hadn’t she? It felt like something was missing, like she couldn’t recall what had happened next….

  “You have information I need.”

  “I’m not telling you anything!”

  He took a step closer, and she leaned back. Sitting on the ground, leaning against the hard wall, she had nowhere to go. She needed to stand up—to fight him off if necessary. Clumsily, she struggled to get to her feet. Her hands sought purchase on the wall, and as he watched her, she finally made it to a standing position. She leaned back against the cool wall to keep from swaying.

  “You and your friend have been investigating someone on base. I need that information.”

  “Like hell you do.”

  “I think you’ll cooperate when you see what I have to show you.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, struggling to fight through the haze in her brain.

  “Ah, I think my men may have given you too much.”

  Her mind swam. She’d been drugged. No wonder she couldn’t remember a damn thing. What day was it? Christopher was supposed to meet her at the hotel. He’d realize she was missing. But was it night yet? Or had she been out of it for several days?

  She had no sense of time—she could’ve been in this room for hours or a week. The man reached into his suit jacket, and she stiffened. She was almost relieved to see him pulling out photographs.

  He took a step toward her, and she darted to the side, stumbling.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said in a thick accent.