HOT SEAL Hero: HOT SEAL Team - Book 7

by Lynn Raye Harris

  Ryan couldn’t help but think that Chloe could benefit from an organization like that. Of course there were women’s shelters and organizations who tried to help women in bad situations, but another one couldn’t hurt. Especially with Ella’s and Quinn’s money behind it.

  Beside him, Chloe yawned. She put the back of her hand over her mouth to cover it, but he didn’t miss it. “Are you ready to go home, Chloe?”

  She nodded. “I think I’m prepared to deal with an invasion of aliens now so, yeah, I’m ready.”

  The guys gathered up their stuff and they all stopped by the sinks to wash up before walking out of the range. They shuffled across the sticky floor that took the gunpowder residue from their shoes and then out the double door to the store part of the range.

  “Thank you all so much,” Chloe said a touch breathlessly once they were outside. It was dark now and the parking lot was beginning to empty. “You’ve all been so great to me. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Bet you do,” Ryan said. She threw him a puzzled look. “Strawberry pretzel salad,” he added. Best damn dessert he’d ever had. Chloe laughed as the guys looked at each other. Except Cowboy. He had a knowing smile on his face—made sense because Miranda was from Alabama too. Not that Ryan knew it was an Alabama dessert, but he was guessing it was at least Southern.

  “Oh, yes,” Chloe said. “I can do that. Y’all will just love it, I swear. I’ll make you some chicken too. Just make sure you don’t let Ryan talk you out of showing up for dinner like he did Neo.”

  The guys all gave him a knowing look. “Talked Neo out of a free meal?” Camel asked. “That’s evil, dude.”

  Ryan grinned as he put his arm around Chloe. She melted into his side. The guys exchanged glances. “Nah, not evil. Just mercenary,” he added.

  Chloe put her arm around his waist. He loved that she felt free enough to do that. “Well, I won’t let him do that to you guys. Promise.”

  It took them all a few minutes to say goodbye, and then they were in his truck and heading back toward home. Chloe had gone from super talkative to quiet once they’d gotten inside the vehicle.

  “You okay?” he asked after the silence stretched.

  “Of course. I was just thinking how different things are since I met you. I’ve been here six months. I love my job and the people I work with, but I haven’t felt settled in, you know? Then I meet you and your friends and it suddenly feels like I have people in my corner. I missed that feeling. Not that I’ve had it in a long time. Travis systemically cut me off from my friends. I can see that now. Yet here you are, introducing me to people and widening my circle. I just hope it lasts, I guess.”

  “Why wouldn’t it last?”

  She gave him a look. “Ryan, we’ve known each other two weeks. We’ve gone from strangers to having sex in what seems like lightning speed to me. I just hope, if the sex part burns out and you decide to move on, that I get to keep the circle of people you’ve shared with me.”

  Logically, he understood what she was saying. Things had gone fast—were going fast—but he really liked her. Felt more proprietary toward her than he could remember feeling toward any woman he’d dated. Was it the fact she needed protecting, or was it just her personality and who she was?

  He didn’t know, but he wanted to find out. “I haven’t had a girlfriend since Megan,” he told her. “I’ve had plenty of short-term hookups—a few days here and there—but I haven’t wanted to spend time outside of bed with any of them. I want to spend time with you. If you want to lay off the sex for a while to prove it, then we can do that. I want you comfortable, Chloe. It seems to me like you haven’t had that in a long time and you deserve it.”

  “Wow,” she said softly. Her hands were in her lap and she was looking down at them. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “What we do next is up to you. As fast or as slow as you like. You set the pace from now on. But I like you, I want to see you, and I’m not going anywhere. And even if we dated and broke up, I’d never tell my friends they couldn’t still be friends with you. None of them would listen even if I did. In case you can’t tell, we’re the kind of guys who make up our own minds about shit. Nobody gets to tell us who we like or don’t like.”

  “Wait—are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”

  He shot her a glance, eyebrow arched. “I thought I was. You didn’t get that from what I said?”

