Read SEAL Under Covers (SEAL Brotherhood Series Book 3) Online

Authors: Sharon Hamilton

Tags: #Romance, #Contemporary, #Military, #Romantic Suspense, #Mystery & Suspense, #Suspense, #New Adult & College, #Series

SEAL Under Covers (SEAL Brotherhood Series Book 3) (10 page)

BOOK: SEAL Under Covers (SEAL Brotherhood Series Book 3)
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Thinking back to their hot involvement last year, she remembered Sam had not
physically
hurt her, but had refused to let her leave his room, demanding she stay in his bed until he had fucked her multiple times. He was rough. He’d wanted to tie her up.

And, she was ashamed to admit to herself, there was a dark part of her that had liked it.

God help me, am I one of those people?

At the time she could have grabbed a phone and called the Department. She could have struggled to get away, or screamed. But she’d stayed. She’d let him screw her multiple times. She’d submitted to him and found something there that was arousing. Gina tried to put it out of her head, but she couldn’t.

No, best to stay away from him completely.

But how?

They still worked in the same department. It would be impossible to avoid him altogether. She’d had high hopes when he returned to the force after his messy trip to New York. But at their first meeting, there was no denying the sexual attraction he still felt for her. The outburst at the strip joint was the first time Sam had stepped over the line since his return. Maybe the insertion of the SEAL brother had thrown Sam off guard, or maybe he’d been drinking. Could this be just one isolated incident?

Surely the sergeant’s warning would make him wake up to what he was risking for all of them. Now that he knew she didn’t want to play along, maybe there would be a way he could control that demon inside him so they could work together.

Time to prove she wasn’t afraid of him any longer. Whom was she doing this for, though, herself or Sam? In any case, she hoped to God this meeting worked. Gina was running out of options and in danger of blowing the whole operation. Because of the rocky start they’d had, she was also in danger of losing her badge.

Sam had agreed to meet her at one of the outdoor cafes along the Strand. She wanted lots of people around her, and the protection of daylight hours. She also knew this area was not one that Mia would frequent.

She flipped her silverware back and forth as she sipped on her iced tea. Sam’s huge frame soon shadowed her table. He wore his black leathers, coming in the disguise he’d agreed to wear whenever she met publicly with any member of their task force. He sat down without being invited. He knew he looked hotter than hell.

Damn the man. He still pushes my buttons.

Sam’s cool blue eyes looked clearer than the last time she’d seen him, when they’d been blustering and bloodshot. His mouth was twisted in a smirk, and she could see he wasn’t making much of an effort to look or act civil. Still, it could work, as part of the undercover act.

“Thanks for coming,” she said and then examined her ice tea. “You want to order something?”

He grabbed the small cardboard menu stuck between the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers. He ordered a burger, fries and a milkshake from the young waitress who stopped by. He didn’t reel in his gawking at the waitress’s ample chest.

Some things never change. You think I’m jealous? I’m so far away from seeing anything in you I even like.
She had a job to do, so she donned her emotional disguise. She had to play nice with this cretin or she’d never get anywhere.

He was watching the waitress’s ass sashay down the row of tiny tables. “Sam, this is really difficult for me to say, but I do need your cooperation.” The words almost stuck in her throat.

“Damned right, Gina.” He finally pried his eyes off the waitress.

“Can we just be serious here for a second?”

Sam smiled to the wall next to him, giving her a profile view of his reddened face. She’d not noticed how ruddy his complexion had become and knew he’d been way too cozied up with alcohol recently. It was going to be a problem for all of them, she decided.

He leaned into the table and drilled her with his cold blue stare. “I got the touch. I know where you itch.”

Gina turned red. Sam winked. Suddenly the need to bolt from this meeting became overwhelming. She began to hyperventilate. She grabbed for her herbal iced tea and began to gulp it down, but managed to spill a wide ribbon down her shirtfront. She felt it trickle over her bare breasts beneath the shirt fabric. Sam noticed her natural perkiness and his eyes flashed. He looked like he was having a good time at Gina’s expense.

What was I thinking?

“Thank you, baby.” He was staring at her nipples, which tightened for him in spite of herself.

“I’m not your baby.”

