Bullseye_SEAL

by Carol Ericson

  “Maybe that’s just it—the deal wasn’t going through, or he wasn’t sure or he didn’t trust a bunch of terrorists. Imagine that?”

  “That’s kind of a case of the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it? Or are you going to try to tell me your father and husband were really honorable men.”

  Gina jerked away from him. Why did Josh always have to come back to that accusatory tone? He’d assured her that he didn’t blame her for his mother’s death at her father’s orders. Was he lying to her? To himself?

  She turned away from the beautiful view with ashes in her mouth. “I call dibs on the bed, but the sofa looks comfortable.”

  She slid the balcony door closed, leaving Josh out there by himself. Two could play that game. She was helping him, helping him and the US government, which had taken away everything she owned and had worked for in her life.

  The money she’d used to start her restaurant hadn’t come from her father. It had been an inheritance from her maternal grandmother, who’d been disgusted by her daughter’s marriage to a drug dealer. Mami hadn’t lived long enough to see her granddaughter make the same mistake—thank God.

  The DEA hadn’t cared about any of that. They’d seized everything after Ricky’s death.

  She dragged the zipper across her bag with such force, it broke. She cursed, which she never did around RJ. She cursed again.

  The sliding door opened behind her. “Trying to keep the air-conditioning inside?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” She kept her back to him and pulled her toiletry bag from her suitcase. “We’re too late to go to the bank today, so I’m going down to the beach to take that ocean swim.”

  “Closing at noon is really what I call banker’s hours.” He flicked the lock on the door. “I’ll join you.”

  “We don’t have to pretend to be married. You don’t even have to pretend to like me.” She stood up, clutching her skimpiest bikini to her chest. “I can handle a dip in the ocean by myself.”

  “I’m not going to allow you to run around Isla Perdida by yourself. They know we’re here. I couldn’t exactly murder the guy on the plane, so he may be showing up as early as tonight. Although the fact that we made him is going to make it hard for him to carry out his original assignment.”

  Josh unzipped his own suitcase and yanked out a pair of board shorts. “And I don’t have to pretend.”

  “What?” She scowled at him over her shoulder on the way to the bathroom.

  “I don’t have to pretend to like you. I like you...a lot.”

  She’d closed the bathroom door on his last two words. Had he meant for her to hear them? Probably just playing her like every other man in her life had done.

  She leaned into the mirror, the red bikini clutched in her hands giving her face a rosy stain. She dropped the bathing suit to the floor.

  Nope—that pink flush was totally due to Josh Elliott, damn him.

  If he liked her a lot, why did he keep needling her about her father? Did he think she didn’t know her father was a dirtbag? She knew better than anyone else.

  Of course, she’d never told Josh that, but he had to know. Didn’t he?

  She stripped off her sticky clothes and kicked them into the corner. Then she shimmied into her bikini bottoms and clasped the top around her neck. She nabbed a plush towel from the shelf beneath the vanity and wrapped it around her body.

  Exiting the bathroom, she stumbled to a stop as she saw Josh tying the strings of his board shorts. “You changed out here?”

  He spread his arms. “Is there a problem? I knew I’d be done before you.”

  She swallowed as she took in his hard muscles and washboard abs. No problem at all.

  Her nose in the air, she dipped beside her suitcase and pulled out a beach cover-up. “Maybe you should just wait next time. I wouldn’t appreciate surprising a naked man in my hotel room.”

  Liar.

  Josh’s mouth turned up on one side as he folded his clothes neatly, telling her that he totally knew she was lying.

  Whistling, he brushed past her on the way to the bathroom, a plastic bag filled with men’s toiletries tucked beneath one arm.

  Was he flexing his muscles?

  As soon as he disappeared into the cavernous bathroom, Gina whipped off the towel and pulled her black cover-up over her head. Just because he enjoying flaunting his assets, he couldn’t expect her to feel the same way.

  She was a mother, damn it.

  The third curse word from her lips within the space of fifteen minutes gave her a reckless thrill, which she recognized all too well. She hadn’t been this excited about being with a man since she’d first met Ricky, even though this man infuriated her most of the time.

  Josh strolled back into the room, pointing at the towel she’d dropped on the bed. “I’m pretty sure the hotel will have beach towels by the pool and cold water and food. Maybe after we come in from the ocean, we should make a pit stop at the pool. The pool practically spills into the ocean.”

  “Sounds good. I’m getting hungry.” Gina placed a hand on her stomach.

  “I’ll take my key and put it in my pocket.” He held up his key card. “Everything else we can just charge to the room, so we don’t have to leave anything on the sand when we go in the water.”

  “Actually, Isla Perdida has a low crime rate.”

  “That’s because all the crime is the white-collar variety and taking place at the banks in town.” Josh crouched next to his bag, rummaging through it.

  “You have a point.” A shiver ran through Gina as she remembered their purpose on the island. If they didn’t find any clues in her father’s safe-deposit box, would Josh suspect her of finagling a trip to Isla Perdida for her own reasons?

