Bad Boy SEAL

by Lilly Holden

  Finally, after what seemed an age, I came to a screeching halt in front of Wyatt’s house.

  There was a burgundy SUV in the drive, but not the black ones that were here yesterday.

  So not anyone from Jake’s team.

  Jumping out of the SUV, I rushed to the front door, flinging it open as I raced into the living room.

  “What the fuck?”

  Wyatt stood up from the dining table, his face blank with shock. “What are you doing here?”

  “You have to leave. Jake and his buddies have something planned. I overheard Jake say they would hand you over to”—I held out my hands—“someone and you’d have to face whatever you had coming.”

  Wyatt’s face paled. He cast a frightened glance to the men sitting at the table.

  For the first time, I registered we weren’t alone. Three men, two Mexican looking, another white, stood from their seats.

  The shortest guy, one of the darker men, was dressed in black pants and a white shirt. Aged in his late forties maybe, he wore a chunky gold chain hung around his neck. But it was his eyes, so cold, no emotion at all in their black depths, had me taking a step back.

  “Who’s this, Reed?” The man moved closer, stopping a few feet from me. With an oily smile, his gaze roved over me.

  Too late I remembered the rain that had soaked me as the cloying feeling of my wet t-shirt sticking to my skin hit me full force.

  I wasn’t wearing a bra and the dripping wet strands of my hair hid nothing from these men’s gazes.

  “She’s nobody, Mr. Garcia,” Wyatt said dismissively.

  Garcia? Our priority is Garcia.

  This was the man Jake and his team were after?

  Whoever he was, Garcia wasn’t easily put off. At his hard stare, Wyatt rushed to explain. “She’s my cousin.”

  Garcia turned back to study me. His eyes flashed with annoyance. “Why’s she rushing in here warning you some guy called Jake wants to take you down?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe her boyfriend has a beef with me.” Wyatt ran his hands down the front of his jeans, his gaze flicking over the other men in the room as they stood close to Wyatt. “Why don’t you leave now and save yourself any hassle?” He waved toward a laptop on the table. “I can let you know when the bank transfer is received from the broker.”

  “But I haven’t received my phone call from the drop-off.” His cold gaze flicked from me to Wyatt and back. “I’ve got five pretty white chicas locked in a truck awaiting collection from their buyers. I don’t go until I know my shipment has been handed off and paid for.”

  Buyers? Shipment?

  Broker?

  My stomach dropped at the realization of what I’d overheard.

  Slave trafficking.

  I tried to mask my newfound knowledge, but Garcia’s gaze narrowed on me.

  “That’s right, blondie. And your cousin is up to his fucking eyeballs in my operation. Creating false records online for my stock so their fucking relatives think these bitches ran away with another man.” He laughed as I stared numbly at Wyatt, who kept looking at Garcia’s men like they would jump on him any second. “He’s good with moving cash around online, too. Untraceable by the time he’s worked his magic.”

  Wyatt was helping this evil bastard?

  My cousin finally met my gaze as sweat now glistened on his upper lip. “I’m sick of working hard for what I want in life.” He shrugged. “Now I’m fucking people over before they can do the same to me.” Turning back to Garcia, he blurted. “Why did you tell her what we’re doing?”

  Garcia’s tuned his gaze on me, his cold smile like a knife blade running over my skin. “Relax, we’ll take her with us. I’m guessing we can get a bit of fun out of her before I sell her on to a whorehouse across the border.”

  A wave of sickening fear swamped me.

  I couldn’t breathe as the full force of his horrifying plan sunk in.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  Wyatt nodded. “As long as nothing leads back to me.” His voice was devoid of even one ounce of remorse.

  A raging hot fury consumed me. I’d risked everything I had blossoming with Jake for this little fucker?

  I needed to get back to Jake or die trying.

  Blindly I turned and ran for the door.

  I’d only managed a step before the glass windows on the front and side walls of the living room smashed as two men rolled into the room. Loud noises and blinding flashing lights filled the space. I dropped to the ground, crouching and covering my ears as I scrunched my eyes tightly closed.

  I felt the thud of something heavy hitting the ground near me, but no sounds could be heard over the commotion around me. Trying to make myself as small a ball as possible, I hunkered down, feeling debris falling against me, some stinging my arm. How long I stayed there I don’t know, but I started to struggle when strong hands gripped my arms and tried to loosen them from the tight grip around my body.

  “Charlotte, it’s me.” Jake’s face swam before me, but I couldn’t hear his words, only see his mouth move. I heard a ringing in my ears and blinked as I looked around, gasping at the bodies that lay on the floor.

  Garcia and his henchmen were all lying on the ground, unmoving, their bodies twisted where they fell. Garcia’s white shirt was stained with a red splotch on the front as he stared with lifeless eyes up at the ceiling.

  I saw Jake’s team moving about the room. Eli was pulling a handcuffed Wyatt to his feet and pushing him out of the room. Deke and Ryder were checking the bodies of Garcia’s henchmen and taking photos.

  Two guys in windbreakers with FBI printed on the back conferred in the far corner.

  “Sweetness, are you hurt?” Jake’s voice cut through my thoughts as my hearing slowly returned. He ran his hands over me, checking for any visible signs of injuries and inspecting a small cut on my arm, likely from debris as the room was shot up. “Jesus fucking Christ, woman, you scared the shit out of me.” Grabbing me to him, he wrapped me tight in his embrace, tucking my head against his neck as we stayed crouched on the floor. “I don’t know whether to give you the spanking of your fucking lifetime or make love to you until you don’t have the energy to get out of bed.”

  “The latter,” I muttered weakly and snuggled closer to his strength. I curled my hands on his chest and felt something hard and firm at my touch. I leaned back and, for the first time, noticed he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

  The enormity of the danger we’d both faced crashed into me.

