Bullseye_SEAL

by Carol Ericson

  “He said something that confirmed a suspicion I had, that the CIA had.”

  “Which is?” She sat on the edge of the bed, pinning her nervous hands between her knees.

  “The leader of this terrorist group is someone we know, someone I know.”

  “You know a leader of a terrorist group?” Her legs started bouncing.

  “I guess know isn’t the right word.” He swiped the towel over his short hair and draped it around his neck, hanging on to it with both hands. “There was a guy, a sniper, for the other side. He was deadly accurate, and he seemed to be everywhere we were.”

  “By we, you mean...?”

  “My sniper team.”

  She dropped her chin to her chest, letting his words sink in. She’d been right about what he’d said before. He was not just a navy SEAL; he was a sniper—not that it made a difference. Did it?

  “We got to know him, to recognize his style. We started calling him Vlad because he used a Russian sniper rifle, but in truth, we don’t know what nationality he is or where his loyalties lie.”

  “You don’t know his real name?”

  “No. We know what he looks like, sort of. We’ve seen him, probably in disguise. He’s been involved in the planning of attacks on US soil. So far we’ve thwarted him, but it’s more than that.”

  Josh took his time pulling the gun from his pocket, wiping it with the towel and placing it on the credenza holding the TV. He unbuttoned the top button of his shorts and then seemed to remember where he was. He bunched up the towel and tossed it toward the open door of the bathroom.

  “It’s more than what? Finish the thought...out loud, please.”

  “I told you the man on the beach realized who I was, knew I was a SEAL.”

  “Yes.”

  “It all seems so...personal, not just this assignment but a couple of others.”

  “Personal? Like Vlad is devising these plans just to get to your team?”

  “Yep.”

  “But if Vlad is the one who was working with my father to supply drugs for arms and passage into the US, he wasn’t doing that to get at your team.”

  “No, I didn’t say that. I think Vlad is going about his evil business but when his business clashes with ours—” Josh snapped his fingers “—he’s ready to take his revenge.”

  “In a way, Vlad must feel as if you’re dogging his every step.”

  “Tough luck for him—we are.” He shrugged. “I’m going to get out of these wet shorts.”

  Her gaze trailed after him as he disappeared into the bathroom. He ran the shower for a few minutes, probably to rinse the sea salt and sand from his body, and she was sitting in exactly the same spot when he emerged with a whoosh of steam back into the room, a pair of running shorts hanging low on his hips.

  She nibbled on the side of her thumb as she watched him dump some stuff in his suitcase and lock the gun back in the safe.

  Straightening up to his full height, he glanced over his shoulder. “Are you okay? No disturbances while I was gone?”

  “Everything was quiet.” She crossed her legs beneath her body. “Are we ready for tomorrow?”

  “I play the bodyguard, and you do what you have to do to access your father’s safe-deposit box. Hopefully, we’ll get lucky and find a clue to where he stashed the weapons, the drugs or both.”

  “I have a good feeling about this. I feel lucky.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “After the day you just had? That’s lucky?”

  “Yeah, welcome to paradise.” She kneaded the back of her neck with her fingers. “But I figure our luck has to change. I think it already has. If you hadn’t caught on to the honeymoon couple, they would’ve drugged us or murdered us first.”

  “That’s looking on the bright side.” He flexed his fingers. “Do you want some help with that massage? I’m pretty good at working out the knots. God knows, my muscles get stiff when I’m watching a target for a long period of time. I’ve become a master at the quickie.”

  She hoped he meant quickie massage and not another kind of quickie because making love with Josh Elliott should be slow and languorous.

  She swung her legs off the bed, perching on the edge. “Give it a try.”

  The mattress dipped as he sat next to her, and she turned away from him, offering him her back. Still shirtless, he exuded warmth from his body as he placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “I’ll start with your neck and work my way out and down. You tell me what works.”

  She bounced on the bed when he dug his thumbs into the sides of her neck. It hurt...and then it hurt so good.

  Closing her eyes, she tilted her head to one side. “So you sit for long periods of time watching a target?”

  The magic fingers stopped and she jerked her shoulders up and down to get him to start again, which he did.

  “Yes, watching a target or watching a particular location for a target to appear.”

  “Snipers aren’t in the midst of the battlefield?”

  “Not generally, or you could say we’re in the midst of the battlefield but doing a different type of job. We make sure areas are clear so that marines and other personnel can get their jobs done. We keep watch over them.”

  “And you take people out.”

  This time the magic fingers dug in deeper, and she winced.

  “Of course, but the more bad people we take out, the more good people we save. I’ve always looked at it that way. It’s what we do.”

  He stroked her shoulders, and she melted beneath his touch.

  “That’s what you were doing in Colombia?”

  “What?”

  “Making sure the area was clear for the CIA?”

  Josh sighed and his warm breath tickled the back of her neck.

  “Why would you do that? There was nobody to clear out of that area around my father’s compound, except the people inside the compound.” Her spine straightened and she jerked beneath Josh’s touch. “In fact, why would a bunch of navy SEAL snipers be watching over CIA agents as they took out a group of men on the patio?”

