Claiming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 1) (6 page)

He eyed Jace. “Don’t you need to sleep?”

Jace snorted and flipped hair out of his face. He liked it long and swore he’d never cut it again now that he didn’t have to wear it regulation buzz-cut style. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead, thanks. Come on. I like standing next to your ugly mug because you make me look oh so fine in comparison.”

But if he was off-island with the guys, Emma wouldn’t be able to find him. Which seemed like a fantastic reason to make himself scarce. What, as if he’d half thought he’d hang around the dock like a lovesick school boy in case the girl he had a crush on happened by?

“Whatever. I could use a beer.”

Sounded like exactly what he needed, not that he’d let on, because then he’d have to admit he had a problem. Which he didn’t. The main island was far enough away that the odds of running into anyone he knew—like Emma—were zero. He could troll for a woman who liked it fast, hard, and anonymous. The kind of woman who had enough of her own baggage that she didn’t care about his. He’d take her up against the back wall of the club where it was so dark no one would notice them or care if they did. He’d sate himself on the taste of female, and that would cure him of all these visions of white bikinis that refused to let him sleep.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jace eyed him back. “You’re off your game if you’re going to let the ugly mug comment go. I was expecting at least something along the lines of, ‘the only way you’d look better is with a bag over your head.’”

“I was thinking it,” Dex retorted hotly, except it didn’t make Jace any less right. Dex was off his game. And he needed to get back on it pronto.

A
s Dex, Jace and Miles threaded through the crowd to the inside bar, the driving beat reverberated through Dex’s body, hard and fierce, exactly the way he liked it. Sometimes there was a live reggae band over in the corner under the five-foot skull and crossbones flag, but Stella, the owner of the Crow Bar, had picked recorded music tonight.

The bar catered more to locals than tourists, but there was an understanding among the guys who worked at resorts—if you spied a hot enough woman, you tipped her off to check out the scene. They all scratched each other’s backs, and Dex hugely appreciated the unwritten rule that resulted in the hangout being populated with eye candy every day of the week.

Women in thin, skimpy dresses lined the mahogany bar three deep. He’d already made eye contact with a brunette who had more ink under her skin than a fountain pen factory. The once-over she’d treated him to was full of hard edges. Perfect.

She’d do. Any of them would do except the blondes. Jace and Miles could fight over those.

Dex muscled his way through the crush without a backward glance at his wingmen—who were probably off on their own missions—and didn’t bother to mince words when he reached the brunette’s side.

“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” he asked with a wink, sliding right into the cheap lines as easily as he’d slid into the dark pants that passed as his dress-up clothes.

The loud music made it hard to hear, but it didn’t matter. Her gaze lit up like a neon sign, and he had no doubt she’d understood him perfectly.

She laughed throatily. “Oh, you have it all wrong. I’m in exactly the right place. I’m Jasmine.”

She extended a hand full of blood-red nails an inch long, which would draw as much pain as they did pleasure against his back as they dug in. All at once, he couldn’t imagine anyone’s hands on him but Emma’s. And that pushed his mood past a place where he could be civil to another woman.

“My mistake,” he said smoothly. “I thought you were… someone else. My blind date. She must be running late. Sorry to have bothered you.”

What was
wrong
with him? This woman couldn’t have advertised her availability more clearly with a billboard in Times Square. And he was not going to take her up on it.

“Lucky girl.” Jasmine’s diamond-hard expression glittered with cynicism. She’d heard it all before and then some. “If she doesn’t show, I’ll be by the bar.”

She turned back to her friends without further comment, cutting him off almost rudely. Which made him feel worse. She’d been looking for something, and he’d disappointed her. But they were all looking for something. At least he had the capacity to give a jaded, no-questions-asked woman like Jasmine—which was assuredly not even her real name—what she wanted. They’d be nothing more than two people offering nothing except fake names and using each other to get a few moments of blessed relief from the bite of reality.

She didn’t need anyone to protect her from a guy like Dex. She could take care of herself.

And he’d turned it down. Someone should kick him in the head.

Maybe he was just out of practice. When was the last time he’d gone trolling for a woman with Jace and Miles? Two months? Three? He couldn’t even remember.

A couple of familiar faces swam out of the crowd. Dex grinned as the two men caught sight of him, heads bobbing above the crowd with answering grins.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” Dex shook hands in turn with the two guys he’d first met in Coronado, California a million years ago when they’d gone through BUD/S training together. They’d crossed paths again in the Middle East, though they’d been on different SEAL teams.

Mick Frasier jerked his head at the crowd behind him. “Saw Custer and Lynch a minute ago. Figured you were hanging around looking to pick up their castoffs.”

Dex chuckled good-naturedly at Mick’s reference to Jace and Miles. They both had a reputation for being smooth dogs. “Yeah, that’s why I’m following them around, hoping they’ll throw me some crumbs. What are you doing down here?”

Mick got that look on his face, one Dex knew far too well. The one that said there was a story but he wasn’t in the mood to share it.

“I’m out of the teams now.” Mick took a deep breath and forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Heading to Miralinda first thing tomorrow to do a thing for Will Parry. Told Finn I was off to the Caribbean, and the next thing I know this jerk is dragging me here.”

Dex didn’t push the topic. It wasn’t the time or place, and it wasn’t in any of their natures to jabber about deep stuff anyway.

