This wasn’t the first time in the six months since Tom had been relieved of his command that they’d left town without him, but it was the first time he hadn’t been told precisely where they were going.
Which sounded the death knell for his hope of ever returning as Team Sixteen’s commanding officer.
Kelly chopped quarters of an apple into even smaller pieces. “Maybe it’s time to make some . . . alternative plans for the future.”
“Okay,” Tom said. “Let’s start by setting a wedding date.”
She didn’t stop chopping, the blade flashing in the bright morning sunlight. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Yeah, but as long as we’re making plans . . .”
“Tom . . .” She sighed and put down the knife. “Maybe this isn’t a good time to talk about this.”
And here it came. Tom couldn’t help but smile. Whenever he tried to talk about getting married, she would distract him with creative sex.
One of these days he’d finally wear her down and she’d say yes and set a date. But until then, it was pretty much a no-lose situation.
Because despite being a girl-next-door look-alike with her cheerleader-style blond ponytail and her sweet face with those freckles and wide blue eyes, Kelly could be pretty damn creative when it came to sex.
Tom knew that she loved him. There was never a doubt of that in his mind. She just had cold feet when it came to tying the knot. After a failed marriage that had been filled with complacency and a serious lack of excitement, she had every right to be leery.
She rinsed her hands in the sink before coming over to kiss him. “Maybe we should save the heavy conversations for later and just . . . enjoy our day off.”
Oh, baby. Right on schedule. She tasted like strawberries and cantaloupe. And she was definitely naked under that gown.
“Don’t you think?” She reached down into his shorts, her fingers cool and still a little wet.
He answered her with a kiss. Oh, yeah, this was one way to cure that antsy, frustrated feeling—at least temporarily. Except he had quite a few things that needed to be said first.
But then her nightgown went over her head and onto the floor, and she pulled out her ponytail holder and shook her hair free. She was growing it out and the ends curled slightly around her shoulders. It wasn’t quite long enough yet to conceal her breasts—which was fine with him.
It had definitely been awhile since they’d made love here in the kitchen. He loved making love with the sun streaming in from the skylights, with all those counters at exactly the perfect height. It was bright and sunny, even after she crossed the room to close the vertical blinds so that the Hodges, whose backyard abutted theirs, wouldn’t get an eyeful from their deck.
Hello, gorgeous naked woman in his kitchen.
Kelly smiled, too, as she walked toward him, and Tom was well aware that he wouldn’t be here right now if he’d gone out with the team this morning. And while he appreciated this opportunity given to him by staying behind, it didn’t really make his recent realization any easier to deal with.
“Maybe we should both just retire. We can sleep late and then make love all day, every day,” he said.
“Okay.” She levered herself up so she sat on the counter, right next to the cutting board and the piles of fruit.
Oh-ho, this was going to be wonderfully, deliciously messy. She was laughing now, and he was, too. God, he loved her.
And he was wrong—his entire life was easier with Kelly beside him.
There was a knife on the counter that was very sharp. Tom moved it into the sink.
She waited until he was watching to crush a piece of peach, dribbling it into her belly button and smearing it down, even lower, before leaning back on her elbows, right in the pile of melon.
Oh, baby. Talk about delicious.
But Tom didn’t move toward her. There was something he had to tell her first. “I think I might be serious about that,” he said. “About retiring—about me retiring, you know, from the Navy. And if I did, we could have kids, Kel. I could stay at home with them.”
She sat up, an expression of incredulity on her face. It would have been pretty funny if this wasn’t something he desperately needed to talk about right now.
Even more than he wanted to have fruit-flavored sex.
“You want to go from being the CO of a SEAL team—no, not a SEAL team, the SEAL team. The best SEAL team in the world—to being the primary caregiver of an infant?”
“I was actually thinking three,” he said. “Babies. One at a time, of course, but . . . yeah.”
She was looking at him as if she were ready to whip out her doctor’s bag and start taking his vital signs.
“I really want us to have kids, Kel,” he told her. “I love you, and I’m ready to take our relationship to the next level. I’ve been ready for a long time. And suddenly it seems as if I’m going to have lots of time on my hands, so . . .”
“But your career—”
“What career?” Ever since six months ago, when he’d ordered his men to take down three terrorist assassins who had infiltrated an open-to-the-public SEAL demonstration at the Coronado naval base, Tom had been pulled off his career track as CO of SEAL Team Sixteen and into the limbo of a Navy desk job.
It would be one thing if he’d been transferred to a position that would allow him active participation in the smooth management of the teams, but as far as he could tell, his new job was meaningless. He did nothing but ridiculous paper busywork that helped no one. Lately he’d started coming in an hour late and going home an hour early, but no one noticed. Or cared.
As long as he didn’t draw any attention to himself. As long as he didn’t make more waves.
He’d been patient at first, as the Navy and the U.S. Government tried to figure out if he was a hero for saving the President’s life—and the lives of thousands of people in that crowd—or a dangerous criminal for violating U.S. law.
