Kiss of Surrender (2 page)

One

You could say he was a beach bunny . . . uh, beach duck . . .

I
f it looks like a duck, and walks, like a duck . . . hey, Easy, can you give us a quack? Ha, ha, ha!”

Trond Sigurdsson, best known here in Navy SEAL land as Easy, gritted his teeth and attempted to ignore the taunts military passersby hurled his way, especially when he noticed that the bane of his current life, Lieutenant Nicole Tasso, was standing there, along with Lieutenant Justin LeBlanc, or Cage, who’d been the one teasing him this time. Cage was LeBlanc’s SEAL nickname, appropriate considering his Cajun roots. Cajuns were folks who lived in the southern United States—Louisiana to be precise—and were known to eat lots of spicy foods, drink beer, play loud rowdy music, and be generally wild. A little bit like Vikings, if you asked Trond, which no one did.

He didn’t mind the teasing all that much, but no red-blooded male—and, yes, his blood was still red, and, yes, he was still a man—wanted a good-looking woman—even one Trond absolutely positively did not desire or even like—witnessing him down on his haunches, walking around like a friggin’ duck, making an absolute ass of himself. A duck’s ass!

“You’re working Gig Squad? Again!” Nicole just had to remark.

As if it is any of her business!
But then Nicole was a nosy, bossy, suspicious woman who’d made it her goal in life to uncover Trond’s secrets, or improve him, or both.
As if!

Gig Squad was a SEAL punishment that took place every evening in front of the Coronado, California, officers’ quarters where Navy personnel leaving the chow hall could witness the humiliation of the punished trainees. Squats. Push-ups. And, yes, duck walks.

His infraction? Jeesh! All he’d done was hitch a ride on a dune buggy when told to jog this morning in heavy boondocker boots for five lackwitted miles along the sandy shore. What was wrong with the ingenuity of taking the easy way to a goal? “Work smarter, not harder,” that was his motto. The SEAL commander, Ian MacLean, apparently did not appreciate ingenuity. Not this time, and not when he’d slept through an indoctrination session, or yawned widely when a visiting admiral came to observe their exercises, or complained constantly about the futility of climbing up and over the sky-high, swaying cargo net when it was easier to just walk around the blasted thing.

Truth to tell, he was not nearly as slothful as he’d once been now that he was a vangel . . . a Viking vampire angel. Nigh a saint, he was now. Leastways, no great sinner. But Mike—as he and his fellows vangels rudely referred to St. Michael, their heavenly mentor—kept hammering away at him that sloth embodied many sins, not just laziness or indifference. Supposedly, Trond was emotionally dead, as well. Insensitive. Ofttimes apathetic and melancholy. “You have no fire in you,” Mike had accused him on more than one occasion, as if that were a trait to be desired. “Your foolery and lightheartedness mask a darkness of spirit. You are sleepwalking through life, Viking. A dreamer, that is what you are.”

So here he was, more than a thousand years later, still a fixed twenty-nine years old, still trying to get it right. Before vangels were locked into modern times, a recent happenstance, their assignments had bounced them here and there, from antiquity to the twenty-first century and in between, back and forth. He’d been a gladiator, a cowboy, a Regency gentleman, a farmer, a pilot, a ditch digger, a garbageman, even a sheik. A sheik without a harem, which was a shame, if you asked him, which no one did.

And now a Navy SEAL, even as he continued to be a VIK, the name given to him and his six brothers as head of the vangels. He understood the VIK mission and how it applied here, as it did with all assignments . . . killing demon vampires and saving almost-lost human souls. Still, many of the SEAL training exercises were foolish in the extreme, if you asked Trond, which no one did. Walking around like a duck . . . Was that any way for a thousand-plus-year-old vampire angel to behave? And a Viking at that!

It was demeaning, that’s what it was. And PITAs like the always bubbly, always on-the-go, always mistrustful “Sassy Tassy” didn’t help matters at all. By PITA, he didn’t mean a pet lover, either. More like a Pain in the Ass. He tried ignoring her presence now, but it was hard when Cage added to his embarrassment and Nicole’s amusement by further taunting in that lazy Southern drawl he was noted for, “Why dontcha fluff yer feathers fer us, Easy?” He was referring to the exercise where a detainee not only waddled around like a duck but flapped his elbows at the same time. Twice the pain and twice the humiliation. To Nicole, Cage added with a shake of his head, “That Easy, bless his heart, is the laziest duck I ever saw.”