  Chloe’s belly churned with nerves. Not because she didn’t want to be his girlfriend, but because it all seemed too good to be true. “I mean it sounded like it, sure, but I want to be certain I understand you.”

  “You understood. You and me, exclusive. Dating. Sex is up to you, but I won’t push for it.”

  Oh God, how come that made her wet? Just the thought of him letting her take the lead made her nipples tingle and her pussy ache. She needed to take this opportunity and apply the brakes. Just slow them down a little bit, not bring them to a stop.

  Except she didn’t want to. She wanted him buried inside her tonight, taking her to paradise while she clung to him and moaned in his ear. She was desperate to have that.

  “What if I want sex?”

  “You get what you want, baby. Sex, no sex. Heavy petting. Kissing. Or a chaste peck on the cheek. It’s your call.”

  “I think that slowing this train down is a good idea.”

  “Then we will,” he said without a moment’s hesitation.

  “I didn’t finish. I think it’s a good idea—but I don’t want to. I spent so much time being afraid with Travis, but I’m not afraid with you. I feel like slowing down would be wise—but I don’t want to miss anything either. I don’t want regrets. I want to be wild for once. I want to jump off the edge and fly. If I crash and burn, then at least I’ll have had fun along the way—”

  She choked off the flow of words, surprised at everything she’d said but also feeling freer than she had in years. She’d been careful in Cedarville, where everybody knew everybody, and then she’d been under Travis’s thumb. But now?

  Now she was a woman who could sleep with a hot Navy SEAL as often as she wanted. She could have sweet tame sex or hot nasty sex—and nobody could tell her she couldn’t. It was her choice. To please herself.

  Ryan reached over and put his hand on her leg. Squeezed. “I want what you want, Chloe. If you change your mind and want to slow down, then I want it too. But if you want to spend the night wrapped up in each other, then I’m your man. Because I plan to make you feel as cherished and worshipped as you deserve.”

  She put her hand on his. It felt so right to touch him. “It’s crazy how much I like you. I didn’t think I was going to let myself be with a man again for a long, long time. And then you opened the door in your birthday suit.” She shrugged. “Here we are.”

  “To be honest, I figured I didn’t stand a chance with you after that. It was a pretty rude thing to do, though I didn’t do it on purpose. And then there was the state of my, uh, gear.”

  “The state of your what? Oh,” she added when she got it.

  He snorted. “I wasn’t showing to my full advantage.”

  Chloe laughed. “Actually, that would have been scarier. Answering the door naked is kinda understandable. Answering it naked and ready to go is a bit creepy.”

  “Huh, I didn’t think of it that way. Probably right.”

  “Trust me, I am right.”

  He skimmed his fingers along the back of her cheek. She liked the featherlight touch. “So I need to ask you to do something, Chloe.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Okay.”

  “I need you to stay at my place tonight. And I want to take you in through the backyard so if anybody’s watching your house, they don’t see you. After I get you inside, I’ll go back and bring my truck to the drive.”

  “Do you think it’s really necessary?”

  He nodded. “I do. My guys do. We don’t know who sent you that letter today or if they’re really watching you or just escalating the t
hreats. If the letter was due to me spending the night, then yeah, it’s best if we don’t stay there.”

  Chloe felt like someone was squeezing a vice around her lungs. Not because she didn’t trust Ryan, but the idea that somebody was actively out there and forcing her to leave her new home was too much like running away from Cedarville in the middle of the night.

  “I don’t like it, Ryan. But if y’all think it’s best, then that’s what I have to do. I need some clothes, though.”

  “We can get those in the morning. Unless there’s something specific you need.”

  “I don’t have a toothbrush. Pajamas…” She began to realize how silly that sounded as she said it. The pajamas part anyway.

  “I always have extra toothbrushes, and unless you decide you wanna backtrack on the sex thing, you absolutely do not need pajamas. You can borrow a T-shirt if you need one, but mostly I plan to keep you naked and wrapped around me.”

