Her Mission With A Seal
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The trek was miserable. What solid ground they could find was saturated and spongy, giving way without warning beneath their feet, sinking them knee-deep in black muck and pitching them on their faces. Everybody took at least a few such spills.
Even when they remained upright, the going wasn’t great. They caught blowing tree limbs in the face, thorny brambles clutched at their bodies and backpacks, and bouts of driving rain pecked at them like angry crows. The only good news was that the gusty wind was mostly at their backs.
They jogged and rested, jogged and rested, for almost two hours. How Bastien was finding his way through the swampy bayou country, Cole had no idea. The rain was whipping around them now on fifty-mile-per-hour gusts, and the brief hint of dawn had faded into twilight gloom as the hurricane roared ashore. They had to find high ground and some sort of shelter before long, or they were going to be in deadly peril.
They jogged maybe another ten minutes before Bass veered suddenly to his right. They had to hack their way through a veritable wall of kudzu vines and brambles, but when they popped out the far side, Cole spotted what had made Bastien change course. A house. Or more accurately, a dilapidated-looking shack.
The one-story dwelling was raised on stilts that, as they approached the structure, turned out to be two dozen massive cypress pilings. The exterior badly needed a coat of paint, and rust from the metal roof stained the gray wood siding orange. But as they climbed the stairs to the wraparound porch, the building looked sturdier than his first impression. They might just survive the storm, yet.
Bass pounded on the front door loudly and long enough for them to be sure no one was inside. Ashe picked the door lock and dead bolt with quick efficiency, and in under a minute, they had all piled inside the cabin.
The dwelling was as rough inside as out with a log-framed couch sagging in front of a small wood-burning stove. What looked like handmade chairs and a crude table were tucked in one corner of the main room. A huge alligator skull hung on the wall above the stove. Cole would have hated to see the live beast it had come from. That gator had to have been twenty feet long or better.
A dilapidated stove and refrigerator flanked a rust-stained sink, and a few cabinets rounded out the kitchen corner.
Ashe called from down the short hall to their right, “All clear. One bedroom, one bathroom.”
“How hurricane-proof is this place?” Cole asked Bass.
“Windows could use some plywood or at least some boards over them. There’s no time to check out the roof. We’ll just have to hope it’s nailed down tight. The pilings look sturdy and they’ll take a fifteen-foot storm surge easy.”
“Is Jessamine forecast to surge that high?” Cole asked no one in particular.
Ashe, just returning to the main room, replied, “That’s right about what the forecast calls for. Fourteen to seventeen feet.”
Cole glanced back at Bass, who said grimly, “Lemme go out and take an exact measurement from the canal behind this place to the bottom of the porch.”
The door opened, and wind and rain howled inside until Bass wrestled the door shut once more. Meanwhile, Ashe moved over to the kitchen cabinets to poke around. “There’s some canned food in here. Should hold us for a few days.”
Nissa surprised Cole by speaking up. “Drinking water’s going to be the problem. The storm surge will bring in filthy, polluted salt water that no amount of purification will make drinkable.”
She had a point. Give the intelligence analyst credit for common sense on top of her book smarts.
She asked, “Is there a tub in the bathroom, Ashe?”
“Yes. A small one.”
“Let’s see if there’s running water,” she suggested. “If so, we need to sterilize the tub and fill it while we still can.”
Cole set Ashe to scrubbing the tub with a jug of bleach they found under the kitchen sink, while he went outside to check for a water well and possibly a pump for it.
He met Bass coming up the steps. “Seventeen feet, sir. That’s what this place can take before the house floods. Even with a lower surge than that, we may see wave action pushing some water inside.”
“Good to know. Any sign of a well and a water pump down there?”
“There’s a well. But the electricity’s already out. Pump won’t work.”
“Generator?” Cole asked.
“Maybe. Whoever owns this place has it decently stocked. There’s a shed, and that’s where I’d look for a generator. It’s locked, but we can break in and have a look around.”
