Shattered (29 page)

“That’s why the Navy gives us paddles with these things,” Zach yelled over the wind. The three men were drenched for the umpteenth time by a high, forceful wave as they fought their way onto shore.

There was a Navy saying—“You can’t cheat the water.”

Well, maybe they couldn’t cheat it. But they could damn well make it work for them. Because while the name SEAL might stand for “sea, air, and land,” every guy worth his trident would state that his real home was in the water.

The other SOF groups—Special Forces, Rangers, even the Air Force Tactics teams—conducted diving and small-boat training. But for all of them, water remained an obstacle. To a SEAL, water—both in and under it—was home.

Which was what made them different—and to Zach’s mind, the goddamn best.

The patrol boat had disappeared over the horizon. The only thing he could see was the storm-tossed water, which swirled like green on a radarscope through his NVGs. They’d been spun around in so many circles as they’d sunk into the swells, only to be tossed back out again, that he probably would’ve become disoriented without his GPS.

But even then, they’d make it, because every SEAL was trained in dead reckoning, navigating with only chart, compass, and the known speed of your boat, which had, admittedly, slowed considerably since they’d lost the engine.

Then there was the little fact that Quinn had always accused him of having his own personal GPS in his head, which was partly true.

Zach always had been one of the best on the teams at knowing where they were at any given time, even out in the middle of the sandbox when they’d been tracking down insurgents and caches of weapons and ammo used by the Fedayeen Saddam, who’d turned out to be a helluva larger and stronger fighting force than any of the desk jockeys had expected them to be.

The second reason was simple. Failure was not an option.

He and Quinn were experts at OTB—over-the-beach—operations. A core skill of a Navy SEAL, they’d practiced it so many hours, Zach figured they could both do it in their sleep. Gannon might be the wild card, but he was fit, smart, and as determined as the rest of them to pull this off. He’d also, thank you, Jesus, proven to have been telling the truth when he’d said he could keep a cool head and not go Rambo on them.

He was as wet and cold as Zach himself was, but he hadn’t uttered a word of complaint. Just kept his paddle stroking deep into the sea. Again and again.

“We’re getting close to shore,” Quinn yelled from behind him.

Which he really hadn’t needed to announce, since the surf rising on the beach was full of bioluminescence.

Which could make them look like a giant green CHEMLITE.

The only easy day was yesterday.

With that familiar BUD/S refrain repeating in his mind, Zach kept paddling.

They were late hitting the beach.

More than an hour past the plan.

But at least the weather had cooperated, with the clouds dumping all the rain on them, keeping the moon mostly covered.

Once they ditched the IBS and got on the road, they could call Garrett and change the time of the rendezvous. It wasn’t a perfect plan. Then again, what was?

Right now, as they pulled the several-hundred-pound rubber boat onto the sand and dragged it into a nearby grove of coastal mangroves, where they buried, then covered it with branches and leaves, Zach was relieved to get this stage of the op behind them, seemingly without detection.

“Now,” he said, as he peeled off his MAS, leaving him in a set of digital jungle BDUs, “let’s go get Dr. Moore so we can all go home and get laid as a reward for all our hard work.”

“Roger that,” both Quinn and Gannon said together.

It had begun to rain. If the doorman was at all surprised to see them show up looking like wet rats, covered in sand, her limping a bit from the glass embedded in her foot from the race out of the restaurant, his expression didn’t reveal it. Once more giving Kirby the impression that he might be in contact with Gwendolyn Patterson.

He did suggest they might feel more comfortable going in a side door and taking the servant’s elevator to their suite. Which, when they agreed, he called forth their same bellman, instructing him to open the door that, for security reasons, was not accessible without a key from the outside.

They were no sooner in the new suite, which turned out to be a mirror image of their original room, when Shane noticed the blood on the white floor.

“Damn. I was afraid you’d cut your foot on all that glass.”

“It’s not that bad,” she said. Though now that the adrenaline was wearing off, it was beginning to hurt. Just a little.

“Let me check.”

He practically shoved her down onto the sofa, covered in a pastel seashell print, sat down beside her, and lifted her foot onto his lap.

“If you’re thinking of sucking my toes, we might want to take a shower first,” she suggested.

Their eyes met over her filthy foot, and from the flash in his she knew they were both remembering a time when they’d thought it might be sexy, but, given that she turned out to be ticklish, had only resulted in gales of laughter.

“Most of it’s surface stuff. Sand, a bit of plaster.” He brushed his palms over first one foot, then another. Then frowned. “But this doesn’t look good.”

“What?”

“You’ve got a shard embedded in your heel. Which is where the blood’s coming from.” He tried to pull it out with his fingertips, which didn’t prove successful.

