by Zoe Dawson
Her breath hitched at the challenge issued not only from him, but to her control. Chaos looked out from his deep, dark brown eyes. Surrender was never something she had given in to. But wasn’t it true that surrender could only happen at the end of a battle? He had no idea how to be soft and gentle. Tank was all metal and gears, all power and thrust. She knew why SEALs were of a particular breed because surrender wasn’t in their genetic makeup. Tank didn’t know how to back down either.
She had taken an oath. She was breaking it now and every day in her thoughts. But short of allowing her role model for her program to go out there looking like a disreputable rake, she was duty-bound to challenge him.
“It is an order, mister. And it’s Lieutenant Colonel St. James, not General.”
“I was making a…generalization,” he said, that smirk in place. She moistened her lips and his eyes followed the movement. “Then give me an order. Say, ‘Petty Officer Hunt, I order you to allow me to touch you.’”
The intake of air was involuntary, and his smirk widened into a smile that cut through her like a saber. Damn him and his confrontational nature. “Petty Officer Hunt, I order you to allow me to touch you.”
He let her go, dropping his big hands away from hers. “Carry on, ma’am.”
He stepped closer, way too close, way too personal. She reached for the button of his collar, the skin of his throat against the back of her fingers warm and smooth. She wanted to lean in, to breathe in the scent of him, press her mouth to that hollow and kiss his skin, taste him, the power of him making her knees weak and her fingers tremble.
“Do you want me at attention or at ease?” he whispered, the sound and the heat of his breath vibrating and wisping over her skin as if he’d physically touched her.
“At ease,” she whispered, trying not to sound as breathless as she knew she did. He set his hands behind his back, which was, as far as she was concerned, a relief. She did up the collar, then reached for the tie. With the beard shadowing his jaw, the rebel chaos of his hair, the thickness of his eyelashes evident in the openings of the mask, his face so close, kissing seemed inevitable. Her nipples were hard beneath the dress, her core aching. Months of the most intense attraction of her life and she couldn’t follow through with anything. Not with this man.
There were so many reasons. He was an enlisted member, and while it was true that she was a reservist in the Army, they were still under the same Uniform Code of Military Justice edicts. Getting physically, emotionally, or romantically involved with him could pose a serious violation. He was intense, earthy, and raw—so opposite to her grounded, calculating, and studious personality. He was a womanizer. He was reckless and had the kind of job that kept him gone most of the time. It would be the same song and dance as it had been with Stephen. Her marriage fell apart because they grew apart.
She’d pledged to her career. Her own expectations for her achievements were important. So, right away there was a problem here. Being deployed so much put a strain on a relationship. If only she could just have sex with him, maybe it would take the edge off, but could she risk her whole future on a physical desire? She looked into his face, into those eyes that seemed to see to the bottom of her soul. There was so much more to him than his intensity. There were layers, but he was guarded. She wasn’t sure she had the skill or the energy to peel them back or if he’d even be willing to allow her to get any further. So it was best that she take her frustration and stuff it into a compartment like she always did.
The tie now done up, she knew she should step back.
But that moment, her necklace chose to come loose, and it dropped from her neck. With a quick flick of his wrist, he caught it
Tank didn’t want to let her go back out to the ballroom. He couldn’t seem to break this spell she had over him, and it made him chafe and swear inside his head.
The necklace was warm from her skin and he raised his eyes to hers. Her mouth was parted, her hands, feeling the piece slip, were already on her throat even as he’d saved it from tumbling to the floor.
“The safety clasp must not have been fastened,” she said.
He wanted intimacy with her, knew that it was against the rules and against what he thought he wanted in his life. Meaningless sex was all he’d allowed himself, and it kept his life uncomplicated, filled his needs, and never engaged his heart.
Alyssa was a threat. He instinctually knew that. But he still wanted to be inside her in every way possible.
Instead of placing the necklace in her hands, he stepped back and indicated the mirror that was on the wall close to the door. She looked at him for a minute, but when he thought she was going to speak, she moved and stood before the mirror.
He stood at her back and slipped the jeweled collar around her neck without touching her. But the necklace was made to fit against her throat, and the small, hidden catch felt tiny against his big fingers, requiring him to press against the nape of her neck.
A light fan of hair at the base of her hairstyle brushed his finger. It felt warm, her skin cool. He looked up into the mirror.
She was gazing at the reflection, at the necklace, at him.
He meant to take his hands away. He let go of the catch, raised his hands too quickly. A lock of her hair fell free of the loose pinning. The necklace sparkled at her throat. She and the stones were like light, with darkness all around: himself darkness…and tumbling…tumbling…
He shouldn’t have touched her, should have given her back the stones and let her fasten it back around her slender throat.
The overhead lights found deep highlights in the lock of hair. She lifted her hand as if to tuck the curl back into place, but before she could, he touched it. He gazed down at his hand, fanning the curl between his fingers, resting his fist against the slope of her bare shoulder. It was as if his actions didn’t belong to him—and yet they did: he felt every texture, every delicate strand of hair, every light breath she took.
He slid his knuckles in a feathery brush up her throat, past the necklace, to a place beneath her ear that was soft with a sensation he had never in his life known before.
