Still Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 10) (16 page)

Some shit hasn’t changed, though. Hindi still can’t walk a straight line. She meanders right, then changes course and sorta dances forward. Heads left and bumps into me.

“Whoops,” she says cheerfully. “Think I should have stopped at one Tiki Hut punch.”

“Probably would have been smarter,” I agree. “Rumor has it the bartender takes all the leftovers from the bottles and adds food coloring. Stuff’s strong enough to strip paint.”

She burps and laughs, the happy sound bouncing off the palm trees.

“Lady-like,” I observe.

“Fuck that,” she announces at the top of her lungs. In a few more steps we’ll be on Search and SEALs’ private property.

“Never wanted to be a lady?” I grin at her and tighten my grip. She’s not that big, and two of the punches should have knocked her on her ass.

She grabs my hands in hers and dances in a circle. Okay. I outweigh her and I’m more like the anchor. I hold onto her hands and she leans out, head tipped back. Maybe she’s stargazing. Her hair flies out around her face, soft strands going everywhere, and she’s laughing. Christ. She’s beautiful. She looks at the night sky—and I look at her.

She lets go and stagger-steps into the water. “No ladylike desires here. You’re right.”

I always am. It’s more curse than blessing.

“It’s hot,” she says as I watch her carefully. Not letting her face plant in the ocean on my watch.

“Florida in the summer. What can you do?” I shrug and—

“Catch.” Her purse comes flying toward me and then she drops underneath the surface. I check my initial reaction to dive in after her. She’s good. She doesn’t need rescuing. When I think about her drowning, running into trouble out there in the water, I find myself turning toward where she disappeared. Can’t quite make up my mind. I don’t need to make an ass out of myself, but I can’t let her get hurt either.

She pops up with a whoop two long seconds after she went under. Water slicks her hair back and cascades off her face as she scrubs at her eyes. Because I’m a guy, I can’t help but notice that the dress-shorts thing she’s wearing is completely soaked. The fabric is so thin that I can see her bra. Her nipples are hard little pebbles. A strap gives up the battle and slides down her shoulder as she floats on her back. Shit’s not made for swimming in and that’s the truth.

She turns and dives. Looks like a mermaid spinning around out there, and I’m not passing up on the invitation. I set our stuff down on the sand above the high water mark, then strip off my shirt and empty my pockets into my boots.

“You ever leap before you look?” she calls from the water. There’s laughter in her voice, but it’s warm and not mean. As if she’s more
what can you do
about the fact that, yeah, I’m a planner. No way I’m diving into the water with all my shit still in my pocket if there’s time to do it differently.

“You should be grateful,” I tell her, striding down to the water’s edge. “Seeing as how that’s your stuff I’m taking care with.”

I dive into the water.

Not like she’s getting away from me. I’m used to combat diving in much colder water. Uncle Sam didn’t train our asses in heated pools, and he damned sure didn’t send us to fight hostiles under balmy conditions. The water here feels like fucking bath water, still warm. I cut through the water, aiming slightly north of her last location.

When I sense her moving nearby, I plant my feet and stand, exploding out of the water. She shrieks, but I’ve got her now. She pinwheels her arms and legs, water sheeting off her, and I hold her close.

“I win, friend,” I whisper against her ear as she shoves her tits against my chest. Pretty sure that’s a happy accident, but it works for me. She grins up at me, her fingers reaching for the ocean’s surface, already scooping a load to send in my direction. Hah. That’s so fucking cute. I lift and she’s caught in my arms.

“Stop squirming.”

“Or?” I love how breathless she sounds.

“Or I might drop you.” And just to prove my point, because I’m all about show and not tell, I let her fall a handful of inches before I catch her again. She giggles, arms lashing around my neck. Yeah. Didn’t exactly scare the shit out of her, did I? I lower us both back into the water, me on the bottom, her on top and push off for shore. She’s planted on my dick like I’m her own personal life raft, and she doesn’t budge. Just hangs onto my shoulders and sticks to me.

Fucking awesome night.

But as much as I hate to risk ruining the moment, I have to hear the words. “Did you mean what you said earlier? About being
friends with benefits
?”

Her fingers skate slowly over my neck and I’m hoping that’s Braille for
abso-fucking-lutely
.

“Yes. So what’s the plan now, sailor boy?” She lowers herself onto my chest, turning her face so her cheek’s planted somewhere over my heart. Her fingers skim over my shoulders and up my neck.

