SEAL to the Rescue (SEALs of Coronado Book 6) Read online

  He yanked her shirt over her head at the same time she unbuckled his belt. This was insane but she was doing it anyway. And if a part of her questioned the ethics of her decision, she calmly told that part to shut the hell up.

  Kendall had just gotten the buttons of his 501’s undone and was reaching in to get her hand around the hard-on she’d been rubbing up against all day when the chirp of a cell phone’s ringing cut through the lust thickened air of the apartment.

  “Don’t answer it,” she murmured, still working to get his damn jeans open.

  “Got to.” He stopped working on the clasp of her bra and reached around to pull his phone out of his back pocket. “As much as I can’t wait to get you naked, I’m always on duty.” He put the phone to his ear. “Lockwood.”

  Holden stepped away from her a bit, like he was trying to put a little distance between his hard-on and the pulsing warmth between her legs. Kendall laughed and grabbed the waistband of his jeans, tugging him close again.

  “I’ll be right there,” he said.

  For some reason, the words sent an uncharacteristic spike of concern through her. The call had been work-related—and SEALs didn’t do work halfway.

  “Do you have a mission?” she asked nervously, not sure why that bothered her.

  Oh, yeah. Because he’s the prime suspect in the theft of a nifty piece of NSA spy gear, and if he leaves the country, we’ll never get the thing back.

  Yup, that was why she was suddenly worried. Right.

  “It could be a mission,” he said as he headed for the bedroom. “But it could be anything. A real-world mission, a deployment, a training exercise. Hell, it could be a piss test and I wouldn’t know it until somebody hands me a bottle. That’s just how it works. They tell me to jump and I don’t even bother asking how high.”

  To a certain degree, Kendall understood what Holden was saying. Her job was a bit like that. But deployment and terrorist missions in some far-off country wasn’t something she ever had to deal with.

  As she followed him into the room she’d slept in last night—and had planned on sharing with him tonight—Holden yanked his shirt over his head.

  Hey, that was supposed to be my job.

  “So, you don’t have any idea when you might get back?”

  She leaned her shoulder against the door jamb, watching as he stripped down to his underwear. She let her gaze roam all over that awesome body without feeling guilty for even a second. Before that damn phone had rung, they’d been seconds away from getting naked and nasty. In her mind, that meant she had viewing privileges. Right?

  Besides, Holden didn’t seem to mind her gawking.

  He shrugged as he pulled on a blue camouflage uniform. If she wasn’t so disappointed about seeing all that exposed skin getting covered up, she would have asked why the Navy bothered with camouflage at all. It wasn’t like there were blue trees anywhere out there to hide behind.

  “Chances are, it’s some kind of exercise. There’s generally a buzz around HQ when something big is brewing and I haven’t heard anything. If I’m lucky, it will only be a couple days.”

  Sitting down on the bed, he pulled on a pair of well-worn boots, glancing up at her as he laced them up. “If you need anything while I’m away, Kimber’s number is on a recall roster pinned up on the wall by the phone in the kitchen. Felicia’s number is in there, too. But if you have a problem with Isaac, I want you to call Kurt. You remember him from the wedding, right? He’s retired and is always available. You even suggest a funny feeling in the back of your mind, and he’ll have a half dozen armed SEALs where you need them in ten minutes flat. Okay?”

  She nodded, stunned he was focused entirely on her safety when he had no idea where the hell he was heading thirty minutes from now. He was genuinely worried that Isaac would come after her while he was off doing SEAL crap. What the actual hell? How was it even possible for a man to be so amazing?

  “Will you be able to call?” she asked, not even realizing that was the question she was asking until the words were already out of her mouth.

  He frowned. “Maybe. I will if I can.”

  Finished with his boots, he grabbed his hat from the top of the dresser and walked past her, down the hall and into the kitchen. She followed.

  Grabbing a pen from the counter, he wrote something on the notepad beside the phone. “Here’s the password for my Netflix account. And here’s the one for my computer in case Isaac messed yours up when he broke in.” He tapped the back of the pen on a take-out menu hanging on the fridge. “This place makes awesome pizza. I order from there so often they have me on a tab, so feel free to order whatever you want.” He gestured to a key on a hook near the phone. “And this is the extra key to the apartment.”

