Hot SEALs: SEALed Fate (Kindle Worlds) (Deep Six Security #0) (11 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The annoying alarm clock buzzed on the nightstand at seven a.m., precisely the time Fallon had set it for before she got into bed last night.  Patting her hand around the mattress, she searched to find the snooze button, but then she opened her eyes and realized she was only half on the bed. The other half of her body lay on the velvet dressing bench at the foot of the four-poster bed.  The last place she and Jaxson made love last night, or was that this morning? 

Holy hell that man had some stamina, she thought, groaning loudly as she sat up on the bench, her head feeling stuffed with cotton, her body deliciously sore everywhere.

“Oh
yeah
,” Jaxson mumbled, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Come for me again, babycakes,” he hissed as he exhaled, while his hand slid across his hip to his impressive morning wood.

The man was a sex god—even in his sleep. 

A slow dull throb beat at the top of her thighs, almost in time with the annoying buzz of the clock that said it wasn’t happening.  With a sigh, she put her hand on Jaxson’s heavily muscled thigh, and shook him.

“Babycakes has to go to the office Ironman,” Fallon said, with a laugh.

One bright blue eye popped open then the other, as a lazy smile spread over his face.  Holding her gaze, he stretched his arms high over his head and tightened every muscle in his amazing body, causing that dull throb to pound.

“See something on the menu you want?” he asked as he relaxed, and rubbed his hand down his tight abs to his waist.

“I’ll have one of everything,” Fallon replied, her eyes locking on the part of him she wanted most right then.

“I’ll give you everything I have if you change your mind about going to the courthouse today.” Jaxson said, and Fallon frowned as she met his now wide-open eyes. “I thought about it and it might be better if you bow out.  Let your father handle it and the FBI will only have more evidence to nail him.”

Why in the hell had she told him about what she’d done last night after round two?
   Her pillow talk, or carpet talk as it were, just gave him ammunition to try to convince her not to go.  He’d already tried to do that before she told him. That’s what started the conversation.

“Let me ask you this Mr. Decorated SEAL,” Fallon said evenly, lifting a brow.  “What if someone tried to convince you not to go on one of your missions because you were safer bowing out?  What would you tell them?”

Jaxson popped up to sit and his intense eyes bored into her.  “I would tell them it’s my job, my duty, and I accepted the danger that came with it when I signed on.  My extensive training and skills minimize the risk, but I still know I could die tomorrow and accept that too.”

“Well,
my
extensive training and skills, as well as the oath of office I took to become a federal judge at the ripe age of twenty-eight obligates me to do this too.  It’s my
job
and
duty
to see justice done.  If I recuse myself from this case, Peter Crifaso will get off.  No matter if my father is eventually impeached or not, Peter will have been tried and in all likelihood will never see a minute of jail time for his offenses.”

Jaxson huffed a breath and ran his hand through his already mussed hair.  “Why in the hell did I have to get involved with a lawyer?”

Happiness tried to bubble inside Fallon but she tamped the bubbles down.  “Are you involved with a lawyer?” she asked, and his eyes flew back to hers.

“About as involved as a man can be, babycakes,” he said and his voice rumbled through her.  They stared at each other a minute, and Fallon tried to say everything with her eyes her mouth wouldn’t let her tell him. 
I love you, Jaxson Thomas
.

“We have to get a shower or I’m going to be late,” she said, letting her words hang, hoping the invitation she was issuing was clear.

“Stay right there a minute—I have a present for you,” he said with a grin, as he rolled off the bed and hustled into the black cargo pants he found over by the dresser.

He’d gotten her a gift?
  The thought had those bubbles forming near her heart again, as she watched him stride to the bedroom door.  His back muscles tensed, his hand fell away from the doorknob and he cursed as he turned back to walk to the window.

“They’ll probably see me now, but I’m going out the back way anyway.”  Jax unlocked the window and pushed it up, then threw one leg over the sill.

