Zulu, page 9
“He fired at the widow and missed,” Alpha corrected.
Fuck this. “I’m not going to argue semantics with you, Alpha. We can’t leave her completely exposed. I don’t give a shit if she’s our client or not, this isn’t how we operate. The Teams, AES, I don’t care how you fucking spin it, we took an oath. Honor and heritage, defend those who are unable to defend themselves.” I quoted the SEAL Ethos, reminding him who the hell we were. “We all saw Kostas lose his shit. He’ll go after her again. He fucking threatened it. Before he got back on his chopper, he said this wasn’t over. Not to mention whatever deal Konstantinos struck with her father that could still make her a target. And what about her parents’ plane crash? Has anyone looked into that?”
Alpha sighed. Then he let slip a pertinent fucking detail that not only reminded me of exactly how connected he was, but why I stayed the fuck out of the inner workings of this business and stuck to flying and client meet and greets.
“I already had a conversation with Vincenzo.” Alpha paused a beat to let me know that this was a done deal. “The widow won’t be bothered again.”
Equally pissed off and relieved, I wasn’t stupid enough to argue that point because if a Sicilian mafia boss said you were untouchable, you were fucking untouchable. I was man enough to admit it was good for her. But I didn’t let it go. “She could still be in danger. I’m not getting off this boat tonight.”
“November?” Alpha clipped, both asking for his input and using the tone I’d heard enough times to know that Alpha had already looped November in on all the backdoor dealings of this clusterfuck.
“Santorini International’s on its night shift skeleton crew and refueling queue is backed up. I’ll send a car to pick up Victor and Echo and have them brought to you. I’ll let the Solace’s captain know to stay at his current heading and cruising speed. By oh seven hundred, the Solace will be seventy-eight nautical miles southwest of Athens, passing Milos. Pick Zulu up on your way back, and we’ll make our prescheduled departure time out of Athens.”
“Good copy,” Alpha replied to November. “Zulu, oh seven hundred.” He hung up.
Motherfucker. “November, you still there?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not dropping this.” I pushed off the railing and turned, catching the woman looking at me.
November paused. Then he gave me what I wanted to hear. “I’ll keep working the trail.”
With the widow still staring at me, I acknowledged November. “Appreciate it.” A hell of a lot more than I should, I liked this woman’s eyes on me.
“She comes from a different culture,” November abruptly stated.
Keeping my gaze on the gorgeous woman, I moved toward the slider door and opened it. “Meaning?”
November paused. Then he did two things he never did. He issued me a warning and used my real name. “Don’t mess with her, Zane.”
Stepping inside, I closed the door behind me. “Wasn’t planning on it.” I already knew she wasn’t the type of woman you fucked then walked away from.
“Oh seven hundred,” November reminded me.
“Copy that.” I hung up and went right for the woman, but not before I noticed what was on the bar.
She’d moved her cell phone.
Testing her, not giving her time to divert, hell, doing what I’d wanted to for hours, I leaned down and kissed her cheek. Then I dropped my voice and hovered near her ear as her intoxicating scent made my dick hard. “This isn’t sitting, beautiful.” Standing back up, I grabbed the drinks, put my hand on her back and nodded toward her fancy fucking couches. “Shall we?”
Silently walking with only a fraction more steadiness than before, she took a seat.
Sitting next to her, I handed her one of the drinks, then held up my glass. “To calm seas.”
“To calm seas,” she repeated.
Wondering who the hell she’d called, I took a swallow of expensive scotch.
Parisa
Drinking his Lagavulin, his gaze locked on mine, I knew he noticed I’d moved my phone, but he wasn’t saying anything.
I knew this trick.
I’d used it myself.
Remain silent and other people usually filled the void. Except there wasn’t a void between us.
His large, muscular thighs stretching the confines of his pants, his gun holstered under his suit jacket, the veins in his strong hands rippled like a current as he swirled his glass once, then drank again.
There wasn’t anything close to a void between us.
There was a heated awareness and a vibrating hum that had nothing to do with the Solace’s engines. Hot, like the sun-drenched warmth of the sundeck on a bright day—it felt alive and close and strong enough to burn you if you stayed still for too long.
I wanted to get up and run—from him, from this electrified, heart-racing, tingling sensation that was crawling all over my bare skin.
Except I couldn’t.
This yacht, my home, it was what I had run to. It was supposed to be my haven.
But having this man sitting next me, in the most private space I’d ever had in my life, it made me more uncomfortable than an estate in Piraeus where I’d spent two years married to a stranger.
As if I were broadcasting my thoughts, he tipped his chin at my glass and gave me a quieter version of his deep voice. “Stop thinking and drink, sweetheart.”
I took a sip of the fiery liquid.
The distinctive peaty burn I had never developed a taste for slid down my throat, leaving a scratchy wake I couldn’t undo with another sip, but I tried anyway. The second swallow, no more comfortable than the last, rushed to my stomach like a smoldering blaze. The scotch, much like the dominant man next to me staring unwaveringly, made me light-headed.
One of his eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch. “Better?”
The ship underway, the extravagant cabin insulating me from reality, I didn’t lie. “No.”
