Beyond the Limit

by Cindy Dees

  Was that the source of her deep distrust of men, which Griffin had been at pains to point out to her? She shied away from the answer, unwilling to think about the more unpleasant aspects of her past that involved the painful education of a beautiful and naive girl.

  Was she pushing for more, and yet more, out of herself because Griffin was never satisfied with her?

  Why did she even really care what he thought, anyway?

  Of course, she knew the answer to that. And it went beyond the fact that he kissed so well she forgot her own name or that she wanted inside his pants so bad she could hardly stand it. No matter how much he infuriated her, she secretly admired him.

  Griffin ran every step beside her, did every push-up with her, powered through every pull-up that she did, swam every lap that she did. It was damned hard to argue that his demands were unreasonable when he was capable of doing all of the things he asked of her and more.

  In their instructional sessions, covering anything from breaking down an assault rifle blindfolded to extreme survival techniques, he was forever popping out with some tidbit that made the job easier or more effective. How was she ever going to absorb everything she needed to know to keep up with a man like him?

  She had to admit she was glad that she and the other women were getting this private pre-BUD/S training. No way would she have survived the onslaught of physical demands, mental challenges, and emotional abuse if she’d gone into it cold.

  As it was, she worried that Griffin and the other men were still taking it too easy on her and the girls. If she was going to survive BUD/S for real, she needed to be pushed hard enough to simulate that grueling course in every way.

  As weeks passed, she realized her muscles and mind were gradually adapting to the stress. She had to hand it to these guys. They knew how to train a SEAL. Now, if they would only give the women a chance to succeed at being real SEALs in the field…

  November passed, and it was a week into December when Sherri found herself lying face-first in the freezing cold surf, unable to do one more push-up.

  This morning’s PT had involved doing four-count lunges while holding a giant log over their collective heads. Kenny, Jojo, and Sam had joined the women in the endeavor since whichever lucky girl went to BUD/S would be part of a similar boat team and do group exercises. The SEALs were all about teamwork, after all. If one person couldn’t push back up off their bent knee, the other five people ended up taking the extra weight of the log, which made their lunge recoveries all that much harder. It was a diabolical demonstration of all for one and one for all.

  When all three women had collapsed, unable to do another lunge, Kettering—whom she’d privately begun to call the Antichrist in her head—dropped them into planks and started calling out push-up sequences.

  “Down!” A long pause. “Up! Down!” Another longer pause that made Sherri’s arms, already exhausted from that blasted log, tremble. “Up!”

  Every now and then, an incoming wave swooshed over her face while they were waiting in the down position. Because it was important not to breathe while doing maximum physical exertion, apparently.

  She gave the push-ups everything she had. When she didn’t think she could do one more, she found a way. The pain, as familiar to her now as an old friend, rolled through her, building until it was unbelievable. She’d learned over the past few weeks that she was capable of sustaining agony she’d heretofore thought unbearable. Griffin had taught her that pain was optional. The trick was to lock it away in a distant corner of her mind. To ignore it and not even register its existence.

  At last, her arms simply gave out. No matter how hard she willed them to push her back up out of the water, she had nothing left.

  Was this it? Was this the moment when Kettering declared her a failure and washed her out of Operation Valkyrie? She couldn’t summon the energy to care. She was done. Tank empty. Nothing left.

  A callused hand appeared in front of Sherri’s face. “Need a hand up?” Griffin murmured from above her.

  What is this? Human decency from Griffin? In public, no less?

  “Since when are you a real person?” she mumbled in the general direction of Griffin’s combat boot.

  “Always was. Still am,” he muttered.

  Hah. Griffin had given her father a run for his money in the asshole department for weeks, now.

  She was inclined to refuse the hand, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she could not climb to her feet unaided. And besides, he’d offered nicely.

  She rolled onto her side and pressed her hand into his. He pulled her to a standing position.

  She stood there, bent over, hands on her thighs, chest heaving, her T-shirt and pants weighted down with seawater and sand, her waterlogged boots too heavy to lift. “Thanks,” she managed to wheeze.

  “You’re welcome. When we get back to base camp, get a shower and then meet me in the mess hall. Eat supper with me tonight.”

  Her gaze lifted sharply. As usual, his sapphire eyes were unreadable. “Why?” she blurted out. “Is that an order?”

  “No. It’s a request. And an offer.”

  An offer of what?

  She watched speculatively as Griffin’s muscular, dry back retreated from her. She could see the definition of his back muscles, even through his black T-shirt. Was that kind of fitness even legal?

  Well, okay then. Supper with Griffin it was. Color her surprised.

  When they got back to Camp Jarvis, Kettering surprised her again by announcing, “You ladies can have the shower to yourselves today. Crank the heat up, and do what you can to work out the kinks. Tomorrow will be a hard day.”

  They were all hard days. But just maybe, if Griffin was willing to treat her like a human being for a change, it meant she might make it through another one.

  Chapter 7

  An hour later, warmed up and cleaned up, Sherri stood over her footlocker, glaring at its meager contents. It wasn’t as if a sexy little black dress had been on Kettering’s packing list.

