Bronwyn could feel her eyebrows climbing up her forehead. “You teach this woo-woo stuff?”
“Um, Bronny,” Garth grinned, “I don’t think I mentioned that Do-Lord has a PhD in psychology and that since he got out of the navy, when he’s not doing field research, he teaches courses in maximizing intuition’s helpfulness. Maybe you shouldn’t call what he does ‘woo-woo.’”
Bronwyn bit her lip at her own gaucheness. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I was surprised, that’s all—because you are so obviously rational. You’re intelligent and well educated. According to David, you’re married to a scientist. Surely you know there is no credible scientific evidence for anything paranormal.”
Do-Lord tilted his head—this time as if he suddenly found her to be an odd specimen. “What do you call credible—or scientific? Only people who have never looked at the research would say that. Seventy or eighty years of rigorously controlled experiments, including experiments conducted by the military, have proved that ESP exists.” His hazel eyes turned hard. “But some people, if they can’t question the methodology of an experiment, will still call it unbelievable and attack the credibility of the researcher.”
Bronwyn looked down at her hands which had somehow become tightly clasped together. She carefully relaxed them and looked up. “I have insulted you. I’m sorry.” How had she become the one in the wrong? “But you must admit, any rational person…”
“Maybe you’re the irrational one. Somebody told you psychic phenomena were impossible, and now you continue to believe them, instead of believing data you yourself obtained. That’s irrational.” Do-Lord peered at her intently. “Why would you do that? What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of knowing what you know”— he let the question hang—“or are you afraid you already know too much? Are you afraid if you admit that you’ll be kicked out of the science club?”
Was she afraid of knowing too much? She had seen the fear on her parent’s faces when she knew things they thought she shouldn’t. As for being afraid of being kicked out of the “science club”—maybe she was. By their actions, her parents had said she wasn’t one of them—meaning if she saw and heard and experienced “impossible” things, she could never be a doctor. Had she absorbed their fear without asking if it was rational?
“Do all of you,” Bronwyn asked the other men, “believe in this kind of thing?”
Lon gave her a canny look that made her wonder what conclusions he had come to about her. “Do-Lord here has a theory that a lot of talents and abilities have a psychic component. Me, I don’t really care. I like understanding the science behind what SEALs do, but what I believe in is what works.” He pointed to Garth. “Take the lieutenant here. He’s got a reputation for not losing men. He either has precognition or phenomenally good luck. I don’t care. All I know is he sent Doc away from the team, and because he did, everyone survived.”
“All survived except Doc,” Do-Lord pointed out grinning, “if we believe their independently gathered accounts.”
Bronwyn recalled her first sight of David and her instantaneous impression that surviving his injuries had been a miracle. She looked at David. “Do you believe it really happened—you were dead and Garth brought you back?”
He rubbed his chin. “I would have a hard time swearing to the actuality of anything that happens in a dream. I know Garth, though. I served under him. I know what matters to him. If there was any way he could drag me back to the land of the living, he would.”
“But do you think there is a way?”
David turned on the cocky charm. Bronwyn felt him do it. “What can I say? He’s a SEAL. Any man who graduates from B/UDS has learned to push past what his mind tells him he can’t do.”
Bronwyn turned to Garth. “You?”
“I’m with Lon. I don’t much care whether it’s possible or not. It was the most real thing I ever experienced. And Davy and I are alive.”
“Do all SEALs believe this way?”
Bronwyn felt them elect Do-Lord to answer her. “Most will agree that an extraordinary degree of intuition is not unusual in SEALs. Whether they ‘believe’ in psychic phenomena or not, none would doubt the reality of gut feelings. I think it’s a by-product of our training.”
“By-product of what training, exactly?”
“SEALs learn to pay attention. The better observer you are, the more you see not what you think is there, and not what you wish were there, but what is right in front of your eyes. You learn how often the mind is acting as a barrier between you and reality, rather than a window on reality. You will become disillusioned.” He smiled at his little pun. “Of course, most people have no need to be disillusioned. They are perfectly comfortable with their niche and are successful in it.”
“Are you saying that people become disillusioned because they need to be?” Bronwyn’s slow disillusionment with medicine had been exquisitely painful. Did that mean that losing her false notions had been a necessary shedding of old skin?
Do-Lord’s hazel eyes softened. His slow nod held compassion. “A lot of the time, the first stage of wisdom is disillusionment. Sometimes we can just discard old ideas. Sometimes they are ripped from us, taking a lot of skin,” he added in an odd echo of what she had just been thinking, “and we walk around raw and shocked, every nerve ending exposed, and even when the skin grows back, we are not the same as we were.”
“There he goes with the philosophical bullshit again.” David lobbed a balled-up piece of paper at Do-Lord’s face.
Bronwyn whipped around, shocked at his insensitivity. Where was that vaunted SEAL intuition now? Didn’t David know Do-Lord was talking about a disillusionment that had happened to him? That had caused him great pain?
