by Liz Crowe
Sam had agreed to meet her at one of the outdoor cafes along the Strand. She wanted lots of people around her, and the protection of daylight hours. She also knew this area was not one that Mia would frequent.
She flipped her silverware back and forth as she sipped on her iced tea. Sam’s huge frame soon shadowed her table. He wore his black leathers, coming in the disguise he’d agreed to wear whenever she met publicly with any member of their task force. He sat down without being invited. He knew he looked hotter than hell.
Damn the man. He still pushes my buttons.
Sam’s cool blue eyes looked clearer than the last time she’d seen him, when they’d been blustering and bloodshot. His mouth was twisted in a smirk, and she could see he wasn’t making much of an effort to look or act civil. Still, it could work, as part of the undercover act.
“Thanks for coming,” she said and then examined her ice tea. “You want to order something?”
He grabbed the small cardboard menu stuck between the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers. He ordered a burger, fries and a milkshake from the young waitress who stopped by. He didn’t reel in his gawking at the waitress’s ample chest.
Some things never change. You think I’m jealous? I’m so far away from seeing anything in you I even like. She had a job to do, so she donned her emotional disguise. She had to play nice with this cretin or she’d never get anywhere.
He was watching the waitress’s ass sashay down the row of tiny tables. “Sam, this is really difficult for me to say, but I do need your cooperation.” The words almost stuck in her throat.
“Damned right, Gina.” He finally pried his eyes off the waitress.
“Can we just be serious here for a second?”
Sam smiled to the wall next to him, giving her a profile view of his reddened face. She’d not noticed how ruddy his complexion had become and knew he’d been way too cozied up with alcohol recently. It was going to be a problem for all of them, she decided.
He leaned into the table and drilled her with his cold blue stare. “I got the touch. I know where you itch.”
Gina turned red. Sam winked. Suddenly the need to bolt from this meeting became overwhelming. She began to hyperventilate. She grabbed for her herbal iced tea and began to gulp it down, but managed to spill a wide ribbon down her shirtfront. She felt it trickle over her bare breasts beneath the shirt fabric. Sam noticed her natural perkiness and his eyes flashed. He looked like he was having a good time at Gina’s expense.
What was I thinking?
“Thank you, baby.” He was staring at her nipples, which tightened for him in spite of herself.
“I’m not your baby.”
“I know what you like. I dream about it all the time, Gina. Don’t you?”
“No.” She said it so loudly that several customers looked over.
Sam began to chuckle. “You’re one messed-up chick, Gina. I know how to fill all those cracks. You know I do.”
She tried to put the scenes out of her head. Sam with the handcuffs. Sam with the velvet-encased rope. Taking her from behind, in the rear. She rubbed her temples, temporarily erasing the erotic images.
“Being involved with you nearly cost me my badge. But you were the best piece of ass I ever had, Gina. You must know how I feel about that.”
That? He’s thinking of my ass. Not me.
She was left with the sickening feeling he would never let her go.
Now what have you done, Gina? Why didn’t you report him? Now it’s too late. And you thought you could work with him now?
Gina gasped for air as anger exploded in her chest.
Sam continued to pursue his direct. “I sacrificed a lot for you, baby. Left my wife. Almost lost my job.”
He was actually blaming her for his career blunder? For their affair?
She had to jump in. “You wouldn’t fuckin’ leave me alone, Sam. You came on to me.” She lost her ability to control her own temper as her insides boiled.
“Little Miss Hot Pants Flirty-Flirty, ‘Oh, I didn’t do anything but flaunt myself in his direction and he just came after me,’” he said in falsetto. Lowering his voice, he hissed, “Gina, you know you wanted it. If I’d had enough time with you, you would have begged me for it.”