“I’ve got a pair of tweezers and some antiseptic cream in my carry-on,” she said.

“Terrific.” He lifted her feet so he could stand up, then put them back onto the sofa.

“This material is really going to need cleaning.”

“At these prices, they can damn well absorb the cost of a little housekeeping,” he said. “Stay here. I’ll go get it and be right back.”

“This is ridiculous,” she said. “Don’t you think we should be checking you out first? You’re the one with the prosthesis, after all.”

“Which seems to be holding up just fine,” he said.

“Okay.” Her gaze moved from his face to the leg in question. “Here’s where I admit that I’ve been dying to see it.”

“And you will,” he said. “Because I intend for both of us to be naked in another ten minutes. But first things first.”

Naked. With Shane Garrett. And, despite everything, wasn’t that idea just exactly what she needed?

She leaned back, her head against the armrest, spread out the way he’d left her, and was trying to put that gun battle in the restaurant out of her mind when he returned. The wet T-shirt plastered to his body revealed a six-pack abdomen as impressive as he’d sported before his injury.

“I have to admit, I was surprised when, after we landed on the beach, your leg was capable of not just holding you up, but walking two blocks back to this hotel.”

“I wasn’t,” he said. “Since it was put under all kinds of stress during those months of therapy. It’s an experimental unit that’s been tested six ways to Sunday long before I received it. They were just waiting for the right candidate.”

“Who would be you.”

“Yeah. Who would be me.”

“I’m glad,” she said, “that if you had to be so terribly injured, you at least got something positive out of it.”

“My injuries weren’t anything like a lot of the troops who ended up at Walter Reed,” he said. “And actually, except for a two-week pity party, I came out of the entire experience the same as I ever was.”

He rubbed his jaw, which was darkened with a sexy stubble of dark night beard. Reconsidered. “Well, nearly,” he allowed. “Since, as you pointed out, I do have that memory glitch, which I’ve moved beyond.”

He had seemed pretty much like the cocky cowboy she’d fallen for. Which, given all he’d been through, surprised her. Just a little.

“So, you haven’t experienced any PTSD?”

“Nope. Not an iota.”

“I guess you had a lot of talk therapy at Walter Reed.”

“I went to a couple sessions, sure, since it was required. But they were depressing, so I quit.”

“Just like that.” She’d read that the best way for soldiers to avoid post-traumatic stress was to talk it out. But she also suspected it wasn’t easy getting members of the military to let down their guard enough to admit to weaknesses. Especially psychological or mental ones.

“Yeah. But just because I didn’t talk about it didn’t mean that I didn’t think about what happened. And you know what I figured?”

“What?”

“That I didn’t have a problem with PTSD, because I already had NSDQ.”

It took her a minute to figure the out the anagram. “Night Stalkers Don’t Quit.”

His grin was bold, and banished the earlier tension. “Roger that.”

It was easier than either of them had thought it would be. After taking the glass out of her foot, Shane went into the bathroom and turned the water on in a jet tub large enough to swim laps in. There were bottles of various bath salts lined up on the shelf behind the tub. After a few sample sniffs, he chose one the closest to how he always had thought she smelled, like sunshine and meadows, and tossed in a handful.

Then, as the water streamed into the tub and the fragrant steam rose, he returned to the living room, stood in front of her, and held out his hand.

She went into his arms, lifting her face for his kiss. But needing to look at her, to assure himself that she wasn’t a dream that would vanish upon waking, or a morning-shower fantasy, he traced the line of her cheek with a fingertip, surprised to find that his hand was as unsteady as his heart.

Reaching behind her, he lowered the zipper on the lovely, now ruined dress, feeling her shiver as his knuckles brushed down her spine.

“Cold?” he asked as the dress slid to the floor, leaving her clad in a wet pair of ivory panties that, like the others he’d seen her in, still didn’t have any lace.

But these were of some slick, satiny material, cut low across her stomach, high on her legs, with little blue laces that tied at her hips. Hips that while still curvy, weren’t as lush as they’d once been. He suspected that was due to the hard work and short rations that were undoubtedly part of a relief doctor’s life. She was tanner than she’d been in Iraq. Not as dark as he was, but a pale, sun-kissed gold that seemed to shimmer in the overhead light.

Her bra matched the panties. The rest of her may have lost inches, but her amazing cleavage was still one of the great natural wonders of the world. It took every ounce of self-restraint Shane possessed to keep from burying his face in the enticingly soft flesh.

Wanting to make this last, to make love to her slowly, tenderly, for once, to try to make her understand how precious she was to him, he kissed her instead, slipping his tongue between her lips while creating soft suction within her mouth.

