“Their movements are lethargic, and something is bothering me.”
Lacey turned her well-trained eyes to the men fighting back and forth. Heim, who’d returned to convalesce with his team because he had a personal doctor—namely Rose—watching over his care, was just steps away from them. His blue eyes snapped with aggravation as the two men kept fighting. He yelled something at them, but Welsh laughed and kept going. What were they doing?
“I can’t see much from this distance, but it just looks like fatigue, and maybe some dehydration. If they stopped and took in some liquids, they’d recover soon enough,” Lacey answered.
Rose grunted. Yeah, that could be it. It was the most likely explanation for their symptoms, and more often than not, doctors learned very quickly to go with the most basic answer first. Every illness wasn’t one that would put them in the scientific journals for finding the answer. But when she got close enough, Welsh’s unfocused glance sent her into overdrive.
“Lacey, get me my gear, right now!” Rose yelled, even as she raced toward the fighters. Stupid, stupid men. What was it with sailors and not giving up? With putting themselves at risk to prove physical prowess. She didn’t care how good they were trained, the body could only handle so much. She reached them just as Big Boss threw a chop. At her height, it would tap her brachial artery and take her down. She hadn’t thought of the danger when she rushed in.
“Pull back!” Heim cried, but it didn’t matter. Welsh, unfocused and sweating profusely, grabbed her, tipping the world on its axis. She was surrounded in sweat, body heat, and the musky sent of Welsh as he curled around her and took the brunt of the blow. He fell to his knees, taking her down with him, his heart pounding hard against her back.
“Are you … okay?” he slurred.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
His teammate jumped in front of her. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t pull away in time,” Big Boss told her.
“What is wrong with you guys?” she screeched, getting her bearings back “He’s clammy, hot to the touch, his pupils are dilated, and his pulse is erratic.”
“I told them to stop,” Heim answered, glaring at Big Boss.
“He kept going with me,” Big Boss said, and there was respect and anger wrapped up in those words.
“I don’t care why. We need to get him into the hospital,” Rose argued. Lacey plopped down next to her, giving Rose her stethoscope, torch, and gear to assess the patient. Welsh’s tongue was swollen in his mouth, sticking to the roof as she used a tongue depressor to check it. “We’re going to test him standing after one minute. Let’s get him up.”
Lacey gripped one arm, but Big Boss moved her, and Heim assisted him in lifting Welsh to his feet.
“Shouldn’t he be lying down?” Snake asked.
“Dehydration has several symptoms. He’s got a temperature of 102.6, and that’s dangerous, but the best way to tell if it’s because of dehydration is what his pulse and heartrate are. When you stand up, there is a normal drop in blood pressure for a few seconds. But once the heartrate picks up, the blood pressure normalizes. But if he does indeed have dehydration, his heartrate will increase, but the pressure won’t normalize. You may feel a little faint or dizzy,” she told Welsh.
He nodded, but it was more a listless glide of his head. And then he puked, all over their feet.
Chapter Thirteen
Welsh slept for eight hours straight, and Rose kept vigil.
She didn’t have to, of course, but she’d decided he was her patient, and she wasn’t going to pass him off to one of the other doctors. A steady stream of fluids pumped into his system intravenously, and she was satisfied with his heartrate, oxygen saturation, and blood pressure. While it hadn’t been life threatening at the time, it could have very well turned into such a situation. She still didn’t understand what the guys had been trying to prove, but his teammates had been in and out to visit the entire time, and Big Boss never left. Like her, they watched over Welsh in silence.
She wanted to wake him up just so he could knock him out again. She thought his anger had gotten better, that he wasn’t so set to fight and strain himself, but it seemed that maybe she was wrong. Maybe a relationship with her wouldn’t fix it, and he’d need more help once they returned stateside. As a doctor, she knew all about PTSD and the real dangers it could present for military personnel when they returned home. But Welsh hadn’t seemed to be getting worse. She looked up at Big Boss, searching for answers.
“What happened?”
“Wait for him,” was all the answer she got back.
“Yeah, that seems to explain things a lot.”
Big Boss smiled and shook his head, but he didn’t say anything more. In rest, Welsh was beautiful. If his rugged handsomeness took her breath away when his eyes were open, without the draw of his personality lighting her up like a Christmas tree, she was still just as drawn to him. She craved to trace her fingertips across his full lips, as well as the faint scars across his chest and arms telling stories of barely survived battles. He’d relaxed from trained killing machine to simply a man, with broken pieces and barely working parts.