An army with pointed helmets was jumping up and down her insides. Droplets of sweat traced down her spine. “Shut up, Sam. When are you going to wake up to the fact that you hurt me? You lied to me, abused my trust. You didn’t tell me you were married, and you physically…” Gina felt the hot tears welling up inside. This was not going the way she wanted it to go. She wrestled with being truthful. How much of their affair had she secretly wanted? Even after she found out about his wife? Didn’t she find herself daydreaming about him sometimes? Thank God she got out way back then, before he would consume her. Just in time. It had taken everything she had, but she threatened to tell the sergeant if he didn’t leave her alone.
Sam grabbed her forearm, instantly shifting her thoughts. “Because I cared for you.”
Gina extricated her arm from Sam’s thick fingers and folded her hands together under the table. She stuffed down the worry. She welcomed the crowd around her, feeling safer in their midst. “You’re so wrong, Sam. I am not your possession. Don’t you get it? I never belonged to you. Why can’t you just leave it alone?”
“What if I’ve moved on?”
Gina wasn’t convinced. “Really?” She crossed her arms and waited for him to explain.
Sam wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction as he ground ice with his back molars, staring at her impassively.
“I was sorry to hear about your divorce,” she inserted, going for kind. The man had paid a heavy price for his own indiscretion. “I never wanted that to happen, even after all this. I feel like I owe an apology to your wife, for God’s sake. But not to you.”
“Nah, you were just the excuse we needed to separate. We hadn’t been good for some time. But I left her because of you. You do know that, don’t you?”
Gina could see the fierce honesty in his eyes. The man was a wrecking ball of emotion. He was totally damaged goods, but she didn’t feel an ounce of love or compassion for him. And whatever he thought he was feeling towards her, she was sure it wasn’t anything close to love, either. The only thing that mattered right now was her job. She needed to complete her first mission to get her career jump-started. If that meant making “nice” to Mr. Awful, well, she’d just have to. She was working in a man’s world and she’d made some mistakes. Why should that be front page of the New York Times? Who hadn’t made mistakes in their past?
“Look, Sam. It doesn’t matter now. None of that matters. We’re not going to ever be an item. You’ve got to understand that, Sam.”
It was Sam’s turn to cross his arms.
Gina added, “I need you to honor that boundary, if you can. And if you can’t—well, I’m going to have to pull out and regroup somewhere else. This mission is what I’ve trained for. I wanted this job. I need this job.”
He was searching her face, examining her hair and shoulders, her arms, being careful not to check out her chest. She could see he was trying to be decent.
“Sam, I came to ask for your help. Your cooperation. You need to tell me if you can do this.”
“Glad to see you’ve come to your senses. Or was it your decision?”
“No. But the way I see it, I have little choice. I think you’re a good cop, not that I trust you personally as far as I can throw you. You’ve got Tito and all the other informants you’ve cultivated over the years. I’m no fool. We need your connections right now. Professionally, you know more things about the job than I’ll probably ever know. I need you to put the personal side of ‘us’ on the back burner. Better yet, take it off the flame entirely.” She searched his face for a trace of empathy, something to convince herself he could be the man she knew he had been at one time. “Can you do this for me?”
He leaned back in the chair as the waitress brought
his order. He looked at Gina’s empty place setting.
“I’m not hungry,” she explained, which was the truth.
He picked up a fistful of fries and stuffed them into his mouth. With his jaw muscles working overtime, he watched her staring back at him. Gina tried not to put any emotion into her gaze. Nothing he could latch onto or be hopeful about.
He sighed and began to pick up his burger. “I think I can do that.” He said it to the burger and didn’t look at her as he took an enormous bite. The burger erupted with drips of sauce, oozing forth a tomato slice, which plopped onto the plate below. Sam wiped his lips, his hands and absent-mindedly scanned the side of the wall next to him. Gina could see he was thinking something over carefully.
“Sam,” she continued, “I do need your help. I don’t think I can do this mission without you. I come to you as a colleague, as one professional to another. I want to keep it that way, if you’ll agree.”