They ended up using an axe they found sitting on a ledge over the shed door to break the rusty hasp and get inside. They didn’t find a generator, but they did spot a small lawn mower whose gasoline motor Bass thought he could jerry-rig to run the water pump. And they found a toolbox. Armed with a hammer and pocket full of nails, Cole scrounged under the house for pieces of scrap lumber that he hauled up to the porch and nailed across the windows. They weren’t as good as sheets of thick plywood, but they were better than nothing. The boards would break the worst of the wind pummeling the glass and should catch large pieces of flying debris.
He and Bass stumbled inside an hour later, wet, cold and exhausted. Construction in hurricane-force winds turned out to be strenuous stuff.
Ashe and Nissa had been busy inside, as well. They’d hauled in a big pile of firewood from the porch and stacked it beside the wood-burning stove, in which they had started a fire. Baked beans were heating in a pot atop it, and the sound of running water came from the bathroom, where Ashe poked his head out to announce that they should have enough water for several days. He’d also filled a dozen empty moonshine jugs he’d found with water for flushing the toilet.
As they pulled chairs around the wood-burning stove to warm and dry themselves, Nissa asked in a small voice, “Are we going to be safe here?”
She looked fearfully at Cole for an answer, and he replied, “This old place is sturdier than it looks. Jessamine won’t be its first hurricane.” He forced himself to give Nissa a smile in hopes that it would encourage her. “We’ll be fine. And even if something unexpected does happen, we’re SEALs. We take problems as they come and deal with them.”
They’d battened down the hatches in the nick of time, for within the next half hour, the winds outside rose from a roar to a howl and then to an ominous scream. The entire structure shook alarmingly, but it held.
For now.
Chapter 3
Nissa crawled into the only bed in the cabin at the unanimous insistence of the guys. They assured her they were perfectly comfortable sleeping on the floor. Cole set up a watch rotation for himself and his men, and then he urged her to get some sleep before the storm got bad.
This wasn’t bad? The walls shivered every time a big gust hit, and she shivered right along with the tiny cabin. The glass in the windows rattled, and she flinched every time something hit the boards nailed over them, sure that this was the time the window was going to shatter and let in the full fury of the storm.
What had she gotten herself into, volunteering for this insane mission? It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all! She was supposed to hang out with some super hot Navy SEALS and catch a notorious bad guy, thereby advancing her career, which was rapidly threatening to die of boredom in a beige cubicle. Although, she had gotten the super hot SEAL part of the deal. All of the men with her were extremely easy on the eye. But the one she couldn’t look away from was their leader.
Cole Perriman was totally hunkalicious. She’d tried really hard not to fantasize about crawling all over that spectacular physique and keep her mind on business, but it had been rough listening to the inbriefing he’d given her and his two guys. She kept getting distracted by how big and rugged he was, but how he had movie-star looks, too. He was a perfect blend of raw masculinity and sheer beauty.
Her friends back at Langley wouldn’t believe she got to work with him. She vowed before she headed back to Virginia to get a few pictures of him to show to the girls around the watercooler...and maybe to fantasize over when she returned to her bland, dull, colorless life.
The wind got so loud it hurt her ears, and it was relentless, moaning and roaring like nothing she’d ever heard before. She finally resorted to pulling the covers up over her head in a futile effort to block out the noise. And maybe she was also hiding like she had as a little girl, when monsters had come calling in the dark of her bedroom at night. She always had been a giant thunder-chicken.
As exhaustion overtook her body, her thoughts drifted, replaying the horror of the past twelve hours: sailing into the teeth of a hurricane, the nightmare climb aboard the Anna Belle, the frantic search for shelter as Jessamine roared ashore. She’d been so certain she was going to die a watery death, drowned at best and bashed to pieces by the stormy sea at worst.
When she finally fell asleep, it was no surprise she dreamed of water. Except in her dream, the ocean was not black and angry...
The sea was brilliant turquoise, light and warm and lazy, and she swam below the surface easily, breathing water. She swayed gently as surf rolled past overhead, untouched by the cheerfully churning surface of the sea.
Her hair drifted in pale wisps around her, and she was startled to realize she was naked. The sea caressed her body lovingly, and she felt safe. At home down here.