  How was it still possible to blush when he said stuff like that? “Don’t we need to sleep too?” she asked with a grin.

  “We’ll sleep. Sometimes.”

  Fourteen

  Chloe was surprisingly insatiable. Ryan had taken it easy with her because of everything she’d told him about Travis James and her experience with that asshole, but taking it easy was not what she wanted tonight.

  When he’d left her and parked the truck, then came back inside, he’d expected that she might have rethought everything about getting naked with him. She’d said herself that they needed to slow down, though she’d also said she didn’t want to. Which meant he didn’t know what he was going to find when he strode inside his house.

  She’d been waiting for him in the living room, legs crossed, one foot bouncing as she watched the television. He’d walked in and she’d stood. They’d stared at each other for a long minute. Then she’d crossed the room and put her hands on his cheeks, tugging him down so she could kiss him.

  Everything after that was an erotic whirlwind. He’d stripped her naked, then picked her up and carried her to his room. She’d tugged at his clothes, but he’d dropped her on the bed and then dropped between her legs.

  “Ryan,” she’d gasped as he’d shoved her legs open with his shoulders.

  “Yeah?”

  “I want your cock in my mouth.”

  “Fuck,” he’d groaned. “Later.”

  His dick throbbed while he licked her, but he lapped at her folds and sucked her clit until she exploded beneath him. Her juices were sweet and tangy and he thought he might never get enough of her.

  “No,” she said when he tried to lick her again. “I want to do you, too.”

  He lay back and let her rip off his shirt and shove his jeans down his hips. She licked her way to his dick, then took him into her mouth with a moan. He closed his eyes and thought about changing the oil in his truck. Anything to stop the rush of blood from his brain and the rush of semen into his balls.

  Finally, he tapped her. “Up here,” he said. “I want your pussy in my face.”

  At least that would give him something to concentrate on.

  She obeyed him, shifting to plant her knees on either side of his head. When she sank down on his cock again, her tongue gliding along his length, he spread her open with his fingers and lapped at her clit, loving the way she gasped and groaned, the vibrations reverberating into his balls.

  It became a contest with him. If he could make her come first, he could stop her maddening blowjob and fuck her hard, then he could let go of his control. It wasn’t easy. More than once he felt the telltale tingle of orgasm start at the base of his spine. But he held it back, spearing his fingers into her channel and flicking his tongue against her clit. It wasn’t until he pressed a finger to her ass, barely penetrating her there, that she gasped and shuddered with a sharp cry. Her entire body stiffened and he lapped faster as she ground her pussy into his face.

  “Oh my God,” she finally said, rolling away from him.

  He didn’t intend to let her recover. He reached for the condom he’d put on the bedside table, tore the packet and rolled it on. Chloe lay on the bed, flat on her back, her head at the bottom. She watched him with a lazy smile on her face and he felt a hard throb of possession swell inside him.

  Mine.

  Yeah, she was fucking his. He didn’t know if that meant for now or forever or what, but he wasn’t going to dial it back in the least.

  He knelt between her legs, pushing her thighs open. Then he lifted her to him, her ass off the bed as she gasped, his cock poised at her entrance. Her tits were high and firm, her nipples pointing straight up. He bent down and sucked one until she squirmed.

  “Ryan. Please.”

  “Please what, Chloe?”

  She bit her lip, her golden brown hair fanning over his pillows. “Fuck me. I want you to fuck me.”

  He slipped the tip inside her and she moaned. “And what if I want to fuck you hard, then make love to you? What then?”

  Her eyes glazed. “Whatever you want to do to me. I want you to do it.”

  He slipped farther into her. “Why, baby? Why do you want me to do it?”

  Her head rolled on the mattress. “Because it’s amazing with you. Because I love what you do to me. I feel like I could do anything when I’m with you.”

  “You’re so hot, Chloe. I wanted you from the moment I opened the door. Another minute and I’d have gone into creepy territory. Because you were making me hard standing there asking me to move my truck. I was hungover as shit, but I was so attracted to you.”