“Who?” Fallon asked, her heart skipping a beat.

“Rick and Chris—hell, everyone in the house.  I came in this way to save you being embarrassed by me being in here and having to explain to the Greenwoods.”

“You climbed the house for me?” Fallon asked, her insides melting, but then questions flooded her mind.  “How did you do that anyway?  I looked out that window last night when I made sure it was
locked
.  It’s a straight drop to the ground.”

Jaxson grinned. “Skills, babycakes,” he replied with a sexy wink, before he rolled and disappeared through the window. 

Fallon ran over to the window to see what his secret was, but by the time she got to there and looked out, he was on the ground running around the back of the house.  The man was like a freaking sexy badass ninja, she thought with a laugh.  He appeared like a poof of smoke, and disappeared just as easily.  When the implications of that thought settled in her mind, sadness quickly followed.  Fallon slapped the alarm clock to turn it off and padded toward the ensuite bathroom, but she stopped.

Stay here a minute
.   Being an independent woman who made her own decisions evidently extend to orders issued to her by Jaxson Thomas, Fallon thought, as she sat on the dressing bench to wait for him.  No, it didn’t extend to a woman was head over heels in love with the man who issued the orders.  If he asked, Fallon would wait for him forever. 

And wasn’t that just pathetic?

But she didn’t have to wait long.  After raised voices echoed down the hall, Jax busted through the bedroom door with a grumbled
fuck you
for whomever he was talking to in the hallway and slammed it behind him.  Face red, breathing short and sharp Jax finally looked at her and forced a smile.  “I guess we were a little bit loud last night, so the jig’s up—at least where Rick is concerned.  He just informed me that he knows exactly what we were doing in here last night, so I’m not fooling anyone.  He says he hasn’t slept in a month because his sister and Chris are just as loud when they have wild monkey sex.”

A giggle bubbled in her throat and Fallon laughed at that description as she stood to walk over to him, shivering as his heated eyes raked her nakedness.  She put her hand on his chest and craned her neck to look up at him.  “I think wild SEAL sex would be a better description, don’t you?” she asked with a grin. 

Jax’s arm snaked around her back and he growled as his mouth met hers in a needy kiss, and things ramped up fast, but Fallon pushed him away.  “Where’s my present?  We need to get in the shower,” she said, breathlessly.

Jaxson’s blue eyes turned to liquid silver, as he lifted his hand to hold out a bulky black vest.  “I made the guys stop at the surplus store last night so I could get you a good one, the best on the market right now.  I wanted you to have one your size so it fits right.”

“What is it?” Fallon asked, taking it from him to look at all the Velcro lined pockets.

“It’s body armor,” he explained, his face serious. “I want it on you every time you step outside this house, you got that?  I don’t care how damned
ugly
you think it is.”

God, she loved it when he said,
you got that
, in that growly voice.  Fallon tossed the vest on the dressing bench and took his hand.  “And I want
you
in the shower.  You got
that
?” she asked with a laugh as she towed him behind her to the bathroom. 

Jaxson Thomas might not know it, but the trouble he went to for that vest said that he more than
cared
about her too, she thought smugly, as she pulled him into the bathroom.  Shutting the door, she pushed him into it then tiptoed to smother his mouth with hers.

***

Two hours later, Jax knelt at the foot of the stairs to check his go bag for the third time while he waited for Fallon, who was still getting ready.  He wanted to bring every damned weapon he owned with him, but he knew he had to scale it down so he didn’t scare the people at the courthouse into thinking they might be under attack by a foreign army. 

His modified MP5N fit perfectly inside the smaller bag and it wouldn’t attract attention.  His Sig 226 .40 which he could fire accurately in his sleep, and had many times, was in his shoulder holster which he planned to hide under the damned sports coat he’d worn to dinner last night.  Rounding out his firepower was his smaller caliber 9mm hold gun in the ankle holster under his slacks.

