Kiss of Surrender (10 page)

“She asked me if you were my lover.”

Karl let rip a long chortle, but then he said, and he was serious, “I don’t care if she . . . or anyone else . . . thinks I’m gay, but if you try to kiss me, I’m gonna punch you in your smirking mouth. I don’t do male tongue.”

They were both laughing, and he was squeezing Karl’s shoulder in a comradely fashion when they entered the conference room, where the first person they saw was Nicole. Whose eyes were glued to his hand on Karl’s shoulder.

Nine

Sweet temptation . . .

T
rond appeared embarrassed and would have headed to one of the empty seats near the front of the room, Nicole could tell, but his “friend” Karl came directly toward her in the back row, where the most amazing thing happened. Karl looked at Marie, whom he’d apparently never met before, like she was a three-tiered birthday cake in an orphanage, and Marie looked at Karl as if he could blow out her candles anytime.

Nicole and Trond exchanged glances of surprise.

Karl sat down on Marie’s other side, and Trond had no choice but to take his same chair as before, next to Nicole. He must not have had a chance to shower yet because he wore the same sweaty shirt and shorts from his morning workout, and, frankly, he smelled a mite ripe. Should have turned her off, but instead it gave him an odd appeal. Which would be an asset if she was going to launch a successful campaign to prove he wasn’t gay and that there were indeed secrets behind his visit to Coronado.

He grinned wolfishly, as if sensing her attraction to him.

Stupid prick!
“Looks like your boyfriend might be bi,” she remarked, trying to put a defensive wall between them.

“About this boyfriend/gay business . . .”

Here it comes, here it comes. He’s going to say he’s not gay
.

And, boy, would that would explain my inexplicable attraction to the man!

Of course, if he’s straight, that would mean he’s been playing me, for some reason, as I’ve suspected all along.

Bingo!

If he’s not gay, we’re back to the secret he’s hiding. Maybe I should just go to Commander MacLean again with my concerns.

“Yeah? About the boyfriend business . . . ?” she prodded. She needed more time to think through her plan, but she would be a fool not to grab an opportunity when it fell in her lap.

“Never mind.”

“What? You’re just going to leave me hanging here? You should never start to say something, then change your mind.” It drove women nuts. Men, on the other hand, could just let it go. One of the myriad differences between the two sexes. Okay, time to play him at his own game. She inhaled sharply for the courage to pull it off.

He arched his brows at her.

“Maybe . . . uh . . . since we’ll be working together closely, you and I could . . . um . . . get together sometime . . . to, um, talk.” Her face felt as if it was flaming. She was never that good at seduction. A devious seduction would be even harder to pull off.

“To, um, talk?” he repeated.

“Yes, I’m interested in the, um, Viking culture.”
Oh Lord! I’m as subtle as an Abrams tank on a bike path.

“Culture?” He wasn’t laughing. On the outside. But inside she could tell he was amused.

“Here’s my cell phone number,” she said, writing the number on her tablet, then tearing off that portion of the page. “Call me later, and maybe we can meet somewhere.”

“Do you do this often? Give strange men your number?”

She should have been affronted, but she had too many other things to be affronted about at the moment. “
Are
you strange?”

“Very.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you trying seduce me, Loo-ten-ant Tasso?”

Where’s the nearest cliff where I can jump off?
“No! Of course not!” She paused, unable to even admit she was hitting on him—a sure indication of how well her plan would go. Or how poorly. “Are you seducible? By a woman?”

“I don’t know,” he said with what she could swear was exaggerated innocence. “I haven’t had sex . . . real sex . . . with a woman in years.”

She wanted to ask what he considered real sex, but was afraid of what he’d answer. “Is that the truth?”

“The God’s honest truth.” He made the sign of the cross over his heart.

They had no chance to talk further because the meeting was being called to order. She noticed, though, that Trond slipped the paper into his shorts’ pocket, giving the pocket a pat, almost like a caress.

