Seducing A S.E.A.L.

by Jamie Sobrato

  The intensity of his attraction to her blew him away. He knew himself well enough to know that a reaction this strong had something to it. This wasn’t grief or Justin’s innuendo or the Jameson. Sure, those things might have opened his eyes to the possibility, but his desire was real.

  The only question was, what would he do about it?

  3

  SOMEWHERE BETWEEN her third and fourth shots of Don Julio, Kylie’s worries slipped away. She also conveniently forgot why she’d ever been so resistant to indulging her attraction to Drew.

  After her fifth shot, she leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, a gesture she’d thought of as comforting, a way to emphasize their newfound camaraderie and perhaps bring him out of his funk. But he turned his head at the last second, and her kiss landed on his lips.

  This was a turn of events, so to speak, that she had not anticipated. Things got really interesting when, instead of reacting with shock and pulling away, he kissed her back.

  Really kissed her back.

  And that was the beginning of the end of their propriety. They both seemed intent on the same goal. There wasn’t any question of what was going to happen, on either of their parts.

  “Want to catch a cab?” he said when they finally broke apart. It seemed a foregone conclusion they would spend a night in each other’s arms.

  Ten minutes later, they were all over each other in the back of a taxi. Drew’s hands were between her legs, under her shirt, inside her pants…everywhere she wanted them to be. Still she could think of nothing but how badly she wanted more. She’d been dreaming about getting busy with Drew for the past year and it had been twice that long since she’d been with a man. A pure, intense need for sex was driving her. That and the delicious things Drew’s mouth was doing.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, the leader in her was making excuses for her potentially career-ending behavior. This was a typical reaction to tragedy. The desire to be a part of life and the living was a healthy way to cope with death, and what better way to feel a part of life than to have sex with someone?

  The rest of Kylie wasn’t arguing.

  She was only vaguely aware of the presence of the cabdriver. So what if he was getting off on watching them make out? She was too caught up in the feel of Drew’s body against hers to care about anything else now.

  The cab stopped at what she could only assume was Drew’s house, and he paid the driver, and then they were alone on a cool, dark lawn, illuminated only by the faint glow of a porch light. Kylie wasn’t sure who first fell down on the grass, but once they were both rolling around, kissing, struggling to remove clothing, gasping for breath in their urgency to continue what they’d started, it really didn’t matter.

  Her head was spinning in a mildly pleasant way that made her feel as though she were in a movie again, the camera circling and circling the frenzy of their activity. Everything was in soft focus for her, except for the intense need that propelled her.

  She was naked now, her back against the damp grass, her clothes scattered nearby. She was pretty sure she’d never been naked in public before. Not like this anyway. In the back of her mind, the ever-so-proper Naval officer filed a complaint against this lewd and inappropriate behavior. Thanks to the tequila flowing in her veins, Kylie was able to ignore that uptight prude and concentrate on riding this pleasure trip as far as it would take her.

  Drew—bless him for being prepared—had produced a condom and was sliding it onto himself.

  And wow, he was naked, too. Gloriously so—his body a wonderland of sculpted muscle and smooth flesh she couldn’t stop her hands from exploring.

  Then he was on top of her. Then he was inside her. Yes, that was it—inside her, exactly where she needed him to be. She spread her legs and moaned softly into his ear as he stretched her from within, reaching places that had gone sadly neglected for far too long, awakening nerve endings that cried out for stimulation.

  She almost came at the sheer relief of being filled up by a man again. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, like the sensation of cradling a man’s—this man’s—hips within her own.

  And then he was moving inside her, his hot, hard body pressed against her, her legs wrapped around his waist as she took him in.

  Her head was still spinning, even more pleasantly now.

  Time folded in on itself, and she was aware only of the tangle of their limbs, the frantic movements of their lovemaking, the hot dampness of Drew’s mouth against hers. Then his mouth caressed her neck, then on to her aching, neglected breasts…and lower still. He withdrew his cock, but before she could protest, his lips nibbled across her belly, down her thigh, and there, yes…She gasped as he moved between her legs and began coaxing her toward climax with his tongue.

  It didn’t take much. She’d already been humming with pent-up desire, and what seemed like only a few strokes of his clever tongue sent her over the edge, crying out at the intensity of her orgasm.

  Her inner muscles were still quaking when he covered her with his body again and penetrated her, pumping hard as he brought himself to climax. In a matter of seconds he was there, and the intensity of it gave her a second orgasm on the heels of her first.

  She was spiraling upward, breathless, crying out, her body a quivering mass of raw sensation as Drew moaned against her cheek and filled her with a few final, spent thrusts.

  She’d never come twice in a row before. This roll on the grass had ranked in her personal top five and all it had taken was a bit of exhibitionism, a man she’d fantasized about endlessly and a few shots of tequila to drop her inhibitions. Even as drunk as she was, she couldn’t help but marvel at becoming a multiple-O girl.

  Why was she surprised? If any man had the talent to make her come more than twice, it would be Drew. He was everything she’d imagined in her fantasies, and then some. For such a young guy, he was a skilled lover…or at least it seemed so after five shots of tequila.

