SEAL's Embrace

by Elle James

  She shrugged. “He’s got a great body and it doesn’t hurt to look. But no, I’m not interested.” Tracy’s shoulders relaxed and she gave Erin a soft smile. “You should give him a chance. Not all men are dicks.”

  Erin snorted. “Right, from the woman who has ‘Back Off!’ tattooed across her forehead whenever a man comes near. What about the SEAL they call Irish? He seems to have taken a fancy to you.”

  Tracy crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not ready to start something new. My divorce was only final two months ago. And this conversation isn’t about me.”

  “No, and I’m sorry. At least I wasn’t married to Matt when he cheated on me.”

  Tracy’s lips tightened and she twisted an imaginary ring around her finger as if the weight of her wedding ring was still there. “Yeah, you were lucky to dodge that bullet. Divorce is expensive and emotionally draining.” The nurse pushed back her shoulders. “So, what are you doing about this attraction you’re feeling?”

  Fighting it with every fiber of my being and losing terribly. With a weak smile, Erin raised her hands, palms up. “Nothing. I rotate out of here in two months. I’m thinking of resigning my commission and finding a job at a clinic somewhere in Virginia.”

  “And give up flying as part of the team?” Tracy wrapped her arms around Erin and gave her a big hug. “You should give yourself a chance at love, sweetie.”

  “But I can’t see that happening if I’m always flying somewhere. I want to find a man whose feet are firmly on the ground and who isn’t gallivanting around the world.”

  “Picking up a girl at each stop?”

  Erin nodded. “Exactly.”

  “I hear ya, girl.” Tracy hugged her again. “In the meantime, a woman has needs. What are you doing about those?”

  “I packed my vibrator. And extra batteries. That will be more than enough.”

  “Uh huh. Right.” Tracy’s lips quirked. “My vibrator is the single most-used appliance I have and it still isn’t enough. If only men were as reliable as a vibrator. All I have to do is keep new batteries around. The silver bullet goes with me everywhere. But it’s not warm and doesn’t have arms that can wrap around me.”

  “That’s perhaps the one thing I miss most about Matt. He was okay in bed. Nothing to get excited about. And a warm body beats a cold vibrator any day.”

  Tracy sighed. “Maintaining a relationship when we’re deployed as often as we are is too hard.”

  “I know. And only a special man will accept that you’ll be gone.”

  “Tell me about it. A man who isn’t afraid of a woman in uniform. One who is loyal to a fault and always glad to see you when you get home.”

  Shaking her head, Erin laughed. “We’d probably be better off getting a dog.”

  “See? It’s not just me.”

  “I know. I’m the pot calling the kettle black.”

  Tracy’s brows furrowed. “Aren’t you on call tonight?”

  “I am.”

  A frown wrinkled her forehead and her friend crossed her arms over her chest. “Then why aren’t you sleeping?”

  “My building is too hot. I can’t sleep.”

  “Well, things are slowing down now and we don’t need you on the floor, so get out of here and sleep.”

  “Why? It’s not like we’ll be going up. Things have been pretty quiet lately.”

  Tracy squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, baby, I hope you didn’t just jinx us.” She glanced around for a wood surface and knocked on it. “Last time you bet we wouldn’t get hit by casualties, we had a mass casualty event when that suicide bomber struck in town.”

  “Sorry.” Erin grimaced. “I don’t wish disaster on anyone. The best nights on call are those where we sleep all the way through the shift.” Wishing she’d kept her big mouth shut, Erin knocked on the wooden surface of a desk. “Okay, I’m leaving. Maybe I’ll read awhile in my bunk. It’ll help me calm down and I’ll forget that I need to get laid.”

  Tracy smiled. “If you need to get laid, I know a SEAL who’d be more than happy to accommodate you.”

  On the way to her quarters, Erin’s thoughts pivoted to that SEAL who’d stolen a single kiss. Damn him to hell. If he hadn’t managed to catch her off guard, that would never have happened.

  Yeah, right.