The U.S. Military was not allowed to take up arms against civilians. Tom knew that as well as any American. It was written very clearly in a little piece of paper called the U.S. Constitution.
And Tom had, indeed, crossed that line. The Secret Service was responsible for the protection of the President, and the head of the Service hadn’t given Tom permission to act in his behalf. There was a tape of their radio communications that day that spelled it all out quite clearly.
“You need to let us take care of this,” Tom had been told, even though the Secret Service men in the sniper towers still hadn’t located the suspected shooter in the crowd, and the SEALs in the helos overhead had.
But Lt. Sam Starrett, one of Tom’s most trusted officers, had been in one of the circling helicopters. He’d spotted a weapon on the man in question and shouted, “Gun!”
Tom hadn’t thought twice about giving the order to take down that terrorist shooter, or the two others who had started firing into the crowd. Kelly had been there that day, along with countless other wives and girlfriends and children and mothers and . . .
And his commander in chief, the United States President.
Tom’s quick order had saved lives—there was no doubt about it. He’d do it all over again, without hesitation. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known that his career was over even as the command to fire was leaving his lips.
Some things were worth more than a man’s career.
He was relieved of his command within the week, and Lt. Jazz Jacquette, his executive officer and a man he’d trust with his life, was given temporary command of SEAL Team Sixteen.
“My career in the Navy’s over and done.” It was the first time Tom said the words aloud, the first time he’d voiced what he’d known to be true for a while now.
The first time he’d told Kelly.
Her eyes filled with tears. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’ve known for months.” He looked at her sitting there, still naked among all that fruit. “I guess I kind of killed the m
ood. Sorry about that.”
She shook her head. “I had no idea it was . . . Oh, Tom. Why didn’t you tell me before this? You’re supposed to talk to me about things like that. About . . . God.”
“I just kept hoping I was wrong,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just . . .” He shrugged.
She reached for him, and he went into her arms.
“I’m sorry, Kel,” he said again. “I guess I thought maybe if I didn’t say it aloud . . .” He kissed her and tasted salt.
Kelly pulled back slightly to look at him and to wipe her eyes. “They’re fools for letting you go.”
“Yeah, well, thanks, but—”
“You know, Max Bhagat would hire you in a heartbeat,” she said.
Tom smiled at her ferocity. “You want me to join the FBI?”
“Yeah,” Kelly said. “Yeah, Tom, I do. There are a lot of very bad people out there and you’re very good at catching them. If the Navy won’t let you do it as a SEAL, well, you’ll just have to do it some other way.”
“I still want to have kids. Let me rephrase—I want to get married and have kids.”
“Will you give me some time to think about that?”
Like he hadn’t already given her a few years? “Yeah,” Tom said. “I’ll give you twenty minutes.”
She laughed.
“Come on, we could go to Vegas,” he said. “This afternoon. Or we could schedule something small here on base. Betcha I can find someone to marry us tonight. That license upstairs is still good to go.”
On his birthday, Kelly had wanted to get him a new truck with some of the money she’d inherited from her father. Their financial situation continued to be a prickly spot for Tom, who had drawn the line at comingling their funds until after they were married. They were living together, sure, but this was his house and he was paying the bills. Which pissed Kelly off because not only had she received a huge amount of money on her father’s death, but she also pulled in a significantly higher salary as a pediatrician.
But Tom had a stubborn streak, too, and until she became his wife, there would be no ours as far as finances went. And even then, he was going to make her sign a prenup to protect her inheritance.
As part of his birthday negotiation, he’d told her he’d accept her gift of that truck if she went down to city hall with him and applied for a marriage license. They didn’t have to use it, they just had to have it.
So now it was in a file on the desk in his den, ready for Kelly to give in and make this thing between them legal.
“You know, you could give me more than twenty minutes to think about it, and we could spend the day doing something else.” She leaned back into the fruit, eating a piece of melon and licking her finger clean.
O-kay. Tom laughed, both at her amazing lack of subtlety and his own undeniable response. “Believe it or not, I’d really rather go to Vegas.”
She ate a piece of apple. “Really?”
“Really.”
She licked the juice from a chunk of orange. “Right now?”
Tom kissed her. He was, after all, human. “Yes.” Funny how he didn’t sound so convincing anymore.
“Not in five minutes?” She reached for him, unfastening his shorts.
He pulled back. A little. “Five minutes. And then we go to Vegas?”
“Five minutes,” she said, “and then we talk about this some more.”
Talking some more was a step in the right direction. Tom kissed her again, this time not on the mouth, and Kelly’s laughter quickly turned to a moan.
Oh, man, he loved peaches. And he loved knowing just where to touch and kiss her to drive her wild.
After living together for years, with their ridiculous schedules—as a pediatrician, Kelly had to go dashing out of the house at crazy hours even more often than Tom—they’d perfected the art of the quickie.
“Please!” Kelly shifted on the counter, then, oh baby, he was inside her.
And the doorbell rang.
“Shit!” Tom said.
“Ignore it,” she gasped. “They’ll go away.”
But the bell rang again. And again.
And again.
