“You need to seal that fucking deal. I need to get in the air. I’m surprised Leif didn’t break ground on a new airport. We’re all itching for skydiving.” At the same time they sent me here, to Bronze Bay, Florida, they opened up several other small SEAL bases in coastal states. San Diego and Virginia Beach are still the main bases, but our reaction times are quicker now that we have smaller ones staffed around the US.
“These things take time. You know that. This is taking even less time because we’re handling the deal in person instead of a middleman coming in hereand complicating everything that much more.” I clear my throat. “She’s going to agree to it. We’ll be jumping by next week.” As I say those words, I let my gaze find Caroline. My teammate slaps me on a wet shoulder and heads for the office. I veer in the opposite direction, toward her still sitting on the dock.
Dropping my flippers next to her flip-flops, they splash water on her ripped jean shorts. She doesn’t complain or squeal like a typical woman would. The pockets of her shorts are hanging out, exposed against her thighs. With her sun-kissed skin and white tank top, she is my favorite definition of Florida. “They let you in here,” I say, joking. When I told Caroline she could come in to my work to talk about the airport arrangements, I made sure I put her name on the approved list.
“They did take my driver’s license and gave me this badge thing,” she says, holding up a lanyard and a plastic card. “Like I’m going to steal secret intel or something,” she scoffs, turning her eyes to the setting sun. “You stole this beach. I learned to walk here, you know?” Caroline nods to the right, toward a long section of beach that now sits untouched. We bought all of the land, including the beach, when we established our base here. “The question is, why did they let you in here?” Her gaze rises to meet mine. Crystal blue. Her eyes are almost see-through in this light—the color of a pale blue, fluffy cotton. She raises one brow, urging me to answer.
I pull my arms out of the sleeves and push the wetsuit down my torso until it’s resting low on my hips. “Because I always get what I want,” I reply. She studies my tattoosfor a moment and then turns away like she’s committing a crime by looking at my bare body. These southerners have rules I’ve never heard of before. It makes me smile.
Leaning back on her elbows, she says, “You can use our airport. I came to tell you that. Not because you always get what you want, but because it’s a sound business decision. My dad is clearing out hangar five for you. If you need more space than that, let us know. I’m sure three would work as well, though that one is a little closer to my house than I’d like.”
“Yes!” I exclaim, jumping in the air. When I land, Caroline startles and then gasps. “Excellent. Thank you,” I say, my enthusiasm surprising both of us. Maybe because it took more convincing than I thought it would, maybe because I count any victory as something to be celebrated.
“Don’t kill me, dear Lord in heaven, you about scared me to death. You can sign the paperwork the next time you’re over my way.” She pulls her feet from the water and perches her heels at the edge of the dock and hugs her knees up to her chest.
Sitting next to her, I scoot until my wetsuit-covered leg brushes against hers. “Aren’t we going to your house right now?” Almost every day ends at her house. It’s become an unspoken routine. “I was going to put up the lighting fixture in the living room area.” I started following her around to convince her, sexually, into giving us the airport. It was a challenge, and this is such a small town there really wasn’t much else to do. As I got to know her better, it turned into something elseentirely. A friendship founded on opposites. “It was the last thing that needed to be done. I need to finish it.” It’s the hanging chad of house projects, and I’ve taken more ownership of her place than I had any right to, but it’s given me something I didn’t know I needed. Companionship.
Caroline shakes her head and turns her face my way. “We’re going out tonight. I owe you one real date, remember? Then you can be free of me. No more doing me any favors to win my good graces. You sign, and the deal is finished. We’ll be business partners at the airport, but I’ll stay out of your way, and you’ll stay out of mine.”
Pride is an awful thing. Right now, it keeps me from demanding a friendship and her attention. It’s also what won’t allow me to give up. “You’re going out on a date with me?” I ask.
She brushes her long, wind-tangled hair out of her face and juts her chin into the breeze. “One drink,” she replies, cheeks blushing.
“I do have a question for you, though,” I say loudly, trying to get her full attention. Caroline makes a “hmm” noise and crosses one tan leg over the other. “Did you know this entire time you were going to agree to the airport terms?” What I’m really trying to determine is if she’s so stubborn she’d wait until the last possible moment to give in to my demands.
With one hand behind her head, holding her hair into a makeshift ponytail, and the other holding her flip-flops, she walks by me, my sheer size forcing her to brush against my body to get around me. “I didn’t know what I was going to do.” I hear the lie in her tone. She goes on,telling me different reasons for her hesitation, but I don’t hear the truth in any of them.