  As much as she wanted to wallow in those two orgasms, reality started to intrude. The damp grass was cold and itchy. And Drew was heavy. And parts of him dug into her in ways she shifted to avoid.

  They roused themselves and made their way out of his front yard and into his house. And once inside, round two proved that the multiple-O version of Kylie was not a one-hit wonder.

  KYLIE LAY AWAKE in the dark, her gaze fixed on the ceiling. They had been asleep for a few hours, maybe more—she couldn’t be sure how much time had passed since she didn’t see a clock from her vantage point and didn’t feel quite well enough to sit up and look for one.

  She was drunk enough to know she shouldn’t attempt to drive home, but sober enough to realize she’d just made a huge, potentially career-ending mistake.

  She’d just slept with her subordinate. What the hell had she been thinking? Did all of her effort, all of her sweat and grim determination to climb the ranks mean so little to her that a bit—okay, maybe more than a bit—of alcohol demoed her control and made her so reckless?

  Dear God, she’d really done it. She’d acted out the fantasies that had plagued her ever since she’d first laid eyes on Ensign MacLeod. And, yes, rolling around on his lawn—lord, please let the neighbors have been in bed—then tangling in his sheets, was every bit as good as she’d imagined it would be. It was so good that she found herself wanting to linger in the hope that they’d have a repeat performance before daylight came and exposed her indiscretions.

  For the first time she could remember in her career, she was seeing a glimpse of the shameful woman she might have become. The one who couldn’t control her impulses, the one whose passions outran her discipline, the one who took what she wanted without considering the consequences. That’s the kind of girl she’d been. But thanks to some crappy circumstances, at the age of seventeen she’d made the conscious decision to lay that impulsive girl to rest and never let her live again.

  She squeezed her eyes shut at the thought, fighting back tears.

  She’d become, instead, the
woman her strict, God-fearing Iowa farming parents had wanted her to be. Their voices lurked in the back of her head, chiding her whenever she felt the urge to stray from their narrow idea of right and wrong, reminding her of how much she’d almost screwed up her life by following her passions. And for a long time, she’d thought she’d made the right choice in following their rules, and then the Navy’s. She’d become the woman everyone else seemed to want her to be, a woman they could be proud of.

  But for the past week, her whole life seemed to be in question. She’d begun to suspect it was a total sham. That following everyone else’s codes and standards wasn’t the secret of her success, but rather the prison that prevented her from following her dreams.

  It was strange how the shooting had forced her to confront her own mortality in a way that combat never had. Maybe because it was her job to risk her life fighting for freedom and her country. Maybe because she believed any danger she faced was worth supporting the greater good. The shooting, by comparison, was senseless, serving only to assuage one man’s ego and thirst for vengeance.

  If life could disappear in the blink of an eye, if any moment could truly be her last, then why was she living the way she was? Why was her career the only thing she had to show for her life? Why was she still, as a woman well into her thirties, looking for the approval of her parents and her superiors at work? Why was she so carefully walking her straight-and-narrow path, not daring to give in to any temptation?

  She looked over at Drew sleeping. Somehow he had come to represent everything she’d denied herself. Passion, love, joy…

  Why was she living for things that didn’t really matter if she died tomorrow?

  She couldn’t produce any answers to her questions, but she knew she didn’t want to live that way anymore.

  And yet, reality was creeping in as the sky outside began turning from black to gray. Soon it would be morning. Soon she’d have to face the fact that she’d just slept with her subordinate and she wouldn’t be able to wrap up the fallout in I-want-to-be-me rhetoric. She would have to face him every day in the office. She’d have to issue his orders, evaluate his performance and administer any discipline while pretending that she didn’t know how good he looked naked and how delicious he tasted. She was pretty sure he could keep things discreet, that he would have just as much incentive as she to act as though nothing had happened between them.

  The problem was, she didn’t want to act as though nothing had happened. She wanted to yell from the rooftop that she’d finally done what she’d been longing to do, that she loved Drew MacLeod, and she wasn’t going to deny it anymore.

  Loved?

  That was a strong word. But perhaps not a totally inaccurate one. Maybe what she was feeling was lust or infatuation. Whatever label she put on her emotion, it hadn’t lessened after having her way with Drew. If anything, it was more intense and looking a lot more like love.

  Okay, no. She was really, really drunk. These crazy thoughts were just the tequila combined with a big dose of grief talking. She needed to get a grip and figure out how she was going to handle this disaster she’d created.

  She needed to think…think…think…

  But damn it, her head was starting to pound. She closed her eyes and willed the sensation to disappear. A little pain reliever was called for. Except, before she could even think where Drew might keep the aspirin, a wave of nausea hit her. It went quickly from being a mere wave to being the certainty that she was going to throw up.

  She shot up from the bed and ran to the nearest door praying it hid the bathroom. Luckily it did, because the motion of jumping up and running across the room had done her in. The moment she knelt beside the toilet, she lost her dinner from the night before, along with everything she’d eaten for the past month. Or so it seemed to her aching body.

  Afterward, she could only sag in relief. She wiped tears from her eyes that had come with the onslaught.