  Which was a crying shame. She would have loved to shake up Griffin Caldwell. The man totally deserved it.

  She had one nonsports bra in her possession that she’d worn under the summer whites she’d arrived here wearing, and she dug that out. Might as well give the man a little cleavage to contemplate over supper. After all, Kettering had lectured the women that very morning on how SEALs should use every weapon at their disposal to defeat the enemy.

  So be it.

  She settled on a pair of clean khaki cargo pants that fit her more snugly than her other pairs and a white tank top with a low scoop neck. It left her arms bare, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the definition in her shoulder muscles was sharper these days. She threw a zippered hoodie over it for warmth, but left the jacket open to show off her cleavage. It was getting cold in the evenings as Christmas approached.

  Funny how the concept of holidays, or of time passing, evaporated in this place. How long had they even been here? She frowned, trying to count the weeks. More measurable were the changes in herself. New personal bests in timed runs and counted exercises. She was generally quieter these days, biting back the sarcastic comments that sprang to mind when Griffin and the others were being particularly nasty. And she felt a new self-confidence from learning a host of survival and combat skills.

  Honestly, she hadn’t stopped long enough to really look at herself in a mirror for a while. Had she changed outside, too? Her hair was longer now, past her shoulder blades, bleached almost platinum blond by long hours in the sun and surf. The angles of her face were sharper, her cheekbones more defined, her jawline leaner. Her face had lost any hint of roundness, taking on more of a heart shape, and her eyes looked even bigger and bluer against the deep tan she’d developed.

  If only she had her full makeup kit here and could hit Griffin with a full beauty-queen broadside.

&nbs
p; Still, she did have a tube of mascara and some tinted lip balm with her, plus a blow dryer and a round brush. She did the best she could with the tools at hand, and took a critical look at herself. She wasn’t pageant-ready, but she looked decent relative to being covered in mud or sand, with no makeup, hair straggling, and bags of exhaustion under her eyes.

  “What’s the occasion?” Anna exclaimed as she and Lily came back from the showers.

  “Damn, girl. You look hot,” Lily added.

  “Griffin asked me to have dinner with him tonight.”

  “Holy shit. As in a date?” Anna yelped.

  “No idea. But I thought I’d take the opportunity to rattle his cage a little.”

  “You’re gonna blow the door right off his cage looking like that,” Anna declared.

  Lily dug around in her footlocker and emerged with a flat metal box that Sherri recognized as a high-end makeup palette. “Would this help?”

  Sherri didn’t quite dive on the makeup, but she came close. “Ohmigod, Lily. You’re a lifesaver. Where did you get that?”

  “What’s a little contraband between friends?” Lily murmured, flashing her dimples in a mischievous smile.

  Since when was Miss Prim and Proper willing to smuggle anything? Would wonders never cease? Maybe Lily wasn’t quite as, well, pure as she came across.

  Anna held a hand mirror, and Lily held a flashlight on her as Sherri did her makeup with quick efficiency. She gave herself a smoky eye that wasn’t too dark for her fair coloring and used liquid eyeliner to give her eyes an exotic cat slant. Thankfully, her skin didn’t need much coverage to be smooth and even. She added a bit of blush, a glow powder, and a rose-gold lipstick that didn’t draw attention away from her dramatic eyes.

  It was a look worthy of a pageant. Now she felt fully weaponized.

  “Umm. Just wow,” Lily murmured. “I knew you were pretty, but I had no idea you cleaned up like that.”

  Anna also was hushed, maybe a bit awed. “How come you’re not a model or an actress?”

  Sherri shrugged. “I’ve been offered both. But I want to be more than a pretty face. I want to do something important with my life.”

  Still eyeing her, Anna and Lily both nodded in mild understanding.

  “All right. Get out of here,” Anna told Sherri, breaking the spell. “Captain Hottie Pants is waiting for you.”

  Lily called after her as she hurried out the door. “We want a full report when you get back. All the juicy deets!”

  As if.

  “Don’t wait up!” Sherri called back over her shoulder.

  When she stepped into the mess hall, she was startled to see it deserted except for Griffin. Alarm coursed through her. “What is this?” she asked. “The ‘Thanks for playing but you don’t have what it takes’ speech?”

  For his part, he stared at her as if he’d seen a ghost. His jaw actually hung open a little.

  Yes. Score! For once, she relished the effect her looks had on a man. “You okay there, Sparky?”

  “Umm. Yes. Fine.” He seemed to shake himself. “Get some food.”

  Griffin was wearing a black Reapers T-shirt tonight, and it hugged his body like skin. He, too, had pulled out the big guns for this little rendezvous of theirs.

  She ladled a helping of Sue’s outrageously tasty gumbo over a scoop of dirty rice, poured herself a glass of an electrolyte drink, and carried both over to the table where Griffin sat. One advantage of this intensive training was she could eat whatever she wanted, and as much of it as she wanted, without gaining an ounce.

  Griffin shocked her by standing up and pulling out her chair for her as she approached the table. The poor man looked like he wasn’t quite sure which end was up. Dang. If she’d known glamming up would have this dramatic an effect on him, she would’ve done it a lot sooner.