  The devil on her shoulder snorted, telling her that she’d wanted it from the first visit she’d tended him at the sick call clinic. At that time, she hadn’t realized he’d cut his finger on purpose. And then he’d done it two more times, which was stupid, and kinda cute at the same time. What moron cut himself just to see a girl?

  One Hispanic SEAL named Caesar Sanchez with brown-black hair and eyes so dark they were almost black. Top that with his broad muscular chest and a rash of tattoos across his biceps and shoulder blades, and he had too-hot-to-handle written all over him. He was the kind of man her mother warned her about when she’d first entered the military.

  Hadn’t she learned not to fall for a man in the military? Captain Matthew Callahan had taught her that much. A larger-than-life F-16 pilot, he’d swooped in, wooed her, taken her to bed while he’d been screwing another woman at a different base. Hell, from what she’d learned later, he had a conquest in every base around the world. She’d just been stupid to fall for his blond good looks and cocky swagger. He hadn’t even been all that good in bed, more worried about getting off than making sure she was satisfied.

  Navy SEAL Caesar Sanchez would probably be just like that. She hadn’t fallen at his feet and drooled all over his tattoos. Therefore, he saw her as a challenge. And her first opportunity to show him she wouldn’t fall in with his plan had been when he’d kissed her.

  Erin smacked a palm to her forehead. She’d failed that test; she’d given in and responded. But she sure as hell wouldn’t fail the next one. Nothing could happen between her and Sanchez. They were in different rank structures, deployed and…well…she’d already been burned once by a cocky lothario. Once burned and all that.

  With her resolve strengthened, she left the hospital headed for her quarters on the first floor in the stack of relocatable buildings. Hot and sexually bothered, she slipped out of her flight suit and into shorts and a T-shirt.

  Caesar Sanchez had complicated written all over him. After breaking up with Matt, Erin wanted nothing to do with complicated. Still, the SEAL’s kiss had been…wow. And the feel of his hard muscles beneath her fingertips had been…well…wow. Her body heated more and she groaned. How was she supposed to relax when sexual tension built inside with no immediate release in sight?

  She riffled through a box of personal items and grabbed a novel from the stack she’d brought along. Maybe immersing herself in a book for the afternoon would erase the residual effects of one unsolicited kiss. When she glanced at the cover, she cocked her arm, ready to throw it across the room. The last thing she needed was an erotic romance novel to stir her blood even further.

  Yet, she didn’t throw it. Instead, she opened the book and read. Talk about stoking the fire.

  Chapter Two

  ‡

  As a SEAL, downtime was overrated. Sitting around, polishing his weapons gave Caesar far too much time to get bored, think and stew over his conversation earlier that day with Lt. Erin McGee. As the day lengthened into the afternoon, he’d worked out twice, ran once and showered, changed into clean shorts and a T-shirt and lay down on his cot. Some of the guys had gone off to play a game of volleyball. Caesar hadn’t been motivated. The heat of the afternoon waned as the sun eased out of the sky sliding slowly behind the hills surrounding the airbase. Too wound up to eat, he pushed to his feet and headed out for another jog. Instead of aiming for the perimeter, he found himself wandering through the buildings, headed for the stack of RLBs Erin had been assigned to.

  His heartbeat kicked up a notch when a woman emerged from a door, dressed in PT shorts and a T-shirt, her dark red hair pulled up in a ponytail.

  She walked quickly to the edge of the encampment and set off
at in an easy jog around the perimeter, inside the wire.

  Glad he had on his tennis shoes, Caesar hurried after her, happy for the gift of a chance to be alone with the woman. Slowly closing the distance, he didn’t want to scare her. “Erin!” he called out.

  Instead of slowing to wait for him, she ran faster, kicking up the pace.

  With a chuckle, Caesar sped ahead, catching her easily, falling in step beside her.

  “If I’d wanted to run with you…” she panted, “I’d have slowed down.” She stopped abruptly and faced him. “What will it take for you to leave me alone?”

