by Tawny Weber
“You should trust me to do my job.”
Ignoring the hurt in her voice, Aaron shook his head.
“Impossible when the world’s trust depends on me doing mine.”
“I take it our evening of fun and games is over.” Wrapping the sheet around that lush body, Bryanna climbed out of bed. She snagged Aaron’s T-shirt from the blankets tangled at her feet and threw it at his head. She looked as if she were going to scream when the fabric fluttered to the floor halfway there.
He shouldn’t want to laugh.
But he did.
Not sure what that said about him, the situation or Bryanna, Aaron simply hooked the shirt in one finger and pulled it over his head. His anger seemed to be gone, but he wasn’t crazy about the feeling of loss left in its place.
“You want to go another round, try for five in one ride, you give me a call,” Aaron suggested as he walked out the door. He had to close it behind him, had to get the hell out, before he did something he’d hate himself for. Before he begged.
* * *
BRYANNA STARED AT the closed door for an entire minute before she could get her mind to accept what had happened.
She’d gone from the best night of her career to the best sex of her life to... What?
Sitting naked in a messy hotel bed. Feeling as if her heart was breaking.
Ridiculous, she told herself, trying to comb her fingers through her tangled mess of hair. She’d have to be in love for her heart to break, and that wasn’t possible.
She’d only met Aaron six hours ago. Nobody fell in love in less than six hours.
They’d barely talked. She didn’t know anything about his past, didn’t even know his favorite color or if he liked pineapple. She had no clue if they had an inch of common ground, if there was a single thing between them to build a future on.
She didn’t even know if he wanted a future.
For all she knew, Aaron Ward was a dog. A man who saw sex like most saw water. Something that quenched a thirst, one glass the same as another. But she remembered the way he’d waited, how he’d given her a graceful option out when they’d first come into the hotel room. How he’d put her needs first. And the way he’d spoken of his career, how he’d sounded when he explained what Poseidon meant to him.
Aaron Ward was a good man. A noble man.
She wanted him for her man.
It wasn’t until she found herself wrapped around the pillow, its soft cushion hugged to her chest, that she realized she was crying. It wasn’t as if she’d never thought love had a cost. She’d always believed that good things, important things, had to be earned. But love at the expense of her career? One dream for another?
Bryanna knuckled away a tear, then sighed and let her head fall back onto the pillow. Aaron’s scent enveloped her. She turned her face into the pillow and breathed deep.
This was why. Because it felt good. What was between her and Aaron, it felt right. And if she didn’t believe her heart when it told her those things, what good was believing in anything?
It was pointless to just lie there pouting like a three-year-old on time-out, Bryanna decided. So she forced herself to sit up and, heaving a deep sigh, slid to her feet. She tidied the sheets, scooped the comforter off the floor to drape over the foot of the bed and gathered the pillows. Wrinkling her nose at what she’d squished into an unrecognizable shape, she plumped the pillow back into a rectangle and, after breathing in Aaron’s scent once again, added it to the others.
There. One thing set to rights. Now for the rest.
She started with a hot shower and a strong talking-to.
By the time she’d dried off and slid into the cozy comfort of her favorite flannel sleep pants and tank, she’d found a hint of her customary optimism.
She wasn’t going to pretend the night away, nor was she going to give up on climbing an important rung in her career ladder. And while it would be smarter to accept that she and Aaron weren’t meant to be and to chalk tonight up to just one of those things—one that included the most amazing sex of her life—Bryanna wasn’t ready to do that, either.
So, as she always did when she wanted something, she decided to find a way to make it happen.
One way or the other, dammit.
CHAPTER SIX
IT WASN’T UNTIL Aaron stormed into the parking lot that he realized he didn’t have transport. His bike was still at Olive Oyl’s. They’d driven from the bar to the hotel in Bryanna’s rental car.
His cell phone weighed heavy in his pocket. He knew he could call any of his teammates for a ride. He debated for all of five seconds, then started walking south. He gauged it at maybe a mile to the base. Practically a stroll in the moonlight.
He could use the time to review the situation, to consider his options and to figure out how the hell to complete his mission.
His orders were to cooperate with Bryanna’s little journalism project. The unspoken mission was to curtail her tell-all venture. The team was counting on him.
Picking it up to a fast march, Aaron sucked in a disgusted breath through clenched teeth.
He’d never failed a mission before—spoken or unspoken. He’d never let his teammates down. In the ten years they’d served together, he’d never performed in a less than exemplary manner. He had the goddamn assessment reports to prove it.
But now?
With the team’s anonymity, their purpose on the line?
He’d blown it.
Totally.
Completely.
And for what?
A woman.
An amazing woman.
One with a smile that lit his heart and eyes that, when she looked at him, made him feel like a hero. A woman with a body that sent him straight into hormonal heaven and a laugh that made him grin. And that brain. When he set aside her plan to write about Poseidon, he could really dig that brain. The woman could talk about anything, seemed to know a little something about everything.
Granted, they’d only talked for a few hours, but Aaron was willing to bet that he’d feel the same way after a few months, a few years. Hell, a few decades.