  Why did she feel she had to make him trust her? He was here on some secret assignment and he had orders to protect her, whether or not he trusted her. But to have a man like Josh Elliott really and truly on her side? That would go a long way to restore her self-worth, which various government agencies had been tearing down since the assassinations last year.

  Of course, Josh was one big, fat government representative, wasn’t he? US Navy, CIA, FBI. Who knows what other acronym he supported?

  Josh waved a bottle of sunscreen in the air. “We’re both gonna need this.”

  “Bring it.” She stuffed her feet into a pair of flip-flops. “I’m ready.”

  They made their way down to the lobby, which was open to the outdoors and the pool area. Gina waved to the honeymooning couple, who’d come over on their flight, now draped over a couple of chaise longues.

  Her flip-flops smacked against the pool deck as she followed Josh to the private beach, for resort guests only.

  As soon as Josh’s toes touched the sand, three or four hotel employees swarmed them asking if they needed chairs, towels, a cabana, a drink.

  It all sounded good to her, and Gina agreed to everything. If the US government was paying, they owed her anyway.

  Josh straddled his chaise longue beneath the shade of a tent, inches away from the turquoise water lapping at the fine white sand. He squirted some sunscreen into his palm and smoothed it over his chest.

  The glistening oil highlighted the flat planes of his pecs even more, and he resembled a photo in one of those hot navy SEAL calendars—not that she knew if those calendars even existed, but if they did, Josh could be April.

  He finished rubbing his hands all over the front of his body, and then he tossed the bottle to her. “Can you get my back?”

  Was he kidding?

  She cleared her throat. “Sure.”

  He stood up and turned his back to her. “I already got my shoulders and my sides. If you could just hit my shoulder blades and below, that would get me covered.”

  She shook the bottle and squeezed out
a puddle of white goop into her hand. She rubbed her hands together and dragged them down Josh’s back, his warm, smooth flesh marred by a gnarly scar on his lower left side.

  Her fingers trailed across the uneven ridges of skin. “What happened here?”

  “Bullet wound.”

  She gasped, but pressed against the scar even harder. “I guess that’s a hazard of the job.”

  “Happened before I was in the navy.”

  The words hung in the air as she waited for an explanation. None was forthcoming.

  “Thanks.” He spun around and zigzagged his index finger in the air, over her body. “I’ll wait until you get oiled up.”

  “Oh, right.” She still had on her black beach cover-up, which hit just above her knees. She dropped the sunscreen bottle onto her chaise longue and yanked the billowing garment up and over her head.

  She immediately regretted packing her smallest bikini when she got a load of Josh’s eyes, practically bugging out of his skull.

  It was not like she was a skinny girl. She could fill out a bikini with the best of them, but why’d she have to choose this particular trip to do so?

  She was a mother, damn it.

  She grabbed the bottle and applied sunscreen over all the bits that had been covered up from the Florida sun these past several months.

  After his initial gawking, Josh had appointed himself towel monitor, shaking out their two towels and placing them on the loungers.

  Gina did her best to hit the spots within reach on her back, but if she didn’t ask Josh for help she’d have red blotches all over her flip side from the intense Caribbean sun.

  “Would you mind?” She held out the bottle. “Same, I got my shoulders and sides, just need those hard-to-reach places covered.”

  “You got it.”

  She presented her back to him and nearly jumped out of her skin when his rough hands skimmed over her flesh.

  He rubbed his hands in circles, rough enough so that her body kept swaying forward. She didn’t object to his strategy for turning the application of sunscreen into an athletic event rather than a seductive one.

  Then his fingertip tripped over the edge of her bikini bottoms, and heat that had nothing to do with the island surged through her body.

  “That’s good, thanks.” She stayed turned around to compose herself and scoop her hair into a ponytail.

  When she peeked over her shoulder at Josh, he’d returned to business by placing the sunscreen bottle on the table between them and straightening out his towel.

  “Okay, ready for the water?”

  “Absolutely.” Gina took a few steps into the crystal clear ocean and continued stepping lightly until the water enveloped her waist-high. “Ah, perfect temperature.”

  Josh dashed past her, splashing and kicking up droplets of water, until he dived headfirst into a gentle wave.

  A few snorkelers’ tubes stuck up from the surface as they paddled with their fins on their search for sea life. A couple was swimming out to the reef that created a semicircle around their private beach, and a boat bobbed lazily just beyond the reef.

  Josh’s head popped up. “Feels great. It’s not too deep and the waves are mild.”

  The water crept up to Gina’s chest and she pushed her toes off the sandy bottom and dog-paddled toward Josh. If she were wearing a more practical bathing suit, she’d take a swim along that reef.

  Josh ducked his head beneath the surface and came back up, sluicing his dark hair back from his face. “Maybe we should’ve picked up some snorkeling gear by the pool.”

  “We’re not exactly on vacation.” Gina tipped her head back and kicked out her legs so that she was floating on her back. Closing her eyes, she fluttered her hands at her sides to propel herself backward.

  The sun warmed her cheeks and the salt water beaded on her body. The motion rocked her back and forth, and the tension in her muscles melted away. Why hadn’t she taken a vacation since the raid at her father’s compound? She’d needed one...badly.

