Page 59 of Down and Dirty

“This is not a conversation we should be having in front of a child. Or your brother.”

“They can’t hear us back there. I had our whole day planned out.”

“I wager you did! How much of it would have been spent with me on my back on your mattress?”

“Actually, I have a checklist of all the ways and places we were gonna have sex, and only a few of them took place with you on your back.” He grinned at her.

“A checklist? Where is it?”

He tapped his head. “In here, baby. Wanna know what’s on my list?”

“Nay.”

“You on my lap in the vibrating La-Z-Boy. Me nailing you against the mirror on my closet door. On the kitchen table. You straddling a bench. On the deck. In the bathtub. At the top of the cargo net, back on the grinder. Here in the car. With your legs over my shoulders. With me bending over you, doggie style. Hanging from the chandelier.”

“Enough!” she said.

“Hey, I was just getting started.”

“You make my woman’s fleece get damp when you talk like that,” she hissed at him in an undertone.

Her words hit him right between the legs. Slam dunk! Erection. “Britta, you are priceless.”

“You should have taken me back to the base. I must needs prepare myself for this upcoming week. Even you have said it will be brutal.”

“Tomorrow’s gonna come soon enough, baby. And, yeah, last week was a piece of cake compared to what’s coming up.”

She groaned.

“The whole point is to weed out the weak ones. If a trainee, man or woman, can’t make it during these evolutions, they’ll never make it out in the field. I for sure wouldn’t want someone covering my back who’s gonna bail at the first sign of disaster.”

She nodded her understanding.

“I have been told all this afore. I am not going to drop out, Zachary. Where else would I go? And, nay, do not offer me a position as nursemaid for your son again. ’Tis not what I am trained to do.”

“Duly noted. Well, maybe I can give you some tips on surviving then. Number one, don’t call attention to yourself. Number two, take each step one at a time. There’s a famous Navy SEAL motto: ‘The only easy day was yesterday.’ It’s absolutely true, but you can’t allow yourself to think about what’s ahead, or you’ll give up. Number three, rest whenever you can. SEALs learn something called REM sleep, where they can sleep standing up, eyes open. Even if it’s only for five minutes at a time, it can energize you, get you over the next hump. Number four, make close friends with your buddies. The SEALs and WEALS are all about teamwork. You’re as strong as each one of you, but also as weak as any one of you. Number five, we’ve got to get you some private tutoring — reading, English, math, history — before someone discovers you’re not the missing Norse officer.”

Britta was grinning at him.

“What?”

“You make a good teacher.”

He grinned back. “Don’t you dare tell anyone that, or I’ll be stuck here on base forever.”

“You would rather be fighting?”

“Absolutely. There’s so much bad stuff happening in the world. The government needs every specially trained man to fight the good fight. The demand for SEALs far exceeds the supply.”

“Then why are you on the base?”

He motioned his head toward the backseat.

“Sammy?”

“Yep. I took him out of a foreign country illegally. His grandfather is a terrorist, and he wants him back. That’s why there will always be bodyguards around till this is resolved. It’s a world-class snafu.” He was glad she didn’t ask him what snafu meant, not sure she would appreciate situation normal all fucked up. He decided to lighten the subject. “Hey, you could be Sammy’s babysitter with an AK-47. Then I wouldn’t need any bodyguards, and you could utilize your fighting skills.”

“What is an achy-forty-seven?”