SEAL: A BWWM BAD BOY NAVY SEAL ROMANCE (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

CALI

It was all I could do not to stare at Devlin Danes as he
filled out his paperwork. I wondered why this guy had me in such a tizzy. I was
obviously still drawn to him, but I really didn’t feel like it was the best
time for self-analysis. Bottom line: I was a professional and I needed to act
like one.

But seeing him again, after all these years, caused all my
childish insecurities and anxieties to flood back into my consciousness. Sure,
it had been a long time, and I changed my hair… But he didn’t even recognize
me! Was I really so forgettable?

Relax Cali. He’s just a dumb
manwhore
……

That night happened six years ago…

I needed to get a grip. More importantly, I needed to not refer
to my clients as “
manwhores
.”

Maybe it was good that he didn’t remember me. That would save
me some embarrassment. I knew I had to get my emotions in check. Still, it was
all I could do to keep myself from freezing up every time he glanced over. I
didn’t think it was possible for him to get any more gorgeous and sexy than he was
six years ago. But I sure was wrong, because he sure as shit did.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed. While I was giving him the
obligatory gym tour, you could’ve practically heard the sound of every lady’s bottom
jaw dropping open as he passed by.

There was also something decidedly different about him, now. I
wasn’t sure what it was, though. Maybe it was his eyes. They looked softer and
kinder, somehow. And his demeanor seemed much more pleasant and relaxed than I
remembered. Hmm…
…..
I thought I had caught a whiff of
booze on his breath a little bit ago. He was also noticeably a bit tongue-tied
and flustered.
Was he drunk?

That thought made my heart sink. Devlin Danes was coming to
me for help. If he’d turned to drinking to help dull the pain, that was going
to make
everything
harder.

It didn’t matter. I was going to get control of myself and I
was going to help this man…

He was still hot as hell and I was still hot and bothered. But
I could never really
truly
be
interested in him again.

Not after what happened that night.

He was probably still just as cocky and arrogant and full of
himself as he was then. The exact kind of guy I can’t stand. People don’t
change. Not like that.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye, as he gripped the
clipboard with his tanned, masculine hands. I could almost remember how they
felt that night at
Mobey’s
, holding onto my ass, full
of sexual desire. Perspiration began to bead up between my breasts as I
imagined him cupping my tits once again……
Oh
my god! How in the world would I be able to do physical therapy with this man?

I was a whole mess of emotions as he finished writing. Devlin
Danes had given me one of the best nights of my life, and it had been
meaningless to him. I wasn’t going to let that slide. I’d help him rehabilitate
from his injuries, but that was as far as I was going to go.

CHAPTER FOUR

DEVLIN

It had taken all of my will to deflate the hard-on I had
acquired from gawking at Cali’s superb ass.

 
“All done. Here
you go… Cali Jamison. That sure is a pretty name.”

I made sure I flashed her my sexiest smile while I let her
name roll slowly and sensuously from my lips. And then I made sure my hand brushed
against hers as I handed the clipboard back to her.

I was determined to snap out of my speechless mode. I needed
to get control pronto if I ever hoped to bag this baby doll. There was no doubt
in my mind that I would have her. It was just a matter of when.

All in good time…

I took a deep breath and calculated my next move.

“So, I noticed you were babying your left leg, Mr. Danes. I
see your knee replacement surgery was almost three months ago. You still have
pain and stiffness?”

Just hearing the word “stiffness” come out of her moist,
pouty lips. I kept hoping she wouldn’t be asking me to stand up any time soon,
because parts of me were already responding again. Fuck this girl had an effect
on me.

“Yes, I do Cali. Quite a bit, actually. And…. I prefer that
you call me Devlin, please.”

My attempt at friendliness went mostly ignored. She simply
shot me a very cold, no-nonsense look and then hit me with a barrage of
questions designed to shed light on why my recovery was not progressing the way
it should. I could have told her straight up why, but I allowed her to proceed with
her little investigation.

“Do you think you might have become impatient with your
disability and tried doing too much, too soon? That can compromise your
recovery, you know. Were you bored from having to refrain from too much
activity?”

