The Stripper and the SEAL

by Jenna Bennett

  Finally, after making sure the laptop was safe, she yanked the headphones off her head and went on the offensive. “You scared me!”

  So it seemed.

  “It’s not a good idea to make it so you can’t hear people coming in,” he told her as he holstered the pistol. “If I were somebody else, you’d be dead.”

  And it gave him a chill down his spine, to think of how it easy it would have been. Another day, he might have walked in here, and into a blood bath.

  The thought of her dead on the floor with the back of her head missing made his voice rough, and he had to clear his throat. “Everything OK?”

  She nodded. “Nothing’s happened. No phone calls. No deliveries.”

  And if anyone was parked down the street watching the house, she wouldn’t know, cooped up in here.

  Not that anyone had been parked down the street. He’d have seen them.

  He took a step closer and peered past her. “What are you watching?”

  “Oh.” She spun around, but not before he’d seen the color in her cheeks. “Um...”

  She started to hit buttons on the keyboard, and he had to move quickly to stop her. Obviously she’d been doing something she didn’t want him to know about, and that was concerning. Was it possible he’d read the situation all wrong?

  Or read the situation the way he was supposed to, to allow her to get close to him?

  Had someone planted her at the FUBAR as bait, knowing his—or maybe any one of their—propensity for wanting to play the hero?

  If she’d been snooping through his files...

  But no. If she’d been snooping through his files, most of what she’d have gotten was a bunch of physical training exercises, and everyone already knew the SEALs were obscenely well trained. If she’d wanted something more exciting than that, she should have targeted Andy Lee. His computer was probably well worth investigating. Max’s, not so much.

  Unless she’d closed everything out already—and she might have—she’d been watching a YouTube video. Of...

  He squinted. “Is that you?”

  She nodded. And that was definitely a blush in her cheeks. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Sorry.” He let go of the wrist he’d grabbed when he thought she’d been trying to hide something illegal.

  There was nothing illegal about the video, although you couldn’t prove it by him.

  Yes, she’d been a stripper. Or if not, she’d gone to truly spectacular lengths to build the background for her made-up persona. Because that was definitely Gabrielle, in a G-string and a couple of pasties and a pair of platform shoes, making love to a pole somewhere. And it wasn’t in a workout studio, so at some point, she’d gotten up in front of an audience to do it.

  Besides, her moves were a bit too smooth for it to be her first time.

  His tongue got stuck to the roof of his mouth—dehydration from the PT; nothing at all to do with the fact that he was getting turned on—and he had to force himself to look away. “What are you doing?”

  The real Gabrielle was standing in front of him, barefoot in a pair of yoga pants and an oversized T-shirt, with no makeup. She looked younger, softer. A far cry from the siren still gyrating on the screen, but no less appealing.

  His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips.

  She took a step back. “I... um...” She had to clear her throat to continue, and she wouldn’t look at him. “I’m sorry for using your computer.”

  Max took a step back too, and tried not to be disappointed. He wasn’t even sure he trusted her. It shouldn’t be a big deal that she didn’t want to kiss him. “It’s fine.”

  But he’d definitely talk to Andy about some more security measures. “Anything going on in your world?”

  She shrugged. “Not really.”

  “No friends wondering where you are?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t really have any friends. Nobody’s noticed that I’m gone.”

  “You weren’t scheduled to... um...” He glanced at the video, still moving along behind her.

  Whoa. Nice extension there. And nice... assets.

  “Shut that off!” She must have forgotten about it for a moment, because she spun around and threw herself at the keyboard. The video flickered away.

  “I was enjoying that,” Max told her.

  “I’m sure.” He and every other man, her tone said. “That was a couple of years ago. I’m not sure I could do it anymore.”

  That meant he probably shouldn’t ask for a private show in the master bedroom.

  Not that he’d been planning to.

  He turned away from her. “I need a shower.” A cold one, although there was no need to mention that. He also needed to get clean, since a six mile run in powdery sand, followed by an ocean swim, followed by more sand, tended to leave a man sandy. “After that, we’ll deal with your hair.”

  Her hands went to it. “Deal with...?”

  But by then he’d already stalked out and was halfway to the master bath, shedding layers of clothes as he went.

  He thought about taking care of things in the shower. It wouldn’t take long, and it wasn’t likely she’d ever know that he’d been jacking off to the thought of her stripping. But it was sort of weird doing it with her in the house. She might not walk in on him, or ever even know, but he’d know, and it was weird. And somehow, he’d rather have her know he was turned on and frustrated, than have her know—or even suspect—he was jacking off in the shower. At least he’d get to keep some shred of dignity.

  So he washed and rinsed and gave himself half a minute under an icy spray to finish things off, and then he got out and dried off and put on clean clothes and scooped the dirty laundry into the basket for later, and headed out ready to do battle.

  Only to find she had investigated the drugstore bag he’d left by the door. She held up the two boxes of hair dye—one brown, one blonde—and arched her brows.

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Your hair’s distinctive. And that was before I realized you’re an internet celebrity.”

