“Okay.”
She’d gotten up to shower, gotten dressed, and gone to fix coffee. Kayla emerged a short time later, and that’s when Bailey made breakfast. Now her sister was looking at her with that questioning gaze, and Bailey’s stomach flipped.
But she wasn’t going to lie.
“Yeah, me and Alex.” She shrugged. “It just kinda happened.”
Kayla made a face. “Be careful, Bailey. He’s sexy as hell, but those guys…” She shook her head. “They had more women after them than you can imagine whenever they were hanging out at Buddy’s. Women find out those guys are SEALs and throw themselves at them. And the guys, well, they’re guys. They don’t turn the women away.”
Bailey frowned. “I know that, but I didn’t throw myself at him. It just happened. In fact, neither of us wanted it to. But it did.”
“I’m certainly not anyone to give advice, believe me. I just thought you should know what it’s like for them. They cycle through women pretty quickly. I watched it happen for months.”
Bailey’s heart ached at the thought. But she’d known what she was signing up for. The scratching of an itch. Hot sex with a hot guy. Except she’d fallen for him, which had definitely not been part of the plan. So what now? Stick around and take as much as she could get—or cut him loose now and move on with her life?
“We aren’t getting married,” she said. “I don’t expect anything out of him.”
“That’s good.” Kayla grinned. “So, is he good in bed?”
Bailey felt herself blushing. “Kay-Kay, why are you asking me that?”
Kayla laughed. “Look at you turn red! Oh my God, he is good, isn’t he?”
Bailey shook herself and laughed. “All right, fine. Yes, he’s amazing. He knows how to find all the right places, and he doesn’t get tired. It’s the best sex I’ve ever had.”
“Well that’s not hard to do. Your last man wasn’t exactly a winner by any stretch of the imagination.”
Kayla had never liked Bailey’s old boyfriend. “Just because Dave was a douchebag doesn’t mean he was bad in bed.”
“True. So was he?”
Bailey frowned. “Not bad necessarily. But nothing like Alexei.”
Kayla grinned again. “And there you go with the special name. Careful, Bale, or I’ll think you’re falling for this guy.”
Oh, you have no idea.
Bailey scoffed. “It’s just sex. Hot, dirty, amazing sex. His dick is magic. His tongue—you don’t even want to know.”
“Uh, yeah I do,” Kayla said with a laugh. “I’m your sister—I want all the dirty details.”
So Bailey spilled some of the particulars, but she kept the more private things to herself. The way Alexei made her feel when he touched her, the way her heart nearly burst from her chest. She didn’t get specific about anything, but she told Kayla enough that her sister was watching her raptly.
“Wow. Okay, now I want one. A SEAL, that is.” She laughed, and Bailey laughed with her. But then she sighed and shook her head. “I’m afraid there’ll be no more guys for me for a long time though. Nobody’s going to want a woman with an infant whose father’s in the big house, you know?”
“The right man will come along, Kayla. And he won’t care about any of those things.” She smiled brightly. “And hey, Alexei and I aren’t going to fall in love and live happily ever after or any of that romance-novel shit. It’s just a fling.”
Kayla sobered. “I want to leave here, Bale. Go somewhere new and start all over again. Somewhere that James won’t come looking for me when he gets out of prison.”
Bailey’s heart skipped. She didn’t like Kayla talking of leaving, but then again, it was the most logical thing to do. Why shouldn’t they both go? They could find a new state, a new place to live, somewhere with a cheaper cost of living. Maybe Bailey could enroll in community college, find a job, start building that new life she wanted. Or if not that, at least she could find work that wasn’t in a strip club. Then again, the whole reason she stripped was because of the money. But she was tired of it. Tired of the numbness that went along with it and the walls she had to put up to survive.
There was no real reason to stay. None but her desire to be with a man who’d warned her up front that he wasn’t going to commit to her. If they moved, Alexei would be sleeping with someone new in no time.