Double shit. Whoever was out there no doubt had seen both of their cars in the driveway.
Kelly, of course, liked it. Devil woman that she was, she got off on the possibility of discovery. She actually enjoyed the idea of people standing on the front steps, wondering where they were, checking their watches, while Tom was buried deeply inside of her.
“We should probably make sure the phone’s working,” he managed to say as the doorbell rang yet again and again. She didn’t argue, so he picked her up, her legs around his waist, and carried her over to the telephone. She lifted the handset.
There was a definite dial tone.
She dropped it back into the receiver so she could use both of her hands to brace herself along that part of the counter.
She was moments from climaxing. She was making all those sexy little noises that he loved—those gasps and moans of sheer pleasure that made him teeter on the edge of his own release.
Whoever had been outside had finally stopped leaning on the doorbell, thank God.
If it had been important, they’d come back.
In fact, he’d nearly dismissed them completely from his mind as he focused on the beautiful, brilliant, gorgeous, sexy-as-hell woman he was making love to—this woman he was going to talk into marrying him right after he made her come.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
Whoever had been ringing the bell in the front had come around to the back and was knocking right on the sliding door.
It startled the hell out of Tom, and Kelly’s eyes opened as he started to pull back from her. “Did I even lock that door?”
“I did.” She locked her legs around him, pushing him even more deeply inside of her.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
And she was coming. She was laughing, but there was no doubt about it—she’d gone over the edge in a major way.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Damn it, now someone else was pounding on the front door, too, and ringing the bell.
Kelly knew him as well as he knew her. She knew just how to touch him to make him come crashing into her—in spite of the crazy soundtrack that was completely freaking him out.
Bang! Wham! Ding-dong! “Jesus, Kelly!”
The rush of pleasure, so fiercely, privately intense, was such a wild contrast to the kitchen’s current Grand Central Station atmosphere.
But then whoever was out front started shouting. “Lieutenant Commander Thomas Paoletti, please open the door!”
Tom started to laugh, and this time as he pulled back, Kelly let him go. She was still laughing, too. As he used the kitchen hand towel to clean himself up, she wiped a piece of fruit from his chin.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he told her as he fastened his shorts. “I’ve got plans for you today.” He smoothed down his hair as he headed for the front door. A quick glimpse of himself in the mirror in the hall revealed that there was no question about it. He looked as if he’d just been having sex with his incredibly hot wife-to-be in his kitchen.
Wife. Man, he loved that word. Today was the day he was going to talk her into getting this thing done.
He opened the door. “What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?”
Damn, it was the shore patrol, the Navy’s version of military police. The two ensigns who stood there were impossibly young and incredibly grim-looking.
“Lieutenant Commander Thomas Paoletti?”
“Yes. Who’s in trouble?” Tom asked. Most of Team Sixteen had gone out of the country. But Sam Starrett had taken a few days of leave in order to finalize his divorce and visit his daughter in Florida. Petty Officer Danny Gillman had stayed behind after spraining his ankle yesterday during a routine jump. And Petty Officer Cosmo Richter was also in town, studying for his chief’s exam.
Out of those three, Tom would bet his money that Gillman was in trouble. Nicknamed Gill
igan, he was even younger than these ensigns and still prone to moments of complete boneheaded idiocy.
“Sir, we’ve been ordered to escort you to the naval base,” the ensign on the left informed him. “Please come with us.”
Ordered to . . . ? “What’s this about?”
“We’re not at liberty to say, sir,” the ensign on the right said.
“Well, see, here’s the thing, Ensigns.” Tom stressed their significantly lower rank, but still kept his voice even and easygoing. “I’ve got something very important planned for this afternoon, so unless you can be specific about why I’m needed on base today—where I haven’t exactly been needed in the past six months—I’m going to have to decline your invitation.”
“It’s not an invitation, Paoletti. It’s an order.”
Tom looked up to see none other than Rear Admiral Larry Tucker, the base commander and the bane of his existence, coming around the side of his house. No doubt Tucker had been the door banger in the back. And it had taken him long enough to return to the front. Tom would bet big money that the sleezebag had found a crack in the vertical blinds and had hung back in order to watch Kelly get dressed. Son of a bitch.
She was standing now, in her nightgown, her hair back up in a ponytail, at the end of the hall, where only Tom could see her.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
He met her eyes briefly, slightly shaking his head before turning to Tucker, forcing his mouth into a smile. “What’s the problem, Admiral?”
“You’re needed on base,” Tucker told him.
“I understand that, sir,” Tom said easily. “My question is why now? As I was telling the ensigns here, I’m a little busy today and—”
“You’re in trouble, Commander. Isn’t that obvious enough?”
Kelly moved closer.
Tom laughed, but on the inside, his stomach had gone into an instant knot. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not today . . .
But why not today? And, of course, Admiral Tucker would choose to be present at this humiliation. From the moment Tom had been assigned to command SEAL Team Sixteen, Tucker had had it in for him.
Hauling the shore patrol out here to escort Tom onto the base . . . It was so unnecessary. A phone call would have brought him in.
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