Saved by the SEALs: A Military Reverse Harem Romance Page 11

  “That’s what every girl likes to hear,” I teased, but it did turn me on. It was tempting to yank my pants down, to feel his thick shaft fill me from behind…

  “Some other time,” I said, putting a hand on his to make him stop stroking himself.

  “Aww, okay,” he said, words growing more slurry with every passing second.

  I had a few seconds of relaxation before I began processing what had happened. The CLF had planted a bomb in their apartment. We had almost been killed.

  I had almost been killed. Me, a measly grad student.

  Hunter’s warm embrace helped to keep me from dissolving into a shivering puddle of a human as I thought about my brush with death. If I hadn’t remembered that I’d told Aina their apartment location during my interrogation we might have gone inside before they detonated it. We would be dead, blown into a thousand pieces.

  I’d nearly gotten us killed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, because I needed to say it out loud. “I told the CLF about your apartment.”

  He made a sound like a steam pipe bursting. “It’s all good, baby. If they were already watching us at the club, they might’ve found the apartment anyway.”

  Having him hold me reminded me of the bomb going off, how he’d thrown me to the ground and covered me with his body. Protecting me from the blast.

  “You saved me.”

  “Umm, duh,” he breathed into my neck.

  “You didn’t hesitate or think about it or anything.”

  “Didn’t need to think.”

  I twisted on the couch until I was facing him. His eyes were closed, and I kissed him like the grateful person I was. He woke enough to kiss me back, his hand pressing against my shoulder blade to keep me close to him. All the terror of the near-death experience disappeared, as if his warm lips were sucking them out of my soul. When he finally grinned at me I felt like a new woman.

  “Less kissy, more cuddly,” he said.

  “I can’t say no to that.”

  I twisted back around and snuggled into his body.

  The door opened five minutes later, but instead of Cairo’s golden face it was Logan’s harsh expression that greeted us.

  “What the fuck is Cairo doing with Ariel out in the cafe?”

  “Ariel?” I asked, twisting away from Hunter and planting my feet. Hunter reached to try to pull me back down. “Is Ariel the barista?”

  “Ariel is his M4A1 assault rifle.”

  “Named it after his first crush,” Hunter mumbled behind me. “Ariel from The Little Mermaid.”

  I would have laughed at how ridiculous that was, if not for the circumstances.

  “Well?” Logan demanded. “Someone want to tell me what in Francisco Franco’s ghost is going on here?”

  Hunter was already dozing off, so I sighed and caught Logan up to speed. He crossed his muscular arms over his huge chest and listened, the scowl on his face deepening with every word.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said. “How did they know the location of the bunk apartment?”

  The question wasn’t for me—he was just thinking out loud. But in this case, I knew the answer.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “It was my fault. I told Aina the address when I thought she was with Interpol.”

  Logan’s jaw tightened and the look in his green eyes turned angry. “Would’ve been good to know when we talked about it earlier.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I waited for him to berate me more, but instead he shoved a grocery bag at my chest.

  “Here’s your clothes. I think I got everything.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Were you followed back here?”

  Hunter mumbled, “Followed here by a hottie named Karen. LC, you shoulda seen the ass on this girl…”

  Logan rolled his eyes.

  I smirked at Hunter and then said, “Cairo drove around the block half a dozen times.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  I shrugged. “He didn’t think anyone followed us. But he’s out there with his… Ariel. So I don’t know how sure he is.”

  Logan pulled something out of his pocket. “I’m going to be the nicest guy in the world and let you have this.”

  He tossed a glass and metal rectangle at me. “My phone!”

  “Your roommate picked it off the beach when you were kidnapped. I checked to make sure you didn’t have any apps transmitting GPS data.” He raised a finger. “But my benevolence comes with a condition. You have to promise you won’t go calling your friends and family and God knows who else.”

