Keeping Her Secrets

by Maddie Wade

  “Watch your mouth, frog. I can still kick your whiny ass any day of the week, and you know it.”

  Ash chuckled, enjoying the camaraderie. The fact was, he didn’t know who would beat who in a fight between them. Yes, he was a Navy SEAL, but Daniel was Ex-SAS, and those fuckers were brutal operators. “In your dreams, gramps.”

  “Now, children, how can I trust you to go to the stag night with all this posturing?” Megan glared at them both in mock annoyance. Ash stepped back slightly as Daniel moved in and took Megan in his arms, his hold both possessive and tender. Ash wondered what it must be like to feel that way about a woman. He loved the female gender, in all their shapes and sizes, but he’d never felt an all-consuming desire to claim one like Daniel so obviously did with Megan.

  He moved toward the taxi that was waiting for them at the curb and hopped in the back, scooting over for Daniel as he climbed in after a long goodbye with Megan.

  “You know we’re only going to be gone for a few hours, right?”

  Daniel locked eyes with him and tilted his head. “One day, you’re gonna fall head over ass for some woman, and then you’ll understand there’s no place in the world better than being with her.”

  Ash shook his head. “Not me. The Navy is the only mistress I need.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ll see,” Daniel said with a knowing look in his eyes that made Ash pause for a second before dismissing it.

  Joining the Navy had been the best decision he’d ever made. Making Master Sergeant of DEVGRU was his most significant accomplishment and proudest day, and yet he couldn’t share it with many people. Daniel was an exception. He knew what it was like to have a job that was shrouded in secrecy. As an SAS operator he’d gone on similar missions with the SEAL Teams but for the UK Military, and now his security job was anything but a simple security job. It came with terrorists and threats from people that could cause catastrophic damage to the world at large. So, yeah, his cousin got it, that desire to strive for the best in his job. Fuck, it had been his life since college, and he didn’t regret a thing.

  “So, little Jessie is marrying a SEAL. Can you believe that?”

  Ash laughed at Daniel’s statement, relieved he’d changed the subject. Their cousin Jessica was indeed marrying a SEAL; he’d heard all about it from his mom. “Oh, yeah, I believe it. My mom is driving me crazy with talk of me being next and wanting to know when I’m going to give her grandbabies. Thank God you brought Paige and Zoey with you so they can get their fix while you’re here.”

  “Paige and Zoey love the attention, and Megan adores your parents, so it’s no hardship for me.” Daniel handed the driver some cash as the car stopped at the Imperial Dreams hotel.

  Ash stepped up beside his cousin as they looked at the hotel where the wedding would take place the next day and where they were meeting up with the groom and some friends for a few quiet drinks.

  “Who’s going to be here tonight?” Daniel asked as they approached the entrance. Both men inadvertently checking exits and non-existent threats.

  “Crockett, obviously, as he’s the groom. Massey and Moody who are on SEAL Team One with Crockett, and Ian Sawyer, and Jake and Nick Donovan who are all retired SEALs.”

  Ash grinned as Daniel stopped and turned to him with a raised eyebrow. “So, I’m drinking with seven Navy SEALs tonight?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Ash said with a grin.

  “Guess I better show you boys how the Brits do it then.”

  Ash shook his head. This night was supposed to be just a few quiet drinks, and now he had a feeling he was going to be playing babysitter. Not that he cared; he had two weeks left of physical therapy after minor shoulder surgery and then he would be cleared for duty again.

  The last few months, sitting on the side lines as his team rotated up, had been hell. He would rather go through BUD/S again than watch as his men—his friends—deploy while he stayed in the fucking gym in Virginia Beach and sweated his balls off to get fighting fit.

  Stepping into the luxury hotel, Ash noticed a large restaurant to the right full of diners and an open-plan bar area to the left of the reception area. It meant it was possible to see from one end to the other without interruption, which was something he liked. Being cooped up in a small space, with no line of sight, was not his idea of fun.

  He spotted the group of SEALs immediately, noting they were the last to arrive.