  She sat down cautiously, watching him. He had yet to give her any indication of why he’d asked her to this private meal. He’d obviously told the other guys to stay away tonight, which meant they’d ribbed him about a date the same way the girls had ribbed her. What was so important that he would take that kind of heat to eat alone with her?

  The last weeks had taught her to be wary of head games, which she’d learned came in many forms. What was his angle tonight? Lure her into relaxing, maybe into revealing something personal about herself that he could use to torture her with later?

  “Is tonight special, or are you demonstrating that SEALs are going to hold my chair for me in the field all the time?” she tossed out in an effort to loosen the tension suddenly coiling in her belly.

  He snorted. “Not bloody likely.”

  “Then why would you do it here and now?”

  “Because my mama taught me to act like a gentleman around ladies?”

  A lady, huh? She chose to take that as a compliment. “Where are you from originally?” she asked curiously. She associated old-school manners with the South, but she could be wrong.

  “All over. My old man was a Marine.”

  She leaned back, studying him. Good Lord, he looked amazing, freshly showered and shaved. He’d always been deeply tanned, but his skin had lost that parched quality of having been out in a harsh desert climate for long months that it had had when she first met him. His eyes were deep, deep blue tonight. Ocean blue. Be still my beating heart.

  Aloud, she commented, “Ahh. So you come by it honestly, then.”

  “Come by what?”

  “Being an asshole, of course.”

  Griffin grinned and merely shook his head at her.

  “You know what your problem is?” she responded. “You keep thinking of me as a woman. The thing is, I’m both a woman and a soldier. Although on second thought, maybe you’d do better just thinking of me as a soldier.”

  “Honey, I ain’t never seen another soldier who looks like you.”

  She planted her elbows on the table. “You’ve got to get over how I look, Griffin. We’ve been together day and night for weeks. Surely you’re used to my appearance by now.”

  He shrugged. “There’s no getting used to you. I turn around and catch sight of you when I’m not thinking about it, and it smacks me in the face. Your beauty is like a physical blow.”

  She smirked. “Do I have permission to actually smack you in the face going forward?” Goodness knew, she would like to punch him about a hundred times per day, every time he taunted her for being weak or unworthy, in fact.

  He arched one brow at her as if to dare her to try hitting him. She knew better—they’d started a training evolution in unarmed combat a few days back. She had yet to lay a finger on him. She’d had martial arts training, but none of it had prepared her for the vicious, hybrid street-fighting style the SEALs practiced. It was all about the brutal, silent takedown.

  She sighed. “Can you at least try to see beyond how I look?”

  He laid down his spoon and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. His biceps bulged in a display that had her gulping gumbo and burning her mouth in the process.

  “Oh, I see past the looks, all right,” Griffin said quietly. “So does Cal. That’s why you’re here.”

  “Do tell.”

  He shrugged. “I can only speak for myself.”

  “Please do.”

  Another shrug, accompanied by a display of clenched and relaxed muscles across his shoulders that had her gulping gumbo too fast again. Tight T-shirts ought to be outlawed on men built the way he was. At least when she was trying to concentrate on the conversation at hand.

  He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “I’ll admit, you ladies have surprised me.”

  Really? Awesome.

  Griffin continued, “We’re in a weird conundrum here. This isn’t the BUD/S course, and our only orders are to prepare you women however we see fit to survive BUD/S. So far we’ve simulated t
he way the instructors there will act to the best of our ability. I’m not overtly trying to be an asshole.”

  “You’re doing a magnificent job of being one anyway.”

  One corner of his mouth turned up in what might be a smile. “The boys at BUD/S will make me look like a pussycat.”

  “I have to be honest: that’s a little scary.”

  “And therein lies my dilemma. I have to be both BUD/S instructor-jerk and a teaching mentor to you. The two are diametrically opposed.”

  “Whoa, Caldwell. That was a big word you just used there.”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “I do have a master’s degree in military history.”

  “From where?”

  “Harvard.”

  Her jaw sagged. “Get out. For real?”

  “Yes,” he answered impatiently. “I broke my back a few years ago, and while it healed, I went back to school.”

  “Did you learn anything useful?” she asked with interest.

  “Yeah. Politicians and soldiers don’t mix.”

  “Do I detect a hint of bitterness?”

  He shook his head. “If you actually become a SEAL, you’ll learn fast to be real damned cynical of missions that come down from on high with dozens of noses already poked into them. You’ll learn to ask what they’re not telling you, and you’ll realize how politicians’ ridiculous notions of what SEALs can do are likely to get you killed.”

  “Ridiculous as in overinflated?”

  He nodded, stirring his gumbo aimlessly. “They think we’re bloody supermen. But we’re not, as you well know.”

  “Tonight is the first time you’ve intimated that I might actually make it all the way to the teams,” she said softly.

  Chagrin gleamed in his gaze for a moment. “It’s not as if I have any choice in the matter. Our esteemed Secretary of Defense has decided there will be a female SEAL. End of discussion.”