  She snorted. “Hardly a celebrity.”

  “Your face is on the internet.”

  Not that anyone would be looking at her face in that video he’d seen. He cleared his throat and continued, “Your hair is on the internet. And it’s distinctive. It’s the first thing anyone’s going to notice about you.”

  Even before the gorgeous face and the even more gorgeous body. Or vice versa. It was hard to say which was more beautiful.

  And he was derailing himself again.

  “I think you should cut it off. And color it.”

  She looked appalled. “But it took me years to grow this hair!”

  “It’ll grow back,” Max said. And added, “Unless you’re dead.”

  That shut her up.

  “Here’s the thing. I don’t know anything about you. I’m not even sure Gabrielle is your real name.”

  She opened her mouth, and he lifted a finger. “I have no idea what you’re doing in Virginia, or who you’re running from. But I do know that whatever it is, it involves the Russian Brotherhood. And since I know a little bit about the Bratva and how they operate, I’m not giving a whole lot for your chances of survival.”

  She shook her head. Obviously she knew enough about them to know that, too.

  “They tracked you here from DC, so whatever it is you did, or you know, is big enough that they aren’t just going to let you go. They’ll keep looking until they find you.”

  She nodded.

  “And unless you change the way you look, that’s going to be all too easy for them.”

  “I was trying.”

  “It’s going to take more than pulling your hair back and wearing an oversized T-shirt. And the first thing that has to go is the hair.”

  She sighed, but gave in to the inevitable. “Fine.”

  “I’ll get the scissors.”

  He headed for the kitchen, so he didn’t have to stand there and watch her look bereft. Bu
t when he came back and tried to hand them to her, she shook her head. “You do it. I don’t think I can.”

  Max wasn’t sure he could, either. But it had to be done, and in the scheme of things, he’d done harder things. “Why don’t we take it to the kitchen? The floor’s easier to clean.”

  She ended up on a chair in the middle of the kitchen, with a towel around her shoulders. To keep her occupied and her mind off what he was doing, he told her, “Why don’t you give me a rundown on how you ended up here, serving beer at the FUBAR? You’re obviously used to better.”

  She hesitated. “How about you tell me something about yourself first?”

  Checking up on him? Or just trying to make herself feel more comfortable?

  Either way, there wasn’t much she didn’t already know. Except a few of the basic details. “My name’s Maksim Vasiliev. I grew up in New York. Brighton Beach. Little Odessa.”

  While he talked, he started hacking at her hair. A little here and a little there.

  “I was born in Russia. My father died when I was five. After that, my mother took my sister and me and emigrated. She died when I was fourteen and Oksana was seventeen.”

  Piles of red hair was starting to accumulate on the floor at his feet. He tried not to notice how soft it was, or the single tear running down her cheek.

  “My sister sold her soul to the local Brotherhood to keep food on the table.” And, it turned out, to keep them away from him. “The day I graduated from high school, she told me to join the Army. That the Bratva would come for me if I didn’t. I was big and strong, and they wanted me for an enforcer.”

  She didn’t ask, but he could hear the question, loud and clear.

  “I didn’t know the difference, so I ended up at the Navy office instead. And they took me on.”

  She muttered something. It sounded like, “Of course they did.”

  “Scuse me?”

  “Nothing. What happened to your sister?”

  “She died,” Max said evenly. “Two years later.”

  Gabrielle was silent for a moment. “The mob?”

  “Indirectly.” He grabbed a hank of hair and chopped it off. “She got arrested. They talked her into making a deal for a lesser sentence in exchange for information about the Bratva. One of the other inmates stabbed her to death. She said she did it on her own, and not because anyone in the Brotherhood told her to, but who knows?”

  Gabrielle didn’t have anything to say to that, and after a second, Max added, “Apparently she got offered the same deal and turned it down. When Oksana didn’t, she took it personally.”

  Gabrielle nodded.

  “Don’t move your head. I don’t want to stab you with the scissors.”

  She froze, and it took her a second to relax again. “I was looking you up,” she admitted, her voice soft.

  “Scuse me?”

  “When you came in. I was looking you up. On the internet.”

  Him personally? “I don’t imagine you found much.” Andy Lee would have made sure of that.

  She shook her head, and then froze again. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He’d seen it coming this time, and had been able to avoid poking her. “I’m almost done, anyway.”

  He walked around to the front of her and peered down. For having no experience cutting hair, she didn’t look too bad.

  It helped that her hair was curly. He didn’t have to worry about straight edges. He cut something, and it sort of sprang back into even crazier curls than when it was long. She was peering back at him from under a choppy mop of red curls.

  He grinned. “You look like Little Orphan Annie.”

  “The musical?”

  “I was thinking of the comic strip, but that works, too.” He shook his head. “It needs to be shorter.”

  She sat back again while he went back to work. “You guys get around. But there isn’t much information on you out there.”

  No. That was the point. Most of the work they did was clandestine. In and out of whatever hot zone they were targeting without anyone knowing they’d been there.