“Rose.”
Her gaze swung to Welsh, and the impact of that same connection, the pull drawn taut between them, swung back into focus. It was always the same. She wanted to feel his touch on her, take him to bed and have him sate the desire between her legs. Never in her life had she ever been this attracted to anyone, and it made her throat go dry. He was dangerous, this man, who, with just her name, made her knees weak.
“It’s good you’re awake. I’ll go get the rest of your team.”
Rose backed away from his bed, unable to break eye contact, and Big Boss shifted. Then Welsh’s hand thrust out and caught her wrist. His touch burned her and sent lava rushing through her veins.
Big Boss stood. “I’ll go get the guys.”
“Heim will probably threaten to bust us down,” Welsh said, but Rose didn’t know what he meant. His eyes never left hers, but it was Big Boss who responded.
“I’m blaming it all on you. But find someone else the next time you want some personal time with your woman.”
Big Boss left, and the door closing echoed loudly behind her. She was closed in, close and yet too far from Welsh. “What is he talking about?” she asked to cover the thick silence.
Welsh smiled, his thick brogue curling her toes when he spoke. “You think I don’t know how to deal with hydration properly when I’m on smoke out?”
“Smoke out?”
“The punishment Big Boss and I got,” he answered. “I know how to hydrate, Rose.”
His tongue curled around her name, and heat spread from her groin outward to her extremities. Through the fog, his words registered. He’d lied.
“You purposely let yourself get sick?”
“I hear you’re on a three-day-off rotation, and it’s been shifted since you accepted a patient.”
How the hell did he know that? “You faked sleeping!”
He smiled harder, pulling her closer to the bed. “That was the easiest part. Convincing Big Boss to help me go to exhaustion like that took more work, but he’d beat some sense into my head, so I needed to pay him back anyway. The display was enough for him.”
“You could have died,” she warned.
“I know the gorgeous doctor, you know? One I’ve been itching to get back into bed.” Welsh wagged his eyebrows at her, and Rose couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“I’m in love with a comedian,” she said, shaking her head.
The door opened behind her, and the room shrank as five Navy SEALs piled in.
“I ought to break your neck,” Heim argued.
“I love you, too. Oh, did I mention she just told me she loved me? It totally worked, man,” Welsh told him.
“You fainted, in the middle of your puke, you know,” Snake said. His eyes twinkled with mirth.
“I’ve got pictures, and Vixen is already posting it on the intranet,” Cry B
aby told him.
Welsh sat up in bed. “You tell her, if anyone sees that picture, I’ve got some lovely audio from the restroom at DFAC.”
“You son of a bitch,” Cry Baby hissed.
“It isn’t nice to play with operation toys,” Glitz said, but he couldn’t hold back his laughter.
“Why not? You’re the one who got it for me,” Welsh returned.
Cry Baby ran out of the room, already dialing on his SAT phone, probably to get Vixen to pull down the photos.
“You really got them going at it in the cafeteria bathroom?” Heim asked.
“Of course not, but he doesn’t have to know that.”
The guys roared with laughter. Then Heim sobered. “Don’t do this shit again. You want time off, ask for it like a normal human being.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Welsh answered.
“How long is your leave, Dr. Delgado?” Heim asked.
“Uh, three days, starting at midnight tonight. Why?”
Heim nodded. “You have Cinderella leave until three days from now, sailor.”
“Hooyah.”
The SEALs left the room, leaving Rose confused and trapped with Welsh.
“Get in this bed, Rose, and tell me again that you love me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Welsh’s heart pounded so loud it rang in his ears as Rose climbed on the bed and straddled his lap.
“This wasn’t the way to get time off with me,” she admonished.
“Tell me again,” he said.
“Welsh.”
“That’s not what I asked for,” he argued.
“And I’m telling you that fighting until you pass out from dehydration is not the way to get a woman into your bed.”
“It is if I promise to make said woman’s legs like jelly by the time I’m done.”
Rose rolled her eyes at him. “Does that line work on all your girls?”
“Just a moment, let me ask them.” He turned toward her with a frown, as serious as he could be. “Rose’s alternate personalities, did that work on you guys?”
He chuckled when she slapped his arm. “You’re in a hospital bed, hooked up to an I.V. Behave yourself.”