  Ian stood and held out his hand. “Ash, good to see you again.”

  Ash clasped it and shook. “You too, it’s been too long. How’s Angie?”

  “Perfect,” Ian replied with a look of adoration on his face.

  The big, bad, retired Navy SEAL, with a reputation as a stubborn hard ass, had fallen hard when he’d met Angie. If Ash hadn’t seen the man with his wife, he would never have believed it, but once again he’d been proven wrong.

  Jake greeted him next and then Nick. The two men were another example of men who’d had met the loves of their lives and fallen hard and without question. In their case though, it was with each other. The natural affection and deep love they had for each other was evident in every look and touch they made. It wasn’t big, overt gestures, and perhaps if it was anyone other than a bunch of operators at the table, nobody would even know they were together.

  They were not demonstrative, per se, but Ash could see the love between them was real and genuine. Ash was pleased for them; they were good men who deserved to be happy. He’d served two tours with Ian and Jake, before they’d retired into the private sector, and had immense respect for the two men. Nick had also been an enormous loss to the Teams when he’d retired too.

  The Sawyer brothers were both over six feet tall, with cool, blue eyes and black hair. Jake was taller, closer to his own height of 6 feet 5 inches, with brown hair and green eyes. These men seemed to draw lust-filled gazes from women and men alike wherever they went, and Daniel, with his Joe Manganiello looks, was no different.

  People said he and Daniel looked like brothers, but Ash didn’t see it.

  Ash introduced Daniel to the guys, and he and Ian were soon talking shop regarding the different training techniques they used on new recruits. As second in command at Fortis Security, Daniel was in charge of training the Fucking New Guys, or FNGs as they were more commonly called.

  “So, when are you due back, Chief?” Moody asked as he peeled the label off his beer bottle, and Ash wondered if the man was stressing about something.

  “Two weeks, providing the doc gives me the all-clear.”

  “What exactly happened?” Jake asked as he tipped his beer bottle to his mouth.

  Ash paused, his friends would know he’d been shot and were asking how it happened. He frowned as he thought about the teenage boy who’d managed to get a shot off and catch him in the shoulder on his last mission in Iran. The kid had been no older than sixteen and fighting a war that would never be won on the battlefield. But rather between powerful men in a boardroom who didn’t seem to give a shit about the lives that were being destroyed. “Caught a bullet in the shoulder, from a fucking kid who shouldn’t be fighting a war. It fucked up my range, so I had to have surgery and PT until it heals.”

  “Shit, that blows,” Nick said in understanding.

  Ash knew Nick knew precisely how it felt to be grounded while his team were wheels up—he’d taken a bullet just below his right clavicle a few years ago.

  Crockett, Moody, and Massey got up and wandered to the outdoor bar where music was now playing by the pool. Ash kept an eye out, knowing he would get an earful if the groom was wasted for his wedding day. “What about you, how’s working with your brothers and your husband?” he asked Nick, enjoying the ease of being with other men who understood the life.

  Nick smirked and cast his eyes to Jake. “Eventful as always, but I love it and being home most of the time is nice.”

  “What about you? Any desire to leave the Teams?” Jake asked, and Ash wondered if there was more than just friendly interest there.
>
  “Nah, not me. I can’t imagine not being a SEAL. All I ever wanted to do was serve and be the best. Help save lives in any way I can.”

  “More than one way to do that,” Ian added as he and Daniel zoned in on the conversation.

  “Maybe, but, for now, I’m happy where I am.” Ian nodded but said nothing. “Plus, private security seems to come with a marriage license these days.”

  The men around the table laughed.

  “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Nick said with an easy chuckle and a raised glass. “To marriage and all that it encompasses.”

  “To marriage.”

  The rest of the men raised their glasses, and, with a laugh, Ash did too, knowing it would never be for him. Even if a confident, dark-eyed bombshell kept popping into his mind at the most inopportune moments.

  “More ways than marriage to have a relationship. Ever thought of becoming a Dom?” Ian’s ice-blue eyes settled on Ash.