She moaned, a ragged vibration against his mouth as her lips clung to his. “More,” she said as she caught hold of the hem of his wet shirt and pulled it over his head. Then stroked her hands back down over his rib cage, his abs, his stomach. When she reached the woven olive drab belt he’d kept from his SOAR days, her fingers busied themselves with the buckle.

“Soon.” His tongue slid in and out of her moist, sweet mouth, hot and slick, penetrating her mouth the way he was aching to penetrate her body. Encouraged by her trembling, he untied first one satin ribbon, then the other, causing her panties to follow the dress onto the floor.

He pressed his hand against her mound. “I want to be inside you, Kirby. You’ve driven me crazy with wanting you.”

“Ha, I haven’t done a thing.”

“You’ve never had to.”

“And isn’t that exactly what you were supposed to say.” Her teeth nipped at his lower lips as she unzipped his jeans. “Gotta love a man who goes commando,” she said as she found him naked beneath the denim. “It makes this undressing process one step simpler.”

His flesh was jutting out like a damn flagpole, and actually jumped when she stepped back to give it a long look.

“I was beginning to think I’d imagined how magnificent you were.” She closed her hands around his hot circumference, drawing a groan from deep in his chest. “You know what they say about time fading memory.”

“Yeah. I’ve noticed that.” Wanting to drive her as crazy as she was driving him, he unfastened the front clasp between her breasts, slid the lacy straps down her arms, and tossed the bra across the room. Then bent his head and kissed the rosy tip of a nipple. “But if I’d forgotten anything about how it feels to make love with you, Kirby, which I’m pretty sure I haven’t, it sure as hell is coming back real fast.”

“That was—oh, God,” she moaned, as he rolled it beneath his tongue, then sucked. Hard.

“You were saying?” He moved to her other breast, taking it deep inside his mouth.

“That there’s nothing wrong with my memory, either.”

Christ, her thumb was skimming up and down the thick cord of his penis, and if she didn’t stop squeezing him that way, they were going to have a lot more to wash off than sand.

She let out a little, very un-Kirby-like yelp as he lifted her off her feet and deposited her in the tub, feeling a tug of regret when the bubbles covered all that soft, golden flesh.

Deciding it was now or never, he kicked off his wet and sandy sneaks and then pushed the jeans down his legs. Both of them.

“Well.” She tilted her head, taking in the titanium prosthesis he’d worn on the plane, because his dress one was bulkier and not as comfortable. “If I wasn’t about ready to explode from pent-up lust, I’d love to check that out in more detail.”

“Later.”

“Much, much later,” she said. Then twirled her hand through the fragrant bubbles, spreading them over her breasts, leaving her nipples showing like cherries on top of a particularly tasty dessert. “This is a very big tub.” Her lips curved down in a little moue. “And very lonely.”

He watched her switch momentarily into doctor mode when he sat down onto the lid of the toilet and pulled the top of the artificial leg from the receptor that had been buried into what was left of his real leg.

“It’s the ultimate plug and play,” he said.

She smiled. A slow, sexy, smile not unlike the ones he suspected sirens used to lure seamen to their under-the-ocean realms.

Then crooked a white-tipped finger as she flicked the switch with the other hand, turning on the jets. “Well, now that you’ve unplugged, why don’t you join me in this hedonistic bathtub for some play?”

The scented water rose as he lowered himself into the tub, facing her. “I should’ve rethought putting this stuff in.”

“Do you have something about bubbles?” She scooped up a handful and threw it at his chest.

“No. But not only is it not exactly a camouflage scent, the guys are never going to quit ragging me if I show up smelling like a girl at the ruins tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry.” She picked up a cloth from the holder set in the tile and began running it up and down first one arm. Then the other. When she squeezed it, causing water to glide down her breasts, leaving wet trails in the white bubbles, he felt a hot, tortured anticipation rip through him. “By the time I finish with you, you’ll be nice and manly sweaty again.”

“You finish with me?”

“I owe you one,” she reminded him.

“I didn’t know we were keeping score.”

“We’re not.” She scooted forward and began to massage the calf of his good leg. “It’s just that after being nearly blown up this evening, I suddenly have this overwhelming need to feel in control.”

She ran her hands up both his thighs, not only undeterred by disability, but seeming to sense that the nerve endings at the amputation point were some of the most sensitive in his body. Sometimes, when he wasn’t wearing his prosthesis, like in bed at night, they were what caused phantom pain, a sharp tingling in a part of his leg that no longer existed.

But right now, while the sensations were definitely sharp, and certainly tingling, the only painful thing about her touch was that it left him dying for more.

“Did I ever tell you that I was on swim team the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in high school?” she asked conversationally, as she continued to torment him beneath the bubbles, trailing slow, sensual figure eights up and down the inside of his thighs.