“That’s not philosophy, Davy. You idiot, didn’t I teach you anything?” The senior chief stopped bouncing Julia on his knee and raised his eyes heavenward. “I tried, Lord. I tried to raise ’em right, but Graziano’s too stupid to find his dick in the dark—no offense, little girl—and Lord, Dulaude has gone all touchy-feely.”
The “no offense, little girl” tipped Bronwyn off. She doubted if the senior chief ever said anything he didn’t mean to. They did know deep emotion lay behind Do-Lord’s words and were giving him a chance to recover.
She decided to go along with the lightened mood. She aimed a wry smile at Garth. “Okay. In the name of letting go of preconceived notions, I’m trying to get my mind around it. Let me see if I’ve got the basics. You’re telling me you were a ghost. And David was a ghost. And you met in heaven.”
“I don’t think it was heaven,” Garth deadpanned to Davy. “Do you think it was heaven?”
“No. I think it’s what my mother called the borderland—even if it looked like Colorado.”
“And although I might have been clinically dead—ergo, ghost-enabled—for a few minutes,” Garth expanded, “Davy was alive when he was found. The only evidence that we were both dead is that we each independently remember Davy saying he was dead and me talking him out of it.”
Davy sent Garth a smile of such unalloyed tenderness that Bronwyn’s eyes went hot with unshed tears. “You wouldn’t leave me behind,” he said. “You went to the borderland to get me.”
Lon handed Julia to Bronwyn. He slapped his knees and stood. “Well, now that we’ve got that settled, I have a procedural question.” He turned to Garth. The kindly baby-holder disappeared, and suddenly Bronwyn could see the instructor who believed in dealing out pain as a learning aid.
“When the hell,” Lon growled, “are you going to get to work on the air-conditioner—sir? I seem to remember you’re not a complete idiot about machinery. Remarkable, you being an officer, which are not noted for their brains or their propensity to do actual work… Sir.”
Bronwyn set the baby on her knee. Her jaw dropped. “It can be fixed?”
The harshness of the older man’s expression abated slightly. “You
still need a new system, but it can work better than it does. It’ll do until you’re ready to start major renovations. If Lieutenant Vale didn’t have shit for brains—no offense, ma’am—he’d already have it taken care of.”
Garth took the insult to his intelligence and work ethic philosophically, though Bronwyn detected a tightening of the corners of his mouth. “Well, me being a poor benighted officer and all, I guess I was waiting for the guidance of a senior chief, which are known for their understanding of how things run. I only hope you are right.” He stood. “Men, let us commence Operation Cool Air.”
Chapter 31
Before she went to her room that night, Bronwyn peeped in on the sleeping Julia. In the dim glow of the night light, she had the impression the baby was sleeping better in the cooler house.
Bronwyn was standing in front of the tiny dresser mirror trying to see what her hair looked like—not that she could tell much between the cloudy mirror and the light from the bedside lamp behind her. Oh for the day when she had had a master bath with large, well-lit mirrors! Garth appeared in the mirror behind her.
Bronwyn finger-combed her hair. “I have a question,” she said to his reflection. “Did you have a premonition? Is that why you sent David to the next village?”
He set large, warm hands on her hips and slipped them slowly up her rib cage, brushing the sides of her breasts. “No. If I had, I would never have sent him. And we wouldn’t have gone into that ambush, either. I would have aborted then and there.”
“Oh. I didn’t think of that.”
“Right.” He lifted her hair and trailed kisses down the side of her neck, occasionally letting her feel his teeth. “And I’d still be in a regular outfit, being sent all over the world, and you and I would most likely have never met, which would be a damn shame.”
He gave a definitive nip to her shoulder tendon. Bronwyn’s whole body shuddered. Her breasts peaked. On the inside she went all hot and liquid. She leaned her head further to give him better access. “So, are you saying, if none of this had happened, you would still be a SEAL?”
Knowing what she wanted, he licked at the little spot just behind her ear. He fiddled with the large white buttons on the shoulders of her bateau-necked cotton sweater. “How do these things work?”
“They don’t. They’re just decoration.” In the cooler house, it had been worthwhile to get a little more dressed up. She turned around and laced her fingers around his neck. “You know you asked me one time why we didn’t get together the first time we met?”
“Yeah?”
His wary tone made her smile. “Don’t be scared. I’m not trying to lure you into a conversation about feelings. I just realized I need to apologize to you, that’s all.”
“For what?”
“The first time I saw you, I thought you were the kind of person that other people aren’t real to. People are like moving pieces of the landscape that have to be kept up with, but they don’t really register—you know?”
He went very still. “Like Darth Vader?”
Bronwyn was surprised at the comparison. “Well, he is like that, I suppose. But I wasn’t thinking of him. You’re much too hot to be a Darth Vader. And Darth Vader would never try to snatch one of his troops from the brink of death.”
“You think I’m hot?” Manlike, he seized on only one part of what she had said.
“Yes, but don’t throw me off the subject.”
“The subject isn’t sex?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“Do you wish you were still in the navy?”
“That’s not what you asked.”