“Was I supposed to refrain from too much activity? Well shit,
somebody should have told me that
darlin
’ because I
have
definitely
been a bad boy in
that department. I
always
do too
much………but
never
too soon.”

She was smart enough to know I was just being facetious and
flirting with her but she appeared put off by it. I rarely ever encountered
that
attitude in a woman.
What was her problem, anyway?
She seemed
a bit tightly wound.

“Let’s just stick to the matter at hand, Mr. Danes. I’m
trying to help you, if you’ll let me.”

“Sure. Of course. I’m sorry. I will
absolutely
let you. I’ll let you do anything you want to me,
actually. But I really wish you would call me Devlin, Cali.”

“Mr. Danes, if you can’t be respectful I’m afraid I’m going
to have to refer you to someone else. Is that what you want?”

“No. No, I don’t. I’ll behave, I promise. The pain brings out
the devil in me... It’s how I cope… But I’ll stop. I apologize.”

“Now, I need to know how you did with the home exercises that
your former therapist prescribed for you. Were you able to successfully
duplicate them on your own after each session?”

“Of course I could do the exercises on my own. I just chose
not to, that’s all. I was busy doing…
….other
things.”

Cali had finally unearthed what she thought was the whole truth
of the matter, which was that I had simply been too lazy to do my rehab
exercises on my own time.

“You CHOSE not to do your PT exercises? You were too BUSY? Well,
that explains it. How did you expect your knee to fully heal?”

 
I knew I didn’t
have an excuse good enough to satisfy her. I attempted to explain while she
listened with a skeptical look on her face:

“The first thing they teach us in the SEAL program is to
ignore the pain. You own it. You work through it… I hired a physical therapist
to come to the house three times a week immediately after my surgery. He was an
asshole and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him after what happened. I just
accepted the pain… I never did the exercises.”

By the time I finished, she just sighed and rolled her eyes.
But I didn’t care. I could plainly see that her body was speaking to me in a
much different way: Her nipples were definitely standing at attention and I
couldn’t stop myself from picturing her topless. I wondered if she was wearing
any panties.

“If I’d have hired you, Cali, I’m sure I’d be back to my peak
level of performance by now.”

I raised my eyebrow and winked at
her.

My flirting went nowhere. She was unamused and didn’t smile
at any of my sexual innuendos or jokes.
Why
was she so uptight?
If she was going to play hard to get, fine. I was up
for the challenge.

I continued to study the all the subtle nuances of my
adorable little interrogator as she plied me with more annoying questions, but
something kept buzzing in the back of my mind.

Why did her face look so familiar?

CHAPTER FOUR

CALI

So, Devlin Danes was flirting with me now? I felt my cheeks
heat up. I wasn’t exactly sure how to handle it, at first. I decided it would
be best to strengthen my resolve and resist any and all of his advances.

I was determined not to give that insufferable prick the
satisfaction of flirting with him. My inner voice made the formal announcement
that the silly girl crush that I once had on that bastard was officially over.
Maintaining my composure from here on in would
not
be a problem.

“Well, you’ve caused your recovery to take much longer than
necessary, Mr. Danes. You should have a range of motion in your leg of at least
115
degrees
flexion by now. We’ve got a lot of work to
do.”

“You know, Cali, we could work out at my house. I’d love to
show you my equipment. I’ve got quite an impressive set-up.”

“I’m sure you do, Mr. Danes, but I’m 100% sure that your rehabilitation
would be best facilitated in a clinical and
public
setting.”

I made sure I kept a purely professional tone and demeanor
with him. I needed to keep my guard up to avoid giving him the wrong idea; the
idea that he stood any chance with me.

While Devlin lay on his back with a hot pack on his leg, I
perused his medical records that had been sent over to our office.
Holy shit!
His knee had been pretty much
torn apart by some kind of homemade bomb? It was a miracle he survived and
another altogether that the military doctors managed to patch him back
together.

“Is that too hot for you?”

I tentatively turned the dial on the ultrasound machine,
wanting to make sure the heat setting was comfortable, as I touched the wand to
his knee.

“No…… It’s perfect, Cali.”