Exhaustion was becoming a factor in their little meeting. Her self-control was waning. She had to get this over with. Hopefully with his agreement, or the knowledge that she had to walk away from a job she thought she could do with a little help.
“So you want me back? On the mission, I mean.” he said.
“Because of Tito and the others you’ve turned. Also, Mia likes you. You’ve worked the gang task force for ten years. You trained me in undercover work. And Koz wants us to work together.”
Sam’s eyes brightened as he aimed a huge smile and another wink at her.
“Look, Sam, you’re a big, strong guy. But I can still have you removed from the case if I say one word. I got assurances on that,” she lied. “Because…” She almost choked on the words. As much as she hated to admit it, this part of her story was true. She finished, “…because you also know me. You’d know when I’m in trouble.”
Sam’s eyes got deep. Something dark hovered there for a second before he blinked it away. Gina remembered the lost afternoons of sex and desire. She remembered how she’d needed those afternoons like air and water. When she wanted the dark side of sex.
Why?
She saw Sam want to reach for her, but hold himself in check. She could feel the pride swelling in his chest about being needed, being told he was big and strong. It was the core identity of every good cop she’d ever met. Sam might still have some remnants of it after all.
“I’ll help you. This isn’t exactly easy for me, though.”
“I understand.” She leaned forward and, without thinking, clasped one of his callused hands. “It isn’t easy for me, either. I’d like to think I can trust you. You need to tell me, Sam. Can I?”
His large thumb rubbed over her fingers before they could escape while he watched their hands entangled on the formica restaurant table. Her stomach crawled with something oily and dark.
“I hope so, Gina. I surely do.” He smiled. “You ever think maybe when all of this is over with there could be a chance—you and I, together?”
Gina wanted to run, suddenly getting a chestful of the uh-ohs. What had she done today? She had no business asking him to get involved in her first very dangerous mission. What was she thinking? What part of that was a good idea?
But if she’d ever believed him, perhaps now was the time to put that worry aside and go forward instead of dwelling on the dark past. If she was going to ask for his trust, she’d better start being honest. And if Sam refused to help her, she ran a great risk of failure.
“Sam, I honestly don’t know. I can’t go into this with you expecting or hoping this will happen, because I really don’t know.” She did a pretty good job of delivering that lie, and she didn’t care. She knew she was taking a huge risk by getting him involved in the operation.
Sam nodded, watching his thumb caress her fingers. Watching as she didn’t pull away from him.
Gina added, “Let’s just start being co-workers on a case. Let’s learn to trust each other first, and then let’s see where it leads. That’s the best I can do, Sam. No promises. And I make no demands on you either, except to leave me alone.”
That brought a smile to his lips as he nodded again. “Well, sweetheart, after you, I’m kind of wrecked for anyone else.”
The soft side of Gina was winning over, but just slightly. She couldn’t afford for it to show right now. Her eyes watered. Am I like a moth to the flame? She knew she couldn’t trust Sam. Not yet. Perhaps never. “But you have to, Sam. You have to forget there ever was an us.”
Then she remembered the look Armando gave her as he had bent down and asked if she was okay. As he whispered things to her in Spanish, as he delicately told her of his craving and need for her. She knew she’d never have to worry about being safe around Armando, and if she’d never met him, her response to Sam might have been different.
But what was important to remember was that Sam was in lust with the girl she used to be, and Armando was attracted to the woman she was becoming.
With her tears subsiding, she gathered her wits about her and removed her fingers from Sam’s grip. “Come on, I’ll buy you some ice cream to wash down that burger.”
He winked at her. “Whatever you say, boss. I’ll do anything you like. Anything.”
Chapter Ten
Armando left the impromptu gathering at Gunny’s Gym as soon as he noticed he was one of only three SEALs without a female escort. He’d even gotten some hazing about it, since there were usually at least one and occasionally two women on his arm most weekends. He knew it was the reason the younger SEALs liked to hang out with him. He was the luckiest man he knew when it came to finding female companionship.