  “Gina...”

  She jerked forward and whipped around. “What did you do at my father’s compound, Josh?”

  “I killed your husband.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gina caught her breath as her heart fluttered in her chest. Of course.

  The confident hands on her shoulders paused, the fingers entangled in her hair.

  Her gaze met Josh’s, unwavering, unapologetic. She’d known. She’d always known. Why would a bunch of navy SEAL snipers stand by and allow CIA agents to take down the prized targets?

  She didn’t even know if CIA agents killed people...but snipers did. Snipers had killed her father and her husband. Josh had killed her husband.

  Confusion reigned in her mind. She opened her mouth but couldn’t form one word. She slid from beneath Josh’s touch and wandered to the window. Glancing at his reflection in the glass, she banished it by sliding open the door and stepping onto the balcony. She shut the door behind her, placing a barrier between them.

  She inhaled the sweet scent on the air, hibiscus and jasmine mingling with the salt of the sea.

  But another smell invaded her nostrils—the smell of blood and flesh and fear on the patio of her father’s compound. The sounds of the servants’ screams and terror echoed in her ears.

  Gina covered her face with her hands. She didn’t know what to feel. Why had this shadowy organization sent Josh out to monitor her? Did they figure he’d be the one to take her out if he discovered she’d picked up where her father had left off?

  The way he’d rescued her from the man in the alley and the guy on the boat told a different story. He’d done nothing but protect her since the day they
met...and even before.

  She might not know how to feel now, but she remembered very clearly how she’d felt the day the leadership of Los Santos had been eliminated. Relief.

  While everyone had been falling apart around her on that patio, a serene calm had descended on her shoulders. She’d felt free for the first time in months—and she owed it all to that man behind her in the hotel room.

  The door slid open behind her.

  “Gina?”

  She dropped her hands and gripped the edge of the balcony.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t think it was...appropriate, especially after I met RJ.”

  She cocked her head to the side and the lights at the pool below blurred as tears pooled in her eyes. She’d felt relief, but RJ had lost his father and his grandfather. Whatever else Hector De Santos was, he was a doting grandfather.

  She smacked the balcony with her palms. Would a doting grandfather threaten to rip his grandson from his mother’s arms? Would a doting grandfather make plans to inculcate his grandson in the ways of the cartel so he could take over for him in his dotage?

  And what about Ricky? He’d never been an involved father. He’d always seen RJ as a pawn, a way to ingratiate himself into Hector’s good graces and a solid position of power within the cartel.

  Josh shuffled behind her but kept his distance. “That was always the worst part for me, depriving a child of his parent. I saw RJ before...before. I saw him with you on the patio. I wish I hadn’t.”

  She cleared her throat. “Ricky wasn’t much of a father.”

  “Sometimes that doesn’t matter. My mother wasn’t much of a mother, and I still wanted revenge for her death or at least answers.”

  She drew her brows over her nose and sniffed. “I think RJ’s better off without his father, without his grandfather in his life. Do you feel that way about your mother?”

  “I suppose. I don’t know. Was Ricky abusive toward RJ?”

  “If by abusive you mean did he smack him around? No. But if you mean did he threaten to take him from me, did he use him to get close to my father, did he bring him into dangerous situations with dangerous people? Then, yes. He was abusive, and so was my father...and I guess I was, too.”

  Josh was beside her in a minute. “That’s not true. You didn’t have a choice. If you had refused to bring him around your father, Hector De Santos would’ve made sure you never saw RJ again. You and I both know he could’ve made good on his promise. You did what you had to do.”

  Josh’s hand rested next to hers on the railing of the balcony, and she shifted her little finger over so that it touched his. “And you did what you had to do.”

  He expelled a breath. “I’m thinking I should’ve told you sooner. I shouldn’t have left it for you to figure out on your own. I guess I’m a coward.”

  “A coward?” She twisted her head to the right to take in the fearless man at her side. “That’s not the first word or even the hundredth I’d use to describe you, Josh.”

  “There’s no other word to explain why I didn’t tell you from the start.”

  “Really? How about sensitive? I mean, who would walk up to someone and say, ‘Nice to meet you, I’m the guy who killed your husband’?”

  “That would be awkward.” He hunched his shoulders. “But I’m not usually the most sensitive guy in the room.”

  “You do a pretty good impression of one.”

  “I didn’t tell you because...I wanted you to like me. I thought maybe you still had feelings for your husband, and you’d hate me for being the one who ended his life. I didn’t want you to hate me.”

  “Hate you?” She covered his strong hand with her own. “You saved my life. You saved RJ’s life. My father planned to initiate RJ into the cartel as soon as he was old enough.”

  Josh cursed. “What kind of grandfather would do that? What kind of man? Your husband was on board with this?”

  “Of course. Ricky figured RJ would cement his own unbreakable bond with Los Santos. That’s why Ricky wanted to have a baby with me so quickly.” She snorted. “I thought it was true and undying love and the desire to create a family.”