She became aware of a large shape moving toward her, knifing forward with strong strokes of humanoid arms. She started to backpedal in alarm, but as the man drew near, she recognized his beautiful, chiseled face and stilled. Cole.
He stopped before her, righting himself until he floated vertical, as naked as she in this underwater dream world. He smiled at her and the temperature of the water around her rocketed up. She looked down and was captivated by his body, more spectacular than she’d imagined in her waking state. His skin was smooth and supple, the musculature rippling beneath it nothing short of spectacular. The man was sculpted like a god. Poseidon would be the correct one, she supposed, given that they were underwater.
His long legs kicked lazily, the deeply-cut muscles of his thighs powerful even underwater. And those abs. Washboard stomachs like that should not be legal. They were certified lethal weapons. Fascinated, she stared at his torso, her underwater breathing coming fast and shallow as her gaze followed the V-line of his obliques downward to the dark curls and his manly parts, which were impressive even at rest.
If possible, her breathing accelerated even more, sounding loud inside her head. The current nudged her toward underwater deity Cole and she let it carry her close enough to feel the heat of him radiating to touch her skin. Everywhere his warmth caressed her, she burned for him.
His silvery blue gaze captured hers, igniting with desire as he stared at her. Suddenly, the water around them was boiling hot, and he willed her even closer to him. Their feet and knees tangled together as they treaded water, only inches separating them now. Each accidental bump sent her pulse a notch higher until her heartbeat pounded like a drum in her ears.
Her belly tied in knots by the intensity of his stare, she looked away, her gaze drifting to his mile-wide shoulders and the bulging wreaths of muscle tapering to powerful arms. His right hand moved forward slowly toward her free-floating breast, giving her plenty of time to splash away from it. But she only watched with breathless anticipation as his big, tanned hand approached her pale flesh, visibly quivering with desire. She needed him to touch her like she needed to draw her next watery breath.
His fingers were strong, his palms heavily calloused. A warrior’s hands. Capable hands. Hands that knew how to kill and—oh, my—hands that knew how to give pleasure. His thumb rubbed across her taut nipple as he cupped her weightless breast, kneading it gently. Her back arched as she strained toward him, desperate for more of his drugging touch. Every inch of her body ached to be his. To be taken by him. Claimed and possessed by him.
He must have read her thoughts for, all of a sudden, he surged against her, his legs entwining with hers, his erection pressing into her belly as hot and hard as a branding iron. His left arm captured her waist, his other hand still making magic on her breast.
Her left hand traced the lean indent of his waist, and slid around to his back, tracing the deep ridge of muscle running along his spine. Down, down, she followed the path of it until her palm filled with the stone-hard bulge of his behind.
Hers. He was all hers, to hold, to touch, to take. Her right leg snaked up around his hips, and using her right foot and left hand, she urged the hot steel pressing into her belly lower, closer to her core. Yes. Right...there...
His mouth closed upon hers, and the kiss was as hot and carnal as the rest of him, as commanding and untamed as a proper sea god should be. Her entire body molded to his and she gave all of herself to him, opening her mouth and feminine core to receive him.
She projected the thought into his mind, “Take me. Take me now—”
“Holy crap, Nissa. Wake up.” The voice was distant and desperate, barely touching her dream, hardly scratching the surface of her raging desire for her underwater god.
Just like that, her turquoise paradise was replaced by the cold blackness of an ocean at night, thick and suffocating. She thrashed in the darkness, weighed down by something confining and heavy.
Must be that damned survival bag. She’d fallen overboard and gotten separated from the others and was going to die out here in the vast abyss of the ocean, cold, scared and alone—
“Wake up. For the love of God,” someone ground out. The man sounded like he was in pain.
Wait. She wasn’t in the ocean. She wasn’t wet at all, in fact. Groggily, she climbed a little closer toward consciousness.
Something powerful grabbed her in a viselike grip.
No! They said a shark wouldn’t attack through the bag! But she was going to die torn in two by one. She fought then, kicking as best she could through the heavy material.
A spate of swearing erupted in her ear, low and irritated. Gods shouldn’t take themselves in vain, should they? Confused, she registered that no saw-sharp teeth penetrated her flesh. Not a shark, then.