“Step one. I get reacquainted with you.” The ocean’s calm enough that nobody’s drowning night, thank fuck. Shoulda gone skinny-dipping but I was trying to be a gentleman—which was my first mistake. I’d like to be the hero she keeps mistaking me for, but at the end of the night, I’m just me. Rohan MacCarthy. Slightly used SEAL. Grumpy dog trainer. The kind of guy who, yeah, will grow up to be an even grumpier old man running kids off his property. Right now, though? Fuck the future. I’m all about the now.

I run my hand up her leg.

“You’re not going to use your words?” she asks.

She’s so gorgeous. The wet fabric clings to her tits and legs. It’s all one piece, some kind of shirt and shorts combo, and I give up figuring out how to get it off and go for
under
instead.

“Are you naked under this?” I tug on the bottom.

“My romper?” She sounds dazed. Her fingers dig into my shoulders.

“Yeah.”

“You planning to check?” She brushes her mouth over mine. Her new position is hot. The ocean’s way too warm to dampen my dick’s enthusiasm.

“You planning on lying?” I counter. “Because I think that should be our new policy. No more lying. No more sins of omission. We’re friends, right? And friends don’t bullshit each other. Not entirely sure what happened to us six years ago, but we’ll be straight with each other from now on. And right now, I’ve got a hell of a thing for you, Hindi Alvarez and, yeah, I want to have sex with you. I get that you need to walk away when this summer’s over, and I won’t drag my feet on our divorce. You want that, you got it.”

“You want to be friends with benefits?” she whispers, sliding her pussy over my dick.

“You’re not playing fair,” I point out.

“Sue me.” She sounds thoughtful, like she’s working on the answer to her own question. Her tits are one hell of a distraction. I hold her, my thumbs tracing the soft line of her hips. I’d rather take her down on the sand and bury myself balls-deep in her.

Yeah. I’m no poet.

I should work on that.

Her eyes meet mine. “You want to have sex.”

“Yeah.” Right now so fucking works for me.

“And we’re still planning on getting divorced as soon as possible.”

“Right,” I agree. “But in the meantime, we’ll be nice to each other. Friends with some really amazing, totally awesome benefits.”

I slide one hand beneath the edge of the romper as my shoulders bump against the beach and use the other to pull her in for a kiss. I give her one last chance to protest, to be the voice of sanity in this crazy relationship of ours, but Hindi Alvarez has never, ever chosen to do the sane thing. She leans into my kiss, her mouth opening for me. We’ve kissed before, but I add this new kiss to my memories of us. She tastes good, like the punch she drank at the Tiki Hut, like salt and ocean and something even wilder and more free. Hindi’s like that pink sugar they sell at fairs, all fragile and airy looking but so fucking addictive. I want the taste of her all over my lips. And like the sugar, she’s a sticky sweetness—there’s no brushing her off, no easy out. She’s everywhere and, fuck me, but I don’t mind.

I pull her down hard because soft and gentle seems too much like those honeymoon days we had on Angel Cay and this has to be different. It has to end better. She grinds against me, riding my dick, her legs getting a death grip on my hips. Fucking works for me. I go for gold and work my hand beneath the romper. Turns out she’s wearing panties after all—a soaking wet sliver of fabric. Must be a thong and, fuck me, I bet it looks amazing, but I don’t want to take the time to admire the view.

I stroke beneath the edge of her panties. How and when did she decide to make all my dreams come true? I blame it at least in part on the punches she consumed at the Tiki Hut. Add in a moonlight walk by the ocean, and some really hot memories, and you’ve got a recipe for a repeat. Apparently, we’re not entirely over and that’s the best news I’ve had in a long time.

I don’t go slow. I don’t hesitate. There’s no casual build-up where we both pretend that my fingers have accidentally trespassed where they don’t belong. I push beneath the edge of her panties.

“Open up.” See? No romantic words, nothing dressing this up. We go from zero to sixty faster than a Humvee driving down a desert highway in hostile territory, and God knows we’re not worried about stopping. You can’t put the brakes on feelings like these. I lift her higher on my chest so I can reach her better and she straddles me, spreading her legs with a gasp and a moan.