“Maybe it’s time,” she said, even though her heart cracked at the idea.
Kayla frowned. “You’d go with me?”
Bailey took her sister’s hands in hers. “Of course I’d go with you. You’re my sister. And you’ve got my cute little niece to take care of. You need me.”
Kayla pulled her hands away and threw her arms around Bailey’s neck, hugging her tight. “I’ve been such a jerk, Bale. I’m sorry. You’re the best sister—best friend—I could ever have.”
Bailey tightened her arms around Kayla. But her soul ached at the thought of leaving, even if it was the right thing to do.
Alexei didn’t want Bailey going back to the Pink Palace, but he didn’t know how to tell her that without her getting pissed. Because it was illogical and possessive and a whole lot of things he shouldn’t be feeling. But tonight was the night she was scheduled to return, and he’d thought of little else for the past two days.
She’d seemed a bit distant, but then she’d fallen into his arms every chance they got. She was hot and beautiful, and he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. He’d been going in bare the past couple of nights, and it felt divine. He pulled out every time, but he really wanted to stay inside her when he blew. There was something about being in her that felt like the best thing he’d ever experienced. He told himself that couldn’t possibly be true, but every time he went in with nothing between them, he felt a profound shift in his psyche. In his soul. It was the oddest feeling.
One thing was different about her lately though. She was increasingly distracted by her sister’s presence. He’d returned home after meeting with his team to find her and Kayla hugging and crying about something. She wouldn’t tell him what it was other than to say she thought maybe she and her sister were on the right track again.
Having Kayla around took a little getting used to, but she was quiet most of the time. She took care of her baby, and it was clear she loved the kid, which was a bit of a relief for Bailey, he was sure. Kayla apologized to him for saying he was the father and sending Bailey after him. He’d told her he wasn’t mad about it.
And he wasn’t. Because he wouldn’t have met Bailey otherwise. But now Bailey was going back to the club, and it was driving him crazy. She’d be taking her clothes off onstage in a few hours, shaking her cute little ass and baring her tits while men hooted and made indecent suggestions. He could barely stand the idea. It drove him crazy to imagine it.
Crazy enough that when Kayla got caught up watching television, he dragged Bailey to the bedroom and pushed her back on the bed, sliding her jeans and panties off and burying his face between her legs. She moaned and thrashed as he licked her pussy relentlessly, driving her toward a shattering climax. Then he turned her over and fucked her from behind while she buried her face in the pillow and tried to cover her moans.
After it was over, after he’d come off the high of an orgasm so intense it sizzled down into his toes, he lay beside her and sucked in air.
“Wow,” she said breathlessly. And then she rolled over and laid her head on his chest. “I’ll miss this.”
Alexei frowned, hand stilling where it was busy tracing the groove of her spine. “We’ll still see each other,” he said, assuming she was talking about going back to her own place. “You can sleep over here, I’ll sleep over there. It’ll work out.” He swallowed as he thought of something else. And then he said it because what the hell? “Or you and Kayla and Ana can stay here. Until you find a better place to live.”
He felt her stiffen. And then she relaxed again, her fingers tracing circles on his chest. “I want to stay. So much,” she said, her voice bar
ely audible. “But I think I have to get Kayla settled. She needs me.”
I need you.
But he didn’t say it because it was too foreign. Too shocking. He’d never said such a thing before, much less thought it. Yet here he was, thinking it. And thinking about how he didn’t want other men looking at her banging bod and dreaming of fucking her. That was his territory.
His?
“She’s a grown woman, Bailey. She needs your support, but not your twenty-four-seven presence.”
She stiffened again. This time she pushed herself up until she could gaze down into his eyes. “She’s my sister. She’s been through hell. And where else would I be, huh?”
He didn’t hesitate. “With me.”
“You want me to stay? Why?”
He searched his brain. “Because I like you. I like being with you.”