  “I promise,” I said. I meant it, too. I’d do anything to keep at least some connection to the outside world. I found an outlet next to the couch and fished my phone charger out of my bag. Just like at my apartment, I had to wiggle the plug in the phone to get it to begin charging. Maybe some sand had gotten stuck in the connector when I dropped it on the beach.

  “How is she?” I asked. “Linda, I mean?”

  “Shaken up. Typical college girl. No offense.” Before I could scold him about how I was handling it well, he said, “Speaking of that, your apartment was trashed.”

  “I know. The Barcelona police raided it while I was being interrogated by you at the station.” I gave a start. “Shouldn’t you have known that?”

  “No,” he said, with an annoyed look on his face. Annoyed at something else, not me. “It wasn’t the police who raided your apartment this morning. It was the Catalan Liberation Front.”

  21

  Logan

  Linda, to put it lightly, had been a fucking mess.

  When I showed up at the apartment, she thought I was there to kill her. Went running back into her bedroom screaming, begging for her life like a duckling cornered by a mean dog. It had taken me 20 minutes to convince her that Karen was safe, that I was one of the good guys, and that nobody was going to hurt her.

  And then when she did come out of her bedroom, she was hysterical about Karen’s well-being. I had to lie to her and pretend like it was me and my guys who picked her up on the beach, because there was no way I was telling her the truth about the CLF. Not this fragile piece of glass.

  It took me 30 minutes to get all the information I needed out of her. She’d reported Karen as kidnapped to the Barcelona Police Department—who rolled their eyes at her wild story of being nabbed right off the beach in a helicopter in the middle of the day. Then she called Karen’s family and left them a voicemail telling them what had happened. Our S2 Intel Officer was currently taking care of all of that, but it was still more loose ends. Never a good thing in this business, especially since we were already trying to keep Karen’s involvement in our little team hush-hush.

  What a fucking mess. And that didn’t even bring up the state of their apartment…

  It definitely wasn’t Barcelona PD who trashed it. I even called to verify, though I was certain I was right. It’s a damn good thing we’d picked up Karen for questioning during brunch or she might’ve been kidnapped and taken to the warehouse sooner than we expected. If that had happened before we had all the intel on the CLF movements…

  Christ. Who knows what would’ve happened to her?

  I gazed at the young grad student and hoped my face didn’t give away any of my thoughts. She was so young, and naive, and beautiful. It made me shiver that anything might have happened to her. She was our responsibility, trusting us to keep her safe from the CLF separatists, and we’d almost blown it right after taking her under our wing.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t think about that now. Eyes forward.

  I nodded at Hunter. “How’s he look so bad while Cairo and you are barely scratched?”

  “We were closer to the door.”

  “We?” I looked her up and down. Her legs—ridiculously long legs, like a goddamn Barbie—were covered in a layer of dust, and her loose beach blouse was torn near the shoulder, but I couldn’t find any sign of her being near an explosion.

  “Hunter p
rotected me from the explosion,” she said, her soft cheeks darkening as she blushed. “He covered me with his body.”

  I clicked my tongue against my teeth. “Well isn’t that goddamn adorable?”

  “Adorable…” Hunter mumbled, eyes fluttering. Finally they opened wide and locked onto me. “Hiya, LC. I had a dream about you.”

  “I never want to hear those words come out of your mouth again,” I said with a smile, “and that’s a direct fucking order.”

  His hand flashed and smacked Karen on the butt. “Karen’s taking good care of me.” He fell apart into a fit of giggles. “Get it? Karen taking good care of me. Why aren’t you laughing? I’m hilarious, bro.”

  “So funny,” Karen said sarcastically.

  I put my hand on Karen’s shoulder. Her skin felt red hot to the touch. “We’re going to need to get out of here soon. You’ll want to change into something better for movement—your sneakers are in the bag too. I’m going to see if I can get some plain-clothes police down here to help us cover our exit, and then we’ll—”

  The sound of gunfire popped in the other room. It was an unmistakable sound to a SEAL, or to any other soldier or sailor, for that matter. Cairo’s M4A1 barking once, then a three shot burst, then two more individual shots.

