Strong Silent SEAL (SEALs of Coronado Book 2) (13 page)

Then he’d said he wanted to “talk.” Those words, along with the serious expression on his face had her freaking out on the inside. She’d thought for sure he’d been going to tell her it wasn’t working out between them. That his time away had given him a new perspective, and he didn’t want to see her again.

Instead he’d gone into a rambling soliloquy involving boots and blisters and pistol grips. She’d been so lost, she’d felt like pulling out her new cell phone to ask Siri if she had a clue what the hell Logan was talking about.

But he’d floored her by saying he thought there was something between them and he wanted to keep seeing her. Just like that, his bumbling, stumbling words made a strange kind of sense. Logan liked her—as in seriously liked her.

Felicia didn’t know why she’d asked him if he loved her. Maybe it was the stuff Stef had thrown in her face about what you feel for a man being far more important than how long you’ve know him. Or maybe there was simply a part of her that was falling in love with Logan, too.

A few days ago, she’d practically laughed in her sister’s face when Stef tried to convince her love was the only thing that mattered. Now Logan said he loved her and that there was something special between them.

The craziest thing of all was that everything Logan said made complete and total sense. She felt the exact same way about him.

She did a double take.

It was true. She was in love—or at least falling in love—with a man she’d known all of two weeks. It should have scared the hell out of her, but instead it made her feel happier than she’d ever been.

It suddenly occurred to her that Logan was still talking and she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. She tuned in to hear him apologizing for springing all this on her so suddenly and for coming over here in the first place.

“My gut told me this wouldn’t work, that I was pushing you too fast, but I took a chance. I’m sorry.”

Before Felicia could say anything, Logan got to his feet and headed for the door. He must have taken her stunned silence to mean she didn’t feel the same way about him as he did about her. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

She jumped up and grabbed his arm. When he turned, she wrapped her arms around his neck, dragging him down for a kiss.

Logan immediately kissed her back, his hands grabbing her ass and pull her tightly against him.

Throwing caution to the wind and going with her instincts might be insane, but she knew in her heart it was right.

Just when it seemed the heat of their mouths on one another might lead to something combustible right there in the entryway of her apartment, Logan broke the kiss and looked down at her.

“I’m guessing this means you still want to keep seeing me?” he asked.

She thumped him on the shoulder, which probably hurt her hand far more than it hurt his shoulder. “Of course I want to keep seeing you! Are you crazy?”

His mouth twitched. “I think that goes with saying. It’s the only thing that explains how I could be falling in love with a woman I’ve known for two weeks and have slept with only once.”

Felicia smiled. “Well, I am really good in bed.”

He chuckled. “Well, there you go. That explains everything.”

She laughed with him, feeling a weight being lifted from her shoulders she’d never known was there. But she was the first one to turn serious as she realized there were a few things she needed to say to him.

“You might have surprised me a little by saying what you did, but it doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy to hear it. I spent the whole time you were away thinking about us, what we had, and where we were going. I’ll admit, I’ve always been the kind to take things slowly. I’ve always assumed I would meet this great guy, and we would spend years getting to know each other, planning out each and every step of our relationship.”

“But?” he prompted.

“But then I met you and the whole carefully laid out plan I had for my life flipped upside down.”

“Is that so bad?” he asked.

She gazed up into his beautiful eyes. “If you’d asked me a few days ago, the answer would have been yes. But right now the answer is definitely not. In fact, I get the feeling someday, I’m going to look back on this moment and realize it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Logan smiled, then his mouth came down on hers again and she felt her body melt into his. With a groan, he slipped one arm behind her knees and scooped her up then headed for her bedroom.

Once there, they undressed each other slowly, hands roaming everywhere. When they were both naked, Felicia climbed into bed and spread her legs wide. Logan joined her, settling comfortably between them.

There wasn’t any teasing this time. Instead, Logan slipped inside, taking her breath away. His mouth came down to nuzzle her neck, tracing kisses everywhere as he began to thrust in steady rhythm. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, pulling him deeper.

