SEALs of Summer 2: A Military Romance Superbundle (5 page)

Now she understand enough.

She’d learned Spanish after her second tour of duty in Iraq. She’d been up for promotion, and it had seemed like a smart career move. She didn’t learn it because of Vince—by that point, she’d moved on. Enough time had passed, for sure. And maybe it was seeing the spec ops guys come and go like haunted ghosts in theater, all bearded and wild. Sunglasses firmly in place. Inaccessible to the average grunt.

And that’s what she’d been. Vince had always been ambitious, and she’d just wanted to be employed.

So she’d let go of his memory and trained herself to imagine each of those anonymous special forces soldiers was Vince, ignoring her. Not seeing her.

She only wondered once in a blue moon why their paths actually never crossed.

But they hadn’t. And as far as Vince knew, she didn’t know what he’d just said.

“Don’t play dirty,” she said, a watery laugh tripping off her last word. “Spanish isn’t playing fair.”

He searched her face. “It wasn’t something romantic, don’t worry.”

Her heart squeezed, because it had been the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her. But of course he hadn’t meant it to be seductive. He’d been talking to himself. She pressed him slowly away from her body, turning them so he was in front of the sink and she had the getaway path. She gave him a coy smile. “The entire language is mysterious and romantic. So if you’re going to curse me or something, do it in Norwegian.”

He laughed. “Or Scottish, or Texan?”

“Check and check. Only decidedly unsexy men can be on this team.”

“I’m going to change your mind on that.”

“Oh yeah?”

“That’s the thing that I talked to Rik about while I was getting breakfast supplies. You and I…we need a test of our teamwork.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

She crossed her arms. “And you have a plan, I take it?”

“Rik suggested we head to Quester’s Island for a day.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No!” Larken paced backwards, then twisted and turned away from him. A deserted island not far from Camo Cay in the archipelago, it was rumored to be haunted—and covered in buried treasure. Neither belief was true, of course, but it had a certain adventurous appeal. Adventurous and romantic.

“He thinks you should put me through my paces. Figure out whether or not you want me on your team.”

Could she let herself want Vince? Put her heart on the line again?

The real question was, could she stop herself from wanting him? No, she couldn’t.

Inhaling a shaky breath, she nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

‡

V
ince wanted to
take a boat and go, just the two of them, but Larken had a gleam in her eye when she announced it would be better for them to be dropped off by Jackson and picked up exactly twenty-four hours later.

“Not much of a challenge if you’ve got a getaway option, is it?”

“Do you seriously think that spending a night with you is that stressful?” he asked under his breath as they headed down to the dock.

“It’s not the night that I’d be worried about,” she said, winking at him.

He wasn’t worried about the day, either.

Larken could hiss and growl all she wanted, but each time they got close, she dropped her shields and he got a taste of her secret softness.

That was all he needed—just a hint that she could give herself to him.

He was thirty-one, and in the twelve years since they’d parted ways, he’d never had a woman excite him like she did. He was old enough to know what he liked and what he wanted, and on both counts, it was Larken.

In all her “watch out, asshole” glory.

She’d always been sharp. Always had an edge. But the raw hurt was a change from when they were teenagers.

He was looking forward to the rest of the day. Alone, just the two of them on an island full of history and secrets. That was a lot like them, actually. And as soon as she was ready to show him hers, he’d return the gesture.

Until she was ready…he could keep her tongue occupied in ways that kept her from snapping at him.

And he’d enjoy every minute.

*

Larken stretched out
in the back of the speedboat, tipping her face to the hot, Caribbean sun. She loved the turquoise waters and early sunsets. Such a change from growing up in Michigan. Grey lake water and long summer nights full of mosquitos and her father getting drunk off his gourd…yeah, she didn’t miss anything about her so-called home. That was why she hadn’t been back since her mother up and moved to San Francisco to live with a man she’d met online. A painter or something.

With a twinge in her gut, she glanced at Vince, taking up his usual amount of too-much-space beside her.

She’d met his family once, at the end of the sniper course they met on at Fort Benning. They’d each had a week of vacation before they needed to report back to their home units, and after four sex-filled nights at the shore, he’d taken her to his home town.

He’d introduced her to his parents as his girlfriend. They’d been lovely. She’d let herself hope that she’d be back for Christmas. But by the time the holidays rolled around, he was off to Illinois for his prep course in Navy Special Warfare, and she went to Cabo instead.

Turned out Cabo sucked on a broken heart.

Now she wanted to ask him about his family, but it could wait until they were alone again.

“This is pretty nice,” he said, nudging her knee with his. He’d put on a t-shirt for the boat ride. She’d insist he take it off as soon as they landed. She liked half-naked Vince the best.