He stood silent, touching her. It was beyond him, beyond him; he couldn’t turn away as his will failed him.
It felt so good to have her, even this much of her beneath his fingers. She looked at him in the mirror, her eyes wide and deep green. There was regret there. And longing. There were no mixed signals with Alyssa. He knew she was off limits, and not just because of their UCMJ issues. He could only want her on a temporary basis. The only family he needed was his brothers. But standing here with her, he wondered how it would be to expand that family by one.
They had danced around this for weeks. Her vulnerability at this moment seemed enormous to him, her stillness beneath his hand an act of infinite trust.
With his hands, he could do so much damage and destruction. But she reminded him there was another side to him. A side that was gentle, but strong, a side that had needs that required filling. She reminded him that he was a man beneath the uniform he wore.
Lust flooded him. What he wanted…God, what he wanted…
He thought of all the women in his past, and they just paled in comparison to the vibrancy and beauty of Alyssa, and he had never been alive until the instant he’d met her.
He spread his hands, his thumbs brushing the skin beneath her earlobes, his fingertips resting on her temples, just tasting her cheeks. Still, she only stared at him in the mirror. Such fine eyes she had, the deep green of a saturated jungle, the lashes so long that he felt the sweep of them against his fingers.
He stood there touching her, imagined her hair gripped in his fist, her body, the voluptuous scent, the sounds. His own throat tightened with a suppressed moan. He wanted only to hold her, to gather her up and cradle her against him—and he wanted to overpower her. There was a terrible violence inside him. All he knew, all he had experienced and mastered in his life, was destruction. Will and determination kept him in check, but his
resolve had failed him.
But he knew his heart would be his downfall, especially when it came to the off-limits Alyssa. With that thought came fear, for his heart could be the sword that cut him the deepest.
It was only self-preservation, dire need for protection, that finally impelled him to open his hands and let her go and walk briskly from the room.
2
Petty Officer and Corpsman Ocean “Blue” Beckett entered the ballroom, pulling at the lacy cuffs beneath the gold brocade jacket, taking it in stride that he was dressed like a medieval nobleman. His shoulders ached from the previous day’s workout where they had pushed themselves beyond the limit. Something they did as a team every month. Sweating and heaving big heavy weights was a guy thing, and just because he spent most of his time on the team between combat and medicine didn’t mean he couldn’t keep up. Out in the field, his skills could be the difference between life and death. But medicine to him had been a breeze—both his Navy course when he’d initially enlisted and the advanced school after completing Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALS, or BUD/S. He did everything the guys did but got the additional medical training as well.
He saw Tank leaving a small room looking…edgy. Oh, boy. He knew that look. Something was testing his friend’s control. When Doc came out after him looking shell shocked, he had his answer. He made his way through the crowd. “Let’s get us some of this fancy champagne,” he said, slinging his arm around Tank’s massive shoulders.
“I need something a little stronger than that,” Tank growled, and he steered them over to the bar. “You look like a pansy.” Tank was a typical SEAL with one difference. His control was too obsessive. As a connoisseur of control, Blue was aware that the tighter a guy held onto it, the closer he came to losing it.
Blue laughed and said, “I’m much more grounded in my masculinity and can pull off this getup. I see you went for the staid and boring. A tux. Man, you have no imagination.”
“I don’t need an imagination. It can get you into trouble.” He eyed the Doc.
“Hoo-yah, I hear you.” He followed Tank’s line of vision. “She causes chaos.”
Tank looked at him. “She’s a pain in my ass.”
But Blue did believe that if there was no struggle, there was no progress. The problem with Tank was the progress part. “Okay, same thing, different label.” He handed him a whiskey and got the attendant to pour him a club soda.
Tank threw back the alcohol, his eyes watering a bit, then shrugged and rolled his eyes. “You going to guru me?”
Control was about a deep-seated fear. Get to that fear and control was less important. Understanding that fear led to the ability to let go. Tank just had to find out what that fear was. There was nothing Blue could do to help him there. That was a private path he had to follow. “I can. It’s fun to watch you all look at me like I’m from a different planet, but then later on come up to me and tell me how spot on I was. My messages might at first be cryptic, but the journey of figuring it out is up to you. You have the code to break it. But all I have to say is: We think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”
Tank looked at Doc again and sighed. “Letting go wouldn’t be a good idea. Someone could get hurt. Also, I’m stronger than that.”
Blue sighed, too. “Still, a journey gives us knowledge.” Growing up in Hawaii, Blue understood the ways of the ocean. In his oneness with the sea, he understood a lot of the cycle of life. Especially when it came to control. No one could control the ocean—not surfers, of which he was one, not the fishermen, not even its inhabitants.
Tank had to consider the fish. A fish swam in a chaotic sea that it couldn’t possibly control—much as they all did. The fish, unlike them, was under no illusion that it controlled the sea, or other fish in the sea. The fish didn’t even try to control where it ended up—it just swam, either going with the flow or dealing with the flow as it came. It ate, hid, and mated, but didn’t try to control a thing.
Blue knew better.
He’d been taught better.
