Beyond the Limit

by Cindy Dees

  Sherri grinned. “Hell yes.”

  * * *

  Griffin was the first to wake up. The pressure change of the descent had crammed ice picks in his ears, and he cleared them quickly. He shoved up the window shade, and a shaft of brilliant sunlight blinded him. He slammed the shade back down. Crap on a cracker, he felt like death.

  More prudently, he eased the shade up an inch to peek outside. Sunlight glittered off patches of water winding through forest below. Da hell?

  He kicked Trevor’s foot and reached over the headrest in front of him to tap Axel on the side of the head. “Rise and shine, kids. We’re getting ready to land,” he announced.

  The others roused, Axel slower than the rest, but then he’d been drunker than the rest. Griffin still didn’t feel entirely sober, but he could fake it if he had to.

  Kenny groaned. “Remind me never to mix whiskey and champagne again. I feel like my ex ran me over with a truck and backed up to make sure she killed me.”

  Griffin snorted. Kenny’s ex-girlfriends were exactly the type to do that. The man liked his women wild.

  His watch said it was 5:00 a.m. That would be West Coast time. Given that the sun was up, they’d obviously flown east through the night. But to where? And why?

  He waited impatiently while the jet completed its descent and landed. He didn’t see a single building outside. Just trees and more trees. He felt naked going into an unknown situation without at least a sidearm—but Janine had insisted: no guns at her wedding. And Leo had reluctantly backed up his bride.

  The interior of the jet went silent, abruptly watchful, as the aircraft pulled to a stop. No one moved as the smart-ass copilot opened the hatch, lowered the steps, and announced sarcastically, “We’re here. You can go now.”

  What the hell? Today is as good as any to die. Griffin scowled and, hunching over in the low-ceilinged aisle, made his way to the exit. The bright morning light was excruciating, but that wasn’t what made him squint in deep displeasure.

  Nope. That honor was reserved for his boss and the trio of women standing with him on the tarmac, all of them smartly turned out in uniforms—one in navy whites, one in marine beige, and one in army green—all spit-polished and standing tall.

  The other guys piled out behind him in a disorderly jumble, and he was suddenly acutely aware of what a disheveled mob they made, slouching in rumpled lounge-lizard tuxes, all of them in need of a shave and a shower, smelling like booze and stale sweat, cringing away from the sun and their hangovers.

  As one, the women burst into gales of laughter.

  They were laughing at him and his guys.

  Laughing.

  He was a United States Navy fucking SEAL, for crying out loud. The pride of the American armed forces. The best of the best. Embarrassment started a slow burn in his gut.

  The smoking-hot blond on the end who honest-to-God looked like Malibu Navy Barbie gasped at Calvin Kettering. “Good one, Commander. Where’d you scrape up these losers to masquerade as SEALs? You really had us going there…” She dissolved into another fit of laughter.

  Griffin indignantly straightened to his full six-foot-plus height, but he supposed it was hard to take a guy seriously when he looked like a bad impersonation of Dean Martin and smelled like a sewer.

  Kettering looked even grimmer than usual. “It’s not a joke. These…degenerates…are SEAL Team Reaper. The hand-picked team I’ve chosen to turn you ladies into the first female Navy SEALs.”

  A bucket of ice water couldn’t have sobered up Griffin faster. Female SEALs?

  Female.

  SEALs.

  “Come again, sir?” he choked out.

  “Welcome to Operation Valkyrie, gentlemen.”

  * * *

  Sherri slid behind the wheel of the topless Jeep, slipped on mirrored sunglasses, and peered sidelong at the dark-haired hunk shrugging out of his baby-blue tuxedo jacket to reveal a ruffled white shirt clinging to acres of muscles. He was six-feet-two of rugged deliciousness as he tossed the stained jacket in the back of the Jeep and swung into the seat beside her.

  Kettering had briskly introduced him as Reaper platoon leader Griffin Caldwell, who had the good grace to look chagrined as the commander declared the men unfit to drive and ordered her to take the wheel of the Jeep.