  “Hey LC,” Hunter said, a confused look on his face. “I think we’re under attack.”

  I darted to the equipment locker and opened the one that housed my rifle. “God fucking damnit. You two stay in here.”

  “What’s happening?” Karen asked, eyes wide with fear.

  “I’m gonna find out. Just make sure he doesn’t try to grab a weapon. If you need to distract him, don’t be afraid to get naked.”

  “Well I do have to change…”

  I loaded my rifle, hesitated, then threw on a bulletproof vest from another locker. Then I slipped out of our command center and waited for the door to hiss shut behind me.

  The sound of Cairo’s rifle was an order of magnitude louder out here, CRACK, CRACK, then suddenly CRACKCRACKCRACK. I found him sprawled across the top of a booth by the window, his rifle aimed between the window and the blinds.

  “I swear nobody followed us,” Cairo said without taking his eyes off the sights. “I’m positive, LC.”

  “Doesn’t matter now. Who’s Ariel talking to?”

  “Truck of hostiles across the street. SMGs and small arms only. Haven’t seen any grenades yet, but…”

  He paused to fire three individual shots.

  “I’ve got them pinned at the alley.” He glanced over. “We’ve got to get Karen and Hunter out of here.”

  I itched to join him at the window and squeeze off a few in the direction of those CLF assholes. But commanding didn’t always mean fighting.

  “Keep them pinned down while I call for some support to help us get out of here.”

  “I’ll try,” Cairo said, “but as soon as they figure out the alley leads around behind the bakery over there we’re gonna have to—”

  Gunfire across the street was our only warning before the windows of the cafe shattered, blinds flying inward from the impact of a hail of automatic fire. I threw myself onto my belly and watched the impacts strafe across the front of the cafe, left, then right, then left again. Cairo had rolled off the window to the ground, back against the booth cushion and head ducked while he waited.

  “I think they figured it out,” he said when there was a pause in the onslaught.

  “God damnit.”

  I got up and crouch-ran across the cafe while the coast was clear—they couldn’t see anything inside thanks to the blinds, but one stray bullet was all it would take to make my day go from bad to worse. I slid the rest of the way on my knees to take cover behind the bar, then aimed my rifle across the surface at the front door.

  “Give ‘em another spray and fall back with me.”

  “Roger that.”

  Cairo reloaded and then moved to a new window, using the barrel of Ariel to push aside the blinds. He let loose a fully automatic stream of bullets, then took off running toward me.

  It was tempting to fire a few rounds through the windows of the front door in case any of them chose that moment to charge us, but I couldn’t see shit, and there was a risk of civilian casualties we couldn’t take. I settled for staring down my sights and waiting for a target to burst through the front door.

  None did.

  The moment Cairo had the door to the command center open I fell back with him. The door sealed behind us, and then everything was eerily quiet.

  Karen had changed into jeans and a t-shirt. Her eyes were wide and waiting for me to tell her what the plan was.

  Christ, I want to tell her everything is going to be okay.

  I felt an intense responsibility for the poor girl. Like she was a sexy little puppy who had followed me home, and now looked up to me for help. A guy could drown in those eyes of hers, staring back from her heart-shaped face. I could see why Hunter and Cairo had risked everything by taking her home.

  I’ve got to keep her safe. That was the most important thing. Even more important than our actual mission, as crazy as that seemed.

  “We’re leaving,” I said.

  “Did you kill all of them?” she asked.

  I motioned for Cairo to help Hunter up. He still looked drugged, but hopefully he would be able to move quickly.

  “Remember the door I told you not to open?” I said.

  Her eyes swung over to it. “Cairo said we’d only open it if we were fucked.”

  I punched in the 16 digit code into the electronic pad. “Well, we’re fucked.”

  I threw it open.