Not that he had a few decades—or even a few minutes—to test the idea. He’d blown it, pure and simple. For himself and for the team.
And with that thought, the litany started all over again. By the time Aaron had walked the mile back to base, he had a serious headache brewing, a strong craving for a shot of whiskey and a few hours of quiet to figure his way out of this mess.
But as he walked through base, still alive and active at midnight, and into his barracks, he realized the whiskey and quiet were out of reach and that the headache wasn’t going anywhere.
“I see you guys made yourselves at home,” he greeted, letting the front door slam as he stepped over Lansky’s body where the man had stretched across the floor. “Don’t you all have your own racks to bunk on?”
“You had beer,” Prescott said from his usual spot on the couch, his booted feet propped on the coffee table and his sketch pad angled on his lap. “Not a vegetable to be found, though. Just potato chips. All that junk food is going to kill you someday, Bulldog.”
“Gotta die of something,” Aaron muttered as he sidestepped Torres, who as usual was exercising, this time in the form of sit-ups. The man had a serious workout fetish.
“But we won’t die today. Unless it’s from embarrassment,” Lansky said, his fingers flying over his keyboard in some game or another. “Speaking of, did you manage to maintain our blessed anonymity?”
“I didn’t give her the Poseidon roster, if that’s what you’re asking.” Stalling for time, Aaron headed for the kitchen and more killer junk food. He’d decided on his march from the hotel to follow protocol, which meant reporting to Savino first. Granted, as mission leader—and the entire miss
ion force—he could fill the team in at his discretion.
Bottom line, he didn’t want to. Not until he’d figured out a workable contingency to rescue this operation.
“Did you guys eat everything in here?” he asked from the kitchen, frowning as he yanked open one cabinet door after another.
“Everything we could find.”
“So when’s the article coming out?” Lansky prodded, his tone pure glee, as if he knew that Aaron had failed and thought it hilarious.
“About the same time as your personality transplant. We’re hoping for human this time,” Aaron shot back. Frustration tight as a coiled spring, he continued his search for something—anything—to eat. “As for the mission, I’m not finished yet.”
“You mean you couldn’t talk her out of it,” Prescott said without rancor.
“Didn’t think you’d be able to pull the plug completely,” Torres said, spacing each word between pull-ups. “Not after Savino sussed out her connection.”
“Connection?” Aaron asked from the depths of the kitchen cabinet. Hadn’t he hidden a bag of Doritos behind the spare paper towels?
“Yeah. Savino pitched the blackout on Poseidon to Admiral Cree and got shot down. Turns out our inclusion in this little project was made at the specific request of Admiral Granger. The new gal’s uncle.”
“Admiral’s niece would not only have high connections, but a high bullshit threshold,” Lansky mused.
Admiral’s niece? Aaron pulled his head, and his scowl, from the cabinet to stare at his teammates.
“She’s what?”
“Actually, you should ask she’s who,” Prescott corrected absently, not looking up from the sketch pad he was working on.
Aaron stared from man to man, but didn’t detect any concern. Prescott was lost in his drawing. Lansky lay on the floor with his laptop angled high against his thighs, playing online poker. Torres, now doing one-handed push-ups, was the only one expending any energy.
“Rembrandt’s right. It’d be who, not what. The who is Bryanna Radisson, niece of Admiral Granger, HQ Pearl Harbor, temporarily assigned to Coronado. I’d imagine they’re close, since she lived on Oahu until she went to U of H, Honolulu, for her degree in journalism.” Lansky slid Aaron a wicked look and raised one brow. “That’d make her a real professional, Bulldog. One with credentials to go with her family ties.”
“What ties?”
“Admiral Granger’s niece,” Torres grunted as he shifted to one-armed pull-ups. “Who, from the hickey on your neck, is just as hot as she is connected.”
Shit. Damn. Sonofabitch.
His head aching from the realization that he’d not only blown it, he’d blown it all to hell, Aaron resisted the urge to slap his hand on his neck and asked, “How does me having a hickey translate into her being hot?”
“You don’t do any other kind. You might have charmed her, tried to persuade her, bribed or even threatened,” Prescott said, finally looking up long enough to point a finger at Aaron. “But sex? Brother, you only do that with the hotties.”
Shit. He didn’t know which was worse. Failing to convince the woman to drop the article, or having his team know he’d slept with her in the attempt and still failed?
“You should get a beer,” Lansky suggested.
“I don’t want a beer.”
“I meant for me.” The man closed his laptop and rolled onto his back, clasping his hands behind his head and giving Aaron a smile. “An alcoholic beverage would make a round of Adventures with a Bait Bunny go down nicely.”
“She’s not a bait bunny,” Aaron snapped.
But he’d treated her like one, hadn’t he? He’d used her interest in his status as a SEAL to lure her into bed with no intention of offering her anything back but a good ride and a couple of screaming orgasms to cement his rep as a hot stud deserving that revered status.
God, he sucked.
Then, like an RPG upside the head, it hit him.