  “Some people should never have children.”

  Josh’s voice sounded hollow and she wanted nothing more than to ask him more about the mother he’d lost, but she squeezed his hand instead.

  “I can’t regret having RJ. He’s the light of my life.”

  “I’m glad my role in the assassinations is out in the open.” He slipped his hand from beneath hers and hunched over the balcony, folding his arms. “I’m glad you didn’t love Ricky anymore.”

  “I stopped loving him the day he informed me that we were taking RJ to Colombia to visit my father—and RJ hadn’t even been born yet. He told me then that my father had reached out to him and they’d been meeting in secret, all while I was pregnant.”

  “I’m sorry he betrayed you.”

  “You see now why I believe you saved me?” She stroked his bare back. Although Josh’s role in the assassinations had come as a shock, she didn’t ever want him to think she blamed him or had any regrets about Ricky’s death.

  His spine had stiffened beneath her touch, and her fingers played along his smooth flesh. She knew what she would regret at the end of this adventure with Josh. It had been a long time since she’d felt safe with any man. She needed that now.

  Scraping her nails lightly along his side, she whispered, “You saved me, Josh Elliott, and you saved my son.”

  He turned to her and cupped her face with one hand. “Then I did my job.”

  She twisted her head to the side and kissed his rough palm. Then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed the base of his neck where his pulse throbbed against her lips.

  His hand slipped to the back of her head, his fingers gathering her loose hair. He tugged her head back and slanted his mouth over hers.

  His kiss was just a taste. It felt comforting. She didn’t want comfort. She wanted the passion they’d ignited in the water this afternoon. She needed to obliterate the memory of her dead, deceitful husband. And what better way to do that than to make love with the man who’d killed him?

  She hooked her arms around Josh’s waist, pulling herself closer to him, her hips meeting his. She pressed against him, wanting to feel the proof of his desire for her...and he didn’t disappoint.

  At least below the waist, he didn’t disappoint. His kiss had waned, his touch had slackened.

  She sucked in his bottom lip and nibbled on it, hoping to show him she meant business...or pleasure. She slipped her hands beneath the waistband of his shorts, digging her fingers into the muscle of his buttocks.

  He groaned in her ear and then growled, “Do you know what you’re doing here?”

  “Here in Isla Perdida or here on this balcony with a hot SEAL in my hands?”

  “Either, both...ah.”

  His words and hopefully his reasoning trailed off as she cupped his backside with both hands and undulated against his erection.

  “I know what I’m doing, and I know what I want.”

  He hooked his hands beneath her thighs and hoisted her up. Hiking up her dress, she wrapped her legs around his waist as he took possession of her mouth again—this time like he meant it.

  With one arm braced against the balcony railing and one supporting her derriere, Josh invaded her mouth with his tongue.

  She welcomed it, demanded more. She sucked on his tongue with the same rhythm that drove her hips against his, over and over.

  Her thin panties, damp with sweat and desire, chafed against her skin.

  Josh reached between them and ripped them free from her body, as if sensing her discomfort...or his own.

  The soft cotton of Josh’s shorts stroked and tickled her bare flesh. She broke awa
y from their kiss to gasp for breath as her blood heated up.

  He rolled to his back so that the balcony railing supported him, then he gripped her thighs with both hands, his fingers sinking into her soft flesh, centimeters away from her pulsing pleasure zone.

  He ran his tongue up one side of her neck and nibbled on her earlobe. His voice, harsh with pent-up desire, exploded in her ear. “You’re not doing this out of gratitude, are you?”

  “I can bake cookies to thank you, SEAL.” She loosened her legs and yanked down his shorts, gasping at the feel of warm skin against warm skin.

  During her repositioning, Josh’s fingers had resettled closer to her core. Taking advantage of his new outlook, Josh plunged one finger inside her.

  She threw her head back with a whimper. A burst of laughter erupted from a gaggle of late-nighters at the pool bar below and excitement flooded every cell of her body.

  She’d been weighing the best time to move this party to the bed, but now her passion flamed with the thought of making love with Josh on the balcony. Nobody could see them, but just the thought of being claimed by Josh in a semipublic place had her senses on fire.

  He pulled his finger out and strategically stroked her, stoking her onto heights of passion. Her belly fluttered and her toes curled. As every muscle in her body tightened in anticipation of her release, she dug her fingernails into Josh’s shoulders.

  Her orgasm hit her like a wave and she trembled beneath its awesome power. As it receded, she shivered with pleasure and her limbs grew heavy and boneless until her legs slipped from Josh’s body.

  She had to lean against him to keep from sliding to his feet, and he caressed her backside to ease her transition from heaven to earth.

  He dipped his head and kissed her jaw. “Are you ready to try out that bed?”

  “I want you to take me right here.” She stroked his erection, cupping him below with her other hand.

  “When you touch me like that, I’ll give you anything you want. But I can’t do this with you all wrapped around my body—as amazing as that feels.”

  He encircled her waist with both hands and did a little dance so that she was the one against the balcony, facing outward to the pool and the sea beyond.