  She steered the Jeep behind Kettering’s Hummer, which everybody else had piled into. The vehicles drove away from the asphalt runway in the middle of Nowhere, USA and headed deeper into nowhere.

  Her passenger filled more than just the seat beside her. His masculine presence filled the whole Jeep. He smelled like whiskey and the clean sweat of someone who worked out a lot. It was actually a whole lot sexier than she’d like to admit.

  She’d met SEALs at various formal events in DC, but they’d always been buttoned into starched uniforms, tugging at their shirt collars and looking intensely uncomfortable in the limelight. This was the first time she’d ever seen a SEAL in his native environment, bumping down a dirt road, his gaze on a swivel, headed into an op—that ridiculous baby-blue tuxedo notwithstanding.

  She stifled a smile as she eyed her passenger discreetly.

  Serious confidence poured off the guy. Not in an aggressive way, rather in a quietly self-assured way. Nope, this was no scrawny desk jockey. Griffin Caldwell was a warrior in prime fighting trim. He seemed at ease in his body. She wished she could say the same.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like herself. She just wished sometimes that she was less…conspicuous. Heads turned everywhere she went. Maybe that explained her longing to wallow in mud. It might hide her looks.

  “Where are we?” Griffin asked in a sandpaper-rough voice that made her toes curl into tight little knots of pleasure. Muscles rippled along his jaw when he spoke through a feral stubble of beard.

  “Camp Jarvis,” she answered, surprised that he didn’t know.

  “What state are we in?” he blurted out.

  “I’m in a state of rest and general well-being, looking forward to starting training. You look like you’re in a state of acute life-choices regret.”

  “You’re hilarious,” he grumbled. “Seriously. What state in the United States are we in?”

  “North Carolina. South of Cape Fear near the Atlantic coast. Camp Jarvis was an Army base in World War II. Decommissioned after the war. Marines from Camp Lejeune use parts of it to practice blowing stuff up. A piece of it has been cordoned off for us to train in.”

  “Train for what?” he asked sharply.

  She blinked. What part of the phrase female SEALs didn’t he understand? She answered smoothly, in her best public affairs officer voice, “Commander Kettering will fill you in on the details.”

  Caldwell swore under his breath, obviously deeply displeased by this whole adventure and by her evasion.

  Tough. She wasn’t about to be the one to torque off this big guy. Not in the confines of a small vehicle, and not while he was scowling like he seriously wanted to strangle someone.

  He yanked the baby-blue tie from around his collar. The cheap satin slithered across the tanned, corded tendons of his neck and had her swallowing hard. He tossed it over his shoulder into the back seat.

  Keep your composure, Sherri. If you’re going to be working with these men, you have to get used to all that…testosterone.

  Her public affairs training kicked in again. Make conversation. Keep it light. Casual. Distract him from why he’s here.

  “Wedding?” she asked sympathetically. She had her fair share of butt-ugly bridesmaid dresses lurking in the back of her closet. But she’d never been forced to wear anything to compare with the sheer hideousness of his schlocky tuxedo.

  She swerved a little as Griffin pulled the blue cummerbund from around his narrow, hard-looking waist. He twisted to the left and leaned toward her to pull the thing from behind his back, and his face ca
me within about a foot of hers.

  She made the mistake of glancing over at him. Good Lord above. That man’s eyes were as blue as sapphires. And glittering as brightly with irritation. Except, when her gaze met his, his expression changed in an instant, heating into blue flame. He assessed her with a thoroughness that stole the oxygen from her lungs.

  “You’re a beautiful woman.”

  “Thank you,” she said automatically.

  “No. I mean it. You’re really beautiful.”

  “I am aware that some people think so,” she replied dryly.

  He settled back into his seat, facing forward. She risked a single sidelong peek, and was relieved to see him staring ahead stonily.

  Belatedly, he gave the cummerbund a flip into the back seat.

  “What is a woman like you doing out here?” he demanded without warning.

  “Driving?”

  “Why won’t you give me a straight answer?”