“If you didn’t forget the question, why didn’t you answer?”
He smiled a smile of practiced friendliness that seemed oddly genuine. “Work with me, Bronny. I’m trying to seduce you.”
“I’m in favor of that, but I can still multitask.”
“No you can’t.”
“Yes, I can.”
His eyes gleamed hotter blue with competitive zeal. “Want me to prove it?”
She had a competitive nature herself. Came with the territory. “Go for it. It’ll be the perfect win-win.”
“Glad you see it that way.”
“Not for you. I meant a win-win for me. If I lose, I win, and if I win, I win.”
“Okay. You asked for it.” With casual strength, one arm around her legs, one around her hips, he swept her up and tossed her over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you downstairs.”
“What for?”
“I want a midnight snack.
Laughing wasn’t all that comfortable with her diaphragm crunched against a hard shoulder. Bronwyn did anyway. She loved this playful side of him. She thought she should challenge him more often.
He started down the stairs, with her giggling all the way. At the foot, he smacked her on her bottom. “Show some respect.” It wasn’t painful—more a tingle of nerves jolted awake. All the nerves in that area. It was surprisingly erotic. Her breath caught. She wiggled a little—not to get away, to get closer.
“Liked that, huh?” His big hand kneaded her bottom with firm, knowledgeable strokes. He felt for the waistband of her panties and dragged them down. They dangled around her ankles. “Bare skinned, it will feel even better.”
She tensed but relaxed as he continued to knead. “You’re wet,” he said as his fingers dipped deeper. Suddenly the flat of his hand smacked her again.
A hot wave of sensation traveled the whole area. Tissues swelled. Bronwyn had never felt so undignified and so turned on in her life. But a protest seemed called for. “That’s not fair.”
“SEALs never fight fair. Anyway,” his hand landed again, “it’s better if you don’t know when it’s coming.”
Arrived in the kitchen, he flicked on the small Tiffany-shaded light over the breakfast table and, without ceremony (but making sure she didn’t bump her head), dumped Bronwyn on it. The salt and pepper shakers rolled unheeded to the floor.
He leaned over her, his arms braced on either side of her head. “Are you ready to concede yet?”
“What?” Why had she thought his eyes were the color of icebergs? Right now they were the hot blue of flame.
He grinned triumphantly.
“You think you can win that easy? No way.” She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “And anyway I didn’t know we were on,” she accused. “You said you were coming to get a snack.”
The smile that illuminated his dark face now reminded her that the human gesture of smiling had probably evolved from snarls of aggression.
“I am here for a snack.” He sat down in a kitchen chair and hitched it closer to the table. He grasped her hips and slid her forward until her hips were just on the edge. “You’re it.”
He draped her legs over his shoulders and carefully, competently opened her to his gaze. “Oh, yeah,” he breathed. “Just what I had a taste for.”
He took his time looking her over. He ran his fingers along the place her buttocks curved into the backs of her thighs. He stroked the silky skin of their inner faces. And never stopped looking. “The skin is a little pink here.” He scraped lightly. Heat flooded her entire body. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No, but maybe you should do it a few more times just to make sure.”
“Another time, maybe. Right now, I gotta do this.” His mouth closed over her. His hot, wet tongue delved deep. In a long, slow swoop he reached the clitoris and flicked it.
He twirled around here and there, voluptuous sensation piling on sensation, and then from the long, slow build-up, with the tip of his tongue, he flicked it again.
Lightning zinged from that one place, punched her heart into another gear, and she would swear, heated her eyes. Her legs tightened. She tr
ied to lift her pelvis to bring herself closer, but the position she was in gave her little leverage.
He patted her belly. “Patience, my sweet. You’re supposed to be asking me questions, you know. Multitasking.”
“Don’t gloat.”
“How can I gloat? You said you win either way. I’m just trying to make sure you win big.”
At his self-righteous taunt, laughter shook Bronwyn’s belly, and just like that, without him doing anything at all, she crested another peak.
He applied his mouth again, odd forays stringing heat to heat, and when he flicked again from the underside, she screamed a little. He did it again and again, by tiny increments bringing the flicks closer and closer together until she had to bite down on her fist to keep from crying out continuously, while the pleasure crested from peak to peak like a flashing strobe light. Every nerve vibrated.
And then there it was. Every muscle clenched. The pressure exploded in shuddering bursts. She undulated, wracked with climax after climax.
And then he rose up, gripped her hips, and plunged himself into her. Stretching her, sending her into more spasms, more release as he pumped once, twice, three times, went rigid, and with a shout came.
He collapsed over her, gulping for air and keeping his weight on his forearms so that she could breathe, too.
“No more,” he gasped, his dark voice raspy and harsh. “No more contests. I thought I was going to die.”
***
Later, when they had showered, Bronwyn came into the bedroom. Garth looked out the window, a white towel wrapped loosely around his hips. His legs were a lighter shade of oak than his torso. Garth turned when he heard her. He smiled. His eyelids drooped in lazy satiation.
SEALed Forever Page 23