“I’m not interested in behaving. Besides, you can unhook all of this, can’t you?”
“I suppose.”
“Come on, baby. Three little words, and then I can give you what you need.”
Rose took her bloody time, of course, unhooking his I.V. and disconnecting him from the sensors attached to his skin. Her touch only enflamed him as he waited for her to get rid of the equipment and get back to the matter at hand, like telling him she loved him again. When she finished, she worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
“I still can’t hear you,” he told her.
“Jesus, you don’t give it up, do you?”
“No, I don’t. Stamina is sort of my thing.”
She snorted and shook her head. “I love you, Thomas.”
Welsh closed his eyes, taking in her words, letting them soothe places he hadn’t realized were frayed. Her dark hair was down around her shoulders in a delicate wave, and she still wore her lab coat over jeans and a t-shirt. A little too much clothing, but he simply stared at her. Over the last two years, his life had been a whirlwind of ups and downs, a rollercoaster of hell and high water, but he’d survived it. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to get Rose, but he wasn’t going to let her go. He bunched his fists into the slack of her shirt and slowly pulled her forward.
“Who answers their Nation’s Call, when the enemy is at the gates, and hell is on its heels? I do, a man bred and forged by the fires of adversity, and hardened by the training of my forefathers. There is no one more loyal than I, for my country or my team, because I am a Navy SEAL. My Trident is both my weapon and my promise, to uphold the oath I make today: it is my blood that shall be shed, my back to shield, and my skin and bones to fight for you, my Nation. Because I am a Navy SEAL. You, Rose Delgado, are now my Nation, my country, and my team. The reason I hold my Trident tight. Because I am a Navy SEAL, and I belong to you.”
By the time Welsh finished, their mouths were inches apart, and he closed the gap to claim her mouth. Rose melted against him, going languid as he buried his fingers into her hair and held her still. With each pass of his tongue, he rocked his hips against her, pressing the seam of her denim against her hot pussy. He wanted in, her body, her heart, her very soul. He wanted to fill her up so she’d carry him with her wherever she went, no matter how far away he was. Things may have happened fast between them, but he didn’t doubt the way he felt about her, or the feeling that she was it for him. He’s spend the rest of his life proving she’d made the best choice taking a chance on him.
Tired of not feeling her skin to skin, he flipped them on the rickety hospital bed and broke their kiss. Her lab coat went first, and then each article of clothing followed until her bronze skin was revealed. Her large breasts bobbed with each of her shaky breaths, and he sucked one nipple into his mouth, even as he slipped a finger inside her.
“Oh,” she moaned, and he wanted more.
Welsh worked her with his fingers, sending her into a feverous pitch as he alternated between one nipple and the other. Rose bucked and groaned beneath him, but he didn’t let her relax. It had been weeks since he’d had her, and if he didn’t take her soon, he’d explode. When her tight little nails buried their way into his arms, he twisted his fingers inside of her so his palm could rub her clit. Her pussy clenched around him, and she choked out a broken scream as she came.
“Fuck, yes,” he groaned.
He didn’t hesitate to replace his fingers with his cock and slam his way inside. The bed under them squeaked with each rock of his hips, but he was too far gone to care. Welsh made love to Rose, hard and fierce, just like his need for her. His balls tightened against his body, and the pleasure spiraled in his gut. He pressed into her harder, riding her and grinding his groin against her clit to give her extra stimulation. She arched her back, head thrown back with a silent scream as he roared his climax. But it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. Still hard and needing more, he lifted one of her legs over his shoulder. The change in position sent him sliding deeper inside of her, and he groaned. Delicious aftershocks of his climax sizzled across his cock with each stroke.
“I love you, Rose,” he whispered, and buried his face in her neck.
They rocked together, rolling through their desire, riding over the crashing wave they’d created. Sweat slid down his back, her fingers massaged his shoulders, and he lifted her other leg to dig deeper. A tingle spread through his bloodstream, choking off any sound or thought. Welsh blindly jerked against her, too lost to think rationally. But she was there, moaning and twisting with each stroke. Rose pushed him higher and higher until he hollered, voice hoarse, and came inside her again.
“I plan to spend the next three days in bed with you,” Rose said with a smile.
Welsh laughed and nipped her neck. “Probably should extend that to the rest of your life.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
THE END
Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Protecting Heartbeat (Kindle Worlds Novella) (SEALed Fate Book 4) Page 6