Justice for the SEAL (HERO Force Book 5) Read online

  He squeezed his hand with the bandaged palm, pain screaming along his nerve endings. He wasn’t ready to go home, couldn’t imagine falling asleep, and he’d found himself back in front of HERO Force headquarters where the explosion had taken place.

  He’d walked in one big fucking circle.

  Of course he came back here. Where else was he going to go?

  Two women stood on the sidewalk with their backs to him, and he hung back. One of them was crying. The taller one put her arm around the shorter and said, “They’ll find him. Royce will be okay.”

  He narrowed his eyes. Who were these two? Coworkers of Royce? Friends?

  “The pavement,” said the shorter one. “Look at the pavement.”

  The other woman nodded. “I know, it’s fucking terrible.”

  Logan’s eyes went to the blackened asphalt, his mind clearly remembering the flames that had caused it.

  “Let’s get you home,” said the taller one.

  “I don’t want to go home. I don’t think I could stand it.”

  “Then come with me to the club.”

  “Fine. I don’t care anymore.”

  Logan followed them, his mind working to put the pieces together. Was this woman having an affair with Royce?

  He wanted to see her face. Get a name. She didn’t seem to know where Royce was, but surely she was involved with him somehow.

  The women walked several blocks until the thump-thump-thump of music could be heard, then he followed them into a dance club, throngs of people pressed together and moving.

  He let himself get caught in the flow of humanity away from the women, wanting to get some space between them and himself.

  The music was loud, bass rumbling through his body. He ordered a drink. He could let himself get lost in this place tonight. After his brush with death today, he needed to get lost, especially to himself.

  Suddenly, all he wanted was sex, and there was plenty of it on display here. He wanted a woman who knew how to fuck and could make it okay until the sun came up tomorrow.

  But he had to find out who those women were, what their connection was to Royce. At least get a good look at them, if not their names. His eyes scanned the room, quickly finding them at the other end of the bar.

  Now that he could see their faces, his interest piqued. The shorter one looked like a big-chested librarian in a tight skirt, just begging for someone to rip it off her.

  His cock tingled.

  Fuck.

  He tipped his drink back, the liquor burning a path down his throat. He was feeling restless, and as his stare collided with the woman’s, he couldn’t even think of why it was a bad idea to pursue her.

  5

  It was dark, with bursts of light rhythmically flashing here and there. Gemma closed her eyes. She was drunk.

  More drunk than was wise.

  Normally, she was good for splitting a bottle of wine over dinner, but this was out of hand. She’d gone in search of numbness and had found sweet oblivion.

  Her eyes shot across the dance floor to where April gyrated against a man with light brown skin and short curly hair. She wondered if her friend would take him home.

  I wish I could do that.

  After the stress of this day, Royce’s disappearance and the brush of death on the edges of her life, she desperately needed human contact.

  She wanted to make love.

  That’s when she noticed a man looking at her. A young guy, maybe thirty, with a body like a department store mannequin. She resisted the urge to look behind her for the younger, more attractive girl he was gawking at.

  Let it be me.

  Her eyes wandered over that beautiful body of his. The men she dated were long past that strong and sexy stud phase. Sure, most of them were fit, taking good care of themselves and aging as well as they could, but you just didn’t find a forty-five-year-old guy who looked like that guy did over there.

  Not even close.

  Did the women he dated know how good they had it? With his ready erection and what she was sure must be his endless energy? Hell, she couldn’t even remember the last time she dated a man who didn’t have at least some gray hair. If he had any hair at all.

  Time was hard on men.

  Hard on.

  She laughed to herself and the man cocked his head, his stare questioning. She raised her glass to him.

  If you only knew what I was thinking right now.

  He headed Gemma’s way.

  Fuck.

  He was incredibly tall and he walked like a big cat, all sway and muscle. When he reached her he bent down and said in her ear, “What’s so funny?”

  He smelled like the quintessential male, as if nature had created him to lure her like a flower lured the bees. “Honestly? You don’t want to know.”

  “That makes me want to know even more. Do you want to dance?”

  “No.” She held her hands up to ward him off. “I’m not a dancer.”

  “Then just hang on to me.” He took her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor, never breaking their stare. She liked the feel of his long, strong fingers wrapped around hers. Was it true what they said about the size of a man’s hands and the size of his penis? She giggled again. So damn drunk.

  There was a bandage on his hand. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Just a burn.”

  He took her in his arms, swaying to the beat. She copied him. “Relax,” he said, his voice smoky and deep.

  Why the hell not? Her eyes were stuck on his chest, and she longed to feel it with her hands. Her insides were melting like candle wax next to a flame. What would those sculpted muscles feel like under her eager fingers?

  Stop it, Gemma.

  She shouldn’t be thinking about this guy like that. Not when it was making her heart race and her back arch, so that her breasts jutted forward against his body.

  “You’re very beautiful,” he said.

  She opened her mouth to shrug off the compliment but his stare dropped to her lips and she froze. There was so much sex in that one single look—more sex than she’d had in her bed for the last few years, easily—and she wanted it.