  “An act of God.” He nodded toward the sunset, the beautiful reds and oranges cloaking the hills. “Can we talk?”

  “I have to go now.” She drew in several deep breaths before she turned and walked.

  He ran ahead of her, turned and jogged backward. “I just want to have coffee with you.”

  She stopped again, planted both hands on her hips and spoke in a dangerously patient tone, “Why can’t you take no for an answer?”

  He brandished his killer smile. “You intrigue me.”

  “Well, you don’t intrigue me,” she said, her brow furrowing. “The word that describes how I feel about you is annoyed.”

  “I know.” He laughed, unperturbed. “I aim to change that opinion.”

  “You can’t.” She turned and set off at the pace of a speed walker.

  For a few minutes, he walked alongside her in silence, without breathing hard, his long strides making her look like she was running. “Aren’t you amazed that no matter how violent the world can be, a sunset can be so beautiful, each as unique and different from the one before?”

  Hmm, pretty deep for a SEAL. She could feel herself soften. Not good. “I never thought about it,” she lied. She had thought about it. A lot. Especially when trying to get images of the wounded and dying out of her head.

  He gripped her hand in his big one and pulled her to a stop, facing the setting sun as it slipped below the hills. When she tried to pull her hand free, she felt his grasp tighten.

  God, he was hot. And the longer he held her hand, the harder he made it for her to resist. Already she was leaning toward him. A little more persuasion and she’d be a goner.

  “Tell me. The kiss we shared earlier today. Tell me that it did nothing for you, and I’ll go away.”

  He faced her, lifting her hand in both of his, staring into her gorgeous green eyes in the fading light. “Tell me you don’t feel anything when I hold your hand in mine and stare down into your eyes.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again, her gaze locked with his, her fingers curling in his palms.

  His pulse leaped. When she didn’t say anything, Caesar went on. “What I experienced was as magical, beautiful and as warm as the sunset. I can’t walk away. Not when I feel the way I do.”

  She continued to stare into his eyes, chewing on her bottom lip. “I…”

  Before she could form another word, he lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her lips.

  At first, her mouth remained still, firming into a tight line.

  At least she wasn’t moving away. Encouraged, Caesar deepened the light kiss, skimming his tongue across the seam between her lips, his hands moving from hers to her arms and around to her back, dropping low to cup her buttocks.

  She gasped, her lips parted and her hands pressed against his chest. But not to push him away. Her fingers dug into the soft fabric of his T-shirt, dragging him closer.

  He thrust his tongue through her parted lips and teeth and caressed the length of hers, his hands kneading her ass, pulling her closer until his hardening erection nudged against her belly.

  Erin’s arms slipped up around his neck, her fingers threading through his hair. The kiss that had started out solely from his side turned around and she gave as good as she got, her tennis-shoe-clad foot, sliding up his calf, her crotch scraping across his thigh.

  Heat raged through Caesar as he tugged the hem of her T-shirt free of her shorts and slipped his hands beneath to feel the silky smoothness of her skin. He groaned into her mouth, wanting more than just a kiss, more than to feel her body with his fingers. But how much was too much?

  Afraid he’d scare her away, he broke off the kiss, removed his hands from beneath her shirt and took hers. “I’ve wanted to do that since the day we first met.”

  “We could get in so much trouble for this,” she said, leaning her forehead against his. “If anyone were to see us…”

  “We’re just two people out here, alone in the dark.”

  “Silhouetted against a unique sunset,” she said, her voice flat.

  “Know of a better place, where we won’t be seen?” he quipped, fully expecting her to tell him to take a hike.

  “I do,” she said, her eyes widening.

  Could he be this lucky? “Where?”

  “The back of the supply building.”

  His pulse slamming hard against his arteries, he smiled down at her. “Let’s go.”

  “Not together.” She bit her lip and glanced around. “Meet me there in five minutes.”

  He nodded and reluctantly let go of her hand. “Five minutes will be forever.”

  “No, it’ll be enough time to put distance between you and me, in case anyone is watching.”