  And Andy had computer searches set up, for names and likenesses, so if anyone posted the name or a picture of any of them anywhere on the net, it would vanish as soon as Andy found out about it. Just as if it had never been there. The people who said that whatever you put on the internet stayed there forever, didn’t know Andy Lee.

  “We work in secret a lot,” he told her. “It’s kinda hard to do if everyone knows what you look like.”

  She nodded. And then froze again. “Oops. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” By this point he’d pretty much given up. She’d get the haircut she got, and that would have to do. It would grow out. Eventually. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”

  “We’re still talking about you,” she informed him.

  “I’ve already told you everything about myself.”

  “Why aren’t you married?” She tilted her head back to look up at him. “You’re... what? Thirty-two? Thirty-three?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re obviously healthy. And good-looking. But there’s no evidence of a woman anywhere in this house.”

  “They don’t stick around,” Max told her.

  “Is that by choice, or because you don’t want them to?”

  A little of both. “I lost my mother and my sister. There was nothing I could do to save either of them.”

  “Your sister was in prison,” she reminded him. “And you were... where?”

  “Somewhere in the Atlantic. On a three-month cruise.”

  She didn’t ask, so she must have figured out that a cruise, in Navy terms, didn’t mean what it meant for most people. “And your mother?”

  “Cancer.”

  “You couldn’t have saved either of them, Max.” Her voice was soft, and the sound of his name touched something inside of him. Something soft, buried deeply beneath the hard exterior he’d cultivated over the last fifteen years.

  “I know that. Logically. It doesn’t make it any easier.”

  She had no answer to that, and he added, “And anyway, being involved with a SEAL—or any kind of soldier—isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sure, we’re great in bed. And we can take out a threat with a Q-tip. Or so I was told last week. But every time we go wheels up, there’s a chance we might not come back. Why would I do that to anyone?” Especially someone he cared about.

  “I guess that would depend on whether she thought it was worth it,” Gabrielle said.

  It? “The sex, you mean?”

  “And the Q-tip thing.” She sighed. “I could use a man who’s good with a Q-tip.”

  It looked like she might finally be ready to talk. Good.

  “Before you get into it,” Max said, and put down the scissors, “one quick question. Do you want to go blonde or dark?”

  6

  “This,” Max said an hour later, “may not have been a good idea.”

  Between them, they had decided that platinum blond would be a better choice than dark brown. Her hair had already been on the dark side, and platinum would make for a bigger change.

  Or so they’d hoped. Until the towel came off. And Max stood in front of her with his hands on his hips looking angry.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He wouldn’t let her look at herself in the mirror, so Gabrielle had no idea how she looked. Her hair was short and sort of messy. And it felt a little bit like straw. It was very dry. But other than that, she had no idea.

  “This isn’t good,” Max said.

  Gabrielle was starting to panic a little. “What isn’t good? What did you do to me?”

  She looked around, frantically.

  “Shhh.” He put his hands on her face to hold her still. They were so big they covered her all the way from chin to past her ears. Her very exposed ears, now that all her hair was gone. “Don’t move.”

  Gabrielle tried not to squirm as that blue gaze moved s
lowly across her face. He shook his head. “Damn.”

  “You’re worrying me.”

  Her voice sounded funny. Maybe it was because his hands were covering her ears. Or maybe it was because he was holding her face, almost like he wanted to kiss her.

  He probably didn’t want to kiss her. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to kiss her. But her stomach swooped anyway, thinking about it.

  “The problem,” he told her, “isn’t that you look bad. You don’t. The problem is that now that all that red hair’s gone, people are going to notice your face. And that isn’t a good thing.”

  She put her hands on her hips. It didn’t work so well with him still holding her head. “There’s nothing wrong with my face!”

  He shook his head. “Nothing at all. That’s the problem.”

  One of his thumbs moved, stroking her cheek, and Gabrielle lost her breath.

  “The thing about disguises,” he’d told her; still holding her, still looking at her, “is that people usually focus on one thing about someone. If you give them that one thing—like a big handlebar moustache—they won’t notice much else.”

  “I don’t want a big handlebar moustache.” And she had a hard time believing that a big handlebar moustache would be enough to disguise him. He was six-and-a-half feet tall and built like Ivan Drago. It would take more than a handlebar moustache to hide that.

  The corner of his mouth turned up. “In your case, you’re a gorgeous woman. Your face is beautiful. Your figure is... well, you’ve taken your clothes off in front of people. You know what you look like.”

  No denying that. Although she didn’t like how he kept coming back to it.

  “Is that a problem for you? Because I stopped taking my clothes off in front of people more than a year ago.”

  She lifted her hands to try to push him off, but instead, ended up with her fingers curled around his wrists when he didn’t budge.

  “No, it isn’t a problem for me. I’m still hoping you’ll take’em off in front of me sometime.”

  He didn’t wait for her answer. “With the red hair, people were mostly gonna notice the hair. Without the red hair, they’re gonna notice you. And I think that might have been a miscalculation on my part.”

  His gaze moved over her face again. And stopped to linger on her lips.