Folders were passed out to everyone in the room then, and they were told to memorize every detail.
Before tomorrow!
There had to be fifty single-spaced pages of information about the mission.

“Here’s your first order for this mission,” Commander MacLean said. “Everyone in this room, all twenty-four of you, are confined to base for the next three weeks as of twenty-one hundred tonight. We’re going to spend every waking moment on this project. That includes you married guys.” None of the women were married. “You’ll stay in a separate wing of the officers’ quarters, the ladies on their own floor. Does anyone have a problem with this?”

There were lots of disgruntled faces, but no one spoke up. They all wanted to be part of what could be a historic event.

Trond leaned close to her and whispered in her ear, “Maybe we could have a sleepover. Bunkmates, that’s what we’d be. I take dibs on the top bunk. I prefer being on top. How about you?”

She ignored his remarks. Truthfully, she’d asked for it by suggesting that they meet, and he clearly wasn’t taking her “seduction” seriously.

The commander was still speaking. “Actually, I’ll be heading to D.C. tomorrow, where I’ll be your liaison with the Joint Chiefs. When you’re not here or in a classroom learning every detail you can about this event, which I expect will be ever-changing as more intel comes in, or out on the grinder honing your physical stamina, you’ll spend days on the shooting range or in kill houses being set up to simulate both Najid’s home and the harem in the Davastan compound. We have diagrams of both buildings, right down to the type of doorknobs and locks, but, as you know, all the best planning can be a goat fuck in the real world.

“Then there will be one day at Fort Bliss training in their caves. Since part of Najid’s Davastan compound involves a cave network, this could be essential. Also, there will be a day of jump practice at Fort Benning. Any questions?”

The next three hours were taken up with more logistics on the operation. A breakdown of the various jobs, such as securing the perimeter, breakout teams to breach doors and other barriers, snipers, lookouts, hostage rescue, medical care, and communications. If Nicole hadn’t known before, she did now: SEALs were highly intelligent individuals. They had the skills of engineers, doctors, architects, and other professionals. If they didn’t know how to do something, they learned how. Not such a bunch of testosterone-oozing apes! Or at least not all the time.

Nicole soon found out why the women were needed for this project. They were expected to infiltrate the harem and help facilitate the rescue from within.

How were they going to manage the infiltration?

Turned out a down-and-out, money-grubbing Arab goatherder had decided to sell his sisters and was going from tribe to tribe, where harems were still the norm. And guess who their brother was going to be?

Yep, Trond, aka Saleem ben Abdullah.

“At least you got the goat thing going for you,” she told him when he grinned at her. “You smell like one.”
Damn, damn, damn, I have to stop insulting the man. That is no way to get him to succumb to my charms, assuming I have any for him.

He raised an elbow and sniffed his armpit. “Whew! You’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t shower for the next three weeks. To be more authentic.”

“Or else we could roll you in goat dung when we get there.”

“Cruel . . . you are a cruel woman.” He was still grinning.

She was beginning to think she had the sex appeal of a prune, but she wasn’t about to give up. No way!

The planning session ended at three, and everyone was given a break for the rest of the day so that those living off base would have an opportunity to tie up loose ends at home. Say good-byes where necessary. Put their wills in order . . . a standard ritual before any deployment.

Nicole stayed behind to talk with Slick about one of the elements that might be a problem for her—fast-roping from a helo. “I really haven’t had enough practice with that,” she confessed.

“I’ll work with you on it,” Slick promised. “No problem.”

“Thanks for including me on this operation. I’ve been engaged in minor ops before, but this will be my first one of this magnitude. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Well, you know how the military is about using women on the front, and we SEALs are probably worse than most. Political correctness isn’t in our genes. Which reminds me. You might be hearing a little foul language.” He smiled at her, sheepishly.

“Is that the best reason the SEALs or military can come up with for preventing women from serving on the front?”

“That and the fact that women haven’t proven yet what they can do in the most dire situations.”

No more than she’d expected. “Like I said, I welcome the opportunity.”