Finn Callahan, who was running a K-9 training business in the Keys, picked up on the need to loosen everyone up and got in a good round of ribbing. Dex gave back as good as he’d gotten. It was family bonding, SEAL-style. They’d all known each other a long time, and the Caribbean was a small place, especially when you were American
and
former military.

“You want to tell us more about this mysterious trip to Miralinda?” Finn asked.

Mick shook his head. “It’s not that mysterious. At least not deliberately. Turns out, Will’s inherited some property there. An abandoned sugar plantation. We’re gonna turn it into an executive training facility.”

“Like a resort?”

“Maybe. Who knows, place might be a complete disaster. I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get everything wrapped up back home, and now I’m here for God knows how long, and I’m looking at months of construction and backbreaking labor ahead of me. Whoever said that getting out and going private was easy? Ha. Joke’s on me.”

Dex knocked back a third of his beer. “I know the feeling. We’re busting ass to get out of the red ourselves, and it’s a tough row to hoe.”

They talked shop for a few minutes until a woman behind Dex caught Mick’s eye, and he completely lost interest in anything that had to do with bottom lines and advertising costs. “She looks thirsty, boys. I’m off.”

Dex and Finn saluted and sent their mate off with a few pointed tips about safety. Mick jetted after the woman, and Dex glanced over his shoulder to see who had so thoroughly captured Mick’s attention. A redhead. When she smiled at Mick, she reminded Dex so much of Malika his mood instantly devolved again.

He’d come here to forget, not to have constant reminders of why he liked anonymous, nameless, and low-pressure encounters with women who didn’t ask questions. Which pissed him off all over again because he couldn’t even seem to cross the finish line on
that
anymore.

Malika had ruined him for women like Emma, the kind you committed to and went gaga over, and Emma had apparently ruined him for one-night-only women like Jasmine. Where did that leave him?

“You know her?” Finn asked as he did a double take at Dex’s face.

Which he promptly wiped clear. No point in rehashing that mess. “Nah. Redheads are not my thing.”

“Sure seems like there’s a thing,” Finn commented, and his grin said he didn’t realize that Dex’s nerves were skating on a thin edge.

Maybe he could pound out his frustration on Finn’s pretty face. But that would mean he’d have to explain why.

It wasn’t like Dex had gone around blabbing to his friends about the last redhead he’d made the mistake of hooking up with. And there was a reason for that. Malika was the devil’s right-hand woman, and the less energy he spent on her memory the better.

“Dexter my brother, how did you miss
that
?” Jace asked with a mock toast in Mick’s direction as he joined the duo of former SEALs turned beach bums. “Would have figured you’d be all over a redhead that fine, and you gave her to
Frasier
?”

Dex loosened the fist that had formed automatically the moment his full nickname had spilled from Jace’s mouth. Unless Dex was planning to start that conversation about Malika and her opinion of men who shot other men and called it a necessity of war, he needed to chill out.

While he had zero doubt every last ex-SEAL in earshot would fully empathize with him if he spelled out what an antagonistic, unpatriotic bitch Malika was, he was the only one in the group with sixty-eight notches on his rifle handle. It was different for the other guys, who had specialties beside killing terrorists. The revulsion on Malika’s face when he made the mistake of mentioning his contribution to the SEAL team… he would never repeat that experience save threat of death. And maybe not even then.

Because part of him agreed with her. He was a monster who had chosen to hone a skill that meant people would die as soon as he entered the scene. He couldn’t undo that, nor did he feel like he should apologize for it. So he kept his mouth shut.

“My tastes have changed,” Dex said easily. “Redheads were just a passing fad.”

“Ah, so it’s blondes now, huh?” Jace said with an obnoxious brow waggle. “Like the one from the beach yesterday?”

And that was officially the end of Dex’s evening out with his friends.

The whole point of the jaunt to Grand Bahama Island was to fix his mood. That had worked.

Dex slumped in the speedboat, content to let Jace ferry him back home.

But when he slammed the door of the bungalow, Evan just glanced up from his permanent spot on the sofa, where he contented himself with watching inane TV shows from ten years ago night after night.

“Bad day,” Dex mumbled by way of explanation, not that Evan had asked—or would.

Was it too much to hope for to have someone who cared whether he’d had a bad day or not? Hardly mattered. The same simple things that were available to normal people didn’t apply to Dex Riley. He’d long ago made his peace with it. Some days just didn’t feel as peaceful as others.

He stripped out the shirt reeking of cigarette smoke, tearing off two buttons in the process, and threw it in the corner, followed by the rest of his dress-up clothes. Naked, he rolled into bed.

Midnight. The witching hour, when all of the crappiness of life crashed down the hardest onto those who weren’t smart enough to take an easy lay when it was offered.

Bed was not going to work. Too big and too empty.

Dex threw on a pair of board shorts. The dress-up clothes—that wasn’t his style anyway. He’d rather be wearing a straightjacket than a button-down. He ducked out the back door to avoid Evan and his closed-mouth approach to everything and stormed to the beach. Moonlight overlaid the water with a silvery sheen, and it calmed him instantly. If nothing else, the water always welcomed him with open arms.

Even as a teenager growing up in Houston, the gulf had called to him with a near mystical draw. His earliest memories involved the lull of the surf and the tug of the tide against his ankles, always pulling him toward the water.