  22

  Karen

  Logan threw open the door. The we’re totally fucked if we need it door. And he did so without hesitation.

  “Oh no,” I whispered.

  All I saw was darkness within. Cairo had an arm around Hunter and was leading him there while he complained about not having his weapon, though the slur in his words was evidence that handing him a firearm was a bad idea. Logan waved them through. They disappeared within seconds of entering.

  “Well?” he said. “If you’d rather wait for the CLF…”

  I grabbed my bag of belongings and rushed inside without another thought.

  I was in a tunnel. It narrowed rapidly until it was half the width of the door, and then continued forward. The light from the command center dimmed and soon I was walking blind, praying I didn’t suddenly come to a drop-off.

  Moments later Cairo’s flashlight flicked on. The cone of light swung back and forth in a way that made me dizzy. I realized it was attached to his rifle, which was slung across his back. Seconds after that the door closed behind us, and then the light on Logan’s rifle bathed my immediate area in light.

  “Keep moving,” he hissed at me.

  I followed the strobe-light forms of Cairo and Hunter deeper into the tunnel. I couldn’t be certain but it felt like it sloped downward. I clutched my bag to my chest and my elbows brushed against the walls, which seemed like they were carved directly into stone. Occasionally a sharp edge stuck out and scraped my arm.

  Up ahead, Hunter was telling knock-knock jokes to Cairo. Hunter’s laughter echoed strangely in the cramped space.

  We walked for several minutes, then longer. I moved my bag of clothes to my other hand and checked my phone. There was no cell signal down here, but it showed me the time. My calves began to cramp from walking in the slight decline, then stopped aching when the tunnel leveled out.

  We walked for 25 minutes before I finally asked, “How much longer do we have to go?”

  Logan shushed me, as if someone could possibly hear us down here. But I didn’t want to push it, so I said nothing.

  We walked for another 10 minutes before the tunnel began sloping upward. At the lead, Cairo and Hunter seemed encouraged by the incline and began shuffling faster.

  The tunnel narrowed vertically. Hunter had to duck his head, and then they were crawling on the
ir knees. Thank goodness I wasn’t claustrophobic or having to wedge my shoulders through the last bit would have given me a panic attack.

  A rectangle of light opened, and the two SEALs ahead of me fell through. I followed without question.

  My feet came down on a tile floor. Everything was too bright. I blinked until my eyes adjusted. We were in an open kitchen, the kind in an apartment. I spun around and looked at the tunnel: it was built into a cabinet next to the stove, with a false back. Logan pushed his rifle ahead, then crawled out like a boy emerging from a McDonald’s playpen.

  “God damnit!” a man shouted, footsteps drawing closer from the hall. Logan rolled his eyes as the man paused in the doorway to the kitchen. He looked like George from Seinfeld, chubby and bald, with a face that was red with anger. He gestured at the SEALs like they were vermin he’d caught in a trap.

  “I knew you idiots would be showing up the moment I heard the police scanner.” He had a thick Long Island accent, totally out of place with the exotic Spanish accents I was used to.

  Logan pushed himself to his feet. “Nice to see you too, Jack.”

  The man—Jack—grumbled and bent down to the secret cabinet, reaching inside the door and pressing a button I couldn’t see. A metal door that looked like it could withstand a nuclear blast slid down to block the entrance. Additional sounds deeper in the tunnel were probably successive doors slamming closed in the tunnel, blocking it off from anyone who might follow us.

  “We had no choice,” Logan said.

  Jack rounded on him, surprisingly spry for a man of his shape. “Sure you did. You could’ve died.”

  Hunter leaned against the counter. “Aww, Jack. You don’t mean that.”

  “Sure I do. I like my assignment in Barcelona more than I like you.” He stomped out of the kitchen, his voice carrying back to us from a distant room. “Three years as a sleeper agent in the most beautiful city in the world. My dream job. And you three had to ruin it!”

  Logan rolled his eyes again.