HOT SEAL Lover (HOT SEAL Team - Book 2) Page 17
Okay, so this was what it felt like to be ignored. He was giving her a taste of her own medicine. He’d made love to her in a war zone, made her feel safe and special, and now he was done with her. He wasn’t going to answer his phone—she’d tried once, but he hadn’t picked up and she hadn’t been brave enough to try again—and he wasn’t going to come and see her.
There was no plan to keep her in bed for twenty-four hours, no plan to call her. And she deserved it, didn’t she? This was what she’d done to him. When he’d walked out of her house the morning after they’d first been together, he’d believed he would see her again. That they’d explore the attraction between them more thoroughly, maybe ease into a relationship.
And she’d been too much of a coward to answer his calls. Why hadn’t she just picked up the phone and told him it was too much too soon? He would have respected that.
Christina sighed and tugged on her ponytail. She’d been so afraid of what had happened between them that she hadn’t trusted herself to tell him no. That was the problem. She’d run for her own protection. She hadn’t trusted herself.
Well, she was certainly getting a dose of her own medicine now, wasn’t she?
She turned away and went to get dressed. She’d spent the past several days working from home, only going out to the grocery store or the coffee shop. She’d gone shopping with Evie one day, as promised. They’d had a good time at the mall. Evie hadn’t pressed her for details of what happened in the desert, and she hadn’t offered.
She’d wanted to. She wanted to talk to someone about it, but every time she’d thought about opening her mouth, she couldn’t do it. Something held her back.
It was almost the holidays, but the days weren’t too cold yet. She put on a pair of dark jeans with heeled boots and a blazer before grabbing her trench coat. Today she was going into the office. She’d only waited five days and not seven, but whatever. She’d spoken to Sheikh Fahd, and he’d finally agreed that selling his oil to Girard Oil was the best way to go. She needed to head into the office and oversee the paperwork.
And she really needed to fly to Houston, but she kept putting that part off. Just a few more days. If Remy didn’t show up by then, well, she’d go. And she’d throw herself into work with more enthusiasm than ever before. She’d travel twenty-five days a month instead of fifteen. She’d go around the world making deals and overseeing oil production. She’d be the best motherfucking business development manager in the history of Girard Oil.
She grabbed her purse and keys and whipped open the door. Then she gasped. Ben stood there with his hand raised to knock, though why he didn’t just press the doorbell she didn’t know.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, grasping the door and holding it tight. As if she was going to have to whip it into his face or something.
He gave her a hangdog look. “You aren’t answering your phone.”
She closed her eyes for a second. “Yes, but that’s because there’s nothing to say.”
Every time her phone rang, she’d freaked. Then she’d pick it up, see Ben’s number, and want to scream. She’d tried to block him, but apparently that wasn’t quite as easy to do on a landline as it was on a cell phone.
For the hundredth time, she berated herself for keeping a landline. But, dammit, she’d grown up in the bayou where storms often knocked out cell towers and the only thing that worked was a landline until the towers were fixed. It was a habit to keep it, though it was inconvenient as hell too when the only people who ever called were the ones she didn’t want to hear from.
Ben and telemarketers and political candidates. It was enough to drive a person insane.
His eyes flashed with anger, but he quickly banked it. “I need to talk to you, Christina.”
She gripped the door like a shield. “About what, Ben? You and me? It’s not happening. Not ever again. You lied to me and cheated on me and… and what, you’re not gay now? You want me instead of Chardonnay?”
His jaw tightened. “That was a mistake. And I’m not gay. I’m bisexual. I like men and women both. I had a moment of weakness.”
She snorted. “I am aware of what the term means. I am also aware that you promised to love, honor, and cherish me—and then you fucked someone else in the most embarrassing way possible.”
He looked scandalized. “You don’t talk like that, Christina. Not ever. What’s gotten into you?”
Her heart hammered hard in her chest, and her skin prickled with heat. She wanted to slap him. And she wanted to scream at him. He was criticizing her use of language? Really? After everything he’d done?
“I do talk this way, Ben. I’m done pretending to be perfect. I’m not. I cuss and I cry and I get mad and I say things that are rude.”
“You never used to.”
She sniffed. “Yeah, well I’m learning to be me and not some version of me that makes others happy.”
He shook his head sadly and gave her a puppy dog look she would have once fallen for. “I’m sorry for everything, Christina. I made a mistake. I just want you back. I want to start over.”
“That’s not possible.”
His face twisted into a mask of anger. It was so sudden that she took a step backward. And then she gripped the door hard and prepared to slam it in his face.
But he anticipated her, shoving a foot into the opening before she could get the door closed.
“It is possible, Christina,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning down in a hard frown. “You need me. Nobody else understands you like I do. You’re a sad, neurotic mess, the daughter of an alcoholic, the child of a wealthy man who ignored you to screw strippers your whole life. You mean nothing to him. Nothing. Together we can show him how wrong he was—I’ll run for office again, we’ll get it right this time, and you can invite him to the inaugural ball when I am the governor. We’ll rub it in his face. We’ll laugh so hard.”