But there was only one girl on his radar these days: Mia’s friend, Gina. Something about the woman made him stare off toward the waves while he recalled the way her body rose to his touch and fell as he pressed inside her. He’d loved hearing the little whimpering noises she made as he pumped her. Their bodies just plain fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, like what he was giving her with their lovemaking was something they both needed. He’d never felt that way with anyone before, not even Ginger.
He was on his way back to base to check out some equipment he’d special ordered when he saw Gina and Sam walking down the sidewalk next to each other, eating ice cream. They weren’t holding hands, but Armando noticed Sam’s large thigh brushed against hers from time to time, and, although she adjusted away from him carefully, she didn’t complain or ask him to stop. Or look perturbed.
Armando almost hit the car in front of him, which had stopped suddenly. He’d been so focused on Gina and that big biker dude. His disappointment, coming on the heels of the warm feelings he’d been experiencing earlier, left his insides cold.
He whipped around the block and parked so he could watch them walk on the opposite side of the street. Gina’s red tank top was getting all kinds of attention from the military personnel who sauntered by her in groups of three or four. Her frayed blue jeans with the white fuzzy worn patches on her left butt cheek was a real turn-on. If she’d looked behind her she would have seen the reactions of the passing men. He watched Sam’s confident grin as the biker made eye contact with every male who went by. ‘She’s mine,’ he was saying. No mistaking the fact that he was enjoying the walk and the challenges.
And Gina seemed oblivious to anything going on around her. Her forehead was wrinkled as she worked on that ice cream, musing over her private thoughts. Armando got hard just thinking of what those cool lips could do to his fat erection. But he also didn’t trust what he’d just seen with his own eyes.
Careful about the emotions, the lusts. Keep your focus, stay in control. That’s how you keep yourself safe. Stay alive. He’d seen unbridled pride or jealousy kill Teammates before. So he decided, just decided, he wasn’t jealous.
Armando was a pretty good judge of people. Years walking around in the back alleys and bombed-out buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan had given him a sixth sense when it came to sorting out the bad guys from the good guys. Well, not exactl
y the truth. He had learned to separate the really bad guys from the maybe good guys. He didn’t care about the petty thieves and wife beaters as much as he was tuned to identify the ones who wanted to die and take a bunch of Americans with them. The ones who could kill a dog or child with a high-powered rifle just because a US serviceman or woman happened to stop and pat them on the head.
He thought about the day his Teammate took his shift at the clinic so Armando could have a prescheduled phone call home. Mia had gotten into trouble again and his mother was beside herself with worry. After he talked to both of them, Armando had fallen asleep on his cot. He awoke to sounds of an explosion and discovered the entire triage tent had been blown to the heavens, his buddy along with it.
Armando had considered leaving the Teams then. But in the end he decided he wanted to stay in, even if it was to just tip the scale a bit and do some payback for those who’d cost his buddy his life. He knew the following weeks and months of deployment were his atonement for his lapse of judgment, but he couldn’t afford to dwell there until he got home. In Afghanistan, he needed his wits about him if he was going to do the good he’d been sent there to do. He wore his pain silently, buried inside layers of steel. And he didn’t take another nap for the following four months, not until he came stateside. He was finding that masking technique useful right now.
His thoughts turned back to Gina and her ex-boyfriend, standing in the late afternoon sun. He saw something other than a couple in love. He saw a couple forced together by some circumstance. And the guy was enjoying it more than the girl.
Of course, he could be wrong, but he usually wasn’t.
His cell phone rang. It was Fredo.
“You sure ditched out quickly. Up for some poker?”
“Later. I’m over at the base checking out my material order.” Armando had a small cottage industry making specialized vests, ones with hidden pockets and straps, for other Team guys who wanted to customize their gear. Everyone liked to carry their ammo clips and other enhancements in different places other than what their normal uniform allowed. And no two were alike.