The final insult was Nicole’s smirk at Cage’s remark. Oooh, he did not like it when women, especially Nicole, smirked at him. Then she added further insult by telling Cage, loud enough for Trond to hear, “Maybe he should just ring out and save us all a lot of trouble.”

SEAL trainees could “volunteer out” at any time by ringing the bell on the grinder, the asphalt training ground at the compound. Actually, huge numbers of those who started out in SEAL training dropped out. Quitting was not an option for Trond.

Once Trond managed to control his temper and the huffing of his breath—it was hard work, waddling was—he duckwalked toward the woman whose back was to him as she continued talking, in a lower voice now, to Cage, who idly waved a hand behind his back for dismissal of the Gig exercise. At the same time she was standing in conversation, she bounced impatiently on the balls of her boots, as if raring to get off to something more important. The blasted woman had the energy of a
drukkinn
rabbit.

Meanwhile, the SEAL charmer was smiling down at Nicole, and she was smiling back, even while she bounced. Nicole had never smiled at him, but then he’d never tried to charm her, either.

Trond noticed that Cage’s eyes were making a concerted effort not to home in on her breasts, prominent in a snug white razorback running bra with the WEALS insignia dead center between Paradise East and Paradise West. Leastways, they looked like Paradise to a man who hadn’t had hot-slamdown-thrust-like-crazy-gottahaveyougottahaveyou sex in a really long time. Or any other
real
sex, for that matter. Near-sex, now that was a different matter. He was the king of near-sex.
Not that I’m planning any trips to Paradise, near or otherwise. Nosiree, I’m an angel. Celibacy-Is-Us. Pfff!
In any case, WEALS—Women on Earth, Air, Land, and Sea—was the name given to the female equivalent of SEALs, which stood for Sea, Air, and Land. A female warrior, of all things!

He shook his head like a shaggy dog . . . or a wet duck . . . to rid himself of all these irrelevant thoughts.

“Are you sure about that, darlin’?” Cage was saying to Nicole.

Trond had no idea what they were talking about, but one thing was for damn . . . uh, darn . . . sure, if he’d ever called Nicole
darlin’
, she would have smacked him up one side of his fool head and down the other.

Trond was still down in his duck position while the other poor saps had risen, their punishment over for now. Without thinking (Trond’s usual MO, unfortunately) he leaned over and took a nip at Nicole’s right, bouncing buttock, which was covered nicely by red nylon shorts. Luckily, he’d been a vampire angel long enough that he could control his fangs; otherwise, he would have torn the fabric.

With a yelp of shock, Nicole slapped a hand on her backside and swiveled on her boot-clad heels. SEALs and WEALS were required to wear the heavy boots to build up leg muscles. Hers were built up very nicely, he noted with more irrelevance, although the shape of a woman’s body was never irrelevant to a virile man. And Vikings were virile, that was for sure.

All this exercise must be turning me into a brain-rambling dimwit. Or is it the celibacy?

“What? How dare you?” she screeched.

I dare because I can, my dear screechling.
Rising painfully on screaming knees, he stood, reaching for a towel and wiping sweat with purposeful slowness off his face and neck. His drab green T-shirt with the Navy SEAL logo clung wetly to his chest and back. “Oops!” he said, finally.

“Oops? That all you have to say for yourself?”

You don’t want to know what else I have to say.
“Sorry. I thought it was a big ripe apple, and you know how ducks like apples.” He grinned.

Usually women melted when he grinned at them. He had nineteen different grins in his repertoire, at last count. This was his how-can-you-be-mad-at-a-sexy-guy-like-me grin.

She was not melting. Not a bit. “Did you see that, Cage? Did you see what he freakin’ did to me?”

Cage was laughing too hard to answer Nicole’s question, as were the other idiots who’d been released from Gig duty. To say SEALs were often politically incorrect would be an understatement. Like Vikings, Trond thought once again.

“Did you say
big
?” At least she wasn’t bouncing anymore. “Did you actually say that I have a
big
butt?”