The grip turned into mostly a heavy weight immobilizing her, still suffocating her, though. Death by drowning or death by asphyxiation? What a choice. Something primitive within her refused to give up or give in, and she flailed her arms and legs, stubbornly fighting not to be shark bait without at least giving the damned fish a bloody nose before it ate her.
“Oww! Jeez, that’s some right hook you’ve got,” the male voice complained.
Had they found her? Had the SEAL team and its smoking-hot leader, the same team she’d insanely agreed to help, come back for her, after all? She started to shout for help, but bright light broke over her, and her scream went unuttered. She squinted up, blinded by the piercing light shining directly in her eyes from a range of about twelve inches.
She shoved at the light, trying to get it out of her eyes, and her hand encountered cold metal and very warm, very human flesh and bone.
Wait. Was this real? Was she actually awake?
“You can stop trying to kill me, already.”
She recognized the voice. Cole. In the flesh.
“Huh? Where am I? Am I alive?”
“Yes, you’re alive. And you will stay that way if you’ll quit trying to bludgeon me.”
Talk about disoriented. She looked around and made out a tiny bedroom in some sort of rough shack.
The cabin on stilts. The hurricane. The Anna Belle. That god-awful run through the bayou to find shelter. It all came back to her in a rush. The danger, the terror, the certainty that she was going to die. No wonder she was breathing hard already.
“Are we safe from the storm?” she rasped, her voice hoarse as if she’d been shouting forever. Oh, wait. She had been. To be heard over the storm, they’d pretty much had to shout all of last night.
“So far, so good,” Cole murmured cautiously.
“What time is it?”
“A little after eight o’clock.”
“At night?”
Behind his flashlight’s glare, she thought she caught a hint of a grin. “Yes. At night. You’ve been asleep about seven hours.”
“Wow. I don’t feel as if I got that much sleep.”
“You did get more of a workout in the past day than I imagine you’re accustomed to.”
Now there was an understatement. She checked in on her body and was not surprised to feel ominously sore muscles and pain setting in. She was shocked, however, to register that Cole Perriman was sprawled on top of her, and that her right leg was wrapped around his hips and her left hand was clutching his, umm, rather delectable tush.
She let go of his behind with alacrity, but then had the problem of where to put her hand. She ended up settling for resting her hand lightly on his waist, which was every bit as hard and lean through his close-fitting turtleneck as she’d dreamed it. Her pulse lurched alarmingly. She was in bed with the hot SEAL!
Details of her lurid dream flooded into her mind, and she inhaled sharply. The reality of this man’s big, muscular, rock-hard body mashing hers deeply into the worn mattress was all too close to her dream for comfort.
Cole stared down at Nissa, and unfortunately, her eyes were adjusting enough to the low-light conditions to stare back at him.
Oh, no. Awareness was every bit as intense in his gaze as it no doubt was in hers. The crackling attraction from her dream wasn’t a dream anymore. He was right here, real and hot and alive, his thighs tangled with hers, his hard erection pressing against the yielding softness of her belly, his massive arms forming a cage around her upper body.
He moved restlessly against her and her breath hitched. So. This was lust, huh? Everything she’d experienced in her inexperienced life to date was a pale shadow in comparison to this heat and desire raging through her. She wanted this man in every way she could have him, preferably starting with the naked, hot and sweaty ways.
He stared down at her for a moment more, reciprocal desire lighting his eyes from within until they blazed like stars above her.
With a curse, he rolled off her abruptly. But given the narrowness of the bed, his arm was still plastered against hers from shoulder to wrist. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“For what? It takes two to tango,” she replied practically.
He laughed, but the sound was more about pain than humor. Of more interest to her was the fact that he didn’t answer the question. Didn’t want to put his attraction to her into words, huh? A ribbon of hurt wound its way through her heart, leaching away the intense pleasure of her dream, stealing her confidence, reminding her mercilessly that she was a mousy desk jockey who worked in a cubicle jungle, not a sexy, adventurous temptress who could capture and hold on to a man like Cole Perriman.
“I’m cold,” she mumbled.