Felicia had no idea how long they moved like that together, but at some point Logan’s thrusts got faster, making her moan every time he bottomed out inside her.

“Harder,” she whispered in his ear, knowing she was close and wanting him to come with her.

Logan obeyed, lifting his head to look down at her as he pounded into her.

They came together as they gazed into each other’s eyes. She’d never done anything quite like it before, and it was the most powerful thing she’d ever felt. Making love to a man she loved probably had a lot to do with how hard she orgasmed, too. Either way, she wouldn’t complain.

Felicia lay on his chest afterward, listening to the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear. She smiled. If this was what it meant to be with the man she loved, she could definitely get used to it.

She was on the verge of drifting off to sleep when Logan gently nudged her awake. “I was so busy worrying about whether you were going to slam the door in my face when I got here, I didn’t ask if everything is ready for the sunrise wedding tomorrow?”

Crap
. She was glad he’d said something. She’d completely forgotten she needed to get up early tomorrow. As she sat up to set the alarm clock, she filled Logan in on the last second changes the bride had requested.

“How are things with Stef?” he asked when she cuddled up against him again.

“Not great,” Felicia admitted, explaining about the argument with her sister. “According to Hayley’s friend Kyla, Stef and her boyfriend are at a hotel in Vegas. They’ve been there since Thursday.”

“Do you think they’re getting married?”

She nodded against his shoulder. “They probably already are. And before you say it, I know she’s a grown woman who doesn’t need an older sister making decisions for her. But it doesn’t mean I’m not worried about her or concerned she’s running off to get married for all the wrong reasons.”

Logan ran his fingers up and down her arm. “I get that. But have you ever thought maybe your sister has stumbled across the person she’s meant to be with?”

Felicia smiled. “If someone had said that to me a couple of hours ago, I would have laughed and insisted following your heart is the worst way to start any relationship. But now, considering I admitted to being in love with a guy I met only a couple of weeks ago, I suppose I have to agree Stef is on to something.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked softly. “When Stef gets back, I mean.”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure, but whatever it is, it will probably start with an apology. Though I’m guessing my sister is never going to let me live down the fact I fell in love with you so fast. She’ll probably take great pleasure in pointing out I have cheese slices in my fridge that have been together longer than we have.”

Logan chuckled.

Chapter Thirteen

L
OGAN GROANED AS his phone rang. He ignored it, sure it was Felicia’s and not his. Then he remembered she’d gotten up and left a while ago so she could get to the beach and pull off the sunrise wedding. He said he’d go with her, but she’d told him to stay in bed and sleep in. He’d felt badly about falling back asleep while she went to work, but he was too exhausted to argue. She’d be home before noon then they could spend the rest of the day together.

He was thinking of the sexy kiss she’d given him before leaving when the damn phone rang again.

Cursing under his breath, he threw back the blankets and rolled out of bed, ignoring the perturbed look Chewy gave him from the bottom of the bed as he dug through the piles of clothes on the floor until he found his phone. Seeing all those casually discarded clothes reminded him of the sex they’d had the night before, which only made him think of what they could do later today. The thought started his cock hardening.

He looked down at his phone, relieved to see it wasn’t HQ with another mission. He didn’t recognize the number though. He thumbed the green button.

“Logan, it’s Heather. Is Felicia still there?”

Logan glanced at the clock on the nightstand to see it was after 0600 already. “No. Felicia left an hour ago.”

“Are you sure?” Heather asked. “She never got to the wedding location, and the bride and groom are getting nervous. I’ve called and left her a dozen messages, but she hasn’t called me back.”

“Hold on a minute,” he said as he padded out into the hall and downstairs to the living room. Surely, he would have heard Felicia moving around if she were still home. As he’d thought, she wasn’t there. Her purse was gone, too.

“She’s not here,” he told Heather. “Maybe she got caught in traffic.”

