Who was this man? Where on the planet had he come from? The right side of his body was completely covered in tats, designs with parallel lines and swirls she was certain meant something. Everything about him was sculpted and toned as if he was a bodybuilder. His thighs were larger than the diameter of her waist. When he walked, she could see muscles in his butt cheeks flex and release. She held the towel between her legs, mesmerized by the sight of him.
“You okay, Kiley? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No.” It was all she could say.
“You want some help with that?” he nodded to the towel he’d given over to her.
She didn’t know how to answer. She finally burst out laughing. “You’ve taken all my words away, Jason.” It really was funny, this effect he’d had on her. “I’m a newspaper reporter and I don’t have a thing to say.”
He lay on his side next to her, propping his head up with his elbow, and lazily ran his fingers up and down her midsection. There were no sexual parts there, but the movement itself was so stimulating, she had the urge to kiss him again.
She touched his cheek. Her forehead leaned against his. Their legs were still entangled.
“Tell me something,” he whispered.
She pressed her forefinger over his mouth, rubbing back and forth.
“Tell you what?” she whispered as she watched her finger travel over the fullness of those lips that could drive her wild.
“Tell me how you feel.”
She palmed his cheek, drew her face to his, and whispered. “Like you’ve charmed me with a spell I will not recover from.”
His fingers stopped sifting through her hair, and for a few seconds, she thought perhaps she’d said something wrong. Then his face broke out into a wicked grin.
“What?” she softly demanded. She studied the designs that covered his shoulder and upper arms, the pads of her fingers traveling over the exquisite artwork as if it was a relief.
“I’m a medic. So I will bring you to the edge and then a little further. And then I’ll catch you when you fall. I’ll work my magic on you, revive you, and make you need my healing ways.”
She blinked. It was a strange answer. But it completely fit.
“So you are addicted then? Is that what you’re saying?” She continued touching his lips.
“I hope so. As I think you are to me, Kiley. I like the way you taste, the way you move. I like what you show me in your eyes and in your heart.”
She nodded, even though she was incapable of any serious concentration. “What are all these designs?”
“They’re warrior designs. Some of these patterns have covered the men of my family for generations.”
“Are you a warrior, Jason?”
“I am.”
“For real?”
“I am.”
“Like a cage fighter or something?”
He rolled over on his back, laughing so hard he began to cry. With his arm over his forehead, she noted that they were the size of her thighs. The lines almost appeared to come alive as the muscles moved underneath. Even his belly laugh was sexy.
“You obviously work out,” she posed.
“Yes, I do. I do every day.”
“Like you pull trucks by rope with your bare hands or something? You do—what?—a hundred sit-ups without getting winded? Could you pick up this bed and hold it over your head?”
“I’ve never tried those things.” He rose up just enough to kiss her again. “I get to do cool stuff. I’m a man of action. That’s what we call it.”
“We? You part of some alien space force or something?”
“Hardly, Kiley. I’m just a man.”
“Just a man you say. Just a man. You made love like five times last night. Now I suppose you’ll tell me the bad news. You’re part of some ancient brotherhood cult and you run naked and throw telephone poles.”
“Now, that I’ve actually done. Well, with some help from my friends.”
“Do your friends look like you?”
“No. We’re all different. We come from all over the world.”
“You all have these markings?” she asked.
“Well, some of us do. Not like these, though. And I don’t run naked down the beach, but some probably that have. But these types of tats are special. These are a chronicle of my heritage, my Polynesian ancestral heritage, Kiley. So, someone else’s would be different.”
“So, what are you, a big soccer team?” She knew that was wrong. “Maybe not soccer. Soccer players are skinny. But how about Rugby then?”
“I love Rugby. We have a Hawaiian form of Rugby that’s even more challenging. And there’s a famous Rugby team who do Maori chanting before their games. Ever heard of the All Blacks Haka?”
“The what?”
“It’s a Maori All Blacks Haka. I’ve watched them several times. They do this chant that scares the liver out of the opposition.”
Kiley had never known a Rugby player.
“So are you a sports figure of some kind?”
“No.”
He knew she was pressing for answers and wasn’t going to give her any until he was good and ready to. She hoped that he wasn’t going to keep secrets, but she’d play along for a bit.
“I know,” she giggled. “You’re a personal trainer!”
His eyes roamed down her frontside. He angled his head to take a different view. “Would you like that?”
“I think I’d find it distracting,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “I’d probably drop the weights on my foot, something like that.”
“Why do you say that?” He gently brushed the hair from her face.
“I’m just a klutz, that’s all. Not very coordinated.”
“It’s just a matter of training. With focus and discipline, you can make your body do anything you want it to do.”
“Can you heal the dead?”
She realized right away the mistake she’d made. He sat up and turned his back to her.
“Jason, I’m sorry about that comment. That was stupid of me. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay,” he said to his lap.
But she could tell something was eating a hole in his heart. She waited. Finally, he turned, flipping onto his stomach and peered into her eyes.