She frowned down at him. “I appreciate that. I really do. But it’s not a reason. You don’t need me for anything but scratching an itch. Kayla needs my support, like you said. I can do that better if I’m in the same house with her and Ana.”
Her words stung. “I can scratch my itch with anyone. I’m choosing you.”
“But for how long?” She shook her head when he didn’t reply. “It’s not enough, Alexei. I need more than that.”
“More?”
“Yes. Is that so surprising? I dream of finding the perfect person for me just like everybody else does. I want love and marriage and yes, babies—but not right away on the babies. One day. I want those things, and I know you aren’t the man who’s going to give them to me. Because you told me so when this whole thing started.”
“Jesus, Bailey—I know what I said. But I also know I can’t lie and tell you I’ve changed my mind. I might—hell, I don’t know. But I need more time before I go thinking that way.”
She sighed and dropped a kiss onto his shoulder. “Time is something I don’t have. I have to make decisions now.”
“What kind of fucking decisions?”
She searched his gaze. He didn’t like the feeling gnawing into his belly. “Kayla wants to move to another state. Start over. She doesn’t feel safe here anymore. I’m planning to go with her.”
All he could do was stare at her while his chest tightened as if there were a boulder sitting on it and squeezing all the air away. “And you didn’t think to mention this to me before now?”
Her lashes dropped over her eyes, hiding their amber fire from his gaze. His heart felt like a dead weight in his chest. What the fuck?
“I didn’t think I needed to discuss it with you, no.”
He didn’t know what to say. What to think. Was it crushing him to imagine her leaving? Hell yeah. But was that enough to try to stop her? What was he supposed to say to her?
“I thought we were friends, Bailey.”
“Friends with benefits? Because that’s all we seem to have going here. Unless you have something else to say to me.”
He didn’t speak. He was too busy trying to process it. Her mouth flattened as she spread her palm over his pectoral muscle and then patted him. “Okay then. That’s what I needed to know.”
She pushed herself upright and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Then she grabbed her clothes and started tugging them on. Panties, bra.
“Bailey. It doesn’t need to be like this.”
She whirled on him. “Like what, Alexei? You mean the part where I stop spreading my legs whenever and wherever you want, because you can’t give me a good reason to stay?”
She tugged her T-shirt over her head. Then she started shoving her legs into her jeans.
“What do you want from me?” he demanded, shoving his way out of the bed to face her.
Her eyes narrowed. He didn’t miss that she let her gaze fall to his cock, then back up to his face.
She put her hand over her eyes and stood there shaking her head. “I’m such an idiot. Such a damned idiot.”
He thought that was what he wanted to hear—but then he thought maybe it wasn’t. Because she didn’t seem to mean she was an idiot for wanting to leave. She meant something else, but he didn’t know what.
He crossed the distance between them and put his hands on her arms, smoothed them up and down soothingly. “Bailey, baby. We can figure this out. You don’t have to leave.”
She jerked away from him. He was so surprised by the move that he didn’t try to stop her. He stood there with his hands in midair for a long moment while she turned her back and sucked in deep breaths.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. Because this was territory he’d never ventured into before. He was lost as hell.
She whirled back, gaze sparkling with tears. “I let myself like you, Alexei. Too much. I want to stay—don’t you get that? But I can’t stay for a sexual relationship that could end tomorrow. It has to be more than that.” She shook her head. “But you don’t want more, and I’m not trying to force you into it. So I just need to go while it doesn’t hurt so much.”
He swallowed. What the fuck could he say? She was right. He didn’t want more. He couldn’t. His job, his life, wasn’t conducive to more than this right here. He’d be gone on another mission in a couple weeks, and she’d be alone again. Was it fair to ask her to stay when she had her sister back again and the two of them could start over somewhere else? Somewhere better for raising a baby. Because she couldn’t stay here and strip and live in that crappy apartment anymore. It was time for something better.
“When?” he asked.