  After the deaths of her father and Ricky, she never felt as if she deserved a vacation. The people who’d questioned and accused her had made her feel lower than dirt...even when she’d explained her situation to them.

  That’s why she hadn’t told Josh anything about that time. She wouldn’t be able to stomach the disbelief and contempt in his eyes.

  She eased out a breath, the warm ocean water bubbling at her lips. As she blew out another breath, a pair of firm hands encircled her waist from below and she found herself airborne, flying over the surface of the water before landing several feet away with a splash.

  Gurgling and sputtering, she flailed her arms to regain her balance and dug her toes into the sand to gain purchase. When she rubbed the water from her eyes, a view of Josh laughing materialized a few feet in front of her.

  “That was not funny.”

  “Sure it was. You looked so peaceful, I couldn’t resist.”

  “You’re sadistic. I could’ve drowned or had a heart attack thinking you were a shark.”

  He snorted and started paddling toward her. “We’re in about five feet of water with no rip current, and I’m pretty sure there are no sharks inside the reef.”

  “Really? You’re pretty sure?” She tugged at her bikini beneath the water to make sure everything was back in place.

  He swam up next to her and put his hand vertically on his forehead to mimic a shark fin. “Well, I wasn’t a shark, was I?”

  “You’d better watch your back, SEAL.”

  He spit some water past her left ear. “Did you get your suit back on?”

  “What does that mean?” She hit the surface of the water with her palm to splash water in his face. “Is that why you did it?”

  He chuckled. “That’s not why I did it, but it did turn out to be a side benefit.”

  What exactly had he seen? Those butterflies took flight in her belly again and a warm ache crept lower than that.

  “You’re...desperate.”

  “Honestly, that red bikini doesn’t leave much to the imagination anyway.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s just a bikini. It’s a lot more modest than a couple of suits we passed on our way across the pool deck.”

  “Yeah, but those women... Let’s just say they don’t fill those suits out quite the way you do.”

  A tingling sensation raced all across her skin, and she crossed her arms. She had to gain control of this situation, of herself. “We’re here under dangerous conditions with dangerous people after us on a dangerous mission.”

  Josh lifted his shoulders, water trickling down his bunched muscles. “Then it only makes sense that I’m with a dangerous woman with some seriously dangerous curves.”

  She didn’t know how it happened. The water must’ve carried them closer together, but all of a sudden she and Josh were face-to-face, chest to chest even, as her breasts, safely back in their little triangles of red material, brushed the solid ridge of his pectoral muscles.

  His hand rested on the curve of her hip, and the buoyancy of the water helped him to lift her up and draw her even closer.

  Her toes bumped his shins and she could see droplets of water sparkling on the ends of his stubby black lashes. Her gaze dropped to his lips, parted and moist and she wanted nothing more than to taste the salt on his mouth.

  His hand skimmed down her back and clutched one side of her buttocks to hold her in place as he angled his mouth over hers.

  She sipped the salt water from his lips. Even his tongue tasted of the salty sea as he probed her mouth with it.

  His fingers curled into the soft flesh of her bottom as he dragged her closer, his erection poking against her thigh.

  She sucked his tongue harder and undulated her hips, so that his fingers slipped ben
eath the material of her bikini bottoms. The rough pads of his fingertips abraded her bare derriere, and she let out a breathy moan.

  She could wrap her legs around him, right here in the ocean and let him take her. In fact, that’s exactly what was going to happen. She hooked one leg around his hip, opening herself up to him.

  He made a strangled noise as he broke their lip-lock and with one hand, reached under the water between them. He shoved aside the thin material of her bikini bottoms and swept one finger across her swollen flesh.

  If he did that one more time, she’d come right here in the water, in view of...

  “Hey, hey! Help!”

  Josh jerked his head around and released her so abruptly, she sank before she started kicking her legs to tread water.

  She looked over Josh’s shoulder at the small motorboat beyond the reef and the man standing in it, waving his arms over his head.

  “Looks like he’s having trouble with his boat.”

  Gina launched forward in the water and swam toward the reef. As she turned her head to take a breath, Josh grabbed her ankle and she rolled onto her back. “What are you doing?”

  “Take it slow. We don’t know who this guy is.”

  “He’s a tourist who needs help.” She shook off his hand and backstroked closer to the reef and the sputtering boat. “You took care of the guy on the plane.”

  Josh pulled up beside her with a powerful stroke. “Let me go first. You wait here on the other side of the reef. Maybe he’s just stuck and needs a lift from below, if his boat isn’t damaged.”

  Gina allowed Josh to pass her but paddled after him. There was no way the man with the red tie’s replacement was in Isla Perdida so soon and she found it hard to believe someone had already been here waiting for them, even though Josh had sounded that warning.

  She squinted at Josh as he drew up to the reef and shouted something at the stranded tourist.

  Two seconds later, Josh twisted his head around and yelled, “Duck! He’s got a gun.”

  Chapter Ten

  Josh dived beneath the surface, and a bullet whizzed by his head, slicing through the water. Through the clear Caribbean water, he could see Gina’s legs kicking. Was she still upright?