He gave me a crisp, precise single nod, as if he understood. Then, before I could anticipate what he was doing, he reached with one arm, grasped behind my crossed ankles and lifted my legs to his thigh.
The move so shocking and sudden and unlike any way a man had ever touched me, I gasped.
Forced to either lean back and turn toward him or risk spilling my drink as I gave him an involuntary view of my black lace La Perla underwear, I choose the former.
Tightening my hold on my glass, I pressed my knees together, then I did something I had never, ever done. I let myself sink into my soft Italian leather sofa.
As quickly as he’d lifted my legs, he grasped first one, then the other of my Louboutins and pulled them off by the heel.
Then his huge palm covered my still-crossed ankles, and his long fingers caressed the arch of my feet. “How about now?”
My breath short, my heart in my throat, a painful pulse tightened deep in my core. I forced myself to swallow and prayed my voice came steady. “That was forward.”
His stark gaze locked on me, he didn’t smile. “I’m a forward kind of man.”
My voice dropped to a whisper. “What are you doing?”
“Having a drink with a beautiful widow.”
One word and the reality of my day, my life, it flooded back in like a rushing tide. Then, because he went there, I took it further. “Are you married?”
“I wouldn’t be holding your sexy legs on my lap with a drink in my hand if I were.”
I foolishly wanted to believe him. Not about the married part, he did not wear a ring, but the integrity part, the honor. All of the men I had known personally in my life—my father, my uncle, Konstantinos—none of them were deterred by a wedding band and a slip of paper.
The SEAL frowned. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not good.”
Shifting my gaze to my drink so I could surreptitiously watch his hand on my skin, I took another small sip. “I thought I was less transparent than that.”
“I’m trained to see past people’s defenses. Tell me why my last statement bothered you.”
I took another sip. Then I gave him the truth. “I have never known a faithful man.”
“You didn’t know me.”
I looked up at him. “I don’t know you at all.”
“I want to know you.” As if to prove his declaration, his strong fingers kneaded the underside of my foot.
My heart jumped, gooseflesh raced across my skin, and my inhale was sharp as I bit back a moan. “No, you don’t.”
“Why?”
His assertive grip on me, his tone unwavering, his sheer size and presence so dominating I could taste it—his single word issued with the authority of a command, he was not merely asking a question, he was giving an order.
One I was going to ignore.
Not responding, chasing another sip of fire, I focused on the dark ocean seamlessly casting by as if the Solace were not cutting through the current, but rather the earth was moving around her beam.
Increasing the pressure, his fingers rubbed deep into both my flesh and soul. “That’s not going to work with me, sweetheart. Answer the question.”
I brought my glass to my lips. “Why? Because you commanded it?”
“No, because you want to,” he stated definitively.
My eyes cut to his, and I had to force myself to say what I should instead of what I wanted to say. “You are mistaken.”
For three full heartbeats, he searched my face. Then he did exactly what he said he was trained to do to. He saw past my defenses. “Despite your distrust of everyone around you, including your crew, you want to trust me. You watched me all night, you made the conscious decision to approach, you waited for the exact moment when you felt like no one was watching, and you brought the weight of your problem to my shoulders. Do you know why you did that?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Because you knew I would handle it. You knew I’d get you safely on this boat, and you knew I’d protect you.” He paused, holding me hostage in his knowing gaze. Then he lowered his voice to an unmistakable tone of intimacy. “You chose me, sweetheart. That is a form of trust.”
Fear coated every fiber of my being, and I tried to pull my feet away. “I trust no one.”
His grip tightened. “I’m going to change that.”
“You can’t.”
“Can and will, but just to be clear, I’m only talking about your trust of me. By never giving you a reason to doubt me, I’ll earn it. Then you’ll have one person you can trust without reservation.”
“Why would you do that?”
For a long moment, he said nothing. He studied me in that way he had done before, with his stark, almost translucent hazel-eyed gaze roaming over my face, as if searching for answers in my mind that even I myself was not aware of.
Then he spoke with an honesty that felt as real and as stark as his gaze. “I’m leaving at oh seven hundred on a helo transport, and there won’t be a goddamn thing I can do to personally protect you once I get off this boat. But if you trust me, then you’ll feel safe coming to me with a problem. And that, beautiful, is the only way I’ll be able to sleep at night while you’re out here, floating on the damn ocean alone.”
Zulu
Alarm spread across her face a split second before panic set in, and she was moving. Sitting up, trying to pull her legs back, she bled anxiety.
Then she gutted me. “I trust no one.”
My grip on her tightened, and that was it. I had a new goddamn mission. “I’m going to change that.” This woman was going to trust me if it was the last thing I did.
“You can’t.”
She should know better than to tell a SEAL they couldn’t do something. “Can and will, but just to be clear, I’m only talking about your trust of me.” I was already possessive of this woman. “By never giving you a reason to doubt me, I’ll earn it. Then you’ll have one person you can trust without reservation.”
“Why would you do that?”
Her question weighted, I didn’t answer immediately.