Devlin looked deeply into my eyes, like he was searching for
something. He smiled up at me with a bad-little-boy smile, as he lay on the
therapy table. His eyelids got increasingly heavy as I continued to slide the
gelled wand around on his knee muscles. I hoped that maybe I would get lucky
and he would relax enough to doze off and shut up.

“So, is there a man in your life, Cali? Are you seeing
anybody?”

No such luck. I tried to steer the subject back to a medical
one:

“So it appears you’ve been through quite a lot during your
tour of duty? Your medical reports are pretty graphic regarding the destruction
of your knee cap. You didn’t write anything about the cause of your injury in
the paperwork you filled out. Why is that?”

Devlin surprised me with his humble answer, because I
wouldn’t have thought he had a humble bone in his body.

“Because I don’t remember any of it. I lost a friend and I
don’t remember the last time I saw his face. I don’t like talking about what
happens, and I really didn’t want you to trouble anyone with my shit. I just
want to get better…”

At that moment, I had a sudden, and profound realization
about this man on my table: He was physically
and
mentally wounded, but he was too proud to talk about it. Tough
guys never wanted to reveal their weakness.

“So, I’m starting to get the impression that your lack of
motivation with your earlier physical
therapy
 
went
way deeper than an asshole
trainer?”

I looked directly into Devlin’s eyes with all the compassion
that I could muster, so he could feel the
  
sincerity of my words:

“You
know,
you can be real with me.
I can be a much better therapist to you if I have all the facts
…..
Devlin.”

“I’d been having some pretty fucked-up nightmares and
flashbacks of the explosion. They were really doing a number on me. I really just
wanted to feel better, so I’ve been avoiding responsibility as much as possible.
I figured my leg could wait. But, I guess I was wrong about that.”

Devlin sat up on the table, and gave me what seemed to be somewhat
of a defense for his irresponsible behavior:

“It’s true that most of my spare time has been spent self-medicating,
since I got back. But, I’m ready to get really serious about my leg now. And my
life, too; I’ve already started seeing a counselor for PTSD and I’m going to
take this knee recovery seriously… I sure as hell don’t want to end up with a
limp or any other physical limitations... If I’m every going to get back out
there I need to be… Whole…”

He seemed earnest; another quality I would never have guessed
he had. As I turned off the ultrasound unit, I wondered if he actually had more
substance than I had given him credit for. I mulled it over while I began a
therapeutic massage of his knee.

“That feels great Cali. You have stronger hands than I
thought. Oh yeah
…..
fuck that feels so good.”

I felt the heat of his stare as I dug deeply into his manly leg
flesh with my fingertips. I was starting to sweat.
Goddammit Cali! Concentrate! Don’t fall for this player’s bullshit!”

The way Devlin moaned the words, “Fuck that feels so good”,
was now swirling around in my brain and playing over and over again, like a
top-forty pop tune.

My sexual tension prompted me to cut the massage short by
about two minutes. I composed myself and told him to follow me out to the gym
area, where I had him do knee-stretching exercises with some rubber therapy
bands before directing him to get on the stationary bike and pedal.

 
In my attempt to
keep the conversation as un-sexual as possible, I unwittingly changed the subject
in the wrong direction.

 
“So what was Afghanistan like?”

He had just barely begun to pedal the bike, when he stopped abruptly
and turned in my direction. He squinted his eyes at me for a minute, like he
was trying to see through fog, and then he suddenly popped them wide open like
he had just discovered plutonium.

“How did you know I was in Afghanistan? I never mentioned
that.”

“Uh, I think I read it in your
medical records.”

Fuck! Serious damage control was
needed!
I was trying
hard to look unshaken, while I attempted to recover from my slip-up, but I
could tell he wasn’t buying it.

“You couldn’t have. Afghanistan isn’t mentioned in my medical
reports. My injury didn’t occur there.”

Devlin stared at me hard, like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
Finally
he blurted out exactly what I was hoping he
wouldn’t…

“You’re the girl I was with that night at
Mobey’s
!”

 
“You’re
Allie
?”

Allie?
I thought to myself, my heart racing.