Jax wanted to be as inconspicuous and deadly as possible when he escorted Fallon into that courthouse.  That’s why he’d also chosen to wear khakis and a polo, instead of the black tactical gear that Chris and Rick wore this morning.  He had on a thin, lightweight vest under the polo, and it would slow a bullet down, but depending on the caliber fired, it may not stop it.  Chris and Rick had the heavier vests on and the bigger sniper weapons with scopes, which they’d set up with on the buildings they’d chosen last night as the best surveillance points. 

Huffing a breath, Jax zipped up his bag again and stood.  They were as prepared as they could be for the urban war they may have to fight with this unknown enemy.  It wasn’t like this was their first time fighting in an urban setting.  In Baghdad and the provinces the team had become used to spotting tangos, even in the middle of a throng of civilians, but this was different. 

At the courthouse in downtown DC every tango would be trying to blend in just like Jax was doing, and it would be much easier for them to do that than it was for the insurgents in the sandbox.  The mostly untrained and unsophisticated fighters had tells that gave them away--bulky older weapons or crude bombs that showed under their much too loosely fitting robes and nervous or frightened expressions when they saw the squad. 

The tangos they faced today were more sophisticated.  They would have access to better, more concealable weapons and would be dressed like every other person in that building.  It would be like spotting a nondescript gray sedan in a parking lot filled with them.  The tangos today wouldn’t show their hands until a gun was in it and they were firing at Fallon. 

That’s what scared the shit out of him.

But then he remembered the clowns who took potshots in Fallon’s front yard and relaxed a little.  Those goons were not the sharpest tools in the shed, definitely not sharpshooters or weapons experts, and they certainly hadn’t worried then about people seeing them.  Rick, Chris and Jax were trained warriors, experts at taking out clowns. 

Hopefully, his conversation with the FBI this morning to get back door clearance into the facility would result in him worrying for nothing.  If the man didn’t catch Jax’s thinly-veiled hint at the end of their conversation that James Sharpe might be better suited to hearing the case to aid in their investigative efforts then the agent must be as thick-headed as those goons. 

His efforts to convince Fallon earlier sure hadn’t worked, she’d turned the tables on him.  Fallon would be pissed to be removed from the case, but Jax didn’t care.  If the FBI, or whoever assigned cases removed her at the agency’s request, Jax could find somewhere to hide her out of the city until this was over.  That would be the ideal outcome today in his mind.

Jax started pacing again between the stairway and the wide entry, going over the game plan in his head again, making damned sure he had it committed to memory.  Despite the amazing shower sex he’d had with her an hour ago, Jax was more amped up than he’d ever been on a team mission. Those ants were back under his skin, and that hole in his stomach was a cavern now.   

But by the time Fallon came down, Jax was determined to have his game face on so she didn’t see his fear.  He made two more circuits between the stairs and the foyer, then Rick and Chris came through the front door.

Walking up to him, Chris said, “Van’s ready and packed.”

“Route’s clear, but it’s rush hour so the traffic is a little heavier.  We need to adjust by four minutes so we’re wheels up at 0942,” Rick informed, clicking his timer on his watch.

His teammates were in full operations mode, and Jax needed to get there too.

Chris and Rick’s eyes shot up to the top of the stairs and both let out low-pitched whistles.    Jax spun, his eyes locked on Fallon at the top of the stairs and his breath left him. 

The black mini-skirt hit her mid-thigh showing off her long, long legs, which Jax was intimately familiar with.  Her perfectly tailored matching jacket nipped in at her waist making her figure a perfect hourglass, and the royal blue silk shirt underneath lit up peach-tinged complexion and lightly-made-up topaz eyes like a spotlight.  That perfection was framed by her shiny auburn hair, which was pulled back into a neat bun at the back of her head.  But what drew Jax’s eyes was the four-inch crimson red come-fuck-me heels on her feet as she took careful steps down each stair tread.  Tonight, he would answer that call, and she would be wearing those heels when he fucked her, but right then he had other things to think about.