His eyes gleamed bright, and she stared at him in horror. He really believed what he was saying. Believed he had a chance, not only with her but also in politics. For a moment, she wondered if Ben was out of touch with reality, but then she realized it was just his supreme narcissism coming to the fore. He honestly believed he was capable of anything he put his mind to, even coming back from a huge scandal and winning a gubernatorial race.
“You need to go, Ben,” she said as calmly as she could. He wasn’t big like Remy, but he was still bigger than she was. Maybe it was just an instinctive reaction after what had happened in Qu’rim, but she felt threatened.
Scared.
For a moment Ben looked as if he would shove his way inside her house. But the tension left his body and he took a step back, brushing off imaginary lint from his custom Brooks Brothers suit. His Italian loafers clicked on her porch as he moved.
He wasn’t violent. Never had been. Christina breathed a tiny sigh of relief, though her pulse still fluttered in her throat.
“Fine, I’ll go.”
“Please don’t come back. It’s over between us. We’re divorced—and there’s nothing left to say.”
His lips flattened, the corners whitening. “If that’s what you want.”
She swallowed. Her heart hammered and beads of sweat popped up beneath her sweater. But she nodded firmly. “Yes, that’s what I want.”
“All right. Then I guess this is good-bye.”
Ben turned and went down the steps. He didn’t look back as he walked out to the street and got into the silver Mercedes sitting at the curb.
Christina watched him get inside and drive away. She considered staying home and locking the door, not leaving the house at all today. But then she sucked in a breath and gritted her teeth. She wasn’t going to let him win. No, that hadn’t been pleasant, but she also knew she was still very much affected by what had happened in Qu’rim.
Not every man who got angry was a killer. And not every situation was dangerous.
Still, she waited a few minutes before she stepped out onto the porch where
Ben had so recently stood. She closed and locked the door with trembling fingers, cursing her weakness as she did so. Then she walked briskly to her own car and got inside.
It was going to be a good day at the office, dammit. And if Remy hadn’t come by the end of the day, well, she’d make plane reservations for her weekly trip to Houston. It was time to get moving with her life again.
27
Goddamn, he was tired. But he was also aching to see Christina. Remy grabbed his bag from the overhead compartment and strode off the plane first since he was sitting in the exit row. He’d flown commercial back to the States because sometimes HOT went that way after a mission. The squads weren’t tied to military transport when out of the hot zone, which meant they could often get where they were going a lot faster on Delta or American or whoever had a plane going back to DC at that moment.
It was later than he wanted it to be, but that’s because he’d been routed through JFK on his way back instead of straight to BWI or Dulles. He strode up the gateway and through the door into the airport. He had to wait at baggage claim for his duffel, but then he was on his way, calling an Uber that greeted him at the curb.
He dozed a bit in the car, but he never fully slept. He was aware of every turn the driver took. When he reached Christina’s street, he had the guy drop him at the corner. It was a habit not to let someone take him to his precise destination. He’d have to walk a block or so, but that was a cakewalk compared to the kind of hikes he normally took on the job.
Hikes involving sixty pounds of equipment and weaponry through enemy territory while being fired upon. Yeah, a block carrying a duffel and a backpack was nothing.
He slowed as he rounded the corner near Christina’s house. It was a cute cottage on a quiet street. The house was gray with black shutters and a red door, and the porch light was on. Inside, as he well knew, it was frilly and girly, a feminine palace fit for a lady like Christina.
A lady who made him harder than marble with a single hot look and then fucked him with abandon until he exploded in a hot rush. Jesus, what a quickie that had been back in the safe house. Hot and perfect, just like her.
He’d been aching to see her for days, but there had been things to do in Qu’rim, and then there’d been a quick mission into neighboring Acamar to retrieve a couple of military contractors who’d gotten themselves snagged by a militant group. Thankfully that militant group hadn’t been the Freedom Force. If it had been, the mission would have been a lot longer and more complicated.
He had no idea if she’d even be at home. He could have called her, but no matter what she’d said back in Qu’rim, she had a reputation of not answering her phone and then running away from him. He wasn’t going to give her that chance.
Nope, best to show up and see what happened.
He continued down the street, slowing when a man got out of a silver Mercedes that sat under a streetlamp directly across from Christina’s. The man was dressed in a suit and tie, and he seemed to stare at her house. A lamp burned in the living room, and a shadow crossed over the curtain. A flash of heat rolled through him then. She hadn’t left—though if she’d let him in was another story.
Remy waited instinctively to see what the other man would do. He was probably someone who lived nearby, but the habits Remy had gained as a SEAL meant he took nothing for granted. The man stood there for another minute or so, fooling with his phone. He wasn’t doing anything harmful, even if he did appear to be loitering. But he was loitering in front of a two-story house that could very well be his own.
Remy decided he was finished waiting. He continued down the sidewalk and then turned and went up the steps to Christina’s house. He turned to look across the street and check where the man was. But he wasn’t there, though the car still sat where he’d left it. Apparently he’d finished whatever he’d been doing and gone inside.