She blinked. “When are we going? Is that what you’re asking?”
He nodded.
Her eyes just kinda went dead. “Soon. I have to give notice, pack up our apartment. Figure out where we should go next. A couple of weeks probably. At least.”
“Okay. I’ll help any way I can.” He jerked his pants on, grabbed his T-shirt and tugged it over his head. He pointed at her suddenly, emotion welling up inside him like a fucking pot boiling over. “If this is about the Kings of Doom—they’re done, Bailey. Your sister isn’t going to have to worry about those motherfuckers ever again. Did you really think I’d let them continue to exist after what Kayla told you?”
Her eyes widened. “What did you do?”
His jaw snapped shut. He couldn’t tell her that. Couldn’t mention Ian Black, or HOT, or any of it. She wasn’t authorized. If they were together, there was a point at which she’d be briefed on HOT—not the real mission, but the sanitized version of it—but it wasn’t the kind of thing he could tell her now. She was leaving. They were finished. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going to keep happening.
“What I had to do. Trust me, they won’t last much longer. A few weeks at most.”
“Alexei…” She shook her head. “I can never thank you for all you’ve done for us. So much more than you ever had to do. I hope…” She sniffed. “I hope we’ll stay in touch.”
“Yeah. Sure. We can do that,” he said, even though it felt like someone was dragging a dull knife through his guts.
“I should get ready for work.”
The knife twisted. And he suddenly had to get out. Just get out and think for a while. “Yeah, I need to head to the base. Training.”
He grabbed his keys and shoved them in his pocket. Then he walked out without another word.
Chapter 23
Alexei walked into the indoor shooting range at HOT and set down his range bag. He unzipped his rifle case and took out an MK12 light sniper rifle. He laid it on the table in front of him, dug out a thirty-round magazine, and snapped it into place. He already wore his ear protection and shooting glasses. He didn’t always have the luxury of this stuff in the field, but when you practiced, you wore protection.
He picked up the rifle, sighted it in, and fired. It wasn’t difficult to hit the target at these distances. Indoor ranges had limitations, even if this one was built for long-range practice. Just not the kind of long-range practice he liked to get in from time to time. Fifteen hundred yards. Two thousand yards.
Those were more challenging, and there was another military range nearby for that, currently closed. But since he needed something to blow off the steam currently building inside him, he’d come to HOT.
He needed to shoot the hell out of a poor innocent target or ten. He’d also like to go a few rounds with the punching bag in the gym. That was next. Because he was pissed and hurt and, yeah, somewhat confused about his reaction to the whole thing.
So Bailey was moving out of state. He’d known her for a little over a week now. Why should it matter if she left town? Sure, she had a body he loved to explore. She was tough and decisive and brave, and she worked her ass off.
He thought of her getting ready to step out on that stage at the Pink Palace and his stomach twisted. He couldn’t stand the idea of those assholes in the audience looking at her as anything less than the funny, sweet, gorgeous woman she was. But they wouldn’t see that. All they’d see were tits and ass and their own dirty thoughts.
Alexei fired again and again, trying to erase that image from his head. He spent about an hour firing everything in the bag—the rifle, his Glock, a sweet Ruger SR1911 he’d picked up recently, a Colt 1911, a Sig Sauer P239, and an HK45CT. When he’d depleted his ammo, he packed everything up and returned the bag to the armory, minus his personal weapons, which had to be unloaded and stored separately from the ammo while transporting them on a military facility.
Alexei headed for the gym where he changed into workout gear and hit the treadmill. Maybe he could sweat Bailey out.
Or maybe not, because by the time he got off the treadmill half an hour later, she was still in his head. He’d been punching the shit out of the bag for about twenty minutes or so when he saw movement in his periphery.
He glanced up. Blade was watching him. Neo and Dirty were setting up the bench press with weights.
“You okay, dude?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You seem a little stressed.”
HOT SEAL Redemption Page 18