  He recognized the Dom look on the other man now. It wasn’t something he wore for show; it was a part of who Ian Sawyer was. Ash knew a little about the Dom/sub world from spending time with these guys and certainly enough to recognize that Ian was a Dom. So was Jake, but Nick as a submissive didn’t fit the image Ash had of him from when he’d been a SEAL, and yet the younger man seemed perfectly happy and no less deadly because of it. Ash found it confusing, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t considered it.

  “Not sure it’s for me. I don’t really see myself leading some woman around by her collar,” he said hedging.

  Ian shook his head. “That’s not what being a Dom is. It’s about protecting your sub and seeing to her needs. The media portrays it very differently to how it actually is.” Ian paused and tipped his beer to his lips as he looked at Ash. “If you ever you want to have a look around the club, give me a call and I’ll arrange it.”

  Ash knew Ian, his brother Devon, another retired SEAL, and their cousin Mitch owned a BDSM club and felt a pique of interest hit him in the chest. “Maybe.” His answer was non-committal. He was getting ready to go back to active duty, and that was his only focus right now.

  “I’d be interested in taking a look at the club,” Daniel said.

  “You’re a Dom?” Ian stated with a glance at Jake.

  “Not by training, just by nature, I guess.”

  “Your fiancée, is she a submissive?”

  Daniel cast a look at Ash and then back to Ian. “I should probably go check the groom isn’t getting drunk,” Daniel said, standing.

  Ian also stood. “I’ll come with you; I need to make a call.”

  Daniel obviously didn’t want to talk about his sex life with Megan in front of family, and Ash totally got that. He had been about to slip away so he wouldn’t hear any more, but Daniel had beat him to it. Ash watched the two men chatting like old friends as they walked toward the pool area. He suspected that could be a good thing for both Trident and Fortis. With them doing similar work on different ends of the pond, having an ally was never a bad thing.

  A commotion broke out behind Ash, and he turned at the same time Nick and Jake did, each man going on rigid alert. It was coming from the restaurant. He leaned back to get a better look and was shocked at what he saw. “No fucking way!”

  “You know her?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah, kind of.” He stood. “Excuse me for a second.”

  “Not a Dom my ass,” he heard muttered behind him and assumed it was Jake, but he was focused on the very drunk woman in front of him, currently accosting a man and his wife eating dinner.

  “Mustique,” he called as he approached and saw her stagger into the waiter before nearly tripping over the table, and now he was closer to her, the clearly shocked woman who was most definitely not the man’s wife.

  He caught her as she fell and wondered how in the hell he’d gone from a stag night to holding the very deadly, very beautiful but very drunk, bombshell from his fantasies in his arms.

  2

  As he wrestled the stunning woman in his arms into the elevator, he couldn’t help but remember their last encounter. It’d been shortly after Megan had given birth to Zoey, and he’d been visiting the UK on a short R&R trip. Mustique had walked into the room at the Cunningham Estate, a grand stately home, owned by Fortis leader Zack Cunningham and where Meg and Dan had been living and he’d been hit with a punch of desire like nothing he’d ever felt before.

  With her full lips, high cheekbones, and dark, almost black, fuck-me bedroom eyes, she had metaphorically knocked him on his ass. Long, rich chestnut hair, with caramel highlights, accentuated the warmth of her skin, making it smooth and flawless in a way only nature could achieve.

  But it was none of those things, not even the long, lithe, muscular legs encased in leather pants, or the sweet curve of her tits almost spilling out of the tank top she wore, that was the main attraction. No, it was the sass that came from her sweet-looking mouth when he’d tried to introduce himself to her. She had knocked him back so fast he hadn’t even seen it coming.

  “Don’t bother, Yank boy; I’m not interested. I don’t shit where I eat.” Then she’d looked him over slowly as if cataloging him, then spun on her heel and sashayed away.

  He’d known within a minute of meeting her she was trouble with a capital T, but what she didn’t realize was that Ash loved a challenge. He’d been determined to taste her sassy mouth before he left the UK and wasn’t that a memory for another time he conceded as he managed to wrestle her upright. “Mustique.”