Remy took a deep breath and punched the doorbell. He heard her moving inside, though she was light and barely made a sound. She flipped on the porch light, and then she must have put her eye to the peephole because he heard a gasp.
A second later, the door swung open and Christina stood there looking like a dream come true. She wore yoga pants and a sweatshirt that said Army on it. No doubt a gift from her brother. Remy made a note to buy her one that said Navy.
“Hey, cher,” he said softly.
She launched herself at him. He caught her, lifting her up to hold her as her legs wrapped around his waist and her mouth fused to his. He backed her against the doorjamb, kissing her with all the pent-up sexual heat and frustration that had been hammering through him for the past few days.
Hell, the past few months, because that brief taste he’d gotten of her in Qu’rim hadn’t been nearly enough.
Their tongues caught, tangled, their mouths claiming and branding and worshipping. Remy held her tight, his hands under her ass, his duffel at his feet. He didn’t want to put her down for a minute, not until he was deep inside her, but that wasn’t happening out on her porch.
“Your neighbors are gonna call the cops, baby,” he growled in her ear. “Because I’m going to strip you naked and bury myself inside you in about five seconds. Which means you got four seconds to move this party.”
He was right, of course, though she didn’t want to let him go. A car door slammed just then, as if reminding them they had an audience. Christina unhooked her legs from his waist and he let her go, but not before sliding her down his body. She couldn’t miss the particularly hard bulge below his belt, and her body trembled with the knowledge she would soon get to be up close and personal with that bulge.
She stepped back while he grabbed his duffel and backpack. Her eyes scanned the street out front. A car pulled away from the curb and she stiffened for a moment, unable to tell what it was in the dark other than a light-colored sedan. Was it a Mercedes? Or some other car? Not that other people couldn’t have a Mercedes too, but the memory of Ben standing on her porch and glaring at her was too fresh. Would he come back? Would he try again, or had he really taken no for an answer?
She didn’t have any more time to think about Ben though, because in the next instant, her door slammed shut and then Remy was tugging her into his arms again. He was so big and strong, and she loved how he enveloped her when he hugged her.
“Not kidding about that five-second thing, cher. Unless you have a different plan, or you’re really not on board with this.”
“Not on board? Are you kidding me? I jumped on you when I opened the door.”
“And you can keep jumping, baby. But not until I’ve had what I want…”
In one smooth move, he lifted the sweatshirt she’d changed into when she got home over her head. Then he unhooked her bra and her breasts spilled free. Well, as much as beestings could spill, she supposed.
It made no sense but she felt suddenly shy. She wanted to put her hands over her breasts, but the way he gazed at them made her think maybe he didn’t mind so much that she didn’t have a lot to play with in that department.
His fingers went to the waistband of her yoga pants. He shoved those down along with her panties, and then she was standing naked before him, her skin breaking out in goose bumps. Not because she was cold though.
She definitely wasn’t cold even though her nipples made it appear otherwise.
“Beautiful.” Remy dropped to his knees and spanned her waist with his hands before pulling her forward and sucking one tight nipple into his mouth.
Christina gasped as he tugged. Pleasure so good it hurt spiked from her nipple to her pussy. As if he knew it, he pushed her legs apart so she was standing with her thighs open.
Then he skimmed his fingers down into her wetness, and she gripped his hair, her fingers tightening in the silky locks. He would have to get it cut soon, she knew that, but oh she loved his hair like this. Slightly wild and untamable, like him.
“Remy,” she gasped as his fingers skimmed upward again. It was such a light touch, but she craved more.
He laughed, the evil man.
And then he did something she did not expect. He picked up her left leg and threw it over his shoulder. Then he blazed a hot trail down her abdomen with his mouth. Just when she thought he was going to lick her, he leaned back and parted her with his fingers.
“So wet,” he said, looking at the petals of her sex. And, holy cow, she was. Almost embarrassingly so. “Wonder if you taste as good as you look?” he murmured.
And then he gripped her hips and pulled her to him, his tongue sliding into her heat and making her moan.
“Yes,” he said, “you definitely do.”
Before she could find her equilibrium, he sucked her clit into his mouth and started to fuck her with two fingers. Her knees went weak as he flicked his tongue back and forth over her clit. He was too good at this to let her explode, however.
He kept her on the edge, licking and sucking at just the right moments and then backing away and blowing cool air on her when she was ready to come.
“Did you miss me?” he asked, and she blinked.
“Are you doing this to torture me?”
He ran his fingers between her folds again, spreading her wide. His chin glistened with her wetness, and her knees nearly buckled as he gazed up at her, his eyes hot and possessive. Mine. He’s mine.
“You could have had this in your life for months, cher. Months of me eating your pussy and making you scream. Yeah, I’m torturing you.”
And then he licked her again, his tongue lashing against her clit with perfect rhythm. As her climax built inside her, she threw her head back and rocked her hips against him, riding his face, seeking out all the good stuff that was hers for the taking.
“Don’t stop, dammit,” she cried when she was close. “Don’t you dare stop!”