  Before she could get an arm’s length away, he captured her hand and yanked her back into his arms, kissing her hard on the lips, his hand grasping her bottom, pressing her hard against his arousal. “I’ll be there. Will you?”

  Erin turned and ran back toward camp, her heart racing, her thoughts spinning. What was she doing? The more distance she put between the two of them, the clearer her mind should have become. Instead, all she could think of was getting to the back of the supply building, stripping naked and making love with the sexy SEAL who’d captured and wooed her in the light of a setting sun. Was she insane?

  Yes.

  Was she crazy enough to go through with their plan?

  Yes!

  Perhaps by making love to the man, she would get him out of her system, once and for all. Then she wouldn’t be constantly frustrated and horny every time he came in with a cut finger.

  As a woman who believed in following the rules, she was taking a giant leap out of her comfort zone. If she were caught, she could lose her commission, maybe even be court marshaled.

  The danger only made the assignation that much more titillating. Her speed increased, as if she were running from her own demons. By the time she reached the back of the supply building, she was panting hard, her pulse racing and her heart pounding against her ribs.

  She couldn’t do this. An officer and an enlisted man being together was wrong. Against every rule in the books. And while deployed was ten times worse. Reason returned as she ducked into a corner, hidden by shadows. When Caesar joined her, she’d tell him she’d changed her mind, that she really couldn’t go through with it.

  Footsteps crunched in the gravel and she held her breath, forming her words in her mind. Ready to tell him just how she felt, she started to step out.

  At that moment, an MP strolled by, carrying an M4 rifle and wearing an armored vest and helmet.

  Afraid of being caught and questioned, Erin silently sank back into the shadows and waited for the guard to pass.

  Not until the MP continued around a corner and out of sight did Erin release the breath she’d been holding. That had been far too close. She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t risk her career over a clandestine meeting with a Navy SEAL enlisted man. Heart pounding, she stepped away from her hiding place and ran into a solid wall of muscles.

  Caesar gathered her in his arms and pulled her back into the shadows and up against his powerful body.

  What had she been about to do?

  His lips closed over hers and all coherent thought flew from her mind as she pushed his shirt up over his chest, her hands skimming across his taut skin.

  Caesar grabbed the hem of her shi
rt and yanked it up over her head, dropping it to the ground. As quickly, he unhooked her bra and let it fall onto her shirt. Then he bent and kissed one of her breasts, sucking the nipple into his mouth, nibbling the hardened tip.

  Her core heated and she grabbed the back of his head while arching her back, urging him to take more.

  He pulled hard, his tongue swirling around her areola.

  Erin bit down on her tongue to keep from moaning out loud. If the MP made another pass through the buildings… If he discovered the two of them…

  Excitement ratcheted higher and her core flamed.

  Caesar hooked his fingers in the elastic of her shorts and panties, and he dragged them down her legs and over her tennis shoes.

  Naked but for her shoes, she felt the warm, desert air caressing her body, followed by Caesar’s fingers. Erin closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, her breasts swelling into the palms of his large, callused hands.

  When she reached for him, he grabbed both wrists in one of his hands and pinned them above her head. “Me first,” he whispered against her earlobe.

  His free hand cupped her cheek and he raised her face. At first, light and tender, he brushed his lips across hers. The pressure increased and she opened to him, her tongue seeking his and finding it, tangling, touching and tasting his minty freshness.

  Slowly, he dragged his mouth away, skimmed along the line of her jaw and downward to the pulse beating at the base of her throat. Not pausing for long, he moved lower to take a breast into his mouth, tonguing the tip until it hardened into a tight bud. “You taste amazing,” he said.

  She tugged against his grip. “Let me.”

  Holding firm, he refused to let her touch him. “Not yet.”

  Anxious to join the exploration, she moaned, her body writhing, her center so hot she thought she might spontaneously combust before he got there.

  He slid a hand over her belly then lower to the mound of curls covering her sex.

  Panting, she thrust her pelvis forward, wanting him to find that narrow strip of flesh, the center of her desire.