  She shot back, “Because they’re not my answers to give. Why won’t you just be patient and wait for Commander Kettering to explain everything?”

  “Because I got hauled out of my buddy’s wedding and flown across the entire country while I’m supposed to be on leave after a long-ass deployment in a twice-filled shithole. Kettering’s explanation had better be good.”

  She had no idea if helping train the first female SEAL would constitute “good” in his world. Somehow she thought not, and opted not to answer.

  His big, tanned fingers moved down his front nimbly enough to make her gulp as he unbuttoned the ruffled shirt and shrugged out of it. As the wrinkled cotton peeled away from his body, she practically drove into the ditch. Kowabunga.

  She’d expected these SEALs to be built, but not like that. Griffin’s skintight white T-shirt could have been painted onto a set of washboard abs straight off the pages of a porn magazine. Not that she had the time or inclination to look at such things. Well, not often, and not sober. Initiated by her girlfriends, of course.

  A thick vein ran the length of his impressively bulging left biceps. She took advantage of him looking off to his right to sneak a full-on gawk, and all of his muscles were sharply defined, ripped, and real. Hell-ooo, sailor.

  She was running out of mental superlatives to describe the man.

  The Hummer ahead turned onto the unmarked dirt road that led to their classified training area, and she followed. They bumped past an electrified steel fence marked with big red signs ordering everyone to stay out. She parked beside Kettering’s Hummer and jumped out as the other five men and her teammates piled out of the larger vehicle. Her legs actually felt wobbly.

  Griffin came around the back of the Jeep to join her, his gaze sliding down the length of her body and back up. Slowly. Thoroughly. Taking in the length of her legs, the slim fit of her white slacks, the fill of her tailored white uniform blouse. That gaze missed nothing. And made her tingle in places she didn’t often tingle.

  “My, my, my,” he murmured softly, for her ears only. “The scenery out here is spectacular.”

  Spectacular, huh?

  Pot, meet kettle.

  Anna must be having mental orgasms. All of the other men were, in their own ways, as hot as Griffin Caldwell. There would be no shortage of eye candy around here when the other guys lost those dopey tuxedos.

  Kettering pointed at the buildings, starting with the Quonset hut on his left. “Instructors’ racks. Your kits are in there, gentlemen. I had your go-bags and the other gear you’ll need sent ahead. Weapons lockup is next door. That warehouse on the end is outfitted as an urban assault training facility.”

  He pointed at the row of buildings across the dirt road, starting with the big one on the far end. “Gym. Cafeteria, infirmary, common area, and my office. Swimming pool is behind the gym. Quonset hut opposite yours is the trainee bunkhouse.”

  He pointed at the last prominent feature of their miniature facility. “And that is the bell. I assume it needs no explanation.”

  Everyone who’d ever considered being a SEAL knew about the brass bell mounted in the middle of the BUD/S training facility. Anyone who rang it was out. Done with training. Done ever trying to be a SEAL. Sherri would die before she touched it.

  Kettering barked, “Tate, Caldwell. You’re swim buddies.”

  She gulped and glanced at Griffin, who was still frowning as if he’d missed some important piece of information.

  Kettering paired up tiny Lily with a mountain of a guy called Axe, which Sherri sincerely hoped was a nickname. Axe sported a bushy beard over craggy features and struck her as the sort who either ate rusty nails for breakfast or was actually a total teddy bear under that gruff exterior.

  Anna was paired up with a guy Kettering called Trevor. He was the only SEAL who didn’t look like he was on the losing side of a bad hangover this morning. In fact, he managed to look halfway dapper in his obnoxious blue tuxedo.

  The other three men—introduced as Kenny, Sam, and Jojo—looked smug at not being assigned to a woman.

  Then Kettering snapped, “What are you all standing around for? PT gear. Back here in five minutes. Move!”

  Sherri made it back outside in three, which was why she was present when Griffin strode over to Kettering and asked softly, “What are we doing, here, Cal?”

  “You heard me. We’re training these women to be SEALs.”