“Yeah. Better than any of the bases I was ever stationed at.”

“You don’t miss the army?”

She glared at him through her sunglasses. Had he not picked up on her plan to wait for some privacy before talking? And when they had that privacy, it would be
him
they were talking about. Not her. She wasn’t the one on the hot seat this weekend.

“All right, that’s off limits.” He grinned. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Who said I wanted to talk?”

He slid his leg against hers, the crisp hair on his calf raising goose bumps on her skin as it stirred her thoughts about hair elsewhere on his body. He was pure masculine energy, large and intense. And he wanted to
talk
. What a waste of that body. Although he’d made it clear that he wanted to get naked together, too. After they talked.

Ugh.

She needed to remind herself that she wanted information, too. But then he touched her, and she got all distracted by memories and fantasies, in equal measure.

He shrugged at her silent treatment and stood up, unaffected by the fact that the boat was rocketing through the water at some serious speed—he should wobble or something. Instead he just prowled to where Jackson stood, piloting them across the waves.

Which gave her a front-row seat for admiring the view. She’d made fun of her co-workers, but standing next to Vince, she could acknowledge that Jackson was a big, good-looking man.

He didn’t hold a candle to the liquid sex that seeped from Vince’s every pore, though. Her mouth watered as she traced her gaze up his tight calves, to the shorts that sadly disguised his powerful thighs, but—thank heavens—did cup his very tight, very fine bottom.
That ass
.

Unf. It was a solid twenty seconds before Larken realized she’d twisted her own legs together and bit down hard enough on her lip that she’d probably left a mark.

And it wasn’t like she could even pretend that he was just a pretty face, or that he’d be selfish when it came to sex.

Nope, if anything, he was guaranteed to rock her world.

Sex with Vince of old had been fun. For a nineteen-year-old, he’d been a pretty attentive lover. What would have changed in the last twelve years?

Maybe that he’d become a mind reader, because he glanced back over his shoulder at her and her cheeks went up in flames.

“What are you thinking about over there?” He flashed her that slow, sexy grin that said he knew exactly what was on her mind.

She really needed to stop staring at his ass.

But time had been exceptionally good to him. Vince was even more beautiful now than he’d been as a fresh-faced recruit.

When he shrugged and turned away, like he knew she wasn’t
ever
going to answer that question, she sighed. Then he pulled off his shirt, and the regretful noise turned into a long, slow, appreciative flutter of breath that did nothing to calm her visceral reaction to the height and breadth of him. All that delicious skin, dusted here and there in black hair, and decorated to perfection with inky black tattoos. Muscles that made hills and valleys she wanted to trace with her fingers and tongue. That she already had serious plans for once they landed, if she was being honest.

Larken never made a practice of being honest—with herself, or anyone else.

And now she was sighing and being a total girl over his muscles.

The man was as infuriating as her stupid ovaries.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back again, letting the spray from the ocean cool her over-heated skin.

*

Larken hadn’t said
a single word since they got on the boat. In the forty minutes it took them to navigate down the chain of islands to their destination, she’d alternately ignored him and given him what he assumed were dirty looks from behind her sunglasses.

He couldn’t remember a time he’d ever been quite so turned on by silence.

Jackson had warned him there wasn’t really a dock at the island, so Vince slipped off his shoes and tucked them into the side of his ruck.

As soon as Jackson had the boat stopped as close as he could get, Vince leaped into the water, his feet finding easy purchase on the sandy bottom. He looped his ruck over his arm, then grabbed the picnic basket, freeing a hand which he held out for Larken. She just rolled her eyes at him and jumped on her own, holding her bag above her head.

“Difficult woman,” he muttered as she jogged past him, splashing him not-so-accidentally with the warm, salty water.

“Stubborn, backwards man,” she called over her shoulder.

He’d never been one to insist on being chivalrous, but Larken made him want to pull out chairs and hold doors open. Oh, the painful irony that she’d never appreciate that.

“I was just trying to be nice,” he muttered.

Apparently his voice carried further than he thought, because she stopped as soon as she got to the beach and held out her hand.

“Just being nice,” she mocked, a twinkle in her eye like she was begging to be spanked.

Jackson powered up the boat and pulled away from the island, sending a wave of water in their direction. Vince stared at her hand as the ocean lapped up his legs, soaking the bottom of his shorts a bit more. Didn’t matter. He planned to take them off soon enough, anyway.

He took her hand to make a point, and together they walked onto the beach.

“Come on,” she said, tugging him in the obvious direction, toward where the brush cut away to a path.

“Wait.” He tugged her back. Now that he had her hand, he was going to use that to his advantage. “We’re alone.”