“I know what you like. I dream about it all the time, Gina. Don’t you?”

“No.” She said it so loudly that several customers looked over.

Sam began to chuckle. “You’re one messed-up chick, Gina. I know how to fill all those cracks. You know I do.”

She tried to put the scenes out of her head. Sam with the handcuffs. Sam with the velvet-encased rope. Taking her from behind, in the rear. She rubbed her temples, temporarily erasing the erotic images.

“Being involved with you nearly cost me my badge. But you were the best piece of ass I ever had, Gina. You must know how I feel about that.”

That? He’s thinking of my ass. Not me.

She was left with the sickening feeling he would never let her go.

Now what have you done, Gina? Why didn’t you report him? Now it’s too late. And you thought you could work with him now?

Gina gasped for air as anger exploded in her chest.

Sam continued to pursue his direct. “I sacrificed a lot for you, baby. Left my wife. Almost lost my job.”

He was actually blaming
her
for his career blunder? For their affair?

She had to jump in. “You wouldn’t fuckin’ leave me alone, Sam.
You
came on to
me
.” She lost her ability to control her own temper as her insides boiled.

“Little Miss Hot Pants Flirty-Flirty, ‘Oh, I didn’t do anything but flaunt myself in his direction and he just came after me,’” he said in falsetto. Lowering his voice, he hissed, “Gina, you know you wanted it. If I’d had enough time with you, you would have begged me for it.”

An army with pointed helmets was jumping up and down her insides. Droplets of sweat traced down her spine. “Shut up, Sam. When are you going to wake up to the fact that you
hurt
me? You lied to me, abused my trust. You didn’t tell me you were married, and you physically…” Gina felt the hot tears welling up inside. This was not going the way she wanted it to go. She wrestled with being truthful. How much of their affair had she secretly wanted? Even after she found out about his wife? Didn’t she find herself daydreaming about him sometimes? Thank God she got out way back then, before he would consume her. Just in time. It had taken everything she had, but she threatened to tell the sergeant if he didn’t leave her alone.

Sam grabbed her forearm, instantly shifting her thoughts. “Because I cared for you.”

Gina extricated her arm from Sam’s thick fingers and folded her hands together under the table. She stuffed down the worry. She welcomed the crowd around her, feeling safer in their midst. “You’re so wrong, Sam. I am not your possession. Don’t you get it? I never belonged to you. Why can’t you just leave it alone?”

“What if I’ve moved on?”

Gina wasn’t convinced. “Really?” She crossed her arms and waited for him to explain.

Sam wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction as he ground ice with his back molars, staring at her impassively.

“I was sorry to hear about your divorce,” she inserted, going for kind. The man had paid a heavy price for his own indiscretion. “I never wanted that to happen, even after all this. I feel like I owe an apology to your wife, for God’s sake. But not to you.”

“Nah, you were just the excuse we needed to separate. We hadn’t been good for some time. But I left her because of you. You do know that, don’t you?”

Gina could see the fierce honesty in his eyes. The man was a wrecking ball of emotion. He was totally damaged goods, but she didn’t feel an ounce of love or compassion for him. And whatever he thought he was feeling towards her, she was sure it wasn’t anything close to love, either. The only thing that mattered right now was her job. She needed to complete her first mission to get her career jump-started. If that meant making “nice” to Mr. Awful, well, she’d just have to. She was working in a man’s world and she’d made some mistakes. Why should that be front page of the
New York Times
? Who hadn’t made mistakes in their past?

“Look, Sam. It doesn’t matter now. None of that matters. We’re not going to ever be an item. You’ve got to understand that, Sam.”

It was Sam’s turn to cross his arms.

Gina added, “I need you to honor that boundary, if you can. And if you can’t—well, I’m going to have to pull out and regroup somewhere else. This mission is what I’ve trained for. I
wanted
this job. I
need
this job.”

He was searching her face, examining her hair and shoulders, her arms, being careful not to check out her chest. She could see he was trying to be decent.

“Sam, I came to ask for your help. Your cooperation. You need to tell me if you can do this.”

“Glad to see you’ve come to your senses. Or was it your decision?”