  Her head lolled onto his shoulder as he held her weight on him. She mumbled something he couldn’t decipher.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying, sweetheart.” To see such a controlled woman so out of it, an air of sadness surrounding her, made his gut clench.

  “Marisol, my name is Marisol.”

  This time, he was able to make out her words. “Okay, Marisol, are you staying at the hotel?”

  She nodded.

  “Can I have your key card?”

  She just hiccupped, so he gently patted her down, trying not to feel like a pervert touching a compromised woman, and ignoring his dick, who was not getting the message her curves weren’t for his enjoyment. He located the key card. “Mustique, honey, what room number are you?”

  She peered at him with confusion before muttering, “Three zero seven.”

  Ash was pleased to see she was on the next floor they stopped at. Ash half-carried Marisol to the door to her suite and, with some effort, opened it before maneuvering her to the bedroom and laying her gently on the bed.

  Her black pants would be fine for her to sleep in, but the red stiletto heels and white sleeveless shirt with frills and a neck tie would not. He considered what to do for a moment, listening to the soft snores already coming from her. She was really out of it, and he didn’t want to leave her like that. She could get sick and choke or wake up and go back downstairs and get into all sorts of trouble.

  He still didn’t know what she actually did, but he knew she could handle a Shuriken throwing star like a pro. Having watched her spar with Daniel, Ash also knew she wasn’t an amateur at hand-to-hand combat too.

  “Marisol, I’m going to take your shoes and shirt off, so you’ll be more comfortable, okay?”

  Nothing; not even a twitch as he slid her shoes from her feet, noticing how incredibly soft her skin was. He turned her onto her back, and her hair fell across her face. He swept it softly away and watched her frown. What had happened to this woman to make her get so wasted?

  He shook off the thought; it wasn’t his business. She’d made it clear, after they’d shared the most passionate kiss of his life, that she was not his to care about and nothing could happen between them. Reluctantly, he’d agreed and walked away.

  Now, he felt a sense of regret he’d given up so quickly. He hadn’t forgotten her, not for a second. She wandered into his mind at the worst times, even on missions—fucking with his focus without him even realizing it.
He should have pushed harder, and maybe they would have gotten the attraction between them out of their systems by now.

  Ash leaned in, and the scent of her shampoo surrounded him—vanilla and honey. Such a sweet scent for a strong woman that it shouldn’t work but it did, and every time he smelled it, he found it intoxicating.

  He removed her shirt and turned Marisol onto her side, deciding the name suited her but needed shortening. In his head, she was a Mari, and it was what he would call her from now on.

  Now that she was shirtless, he was relieved to see she was wearing a camisole over her white bra, the lacy edge peeking out. Tucking the covers around her body, he placed a pillow behind her head and then dimmed the bedside light so she wouldn’t wake up disoriented. He turned to walk away, a heavy weight in his chest at the thought of leaving her, and stopped dead as the first whimper left her mouth.

  Ash turned and sucked in a sharp breath when he saw silent tears tracking down her perfect, sleeping face. A face which usually looked stunning, but, right now, it was so haunted he wanted to reach out and swipe the person or situation that had caused it from the earth. Sitting in the curve of her knees, careful not to wake her, he swept a hand over her cheek, wiping the wetness away. He continued to do so as the tears kept coming until the whimpers were all out sobs.

  Feeling her pain like a knife to the gut, Ash lay on the bed and gathered her into his arms, holding her while she wept in her drunken sleep. Murmuring reassuring words that made no sense, he ignored the vibration of his phone, knowing it was probably Daniel. He would have to call him back and explain what had happened, but one thing was sure, he was not about to leave this woman who’d fought him so hard. Not when she needed him.

  After about an hour, her cries settled, and she fell into a relaxed, deep sleep. The temptation to fall asleep with her in his arms was strong. She felt right there—she fit perfectly—but he knew she would hate the fact she’d shown her vulnerable side. Plus, he liked his balls where they were, and her waking up in a man’s arms when she couldn’t remember going to bed with him, put him in significant danger.