Huh? Uh-oh.
He recalled then how modern women were fixated on the size of their posteriors. Little did they know how much men adored them. The consternation on Nicole’s face would have daunted a lesser man. Or a smarter man. “Did I say your buns”—that was a contemporary word for
buttocks
—“were like
big
apples? I meant to say
juicy
apples. Or melons.” He batted his eyelashes at the bothersome witch.

“Melons! You . . . you . . . you . . .” she sputtered, casting a glare at him and then at all the other laughing hyenas around them. With a snort of disgust, she stomped away.

“Uh,
cher
, I’m thinkin’ you need to do a little damage control,” Cage advised him. “You doan wanna make Sassy Tassy your enemy. Uh-uh! Talk about! Pissing off a female officer? Can you spell sexual harassment?”

Her-ass, for sure.
But Cage was right. He was supposed to be blending in here. Taunting the irksome woman who was already suspicious of him was not a good idea.

With a sigh, Trond tossed aside the damp towel and hurried after her. “Sassy,” he called out, trying his best not to notice the up-down bounce of her butt cheeks in the brief shorts, cheeks that were not too big at all.

Should he point that out to her?

Probably not.

“Nicole?” he tried then, figuring she might be more inclined to answer to her real name.

Still nothing.

“Hey, slow down,” he yelled.

She stopped in her tracks and turned, frowning at him from under a brimmed cap. Her curly, light brown hair was gathered into a tail that emerged from a hole in back of the cap. Her heavily-fringed, honey-colored eyes sparked gold fire at him. Being of Greek descent, she did in fact resemble Helen of Troy, whom he’d seen from afar on one occasion, right down to the light olive cast to her skin and the slight Mediterranean bump on her arrogant nose.

“What?” she demanded, catching him in the midst of ogling her.

Talk about cold! With that attitude she couldn’t launch a longboat, let alone a thousand ships.
“I might have crossed the line back there,” he offered.

“Might have? You are such a dickhead. Is that supposed to be an apology?”

Well, yes.
“It is what I said, is it not? We dickheads are thickheaded betimes.”

“Betimes!” she snorted. “That’s the most lame apology I’ve ever heard.”

He counted to ten silently in Old Norse, then said as sweetly as he could, “I am sorry if I offended you.”

She arched one brow skeptically.

His tongue, which seemed to have a mind of its own these days, unfurled like a banner on the wind. “Your buttocks aren’t too big. Not at all. In fact, when you wiggle—”

“Whoa! You need to stop when you’re ahead.” Shaking her head at his hopelessness, she resumed walking.

He walked beside her. “ ’Tis your fault.”

“This should be good. How is it my fault?”

“For one thing, you are always hurling those lackwit motivational proverbs at me, mostly dealing with my attitude, which is just fine, if you ask me.” Which no one did.

“That’s because you need a major attitude adjustment.”

He’d like to adjust something on her, and he’d like to do it with his fangs. “For another thing, you are always pulling rank on me, even though my captain standing in the Jaegers is probably comparable to yours as lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.” Trond and one of his fellow vangels, Karl Mortensen, had joined BUD/S, Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL, the SEALs training program, under the pretext that they were Jaegers, the secretive Norwegian special forces, equivalent to the SEALs. Not that he’d been back in the Norselands for the past one thousand, one hundred, and sixty-three years. But Mike had set up this cover story to get them into the training compound.

There were people in the U.S. government who would swear that the security surrounding their special forces was ironclad, that no one could enter their ranks undetected. Little did they know the power and craftiness of an archangel!

“Maybe I do that because I don’t believe your story. Maybe I suspect you’re here for some ulterior purpose. Maybe my detective instincts tell me you’re hiding a secret. Maybe I’m repulsed by your laziness. Maybe I think you need a few motivational courses.”

A fount of information, most of it unsolicited, on motivational courses, Nicole apparently had dozens of books on the subject of inspiration, ones that could be downloaded onto an mp3 player and listened via ear buds. Inspiration to overcome fears, inspiration to increase focus, inspiration to lose weight, inspiration to gain weight, inspiration to achieve success, inspiration to reach potential, inspiration to be inspired. In his case, she’d offered to lend him one called
The Power of Pure Energy
. And she made the offer repeatedly, sometimes alternating with
Attitude Is Everything
. Each time he declined with a cool politeness, she was surprised that he wasn’t jumping with joy to soak up her wisdom.