“You’re not being very cryptic right now.”
Blue smiled and took a sip of his club soda. “Be like the fish,” he said softly, setting down his glass and heading over to the stage, leaving a confused Tank in his wake. Tank needed to learn that it takes losing control to regain balance. Sometimes things have to fall apart so you have little control over losing control and learn to let go.
Alyssa stood there for a few minutes after Tank left. This was bad. Very bad. So very, very bad. She had liked every minute of having his hands on her. Oh, dammit. What was she going to do about this? Talk to him? Get it out in the open and have a conversation about how hot they were for each other?
Would that only make it worse, openly acknowledging this…thing between them?
One thing was for sure, she couldn’t hide in here. She would never shirk her duties. She had a function to run, and she needed to focus on that right now.
She exited the small room back into the festivities of the ballroom. Even more people were arriving, looking stunning in their costumes.
A woman touched her arm and Alyssa stared into a red sequined mask. “Paige?”
Paige Wilder smiled, looking stunning in a red dress, her dark hair caught up and cascading down her back. Kid Chaos, her husband, stood behind her at her right shoulder in a red military styled jacket, dark shirt and pants, a filigreed mask on his face. He gave her a broad grin. They had met last summer when Kid had been on vacation in Bolivia. Paige was an NCIS agent. They’d gotten married shortly after returning.
“We’re here for support,” she said, slipping her arm through Kid’s. All of Tank’s teammates had been great in helping out with fundraisers. Alyssa was thankful to them for the assistance. “Everything looks amazing. You’ve outdone yourself here.”
“I agree,” Dana Cooper said. She and her husband Ruckus complemented each other in royal blue. He was the team’s leader and Dana was a humanitarian reporter. Their other teammate, Cowboy, and his fiancée, Kia, also looked amazing, she in a black, strapless, silk tulle gown with silver sequins on it. If Alyssa was the Butterfly Queen, Kia was the Star Queen. She was a hacker for hire and split her time between San Diego and Reddick, Texas. She owned a bar and hotel in her small home town. Her fiancé was dressed like an old-world cowboy with bling on the silver vest. Quite a sexy gunfighter. They’d also met last year, and their wedding was coming up soon.
She pushed her problems with Tank to the back of her mind. “Thank you all for coming.”
“Hey, Doc,” Hollywood said, looking devastatingly handsome with Scarecrow and Wicked making it hard to breathe with so many gorgeous men in one small space.
“Here are my bachelors,” Alyssa said. In addition to Hollywood, there was Wicked and Scarecrow…wait. She smiled and looked around. “Where’s Blue?”
“He’s here somewhere,” Hollywood said. “But who’s looking for him, beautiful? Like, wow, Doc, you’re a stunner.”
She flushed at his words, his beautiful blue eyes going over her with appreciation. She didn’t normally fall victim to flattery, but there was something so deliciously irresistible about Hollywood. Wicked nudged him, and he shrugged his shoulders. “Keep it in your pants, Casanova.”
He chuckled and winked at her. “What? I’m just giving the lady a compliment.”
“Sure you were,” Wicked said, rolling his eyes.
“The auction isn’t for another hour. So mingle and work your magic, guys. Again, thanks for doing this.”
“You’re welcome,” they said as the music started up.
“Go and dance. Get this party started, people,” she said.
As the night wore on, people bid on the silent auction items: gift baskets, wine pull, free vet care for a year, and a private tour of the Navy’s Marine Mammal Program. The live auction was a huge success with dinner for two with an admiral cooking the meal, a private tour of Coronado and dinner with the commander. Her military working dog
charity would have the support they needed for a long while. But it was the bachelor auction that fetched an enormous amount, especially the five SEALs. She’d itched to bid on Tank, but she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be a good idea, her being the sponsor and the whole problem with the fraternization policy. It was safer to keep her paddle by her side. But it killed her when a beautiful blonde won him.
Once the auction was over there wasn’t much more that she had to do. She went to the bar and got an apple martini and sipped it while she watched the couples in their resplendent costumes dance. She sighed. Another fundraiser down. There were plenty more things to do, like take a look at her website and make sure it was up to date—
“I never took you for a wallflower, my queen.”
His warm hand slipped up under her elbow, and she turned to find Hollywood smiling at her. Oh, God. Could she not get away from these enlisted men?
“Could I have this dance?” At her non-response, his confidence never wavered. It was clear he was used to wooing women and he enjoyed every minute of it. “C’mon. I put myself on a stage for you and let women bid on me. One dance.”
She wavered. He was so handsome, and that smile. Geez. “Okay, one dance.”
That smile widened as he led her out and slipped one arm around her waist, the other clasping her hand. They moved to the music.
She hadn’t seen much of Tank since the end of the auction, and she wondered if he’d gone home. The lights dimmed, leaving the room bathed in the twinkle lights strewn above. The song playing was beautiful, lyrical, but there was just something missing in her enjoyment of the waltz. She glanced into the crowd and saw Tank staring at them, his face like granite, his eyes dark with mood. There was an instant, just a flash of time, when their gazes caught and held; then the muscles along his jaw tensed and his mouth hardened as he started to turn to go.