  “Please, Ryan. Stop talking. Fuck me. Then fuck me again.”

  He pushed forward then, filling her. “Fuck,” he said, his eyes closing. “You feel like nothing I’ve ever felt before. And you should. You’re female. You have a sweet, hot pussy. So why is this different? Why?”

  She arched her back. Moved her hips in a circle. “Because we didn’t mean to? Because it just happened?”

  He’d let her think that if it helped her make sense of this thing between them, but he knew it was different. Crazy different. On some level that worried him, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it right now. He held her wide open, her ass off the bed, and fucked her like that while her moans made him crazy.

  “Touch yourself,” he said.

  Her eyes shot open, but there was no hesitation there. Her pretty fingers slipped down to her pussy, rubbed her clit until she bit her lip and arched her back. “I’m going to come,” she gasped.

  “Come, pretty lady. Come all over me,” he commanded.

  She stiffened beneath him, her eyes rolling back in her head—and then a series of moans erupted from her throat. It was the hottest fucking thing he’d ever seen.

  He waited until her shudders subsided somewhat, then he slipped free of her body and dropped until he could taste her again. She came immediately, yelling his name along with a few choice curse words, until he licked his way up her torso, her tits, before thrusting his tongue into her mouth and kissing her deeply.

  When she sighed beneath him, when her limbs were jelly, he turned her onto her belly, her ass in the air, and impaled her pussy from behind.

  He rode her until he broke, until he poured everything he had into the condom with a harsh groan. Chloe reached between them and rolled his balls in her fingers. He bit her shoulder, then sucked the skin until she moaned low and long.

  Fucking hell, he was never going to be the same again.

  Chloe thought she was done, but she didn’t count on the surge of desire that rolled over her once Ryan returned from disposing the condom. He was so beautiful, his body packed with lean, hard muscle. Every long line of him was perfection. His hair was a bit shaggy, and he had a five o’clock shadow that scraped along her skin with just the right amount of pressure. Not too hard, not too soft. Enough to tweak her nerve endings and make her sensitive to his touch.

  He stopped halfway to the bed and stared at her. His eyes raked over her, left her feeling raw and vulnerable—and
needy. “You’re fucking perfect, Chloe,” he said. “I want to worship your body.”

  She let her legs fall open, wondering where the hell her inner vixen had been hiding for so long. She’d never acted this way with Travis. Sex with him was always fraught with the fear that she might do something wrong and incur his wrath.

  She didn’t worry about such things with Ryan. “Come and worship me, then,” she purred, her heart hammering with excitement.

  He reached into the bedside table and tore off another condom. “Sounds like an excellent plan.”

  It was sometime later when he rolled away and went to take care of the condom a second time. Chloe still shuddered with the power of her orgasm, her body jerking when she least expected it as little ripples of pleasure washed over her. The sex had been every bit as exciting as before, but it’d been more intense this time. Long, wet, deep kisses. Slow strokes of his cock. Long sweeps of his fingers along her skin.

  She’d felt hot tears gathering at one point, tears that he was so tender and thorough. It was too much for her and she’d torn her mouth from his and buried her face in his neck with an excuse about how she couldn’t breathe. Then she’d begged him to do it harder, to take her over the edge faster.

  He’d complied, his fingers digging into her ass and holding her still while he impaled her over and over again.

  And now here they were, once more recovering from hot, sticky, soul-stirring sex. Chloe turned onto her belly, letting the air from the fan cool her heated skin. She hugged the pillow, burying her face in the fabric and inhaling his scent.

  She felt him return. Or maybe she heard him return. Either way, she knew he was back by the changes in her body—her skin prickled with awareness, the fine hairs on her body stood on end, her heart thump-a-thumped in her chest. He bent and pressed a kiss to her ass cheek, then the small of her back, her shoulder, before lying down beside her on his back. He turned his head and their gazes met. He smiled, and her heart tripped over itself.