“Yeah, this place was light on blankets. There’s only the one quilt on this bed. Can’t fault the owner, though. He had everything else we needed. Here. Let me warm you up.” He rolled against her, his legs tangled with hers, belly to belly, groin to—ohmigosh—groin.
“What are you doing?” she squeaked.
“Hypothermia care 101. Body-to-body contact is the fastest and safest way to bring a person’s body temperature up to a safe level.”
“I said I was cold, not freezing to death.”
“One leads to the other,” he murmured disconcertingly close to her ear. His breath was warm on her earlobe and a shiver passed through her entire body. And it was emphatically not a shiver of cold.
His arm fell across her stomach and curled up her side, his hand tucked under her armpit mere inches from her breast. She about leaped out of bed in her shock. If not for the easy strength of his arm pinning her down, she might actually have bolted. But as it was, she merely lurched hard enough against his forearm to register that she wasn’t going anywhere if he didn’t want her to.
His leg slid across hers, his thigh resting intimately across both of hers. Under the wet suit the Navy had given her to wear yesterday, they’d also given her a skimpy pair of stretchy running trunks and an equally skimpy tank top. Those were all she was wearing now. And apparently, he was wearing pretty much the same thing.
She registered the general muscularity and hairiness of his leg against her smoothly waxed legs, and something shifted in her gut, a sharp awareness of Cole Perriman not as her mission commander and temporary boss, but as a Man. Capital M. With a side of hubba-hubba thrown in.
Other details registered. The hardness of his stomach against her right arm, trapped at her side. The width of his shoulders towering over her as he lay on his side facing her. The sheer mass of the man. He was all muscle. There was nothing soft about him. No flab to ease the hard contours of his muscles, not even a thin layer of fat beneath his skin to cushion the bulging veins and corded sinews in his arms or legs.
And good grief, he was as hot as a furnace. She was going to break out in a full-blown sweat if he stayed like this for much longer.
He muttered, “How does your hair smell good? You just spent all night swimming around in the ocean and wading through a swamp. You should smell like seawater.”
Bemused, she replied, “I got hot during our minimarathon to run here. I pushed back my hood and the rain rinsed out my hair. And, while you guys were getting the well’s pump running, I used the first water that came out of the pipes to take a quick sponge bath. Salt’s bad for your skin. You shouldn’t leave it sitting on your flesh for any longer than necessary.”
“Thanks for the beauty tip.”
“I’m serious. It can cause rashes and even burns.”
“I know. It’s not an uncommon form of torture to rub salt into a person’s skin.”
Eew. She might be a collector of seemingly useless trivia as part of her work as an intelligence analyst, but torture was not one of her fields of expertise.
“Warming up?” Cole murmured against her temple.
“Umm, yes. I’m toasty warm now.” He didn’t move, so she added, “Thanks for sharing some of your heat with me.”
It was a blatant invitation to leave her bed, but he didn’t accept it. Instead he remained spooned around her.
His hand, the one thrown across her body, slid up her arm toward her shoulder, dragging the quilt higher to tuck it in around her neck. At least his hand hadn’t headed toward her chest...which was throbbing disconcertingly at the moment.
She would love to pull her right arm out from between them, but she was vividly aware of how close her hand was resting to parts of his anatomy that could easily be encouraged to throb, also.
Cole didn’t move, and goodness knew, she wasn’t about to move. But they might as well have been crawling all over each other the way the electricity built between them. She was excruciatingly aware of every inch of his body against hers, and it didn’t help that she could picture his body encased in that insanely sexy sea-land suit of his.
She’d tried really hard yesterday to keep her mind solidly on business, but there’d been no missing the fact that he’d looked like a statue of a Greek god wearing a wet suit.
A particularly violent gust of wind slammed into the wall beside her, and even the light fixture overhead rattled. Terrified, she rolled against Cole and buried her face against his chest.
His arms swept around her, drawing her closer, creating a living bulwark of protection around her. “I’ve got you. Hang on to me,” he muttered.
The shaking around them diminished, but her insides still quaked like mad. “You must think I’m the biggest scaredy cat you’ve ever met.”