“I don’t remember it if you did,” he said hoarsely, bucking when her touch grew more intimate again.

“I swam breast stroke.” She skimmed a treacherous palm over the tip of his shaft. “My personal best time was one minute, nineteen and eight-tenths seconds for one hundred meters. It set a club record. There’s still a trophy in the glass case in the high school’s main hall.”

“Good for you.” His voice was rough. Almost strangled from lust.

“The trophy was nice enough. So was the blue ribbon with a gold seal on it. But want to know what my best thing was?”

Her fingers were now curled around him and she’d begun stroking his swollen flesh. Up. Down. Up again. “I’m beginning to get a good idea.”

She wagged the finger of her free hand at him. “You’ve got a dirty mind. I’ll have you know I graduated high school a virgin. No, what I was really known for was the fact that I could hold my breath longer than anyone on the team. Even the coach.”

“Kirby.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “You don’t have to—”

“But I want to.”

Her eyes had grown so dark it was difficult to tell where the pupils let off and the irises began. But they sparkled with a sexual humor he remembered had been one of the best things about coming back to the Green Zone. It had been more than the fact that he could eat real food. Have real hot showers and sleep with a sexy woman. It had been the way he unwound the moment he saw her. Coming back to Iraq, and to Captain Kirby Campbell, had always been like coming home.

“It’s only too bad we don’t have a stopwatch handy,” she said. “Because I have the feeling I’m about to set a new record.”

With that, she ducked her blond head beneath the bubbles, and as the warm water swirled around him and she took him deep into her mouth, he was lost.

Powerless, he bucked his hips, trying not to come. Not so fast. And not this way.

He tried to say her name. To tell her it was okay to stop.

But he couldn’t talk.

Tangled his hands in her hair, intending, God, he didn’t know what, but then she was sucking, and no longer able to hold back, his body spasmed.

His head fell back against the tile rim. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

“Kirby.” He managed to rasp out her name in a ragged expulsion of air.

She popped back to the surface. She looked wet and hot and utterly self-satisfied.

Still in a haze, he somehow remembered patting her all over with one of the fluffy white towels, taking his time, until she was not only totally dry, but begging for him to take her.

They managed to make it to the bed. The details blurred, but as they lay on the cotton sheets that felt like silk beneath their heated flesh, they explored each other’s bodies with a pleasure they’d never taken time for during those crazy wartime days and nights together.

The brush of her fingernail against his dark nipple inflamed; the caress of his lips against her softly rounded belly aroused, causing her to move her body sinuously against his, which made the flames rise higher.

Her sultry laughter shimmered over his moist flesh as her mouth nipped at his hip.

She wasn’t laughing when he rolled her onto her back, put a pillow beneath her hips, slanting her pelvis toward him.

Then sat back, drinking in the sight of her. She looked wild. Wanton. And . . .

“You look good enough to eat,” he said.

And proceeded to do exactly that.

As helpless as he’d been earlier, she writhed beneath him. When her back arched off the mattress, he cupped her sweet butt in his hands and pushed her higher, spreading her thighs wider, tongue thrusting, his beard, which he hadn’t taken time to shave, scraping against her hot, wet flesh.

God, he loved her taste. And her scent. Hell with the meadow and the jasmine or orchids, or whatever that stuff Sabrina had given her. She was the most natural woman he’d ever known. And he knew if he lived to a hundred, he’d never get enough of her.

She was panting, faster and faster, and when she shattered, she turned her head, muffling her ragged cry into the soft down pillow.

Fired by the sight of her, spent, legs spread, her body flushed pink with orgasm, Shane sheathed himself with one of the condoms he’d brought along, then holding his erection, he slid partway into her, enough to bring forth a soft moan.

“You said it’s been a while,” he reminded them both, as he pulled almost completely out again. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“That’s the last thing you’re going to do,” she whispered against his throat. “And the only reason I’d given up men is that none of them were you.”

He drew his head back. Looked deep into her eyes and saw the truth shining there. “Me, too,” he said. “Not men, but—”

“I get it.” She wrapped her legs around his hips. “And while I’m always up for a good conversation, I’d really, really like it if you’d just put it back in. Where it belongs.”

Truer words were never spoken.

He thrust in, deeper this time, then pulled out slightly, drawing a faint moan of complaint. Then a curse, which made him laugh out loud.

He thrust again. And again. Harder, faster, driving her deeper and deeper into the thick feather-top mattress, until they climaxed together.

“God,” he said, rolling over and holding her tight against his chest, “now, that was a personal best.”

She looked up at him as she trailed a finger down his damp and, yes, just as she’d promised, sweaty torso. “And just think—the night’s still young.”