After Nicole stuffed her paperwork in her backpack and slung it over her shoulder, she headed out toward the back exit and the parking lot, only to encounter Trond coming out the doorway of the training room, where he must have showered and changed clothes.

When opportunity knocks, winners have to be ready
, she quoted one of her motivational tapes. At the same time, she groaned inwardly,
Am I really going to do this? Oh God!

You’re on your own
, a voice in her head said.

Before she had a chance for second thoughts (or third or fourth), Nicole dropped her backpack to the floor.

She stared at him.

He stared at her.

Is he gay?

He doesn’t look gay.

Hah! What does gay look like?

Yeah, but he doesn’t act gay, either.

Her gaydar was silent as she wavered between
Is he?
or
Isn’t he?

“God help me!” she prayed, figuring she would need all the help she could get to pull this off.

“God’s busy,” Trond said with a laugh that sent a shiver down her spine. “He sent me.”

That was it! Those teasing words sealed Trond’s fate. At least, she hoped. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him into a utility closet. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have had the superior strength to make him do anything he didn’t want to, but he was too shocked to react swiftly. Or maybe—in fact, more likely—he just wanted to see what crazy thing she would do next. In fact, he was becoming as suspicious of her as she was of him.

“What? Huh? Hey, what’s going on?”

“Let just see how gay you are, bozo.” Her words were gritted out as she dropped her grasp on him and locked the door behind them. At the sound of the click, Trond’s eyes went wide, suspecting her intent.

There was a light on the ceiling that was becoming dimmer, one of those automatic turn-offs to conserve energy for when a door was shut. She could still see now, though.

Trond looked upward and said the oddest thing: “C’mon, Mike. Another friggin’ test? I’m not a saint, y’know.”

“I never thought you were a saint. Who’s Mike?”

He just looked at her.

For the first time in her life, she understood what was meant by smoldering eyes. In fact, his blue eyes were so hot they appeared to be turning silver. And while he held a hand over his mouth at first, a seeming gesture of disbelief, she could swear his incisor teeth were longer than usual.

Hey, she was in disbelief, too.

That was the last logical thought to enter her head because in a motion so swift she surprised even herself, she shoved him back against the wall, raised herself up on her tiptoes, and grabbed his two ears to tug him downward.

“Gotcha!” she said against his mouth, and nipped his bottom lip.

“Nicole! Have you lost your mind?”

“Probably.” She traced a fingertip along his jawline, and was inordinately pleased when he shivered. But wait. Maybe it was a shiver of distaste.

“I could sue you for sexual harassment.”

Yep, distaste. Oh well, she was in it to win it. “Go for it, big boy.”

“What do you hope to accomplish by . . . Holy crap . . . Did you just rub your breasts against me?”

It was dark in the closet by now, but she could feel his chest shaking against her breasts, which she had indeed rubbed back and forth across him. He was probably shaking with laughter. She didn’t care. He wouldn’t be laughing for long.

“This is so not a good idea.” He spread his legs to give himself better support against her assault, but she used that advantage to press her hips against his belly.

He said some sharp words under his breath, probably Norwegian expletives.

“For a gay guy, you’re awfully quick on the trigger,” she remarked, undulating against his trigger.

She could hear him gasp. “See, that’s the thing about triggers,” he said, chuckling as he attempted to remove her arms from around his waist. “They’re blind in the dark.” He put his hands on her hips in an attempt to move her away.

She reached for his hands, but instead grabbed something else.

He didn’t say anything, but the gurgling noise that came out of his mouth said it all.

“Oops!” Nicole didn’t know a lot about homosexual men, but, whoo-boy, if he wasn’t interested in women, she’d like to know how he’d be with a man.

She had her arms wrapped around his shoulders by now, and she proceeded to kiss him senseless. Or herself senseless. Or both of them senseless, for heaven’s sake!

No soft butterfly kisses.

No sweet licks.

No soft murmurs against his mouth.

This was total, ravenous hunger unleashed.

She surprised herself.

And she sure as hell surprised Trond.