While her back is to me, I pull the wetsuit down my hips and bend over to get it down off my legs and feet. When I’m bare but for the tiny, black speedo I wear under the suit, I say, “Admit it, you just wanted to watch me work on your house.”
Dropping her flip-flops, she whips around so fast that her hair has to catch up, her face a mask of anger. Then her blue gaze dips to the lower half of my body. Slack-jawed and wide-eyed, her temper rises. “You know that’s not the truth. I told you I didn’t need your help.” Stabbing a finger in my direction, she tries and fails not to look at my body. It’s not her fault, I’m taking up all the space in front of her. I hold my hands out to the sides and let them fall. Water laps against the dock, and a seagull cries off in the distance. Caroline swallows hard. “I guess that answersmyquestion,” she whispers under her breath. “What’s under the kilt? What’s under the wetsuit? Valid questions I never knew I’d know the answers to.”
I laugh, flexing my pecs and shoulders to make myself appear even larger. “You have something else to wear out, right?” Caroline stutters, forcing a reason for her blatant appraisal.
“Do you?” I return, nodding toward her body—the wet spot on her shorts I created.
She looks down, confused. “I didn’t plan on changing my clothes, why?” She walked into my trap.
Stepping forward, I enter her space and lean down somy lips brush the curve of her ear. “You’re wet, Caroline. Shouldn’t we take care of that?” I swallow and slide my face into her neck, barely touching her warm, sweet skin. With my lips barely brushing her collarbone, I feel her pulse and can taste her breaths. I’m rapt in my game, so entrenched in my thoughts of fucking and tasting and having this woman as my own that I forget where we are.
She doesn’t jump away from my touch, the reaction I expect. Caroline eats it up, leaning into my chest with the faltering grace of a woman undone, a woman who craves the touch of something destructive and powerful.
“Hey, fucking Phelps! Take that shit home! Not on my dock!” Leif calls out from the doorway of the office. I don’t pull away, not from something that feels this good after a month of keeping her at arm’s length. Caroline startles at the disturbance and pushes away from me but leaves one palm flat on my flexed stomach, her fingers curling into my skin.
At her absolute mortification, I heap some more on top. “Your shorts are wet, Caroline. Do you want to change?”
A little line appears in between her eyes, and she works her bottom lip with her teeth. “Oh. Oh, of course that’s what you meant,” she says, dropping her hand to the wet spot, taking another step away from me. “They’ll dry. I’ll be fine. Get changed, and we’ll go then?” she says, looking over her shoulder to see Leif smiling, waving his hand in the air like a Southern mama greeting her child. Cringing, she waves back and stoops to pick upher flip-flops. In a town full of water-loving individuals, I shouldn’t be surprised by the amount of flip-flop wearing, but it’s even worse here than in San Diego, and it’s year round summer there. “I’ll wait for you up there,” she mumbles, pointing toward an overhang by our office. “I have to trade this thing in for my driver’s license anyway.”
I stare at her, narrowing my eyes, as I realize what’s happening. It’s utterly mad she assumes I was talking about hershorts. I could stop her now, take her body into my arms and kiss the shit out of her, let her feel my hard cock straining to get free, but I don’t. That would be me, but now, more than ever, I’m convinced it’s definitely not her.
This will be more entertaining anyhow.
“I’ll meet you at the guard shack,” I say, heading inside to grab my bag, doubtful she heard me over the quick pace of her walk of shame. I shower quickly, rinsing my body of the salt water, and make a round of shampoo all over my body for good measure. When I’m dressed in jeans, a black tee, and flip-flops, I go to meet Caroline.
Her laugh is loud and gleeful, and I hear it before I see her. Leif is leaning against the guard station, one arm tucked behind his head. Three other guys are standing around her, their lips in varied degrees of smiles. The heat wraps my body, both from my jealousy and from the humidity in the air. Caroline is talking with her hands, shifting from one bare foot to the other. Her blonde hair hangs down her back and skims the top of her jean shorts. Anytime she raises her arms, tan skin plays peek-a-boo,and every one of those bastards sees it too. My pace falters when I get close enough to hear the last statement thrown Caroline’s way.
“Consider yourself one of the wonders of the world. Tahoe has left every single woman he’s ever been with. You must be something special,” Aidan says, running his eyes down her legs and back up again. “Or something even better than special,” he finishes after his appraisal.
“Better,” Leif adds on a second before his eyes flick up to meet mine. The sound of the ocean drowned out my approach. His eyes widen. These assholes are easily blinded by distracting beauty. Caroline’s back stiffens, and she takes a small step away from their semi-circle of testosterone and hard dicks.