“I’d give anything to be able to do that. Life is random. We do the best we can, but sometimes, that’s not good enough. He didn’t have to die. He shouldn’t have died. But he did, and I was spared. There have been times when I’ve beat myself up about that. But it is what it is.”
“And you’re going to honor him by living well,” she said, stroking his forearm. She let her fingers mate with his, examining the roughness, the cuts and divots made in his flesh. He used his hands for something, and he obviously worked hard. She drew his palm to her cheek and held it there, returning his gaze.
Then she drew his hand down her frontside, guiding him to the juncture between her legs. She felt shy all of a sudden.
“Sorry.”
“You sure apologize a lot, Kiley. Don’t ever apologize for things you don’t mean to. It’s the way you are. And…” he said as he placed his hand under her thigh and bent her knee, “I find you perfect just the way you are. This is magic,” he said before he kissed her belly button. “And I’m in the mood for a whole lot more.”
Kiley’s cell phone rang, waking them up. It was Carmen. She took the call in the living room.
“Hey there,” she whispered. “So Newman put you on the story.”
“Was that your doing? Because I’m not happy.” Carmen was smart, but Kiley had always felt their communications started way too adversarial. “He should have finished your work instead of taking me off my desk.”
“Between you and me, Carmen, he’d have fucked it up, and you know this.”
“I don’t dig seeing naked women horribly brutalized and left for dead, Kiley. I cannot understand how you get off on that shit.”
She could tell changing her mind was going to be a wast
e of time, so she didn’t argue with her. “Just give it a few days, and if you can’t, you can’t.” She sighed. “And for the record, I don’t get off on it. I’m trying to see to it that it stops happening.”
“Well, there you go again. Saving the world, Kiley. That’s not my gig. I don’t want to dig into the crap, seedy underbelly of society. I want to experience the excitement of life, not muck around in detritus. Look, it’s not that I can’t. I don’t want to.”
“But you’ve always been in favor of defending the little guy. That’s what you’re all about, Carmen. This is a wrong that has to be exposed.”
“Yeah, is that what you’re doing? Run off to lie on the beach in Florida?”
Panic began to seep into her veins with a cold fear that someone, probably her editor, had not kept her secret safe. The betrayal hurt.
“Who told you that?”
“Everyone knows, Kiley.”
“In just a couple of days, I’ll be sending in the end of the series. Then I’m going to turn in all my notes to the police and let them do the rest. After that, I’ll be coming back. You just do your investigation and feed me some of the facts, and I’ll help steer you where I think your investigation has promise. I’ve spent a lot of time studying this whole ring of bad boys. I’ve even met many of the players.”
“Is it true someone killed your cat?” Carmen asked.
“Yes. And slashed my tire.”
“And you don’t think I’d be in any danger, Kiley?”
“Not after I publish my story. But you’ll have all the background to do a killer follow-up. That’s something I’m just handing you, Carmen. If we expose this ring and get the light of justice shining down on them, you’d be helping the community. Heck, you might even get a medal for it. There could be a Pulitzer in it for you.”
Carmen agreed to scan and send pictures and a copy of the reports on file. Kiley gave her a couple of women’s shelters she could go interview, including the name of one of her sources who had been nearly killed in a botched trafficking event.
“I’ll call you back in two days, and if you have questions, put them in an email. No messaging. I won’t have this phone when I call back, so don’t try, okay?”
“Geez, this is all very cloak and dagger-like.”
A dark cloud of worry fell over Kiley when she considered that perhaps Carmen hadn’t taken her cautions seriously enough.
“Be smart. Don’t talk about it to anybody but Corbin, and even then, don’t tell him everything. Don’t leave your notes around your apartment or at your desk at the paper. If we’re careful, we could be doing a really great thing for the Portland community. But it also extends way beyond our city.”
“I’m on it. Look for that email in an hour or so, Kiley.”
“Thanks. You’re going to be great. Oh, and Carmen, no more talk about Florida. I’m not there. That was just a ruse.”
“Okay, if you say so.” Carmen hung up.
When Kiley turned around, Jason was standing against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t look happy.
She wondered how much of her conversation Jason heard. Before she could try to give an explanation, he straightened up, his fists clenched at his sides.
“What the hell are you into, Kiley?”
“I can explain, Jason. I can explain it all—well, most of it, anyway.”
“You fuckin’ better. Just answer this question first, are you doing anything illegal here, because if you are, I cannot be involved. And I can’t know anything about it.”
“No. Come. Sit down, and I’ll tell you what I can.”
He sat across the coffee table from her, again crossing his chest with his arms, waiting.
“I’m working on a story for the Columbia Passage. That’s the big newspaper in Portland, where I live. I’ve uncovered some facts about a human smuggling ring operating out of several shelters in the area. I’ve been working on this story now for nearly two years. And I’ve so far published three installments. I’m about to publish the last one, but before I could get it done, I started getting death threats by phone. I got some letters at the office too. Someone broke into my apartment and trashed the place. Luckily, neither I nor my roommate were home at the time.”
“Who did this?”
“The police said kids.”