And then she leans down to kiss me. It’s not a gentle kiss. Our mouths clash, fighting for control. She opens, I take, her tongue tangles with mine, and we kiss like we’ve been starving for this moment. Licking, tasting, biting—we rocket out of control. That Humvee I mentioned? It goes up in flames and we’re both on fire, burning for each other as we kiss harder and rougher.

As the ocean slaps us into the shore and she rides me, my fingers travel the last few inches beneath her panties. I’m inside her and nothing has ever felt better. She’s damp and slick, partly from her swim but mostly from me. The water’s made her tight and I push deeper slowly.

“Ro.” She moans my name, her fingers digging into my shoulders.

I’d do anything to make her say my name again. To let me all the way in and never let me out. She spreads her legs as far as she can, her knees bumping against the sand, and I’ve got all the space I need. Her pussy’s the sweetest, silkiest heaven my fingers have ever known. I pull out and drag my fingers over her folds, circling her clit. Somewhere, farther out, a boat races by, and the wake hits us, bumping her into my fingers hard and then harder. I slide my fingers down and into her. In. Out. She fucking drives me wild, my name falling from her lips in gasps and pants.

She tears her mouth away from mine.

“We can’t do this here.”

We sure can. I roll us, turning her under me, and her eyes widen, her fingers grabbing for me.

“Trust me. I won’t let you fall.” Never. Ever.

“Promise?” she asks, the word hanging there in the three inches of space between our mouths. We’re so close that I feel each syllable on my lips. I need her to say something long. Something dirty.

“I do.”

Her back bumps against the sandy shore and she relaxes. See? There are no scary depths here, no dark water waiting to swallow her up or chill her down. And she lets go with everything she has and it’s fucking beautiful. Nails digging into my back, heels pounding my ass, she comes in fierce, strong contractions as she fucks my hand. She’s right there, going over the edge and holding nothing back, and I’m the lucky man giving it to her. This is the only thing that matters right now.

Fingers still firmly planted inside her, I scoop her up and move us onto the beach. Sex in the ocean isn’t as easy as it sounds and I need to be inside her now. While she milks my hand, clenching and gripping what I’ve given her, I hold her close until she goes boneless with a happy hum. God, I’ve missed that sound—it’s the payout song of the slot machine when you hit three cherries, the fantastic ding of the bell when you hit the base with all your strength and the weight shoots up to the fucking stratosphere and rings the bell.

She’s still coming down when I strip off her wet clothes and toss them toward her bag. Fuck being careful or cautious. I can’t wait another minute. Hindi’s made for moonlight. Her skin glows like some exotic South Sea pearl as she stretches.

“God. I feel so good.” She sounds sleepy and so goddamned satisfied that my chest swells up.
I
did that for her.
I
made her come.

“Don’t go to sleep on me now.” Sure, she naps like a cat, down for ten and then back up and playful, but ten minutes feels like an eternity right now. Not that I won’t wait for her, but my dick’s an iron bar, and it’s already been six years. It aches for her, and there’s a funny thing going on in my chest. I look at Hindi—and I feel stuff. She makes me come alive and I don’t want to waste a single second.

She beams at me. “Your turn.”

Yes, please.

Turns out I’m not above begging. I make a rough sound, she pushes me onto my back, and I go. Not only will I beg, but I’d go wherever she led. Funny how that works. My back hits the sand and I have just enough time to realize I can still feel the warmth from the afternoon’s sun when her hands start working at my shorts.

I help her out and together we get them open and then she’s cupping me. Holy. Fuck. Best feeling ever. She wraps her hand around the tip and slides down, down, down. Takes all my focus with her fingers, too. I shudder as she plays me, loving every moment.

“I’ve missed this,” she whispers up at me as she moves down my body, following her hand.

“Yeah?” I ask, ready to beg, because her words and her hand are my biggest fantasy right now. If she wants me, she gets me. Not like I’m holding out on her.

“I’ve thought about you,” she admits and my dick jerks in her hand like it has a
hell yeah
of its own to add to the conversation. This is the moment where I’m supposed to tell her that I’ve done plenty of thinking—and fantasizing—over the years too, but her mouth closes over my dick and I lose the ability to form coherent sentences. Fuck, even words are off the table, because this is so, so much better than I remember. Or maybe my imagination’s just really shitty, because she takes me deep, humming a little in the back of her throat, and I feel every lick, every note. She rubs up and down me as she sucks, covering every needy, greedy inch of me. I fist her hair, trying to hold on and not go off like a rocket.