I’d been on the Teams. I knew trust. I also knew what it was like to have the ground ripped out from under you. That shit destroyed trust. Once that happened, words held no value. I couldn’t just tell this woman I was a man of my word.
I’d have to prove it.
Already mentally going over my AES schedule for the next couple weeks, prioritizing so I could shuffle assignments, I laid it out. “I’m leaving at oh seven hundred on a helo transport, and there won’t be a goddamn thing I can do to personally protect you once I get off this boat. But if you trust me, then you’ll feel safe coming to me with a problem. And that, beautiful, is the only way I’ll be able to sleep at night while you’re out here, floating on the damn ocean alone.”
Staring at me with her gorgeous dark eyes, she tried to hide it, but I saw both the shock and mistrust in her expression as her legs tensed on my lap. “I am not alone.”
Technically, she was right, but I wasn’t talking about her damn crew or the fact that there was no way in hell I was going to walk away from this woman now. “Don’t feed me a line, sweetheart.” I wanted her trust. But she had to earn mine too. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve seen you interact with half your crew, and I’ve seen how they handle an emergency situation.” Not fucking well. “You’re not protected the way you need to be out here.”
“That is not the same thing as being alone, and I disagree with your assessment.”
First Alpha, now her. Fucking semantics. “It’s not an assessment. It’s a professional recommendation based on experience and your circumstances. It’s also a personal request. I want to put a two-man security detail on this boat with you.” Men I trusted. “They’ll rotate in twelve-hour shifts. You won’t even know they’re aboard.”
“No.”
“Parisa—”
“I said no.”
I fucking stared at her.
I wasn’t going to argue my case or waste what little time I had with her dicking around the facts. But I was going to be honest. “If another emergency situation like tonight comes up, I have confidence in exactly one member of your crew, and that’s Levi.” Solomon had decent aim, but he didn’t take the kill shot like Levi had. “You need to understand that one sharpshooter isn’t going to hold the line against a hostile helo landing full of armed men.”
“Tonight was not the norm.” She averted her eyes. “It was an exception.”
“Was it?” I didn’t need her to answer the damn question, I was making a point. “For now, Alpha used back channels to get Kostas to stand down, but I can’t confirm how long that will last. You still haven’t given me the whole picture. I don’t know what kind of deal Taralas struck with your father, and I have no idea how much danger you could be in because of it. Trust goes both ways, sweetheart. I want you to be safe on this boat, and believe me, I’m going to have a conversation with your crew before I leave. But if you don’t tell me what’s really going on, I can’t help you beyond that.”
For a long moment, she was quiet.
Then her dark-eyed gaze landed on me, and she handed me my ass. “While I can appreciate that your line of work affords you a certain level of privilege akin to an attorney-client confidentiality agreement, I would not presume that in this instance, despite your willingness to spend a night on my yacht in the name of security with neither a contract nor verbal agreement, that it affords you the latitude to ask such a personal question.”
Fucking schooled, I reined in anger that was my own damn fault. I also recognized everything she’d just said for exactly what it was—a defensive position. I wanted a taste of this woman so damn bad before I had to bug out, just one goddamn taste, because I knew it would be explosive. I also selfishly wanted her thinking about me from the second I stepped on the helo until I saw her next, because I was going to see this woman again, no matter what it fucking took. But I realized my misstep.
I’d pushed too hard, too fast.
Retreating half a damn step, I lifted her legs off my lap and dialed back my tone. “You’re not a client, and I’m not here as paid security. I’m here because I want to be.” Taking her drink, I set it down before stretching my arm along the back of couch and brushing her hair aside to grasp the back of her neck. Then I issued her an order backed by concern but reinforced by my hand. “You’re tired, sweetheart. Go catch some sleep. I’m on watch.” I stroked the side of her neck, then let her go. “You’ll be safe in your suite. I won’t let anything happen to you tonight.”
Inhaling sharply, she tried to hide a shiver as her gaze cut to the dark ocean. She clasped her hands but didn’t get up. “When will you sleep?”
My laugh was tired but full of the fucking irony of life. “When I’m dead.”
She turned to look at me. “That is not funny.”
I sobered. “Death is a part of life.” I’d made my peace with that a long time ago.
She dropped the tone she used with her crew. “You are not afraid to die?”
“No.” But I did want to live long enough to run my hand through her thick hair.
She blinked. Then she looked back out at the black night. “That is…unsettling.”
Finally seeing a glimpse of her true self, I pulled at the thread. “What do you personally find unsettling about it?” She’d been living it. Death was reality, and unsettling wasn’t a word someone in the throes of grief used.
She tried to sidestep. “I did not say this was personal.”
Whether she was aware of it or not, everything this woman said was personal. I held her to point. “You implied it, but trust me, I’m not judging. Most people find death a taboo subject matter, let alone an uncomfortable thought.”
“But you don’t.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “I was a SEAL, love.”
“So you are just…” She frowned, as if searching for the right words. “Comfortable with death?”
“No,” I corrected. “I’m realistic about it.” I’d seen too damn much of it not to be. I’d also be a fucking idiot if I thought it wasn’t coming for me. Especially in my career choice.