“No. But the way I see it, I have little choice. I think you’re a good cop, not that I trust you personally as far as I can throw you. You’ve got Tito and all the other informants you’ve cultivated over the years. I’m no fool. We need your connections right now. Professionally, you know more things about the job than I’ll probably ever know. I need you to put the personal side of ‘us’ on the back burner. Better yet, take it off the flame entirely.” She searched his face for a trace of empathy, something to convince herself he could be the man she knew he had been at one time. “Can you do this for me?”

He leaned back in the chair as the waitress brought his order. He looked at Gina’s empty place setting.

“I’m not hungry,” she explained, which was the truth.

He picked up a fistful of fries and stuffed them into his mouth. With his jaw muscles working overtime, he watched her staring back at him. Gina tried not to put any emotion into her gaze. Nothing he could latch onto or be hopeful about.

He sighed and began to pick up his burger. “I think I can do that.” He said it to the burger and didn’t look at her as he took an enormous bite. The burger erupted with drips of sauce, oozing forth a tomato slice, which plopped onto the plate below. Sam wiped his lips, his hands and absent-mindedly scanned the side of the wall next to him. Gina could see he was thinking something over carefully.

“Sam,” she continued, “I
do
need your help. I don’t think I can do this mission without you. I come to you as a colleague, as one professional to another. I want to keep it that way, if you’ll agree.”

Exhaustion was becoming a factor in their little meeting. Her self-control was waning. She had to get this over with. Hopefully with his agreement, or the knowledge that she had to walk away from a job she thought she could do with a little help.

“So you want me back? On the mission, I mean.” he said.

“Because of Tito and the others you’ve turned. Also, Mia likes you. You’ve worked the gang task force for ten years. You trained me in undercover work. And Koz wants us to work together.”

Sam’s eyes brightened as he aimed a huge smile and another wink at her.

“Look, Sam, you’re a big, strong guy. But I can still have you removed from the case if I say one word. I got assurances on that,” she lied. “Because…” She almost choked on the words. As much as she hated to admit it, this part of her story was true. She finished, “…because you also know me. You’d know when I’m in trouble.”

Sam’s eyes got deep. Something dark hovered there for a second before he blinked it away. Gina remembered the lost afternoons of sex and desire. She remembered how she’d needed those afternoons like air and water. When she wanted the dark side of sex.

Why?

She saw Sam want to reach for her, but hold himself in check. She could feel the pride swelling in his chest about being needed, being told he was big and strong. It was the core identity of every good cop she’d ever met. Sam might still have some remnants of it after all.

“I’ll help you. This isn’t exactly easy for me, though.”

“I understand.” She leaned forward and, without thinking, clasped one of his callused hands. “It isn’t easy for me, either. I’d like to think I can trust you. You need to tell me, Sam. Can I?”

His large thumb rubbed over her fingers before they could escape while he watched their hands entangled on the formica restaurant table. Her stomach crawled with something oily and dark.

“I hope so, Gina. I surely do.” He smiled. “You ever think maybe when all of this is over with there could be a chance—you and I, together?”

Gina wanted to run, suddenly getting a chestful of the
uh-ohs
. What had she done today? She had no business asking him to get involved in her first very dangerous mission. What was she thinking? What part of that was a good idea?

But if she’d ever believed him, perhaps now was the time to put that worry aside and go forward instead of dwelling on the dark past. If she was going to ask for his trust, she’d better start being honest. And if Sam refused to help her, she ran a great risk of failure.

“Sam, I honestly don’t know. I can’t go into this with you expecting or hoping this will happen, because I really don’t know.” She did a pretty good job of delivering that lie, and she didn’t care. She knew she was taking a huge risk by getting him involved in the operation.

Sam nodded, watching his thumb caress her fingers. Watching as she didn’t pull away from him.

Gina added, “Let’s just start being co-workers on a case. Let’s learn to trust each other first, and then let’s see where it leads. That’s the best I can do, Sam. No promises. And I make no demands on
you
either, except to leave me alone.”

That brought a smile to his lips as he nodded again. “Well, sweetheart, after you, I’m kind of wrecked for anyone else.”

BOOK: SEAL Under Covers (SEAL Brotherhood Series Book 3)
4.1Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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