“And why don’t you believe them?”
“Because, Jason, they cut up my cat. They gutted him and left him on the couch. It was horrible. And then the next day, someone slashed one of my tires at the paper.
“But you don’t know specifically who.”
“We have problems with street gangs in Portland like every big city in the U.S. I think some of the City staff are somehow connected. There are some city-sponsored women’s shelters created by the Mayor and his task force. But they may not be so innocent as far as how they handle teen runaways and battered women. They have a lot of young immigrant girls. And my research has led me to believe there are organized crime figures involved. They might have compromised certain city officials, too. My editor says the Mayor has asked that I stop publishing the stories, that it sheds a negative light on their good works. He also said it might be dangerous—to me.”
“He actually said that?”
“He told my editor he got an anonymous call. It was a warning.”
“That’s an understatement. You have police involved, right?”
“Only for the burglary. They filed it primarily as an animal cruelty case since nothing was taken. That’s all. I didn’t offer anything about the investigation I was doing. I guess they didn’t put it together, so not really. Not yet at least.”
“Kiley, this is absurd. You can’t take this on all by yourself.”
“I’ve got the backing of the paper on this. The power of the press and public opinion will definitely be on my side after I’m finished. I just want to lay out the evidence so the public sees everything. If I go to the officials, they’ll find some way to bury it. I know they will. But if I get the public on their cases, we have a much better shot at exposing them and hopefully getting them rooted out.”
“This is your plan?”
“Well yes, that’s my plan.”
“Fuck.”
“Hey, that’s not nice.”
“Somebody’s gotta tell you the truth. How the heck did you get involved in this story?”
She sucked in air, proud that she’d been trusted with this very important assignment. “My editor gave it to me for a series on runaway girls in the Portland area, except that the more I looked into things, the wider my search became. The story started out about a young illegal immigrant disappearing. But now we’re looking at ten missing girls. Only four of them have been found. I’ve got to wrap this up, finish my story, and then lie low for a while.”
“You think? Like forever.”
“I hope not.”
“So that’s what you do. You’re an investigative journalist?”
“Yes.”
“And you thought, when I met you at the beach, what? I was one of the bad guys, like a hit man?”
She avoided his stare.
“Look at me, Kiley. Is that what you thought? I mean you were that scared?”
“Well, yes. Jason, I’m probably blowing it out of proportion. But my mind just isn’t letting me relax, so I’ve been seeing bad guys everywhere. I finally had to leave Portland and go somewhere I felt safe.”
He shook his head.
“Unbelievable,” he mumbled. “You’re wrong, Kiley. There are no safe places. I’ve seen firsthand what these cabals do. I’ve seen what lengths they’ll go to keep anyone from interrupting their operation. You do not want to be messing with them. Trust me on that.”
Kiley sat back. A whole new set of questions started flashing in her mind.
She began slowly, needing to unpack her concerns, one question at a time. It was rather backwards, she realized. Here she’d slept with the man, and now she wanted to know who he was. Her Aunt Itoldy
ouso was having a temper tantrum inside her brain.
Kiley, what have you done?
“I know you’re not a Rugby player. What exactly is it you do, then?”
“I’m a Navy SEAL.”
Chapter 7
By early afternoon, and they’d basically stayed in bed nearly the whole time, even while she was peppering him with questions about his SEAL training. He was careful to reveal just enough to satisfy her and not lead to more questions. Jason knew he was overdue with the check-in and Andy’s house would be wondering where he was. They didn’t realize he was a mere six or seven houses down from them.
His concern for Kiley’s safety bothered him so much that he needed to make a call to his LPO, Kyle Lansdowne, but out of earshot of Kiley. Although it frustrated Team guys from time to time, they all knew they were prohibited from interfering with any domestic criminal behavior. Recently, the Navy had made examples of SEALs trying to blur that line. He didn’t want to be one of the casualties, just because he was trying to help someone do something for the good of society.
Convincing Kiley would be another story, though. She’d already asked for his help, suggesting he be her bodyguard.
“You don’t get it. I’m supposed to be working up to our next mission overseas. I can’t just take off and play policeman.”
She’d agreed with him, but he could see she wasn’t happy about it. He needed some guidance. He considered talking to Andy, but since he was on his way to Team 4 and wasn’t in a leadership position either, he decided against it. Cory would be a loose cannon. Damon, if he stopped by, would probably be no better.
The other thing that bothered him was that perhaps he’d involved them all too much already. He was certain Kiley had no clue what she was getting into. She had a fantasy about making the world a safer place. That was his job, and it involved a hell of a lot more sacrifice than most people would even want to know about. He certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. She already had some TV notion of what a SEAL was. And that wasn’t her fault. Everyone underestimated and misunderstood them all, but that was how the Teams wanted it to be. The less the general public knew about them the better. If they did their job well, everyone would be safe at home and they’d know nothing about what really lurked outside the borders of the U.S.
Escape To Sunset: One Night Stand Romance-Hiding From The Mob (Sunset SEALs Book 4) Page 6