“Bryanna is Admiral Granger’s niece? As in, he’s the string she pulled to get this interview op?”
“That’d be an affirmative.”
Aaron had taken a hit to the chest once that’d knocked him back ten feet and, despite his protective gear, had left him bruised and breathless. He felt about the same way now.
“I think I’ll take that beer,” he muttered, grabbing one from the fridge and, ignoring Lansky’s outstretched hand, dropping onto the couch next to Prescott.
“I knew I was going in blind with no intel on the target, but I’d figured the angles. I thought a little judicious use of charm or guilt, whichever seemed like it’d have the strongest effect, would put an end to this article.”
“Makes sense to me,” Torres said, dropping to the floor to sit, knees raised and arms resting there as he gave his complete attention. “And the results?”
“I screwed up,” Aaron admitted, hating the churning in his gut but knowing no other way to deal with his teammates than full honesty. “I got carried away. I was blown away. She’s like nobody I’ve ever met. I thought I could handle her, overwhelm her. I was wrong.”
“A lot of women have the power to knock a man back on his ass under the right circumstances,” Prescott said quietly, not looking up from his drawing.
They all ignored Lansky’s interjection of “Naked circumstances.”
“But the right woman? She’ll boggle a man’s brain while she sends his body straight to heaven and make him grateful for every second. The right woman makes everything matter. Makes everything brighter. Even the bad things.”
Prescott was a man with intimate knowledge of the bad things. His pain filled the room, wrapping around them all like a blanket.
Aaron shot a quick look at Lansky, then Torres. He saw the same sympathy in their eyes he knew showed in his own.
They’d all been there when Prescott got married—the newly formed Team Poseidon had stood as witnesses, all eleven of them. They’d celebrated the birth of his son, mourned the loss of young life to circumstances beyond all control. As a team, they’d drank themselves into oblivion when Prescott’s wife called it quits.
It’d been like watching a man get his heart ripped from his chest.
Aaron grimaced, searching for something—anything—to say that’d offer support. But none of them—not even Lansky, a guy known for his serious lack of tact—said a word.
Finally, Prescott glanced up from his drawing and looked from face to face.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to dredge up the past. Just wanted to point out that sometimes the choice seems wrong. But if the woman is right, there really wasn’t any choice to begin with.”
“Like Bulldog would know if the woman was right after a few drinks and a roll between the sheets?” Lansky laughed. “It’s not that simple and it doesn’t happen that fast.”
“It can be, and it does,” Aaron said softly. “Doesn’t make it easy. It’s no excuse for not completing my mission, though.”
“Yet,” Prescott corrected, tearing off his drawing and tossing it over so it fluttered onto Aaron’s lap. Grinning up from the page was Aaron’s own face, little hearts circling his head as he stood at a crossroad next to a signpost claiming one direction as Right, the other as Wrong. “You’ll figure it out.”
“We’ll help. We’re Poseidon, brother,” Torres said, getting to his feet and offering Aaron a swat to the back that would have felled a smaller man. “Whatever we’re in, we’re in it together. Like always.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
STEPPING INTO THE pristine luxury of 1500 Ocean, the signature restaurant of the plush Hotel del Coronado, Bryanna gave her name to the hostess before looking around. It reminded her of a beach with its light, airy colors and an ocean view that looked close enough to touch just beyond the wall of windows.
Qu
ite a contrast to Olive Oyl’s. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t see any grizzled sailors in here, she thought as she followed the hostess through the dining room toward a garden table overlooking the water.
“Hello, Uncle. Don’t you look handsome,” she greeted as the large, uniformed man pushed away from the table as they approached. He was all sailor, but there was definitely nothing grizzled about Uncle Martin.
But it wasn’t the two hundred twenty pounds spread over a six-two frame that made him seem imposing. It was the air of power that radiated from him, power that conveyed this was a man who could handle anything. One who could overcome everything. Under it all was an edge of danger, sharp and cutting.
Aaron had that same intensity, she realized as her smile trembled a little at the edges.
“Little Bryanna,” he said, wrapping her in a hug. It was like being enveloped by a bear that smelled of Brut cologne. Warm, comfortable and just a tiny bit claustrophobic. “Glad to see you. How’re you settling in? Like California so far? How’s your mother? I spoke with her, and your father of course, in our monthly call last week. Tried to talk me into trying that MouthTime thing.”
“FaceTime?” Bryanna deciphered as she settled into the chair he pulled out. “Mom and Dad are hooked on it.”
They spent the salad course chatting about family, catching up on news and sharing stories of their recent visits. By the time the main course was served, prawns for Bryanna and duck for the admiral, he’d deemed the preliminaries satisfied and allowed the discussion to move on to Bryanna’s assignment.
“So?” he prodded, knife in one hand, fork in the other and mouth half-full. “The article you’re writing. How’s it coming? Will you do the family proud? Did you bring your first draft?”
Used to her uncle’s sometimes short, gruff sentences, Bryanna shifted her smile from family-friendly to congenial-business. In other words, she pulled on a layer of bullshit. She hoped it was thick enough to fool her uncle.