  She wanted all of it.

  She lifted her chin and met his mouth in a scorching kiss. He tasted like liquor and he smelled like spicy leather, an intoxicating fragrance she wanted to inhale and keep forever inside her.

  Still the music played, the pounding beat resonating between her legs, seemingly in sync with the steady pulse that hammered there. The room fell away, leaving just the two of them and her body’s overwhelming response to this man.

  His hands were around her waist, pulling her tightly against him, and his hard body felt every bit as good as she’d hoped it would.

  She should stop. Shouldn’t she? The petulant child inside her rebelled. Other people got to do these things, have these experiences. Hell, April did it all the time. How come she never could? The answer to her unspoken question rose up in her mind, the same answer she’d relied on to get her life back on track after the affair.

  Walk the straight and narrow.

  Don’t do anything reprehensible.

  No casual sex.

  Expect everything to come out in the open, and when it does, know that you will be able to hold your head high.

  His mouth moved to her neck, and her head fell back with the glorious sensation. Maybe just this once she could live her life without her past dictating what she should do. Maybe just for this night she could be someone who wasn’t so goddamn careful.

  She needed to be touched, desperately.

  One hand snaked up her back while the other moved lower, cupping her bottom and pulling her firmly against his erection. When she would have moved back, he whispered in her ear.

  “You’re so fucking hot. Do you know that? Do you see what you’re doing to me?”

  She knew it was a line. Probably one he’d used a hundred times, but she didn’t care. She wanted to be that person. Wanted to be capable of driving
a guy like this crazy with desire.

  You’re drunk, Gemma.

  Go home.

  Yes, that’s what she needed to do. Quickly, before she could change her mind.

  She pushed away from him, surprised when the movement made her head swim. She needed to find April. She would pull her back from this cliff she wanted to jump off. That’s what friends were for. “I need to go to the ladies’ room.”

  He nodded and yelled over the music, “I’ll wait here.”

  Spinning around, her eyes raked over the crowd. Was it darker in here than it had been before? Everything seemed more intense, overwhelming. She pushed through people, her body seeming to brush intimate parts of everyone as she made her way off the dance floor. She hated this shit, hated dance clubs.

  Why the hell did I let April bring me here?

  She caught sight of her friend up ahead, and pulled her away from the man she was dancing with, into the ladies’ room.

  “What’s wrong?” asked April.

  “I want to go home.”

  “Really?” She laughed. “Because you looked like you’re having one hell of a time with that guy.”

  “Yeah. Ten more minutes of making out and my clothes would be all over the floor.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “I don’t even know him.”

  “Some of the best sex of my life was with guys I didn’t know.”

  Gemma rolled her eyes. “You know I can’t do this shit.”

  April dug in her purse and withdrew a condom. “Au contraire. You can do this shit, and I think you should.”

  Gemma took the condom from her friend’s hand, looking at it questioningly. “I have a condom in my purse.”

  “It’s probably been there since college. Use mine.”

  “Today of all days, you don’t see why this is a bad idea?”

  “Today of all days is the reason you should do it. You’ve been beating yourself up about Royce for eight years. Eight fucking years, Gemma! Let it go already. You made a mistake. We all make them. But you’ve been living in some sort of prison you made for yourself, and the only time you come out – really come out – is for some public flagellation.”

  Gemma could feel her cheeks heating. “That’s not true.”

  “It is true.” April opened the bathroom door, the music and that tribal beat now filling the ladies’ room. “You need to go and get laid.”

  Gemma turned and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was falling out of its tame style, auburn curls framing her face. The little makeup she had put on for work had virtually disappeared, save for a light touch of mascara that framed her hazel eyes.

  She was ordinary.

  Her eyes caught on the little lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes.

  And I’m getting old as fuck.

  Old as fuck and alone. And responsible – oh so responsible! And what did she have to show for it? Really show for it? Her career, of course. Everything had been about her career for so long, she could almost make herself forget she had ever wanted anything more.

  But she had.

  A quiet voice deep inside her remembered. She had wanted things she knew now would never be a part of her life. She thought she’d made her peace with that.

  She was okay with it.

  Except suddenly she wasn’t okay with anything. She wasn’t okay with her tied-up hair, or her white blouse and navy skirt, or the lack of excitement she’d guaranteed with her walk on the straight and narrow.

  She reached up and pulled at the bobby pins that held her hairstyle in place, as if each one represented a decision that had gotten her to this place where she was so afraid of everything, including that guy out there who had probably moved on to somebody else by now.

  She tucked the condom into her purse and stepped back into the dance club. She pushed past people, no longer concerned when her body brushed theirs. She was part of it now, part of this room and the energy here, but her mind was on the man she left on the dance floor.

  If he really was waiting for her, she would go to him. And whatever would be, would be.