“On a Sunday morning?”

Yeah, that didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. His gut told him something wasn’t right.

Logan walked over to look out the front window. Felicia’s car was still parked out in her space.

Shit
.

“Heather, I’ll call you later. You’re going to have to handle the wedding on your own.”

She said something, but Logan hung up. Running upstairs, he pulled on his clothes then hurried outside. He headed straight for her car in the early morning light, hoping the hood would be warm or there’d be a message sitting under the windshield. Nothing. Just a cold car with a little morning condensation covering the windows.

Now he had a really bad feeling.

He pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial for Felicia. She picked up on the first ring.

“Felicia, are you okay?” Relief rushed through him. “Heather has been calling you for the last hour. Where are you?”

“Felicia can’t come to the phone right now,” a man’s thickly accented Russian voice said. “She’s a little tied up at the moment.”

Logan’s hand tightened on the phone. Even though he’d never heard the man’s voice before, he instinctively knew it was Illarion Volkov.

“What do you want Volkov?”

“I want to kill the police officers who arrested my men. I want to punish your woman for refusing to do as I told her. Most of all, I want to make you pay for killing my brother. So, as you can see, Petty Officer Dunn, there are a great many things I want. But for now, I will forego my wants in return for one thing.”

“What’s that?” Logan asked, though he was pretty sure he already knew.

“A traitorous Russian pilot named Nikolay Maksimov. Bring him to me, and I will give you back your woman safe and unmarred—for the most part anyway.”

Logan tensed at the threat, but he kept his cool. Volkov was taunting him. “What makes you think I’ll be able to get anywhere near the Russian pilot? The CIA are watching him like a hawk.”

“I’m sure a man as clever as you will come up with a way. If not, I’ll be forced to take out my frustrations on pretty little Felicia.”

Logan swallowed hard. “How do I know you haven’t hurt her already?”

“You don’t,” Volkov said. “So I suggest you hurry up and bring me the pilot.”

“What do you hope to get out of this, Volkov? You can’t seriously think you’ll be able to sneak him across the border into Mexico. You got away with that the first time a couple of weeks ago, but it won’t work again. The CIA will have everything shut down the moment they realize Maksimov is missing.”

“You let me worry about that. You worry about what’s going to happen to your woman if you don’t get here in time. You really don’t want to see what I do when I get angry.”

Whether he knew it or not, Volkov had admitted he planned on killing the pilot. Not shocking.

“Let’s say I’m able to get my hands on the pilot,” Logan told him. “Where do I bring him?”

“Same warehouse as the first time,” Volkov said. “But before you think you can assault the place like I heard you did when you killed my brother, you can forget it. You have no way of knowing if I’ll be inside waiting with a gun to your woman’s head or watching from three blocks away with my fingers on the trigger of a bomb waiting to blow Felicia to small pink pieces. Either way, if you show up with anyone other than my pilot, your pretty little girlfriend will die.”

Logan ground his jaw. “I’ll be there with the pilot and no one else in an hour, but if you’ve hurt Felicia, I’ll kill you the same way I killed your brother.”

He hung up before Volkov had a chance to reply and headed for his SUV at a run, hitting the speed dial button for Chasen as he ran.

“I’ve got trouble,” he said the moment his friend answered. “That Russian bastard Volkov is back and he grabbed Felicia. I need you to get some of the other guys and do a long distance reconnaissance of the same warehouse we hit the last time. But be careful. It’s possible he’s set up in another building watching the target warehouse. There might also be a bomb involved.”

“Where are you going to be?” Chasen asked.

Logan appreciated his friend’s complete and unquestioning loyalty. Of all the things that made the SEALs so amazing, this was more important than their toughness, their weapons, or their training. Their total commitment to each other made the Teams function. And he needed that loyalty right now to save Felicia’s life…again.

“I’ll be there in less than an hour,” Logan told him. “But first I have to stop by and pick up some bait without letting the CIA know I’m taking it.”