Page 30 of Down and Dirty

“Okaaaay. Not that I asked to, uh, tup you… lately.”

It is in your eyes even when you do not say the words, rogue. She disregarded his teasing words and continued, her flapping tongue out of control. “But… ”

“But? Oooh, but is a very tantalizing word. I think I’m gonna like this. But?”

She hesitated. Now she was really regretting having brought up the subject.

“You don’t want to get laid, but?”

Too late now. Best to finish what I have started. “But I want to have some of those… you know… things. And I thought mayhap you might recommend a man.”

“Why would I recommend a man for this, uh, thing? Why not me?”

“Oh, nay! Not you! Nay! I need a man with no feelings toward me. Not that you have feelings. I mean… oh, forget I brought up this subject.”

“Not on your life!”

Her face felt warm and not from the sun, especially since he stared at her with a mixture of confusion and anticipation.

“Okay, let’s back up this train, baby. You want me to recommend a man… for what things?”

“Multiple orgy-as-hims.”

“Do you mean orgasms?”

“’Tis what I said,” she snapped.

His grin turned into a full-blown, watch-yourself-wench smile.

MEMO

From: Captain Lenore Feldman

To: Commander Ian MacLean

Subject: WEALS

Women must wear good running bras.

Chapter 6

Come, fly away with me…

Zach was cruising along in his mint-condition red Firebird convertible.

The car had been a gift from his dad seven years ago when he’d gotten the trident pin denoting his acceptance into the hallowed ranks of Navy SEALs. An expensive gift, yeah, but then his father had just renewed his contract with the soap opera Light in the Storm for big bucks. In fact, he’d bought his brother, Danny, a frickin’ plane and his then-girlfriend a diamond the size of a golf ball.

His dad had many faults, but stinginess was not one of them. When Zach had come in third in the first race of his short-lived NASCAR career, before becoming a SEAL, the old man had given him a custom motorcycle that once belonged to Evel Knievel. His grandfather, on the other hand, who preferred to be called General and not Grandfather, was not miserly, but he believed in a much more austere, military lifestyle. His gift had been an antique gun. Then there was his grandmother, who considered herself the D.C. military hostess equivalent of Martha Stewart. She’d once given him, when he was in college, a set of Egyptian cotton sheets that he was afraid to sleep on because they cost as much as all the secondhand furniture in his apartment. He still had the blasted things. His ever-stylish mother gave him silk underwear and designer T-shirts and gift certificates for facials and pedicures. He’d like to see the day he showed up for a live op smelling of a strawberry facial peel and wearing clear polish on his toenails. When he’d told his mother just that, she’d shot back, “Your pores need a good cleaning, son, and your toenails are disgusting.”

Okaaaay! His mother never was one to be subtle.

But all that was beside the point.

He was driving in his spiffy Firebird over the Silver Strand that connected San Diego County, via Imperial Beach, with the Coronado peninsula. The weather was balmy on this early evening in September. The view was spectacular. It was Friday… enough said! Life should have been good.

But riding in back was a sulking He-Who-Thinks-He’s-Too-Big-for-a-Car-Seat, flanked by two laughing SEALs, Cage and JAM, who were egging the snot on. They were all packing heat, just in case Arsallah sent any goons their way.

“Why are you guys tagging along with me? Why aren’t you down at the Wet and Wild celebrating Wet T-shirt Friday?”