  6

  It took a serious amount of willpower for Logan O’Malley to keep his hands on top of Gemma’s clothes during the cab ride back to his apartment. He wanted to explore her skin with a desperate kind of lust he’d rarely experienced. He explored every inch of her body as she stroked the hard ridge of his erection through his jeans.

  He hadn’t expected her to come back, but she had—her hair down and free and curling around her shoulders like a fucking prom queen.

  He’d told her the truth when he said she was beautiful, but it had been an untouchable sort of beauty, polished and clean and so far out of his league he almost took himself out of the lineup before he even got up to bat. But when she came back to him, she was beautiful like a pinup. A movie star. A sex goddess. And her eyes told him clearly that was exactly what she wanted to be.

  Who is this woman to Royce?

  He shouldn’t be taking her home without the answer to that question, but he didn’t care half as much as he should. On the contrary, the fact that she had some association with the jarring events of his day seemed predestined. She was meant to be the one he would fuck tonight.

  His hand fisted in the fabric of her blouse, tugging it free from her skirt and touching the soft skin beneath. Already he had mapped out her body with his fingers and palms, knew the fullness of her breasts and the curve of her hips that awaited him.

  She moaned against his mouth as the car made a sharp turn, pressing her more tightly against his body. His eyes flashed to the window, the familiar streetlights telling him they were only blocks away.

  Thank God.

  He couldn’t take much more of this woman driving him crazy.

  He’d had a hard-on for nearly two hours and they needed some privacy before he stripped this woman bare and fucked her in the back of a taxi.

  They pulled up to the curb and he hastily paid the driver, knowing he was tipping too much but refusing to wait for change. He pulled Gemma behind him into the building, yanked open the elevator gate and nearly pushed her inside.

  She was ready for him. Of course she was. She was with him every step of the way, meeting every touch with a more intense one of her own, welcoming his kisses and raising him, every time.

  He pressed her against the wall of the elevator, hiking up her skirt, grabbing onto the soft flesh of her ass and kneading it with his hands. She lifted a leg, wrapping it around his hip, and he thrust against the fabric of her underwear.

  The elevator ground to a halt and he threw open the gate, quickly unlocking the door to his apartment and dragging her inside like a caveman pulling her into his cave. That was what it felt like, this all-consuming need to possess her. And if the noises she was making were any indication, she liked it when he was rough with her.

  He slammed the door behind them, long shadows covering the floor with ribbons of light and darkness. It was empty in here, more space than he had furniture, and their heavy breathing seemed to echo against the floor and walls.

  She pulled at his shirt, sending buttons scattering, and he yanked her blouse over her head, tossing it away. She reached for his belt buckle.

  “We need a bed,” he said.

  “No. I want you right here.” She unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned the fly of his jeans. His cock sprang free and she moved lower, taking him in her hot, wet mouth.

  Jesus.

  She took him deep and his balls clenched tightly. He threaded his fingers through her hair and held her to him.

  She came up for air. “You’re so big.”

  Fuck, he couldn’t take this anymore. He had to be inside her. He scooped her up and headed for the bedroom.

  She kissed the side of his neck. “Where are we going?”

  He chuckled. “The floor is concrete. It’s cold. But it looks cool, and the chicks dig it.” He threw her on the bed.

  She stared up at him in her skirt
and bra, legs slightly spread as she propped herself up on her elbows, making her tits thrust forward. “You bring a lot of girls here?”

  He climbed between her legs and squeezed her breasts in the darkness. “Some.” He licked along the edge of her bra, savoring the taste of her skin. “Is that a problem for you?”

  “No. That’s what I want.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just sex. I want sex that doesn’t mean anything.”

  He ran his hand along her thigh, pushing up her skirt, then moved lower and settled his face between her legs. “Do you want it to be good?”

  “Yes.”

  He pulled her panties down her legs and tossed them to the floor. He kissed the inside of her thigh, noting how she jumped before relaxing into the sensation. He traced the folds of her sex gently with his finger. “Really good?”

  She whispered huskily. “Yes.”

  He found her entrance wet and slick, and traced her sensitive opening before slipping his finger inside her heat. She bucked against him and he bent his head, gently licking her sensitive bud. “But you don’t want it to mean anything.”

  “No.”

  “You want me to fuck you and make you come until you can barely lift your head off the pillow.”

  She was panting now. “Oh, yes.” She unzipped her purse and handed him a condom.

  Her voice was begging him, daring him, beseeching him. He sheathed himself with one practiced motion and settled himself between her legs, pushing himself inside her. With one fierce thrust he buried himself completely. She let out a loud gasp and he forced himself to be still, sure he’d hurt her.

  Her hands skated over his back and down lower, pulling his hips against her while her body squeezed him tightly. “God, you feel so good,” she said.

  He pumped into her, retreating and thrusting again. He didn’t even know this woman, didn’t know her name, but his body knew hers in an instant. It was as if he recognized her, and he wondered if she’d let Royce fuck her like this.

  She moaned loudly, her body tightening around him as she found her release. Still he fought his need to climax until she clutched at him in relief, his body launching into a powerful orgasm that left him shaking.