  “God, Jake, I’m such a fucking fool. I should have asked questions and not just run off into the night like that.”

  Jake’s jaw hardened, but I watched in amazement as he beat his anger down.

  “Charlotte, you can bet I’ll be delivering one hell of a fucking lesson on trust in your near future. The feds installed a tracking device on the SUV. I was tailing you the whole time, just not close enough for you to panic while driving in the middle of a fucking crazy storm.

  “Right.” Shamed, I dipped my gaze to his chest.

  “For now, I want you close, and that includes you giving me your mouth.”

  Who was I to argue against Jake’s wishes? I lifted my face and closed my eyes as he kissed me with that wonderfully firm pressure that I’d come to crave from him. The roughness of his stubble on my face reminded me of the man who held me—gruff on the surface, but his touch commanded all the right feelings deep inside me.

  As he ended our kiss and pulled me to my feet, a sudden thought entered my head. “I don’t know your last name.”

  “It’s Carter, and you should get used to it since I’m putting a ring on your finger and making that name yours, too.”

  I blinked at his words. “Is this you asking me to marry you?”

  “You can take it that way if you like, sweetness.” He dipped his head and kissed the tip of my nose. “But the God’s honest truth is I claimed you from the moment I laid eyes on you in that diner. You just didn’t know it at th
e time.”

  I gazed up at those deep chocolate brown eyes of Jake’s and laughed. “I’m glad, or I’d have missed all the fun along the way as I found that out.”

  Jake tightened his arms around me and I caught my breath at the fierce look of love shinning in his eyes. “Like I’ve said before, we’ve only just begun, sweetness.”

  Now that was a promise I could believe in.

  EPILOGUE

  Jake

  I let the back screen door bang as I walked out from the kitchen to the back veranda with my beer and a glass of iced tea. Charlotte was busy digging in a flower bed, her blonde hair shinning under the bright Denver sunshine as she continued transforming the craftsman house I had purchased last year into a home. One that included a garden front and back filled with flowers and shrubs with names I hadn’t bothered to learn but knew the end result would be amazing because my woman was determined to make it so.

  The sight of her gardening dressed in denim shorts and a cropped t-shirt was an added bonus.

  Two months had passed since I’d swept her away from Longreach and settled her here in Colorado. Not two weeks ago we’d had a quiet civil marriage ceremony attended by my four best friends and work colleagues.

  The location worked not just because Lance’s operations were based from here, but my buddies lived no more than an hour’s drive away in different directions.

  Charlotte had already gotten to know some of the neighbors, mixing easily with people the same as she did waitressing at the diner.

  I glanced at the dark stained wicker table beside me. On top rested a brochure from a major college in central Denver, one known for its world class programs in graphic design. She was determined to move on with her life. Something I encouraged.

  Neither of us had looked back. For certain Charlotte hadn’t taken the collect phone calls her asswipe of a cousin first made from the county jail. One quick visit from Deke and me had convinced Wyatt Reed not to bother Charlotte again. Ever.

  Besides, with the now disgraced former Sheriff of Longreach as a fellow inmate at county, along with a slew of other corrupt local officials, Reed had more than enough distractions to occupy his time

  “Sweetness, you ready for a break?” I held up the glass of iced tea and chuckled as Charlotte took off her gardening gloves with the pink daisy print and joined me in the shade.

  Sitting in the chair on the other side of the table, she took a long sip of her tea.

  “I see you got the brochure I dropped on the counter this morning.”

  “Yep.” She smiled. “Impressive stuff, but I’ll have to hold off for at least a year before I can think about applying.”

  “Why?” I put down my beer on the table. “You’ve got plenty of time to get your application in for their next semester.”

  “That’s not the problem.” She bit her lip in the way I knew she had something to confess. “I’ve got other plans.”

  “What’s more important than you starting your dream of studying?”

  “Our baby,” Charlotte said on a whisper, a smile spreading on her face as her eyes lit with joy. “I’m only six weeks along, but…” She took a steadying breath. “You’re going to be a daddy.”

  I didn’t move for a second as her words sunk in. Then I was pulling her out of her chair and kissing her.

  A boy became a man and then that man found himself a wife and made a family.

  As fucking crazy as that sounded, I’d dreamed of having that for myself. Growing up with deadbeat parents, I had no examples or mentors on how to be the world’s best dad. My plan was simple. I’d work to my last breath making sure my wife and kids knew they were loved and had peace of mind living in a home where they never went hungry or feared anything.

  That was my starting point.

  I held Charlotte’s face in my hands and marveled at how fucking lucky I was to have her in my life. “We’re going to be parents,” I stated, my voice fighting to get out around the sudden tightness in my throat.

  “We sure are, honey.” Blinking against the wetness I saw in her eyes, she turned her head sideways and kissed the palm of my left hand. “It’s going to be a grand adventure. You up for that?”

  “Try holding me back, sweetness.” I kissed my wife and sent up a silent prayer of thanks that this girl named Charlie had come across my radar.

  Sweetest target ever.

  ~*~*~*~

  I hope you loved Jake and Charlotte’s emotional story. The men of SEAL Mercenaries aren’t finished yet! Keep an eye out for Deke’s book, The SEALs Secret Baby coming soon!

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  ABOUT LILLY HOLDEN

  I'm an author of bad boy romance. Give me an unshaven alpha whose "rough around the edges" manner hides a tender side (hidden way deep down) and I'm hooked. Have him prepared to fight to protect what's his and I'm SOLD! I hope you enjoyed BAD BOY SEAL and I can't wait to share more of the tattooed hotness with you!

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