  Drew must have heard her miserable retching. “Are you okay?” he asked from the doorway.

  “No,” she muttered, her forehead resting on her arms against the toilet seat. “I’m dying.”

  “I’ll get you some water and aspirin.”

  She could hear him moving around in the small bathroom, but misery mixed with humiliation kept her from raising her head. This was so not a cool way to end a night of amazing sex. The last thing she wanted was for Drew to see her at her absolute worst.

  After a few moments, she felt his hand on the back of her head, rubbing gently.

  “You drank a lot.”

  “No kidding.”

  “It might help to eat something.”

  Kylie moaned, the thought of food none too pleasing right now.

  “I know it doesn’t sound good, but I’ll make you a little breakfast.”

  “No, please…” she said, but he was gone.

  She listened as his footsteps got farther and farther away. Then she could hear him banging around in the kitchen.

  Slowly, the remnants of her nausea disappeared, and she was left with only her pounding head. She couldn’t keep sitting here naked on the bathroom floor, so she cautiously stood, rinsed her mouth out, then downed the aspirin and water he’d left for her.

  In the bedroom again, she wondered if she was up to getting dressed and leaving. But no, they needed to talk, and it would be cowardly to rush out of there, given the magnitude of what they’d done. Besides, she wasn’t sure if her clothes were inside or still scattered about his lawn.

  Oh, dear god, his lawn. Had they really done that? Had they even waited until the cabbie had driven away to start stripping each other down and getting it on? Thankfully she couldn’t remember. That particular time, when the alcohol must have been hitting her hardest, was all a pleasant, hazy blur.

  She spotted a robe hanging from a closet door and put it on before lying down on the bed again to wait out her headache.

  Whatever else happened, she mused, at least she knew now that if she died tomorrow, she had acted out her greatest fantasy.

  That was a comforting thought…sort of.

  4

  DREW SAT on the edge of the bed next to Kylie, who was dozing quietly. Even hungover, she looked beautiful in the pale morning light. He reached out to brush a strand of honey-colored hair off her cheek, then thought better of it for fear of waking her.

  The effects of the whiskey had worn off for him, and he had avoided feeling as awful as Kylie had. The warm buzz of the alcohol had been replaced by a different kind of warm buzz—an unexpected affection for this woman he’d never given a second glance.

  This was a different woman than the one he knew as his commander. This Kylie was vulnerable and passionate and real. She was the woman he’d just had the best sex of his life with. She captivated him, intrigued him, made him want more.

  Something momentous had happened between them. Okay, maybe it had been fueled by booze. But in his experience, alcohol only lubricated the way for things people really wanted to do. It didn’t make anyone do anything they were totally opposed to. And clearly he wasn’t opposed to doing Kylie…again and again.

  Twenty-four hours ago, if anyone had suggested to him he’d be having a night of crazy monkey sex with his lieutenant commander, he’d have sworn they were nuts. And if they suggested he’d be considering a future with her the next morning, he might have run for the hills. He recalled his conversation with Justin the day before and shook his head. Sometimes friends really did know better than anyone what was best for a person.

  Drew and Kylie would have to keep their relationship under wraps for a while since she was his C.O. So they’d have to play it cool in public and sneak around—which could be hot. Once he passed the S.E.A.L. test and moved out from under her command, however, they were good to go. It was a sudden shift for him to go from not noticing her to figuring out how to fit her in his life. But he’d learned to run with his instincts, and they were telling him what he shared with Kylie was real.

  She shi
fted in her sleep, and the blanket slid off her shoulder, revealing her beautiful round breasts in the open neck of his robe. Drew had never noticed that she even had much of a chest, she did such a good job of hiding it under her uniform. Damn, did she ever have one of the nicest sets of tits he’d ever laid eyes on. It took all his willpower not to reach out and caress them right then.

  Instead he pulled the blanket back up to cover her. The disturbance woke her and she looked at him through half-closed eyes, a frown on her face.

  “How long have I been sleeping?”

  “Fifteen or twenty minutes. Feel any better?”

  “Yeah, my head’s not pounding as much—I guess the aspirin kicked in.”

  “How about some breakfast in bed?”

  “No, I can get up.” She started to rise, but he placed a hand on her lap to stop her.

  “Stay,” he said in a tone that ended the argument. “You shouldn’t be exerting yourself right now.”

  She sank into her pillow and shrugged, a slight smile playing on her lips.

  Drew went to the kitchen, grabbed the tray of toast, scrambled eggs, melon, juice and coffee he’d already prepared, and returned with it. Nothing fancy, but it was good, simple hangover fare meant to soothe the stomach more than dazzle the taste buds.

  Kylie regarded him with something like awe when he placed the tray on her lap. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I’m not sure how much I can eat, but this is…heavenly. I’ve never been served breakfast in bed before.”

  “No? How could that be?”

  “Well, unless I count eating a bowl of cereal alone in my own bed.”

  “That just sounds sad. Breakfast in bed, by definition, has to be served to you by someone else.”

  She adjusted herself against the headboard and sighed. “Thank you. This is really wonderful.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Drew returned with his own cup of coffee and toast and slid into bed beside her.