  “No woman has made it through pre-pre-BUD/S at the Naval Surface Warfare School so far, and that’s nowhere close to the actual BUD/S course in difficulty.”

  Sherri’s eyes narrowed. The way she heard it, several women had met the fitness standards of the pre-BUDS program, but they’d been drummed out for other totally BS reasons.

  Kettering shrugged. “We’re going to train this bunch until they can hack BUD/S.”

  Griffin snorted. “How long are you planning to keep us out here? Forever?”

  Kettering’s voice was implacable. “As long as it takes.”

  Griffin shook his head in disgust as Lily and Anna came outside. “You’ve had some crazy ideas in your day, boss, but this one takes the cake.”

  She barely caught Kettering’s muttered retort. “Who said this was my idea?”

  Griffin flung her a derisive look as he headed for her side. He’d grasped Kettering’s meaning instantly and wasn’t about to take her seriously.

  She sighed. It would have been hard enough in the best of circumstances to get these men to accept her and the other women as fellow operators. But it would be darned near impossible without Kettering’s unqualified support.

  The other men strolled out of their building, wearing black T-shirts bearing an image of the Grim Reaper carrying a giant scythe on the front. Right. Team Reaper. She’d heard of them. She’d given a few press briefings about their exploits tracking down and capturing high-profile terrorists.

  Everyone fell into formation, women in the front row, men slouching in the rear…and making no secret of ogling the ladies’ rears.

  Sherri ignored Caldwell’s stare burning a hole in her running shorts. She hoped he enjoyed the view. It was as close as he’d ever come to getting inside her britches. Anna made a point of grinning over her shoulder at the guys, while Lily looked mortified.

  Kettering spoke to the group. “Welcome to Operation Valkyrie. As I’ve already told Grif, I brought you men here to train the first female SEALs. We won’t be running this like the formal BUD/S course in California. But we will simulate BUD/S conditions and training requirements.”

  “Hooyah,” one of the men muttered from behind her.

  Kettering continued grimly. “One more thing. Only one of these women will go to the BUD/S facility in Coronado. She will be the public face of women in the SEALs. The other two candidates will stay here and complete their spec ops training away from the prying eyes of the press. Assuming they can survive the course.�
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  Sherri’s stomach dropped to her feet. The last thing she wanted was to be thrown into competition against her fellow trainees.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Anna blurted out. “Are you saying that one of us will be a sacrificial lamb, thrown into the spotlight and not a real operator, while the others get to be actual operational SEALs?”

  “That’s correct,” Kettering replied.

  Well, that sucked. Particularly since Sherri knew which one of those Kettering thought she would end up being. Anna and Lily were plenty attractive and could certainly be made camera-ready. But she was the one with years of experience under her belt dealing with the media and with military politics.

  Kettering gave the men a long, hard stare and then said sternly, “We’re all professionals here, and we have a job to do. Let’s get to it.”

  Faint grumbling was audible out of the back row.

  Kettering turned the formation ninety degrees, which put Griffin beside Sherri at the front of the pack. They took off running while Kettering turned and walked toward his office.

  Griffin made a point of letting her set the pace. Eyes narrowed, she started her wrist stopwatch and stretched out into a 10K racing stride. Might as well start earning these guys’ respect right away. She knew from running with Anna and Lily that both of them could handle this brisk clip. She also happened to know this pace would meet the pre-BUD/S run-time requirement for a 10K distance.

  “You think you can hack the big leagues, Blondie?” Griffin—Grif—she would just stick with Caldwell—drawled at her as they headed down the road.

  “I do.”

  “Care to place a small wager on whether or not you’ll last a week out here?” he shot back.

  Something about his tone just irritated her—like a grain of sand in her eye, or a pebble in her shoe. Maybe it was the smug way he looked at her. Or the patent disbelief in his dark, dark blue eyes that a woman would dare to breach the sacred male fortress of the SEALs. Or maybe it just pissed her off that any one man could be so damned attractive.

  “Name your bet,” she snapped.