  Before she could say anything, he stuck his hat on his head and moved into the small entryway to pick up his keys from the small table there. Breath catching in her throat, Kendall hurried after him, the urge to stop him from leaving more powerful than she would have imagined.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  Damn, why the hell was her heart beating so hard. He wasn’t her boyfriend. He was a criminal she was supposed to put in jail.

  Holden’s mouth edged up. “I will. Try not to worry, okay? I’ll be back soon.”

  Taking her hand, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She kissed him back, stunned to realize there were real tears welling in her eyes.

  Then as fast as the kiss started, it ended. And Holden was out the door, leaving her to catch her breath and figure out what the hell she was doing.

  Kendall wandered back over to the couch and sat down, her heart rate taking forever to return to normal. Maybe it was a good thing Holden had to leave. Yeah, it put a hell of a crimp in the case, but on a positive note, perhaps it was what she needed to get her head screwed back on straight. She was an FBI agent, not some military spouse agonizing over her husband going off to war. Holden was a bad guy. It was time she started acting like it.

  She picked up the TV remote, picking a channel at random, snorting as she found herself watching a documentary on Attila the Hun. Yeah, that’s what she needed. A little alone time with her favorite barbarian.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  YOU DON’T THINK they’d really have us run all the way home, do you?” Sam asked hopefully as the intense Mexican sun did its best to fry them to little, crispy bits. At least Holden was pretty sure it was the Mexican shoreline they’d been running along since sunrise. In truth, as rugged as the rocky coastal terrain was along this coast area, they could just as well have been somewhere in southern California, except that they hadn’t seen another soul for the past six hours. That kind of ruled California out, since it was almost impossible to walk fifty feet on a California beach without stumbling over someone.

  With the Golden State off the menu and the air temperature being way too hot for Oregon, that left Mexico as the only logical choice. Probably the western side of the Baja peninsula. Which meant if they were expected to run all the way back to San Diego, it would take a week or two—and some passports.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Dalton huffed out with a tired grunt as he, Noah and Wes jogged up the beach several yards ahead of Holden and Sam. All five of them were outfitted in full tactical gear, Kevlar vests and weapons included. “Headquarters might get off on having us run the soles off our boots, but even they realize there isn’t a whole hell of a lot of training value in making us run until we pass out.”

  It was obvious Dalton wasn’t thrilled to be here, but with Chasen gone on his honeymoon now, the CIA had insisted there be a fifth member for this training, even though they still refused to officially tell them what they were supposed to be doing.

  Beyond training their ass off.

  “I think you might be giving HQ too much credit,” Noah said. “Sometimes I think they do stuff like this because they believe it builds character.”

  That comment earned a few snorts of amusement, from Holden included. None of th
em had the energy to waste on laughter. Holden wasn’t surprised. He and his Teammates might be some of the most physically fit spec-op troops on the planet, but they’d been moving nonstop since well before midnight, when they’d gotten picked up from Naval Air Station North Island by a CV-22 Osprey and transported to the deck of an unmarked and unlit cargo ship.

  It was only after they’d reached the ship that Holden realized they were on another training exercise related to the same scenario they’d worked on the previous week. But this exercise was different than the first one. Instead of going through the motions of clearing the ship, this time they’d already secured the ship and had to track down and capture several terrorists who’d escaped.

  It had sounded simple at first. Jump in a Zodiac boat, chase down a few make-believe bad guys, get back home to Kendall by breakfast. But the damn thing had ended up taking the entire night as they were forced to run for hours to catch three pretend terrorists who looked like they probably ran cross-country marathons for fun on the weekends—while running for pay Monday to Friday.

  They’d finished the exercise right before dawn only to find they weren’t done. After turning over their captured prisoners, they’d been told they needed to hoof it to the extraction point ten miles up the beach. When they’d gotten there, however, there wasn’t a bird waiting. Just a message explaining the site had been compromised and that they needed to move to the next location. When they’d gotten there, they’d found the same message waiting. It was obvious someone was busting their chops. No doubt, that same someone was probably pissed off they’d caught the bad guys sooner than they were supposed to.

  “You think there’ll actually be a helicopter at the next extraction point,” Sam asked dubiously.

  The kid was tired, but still maintained good speed in the tightly packed sand down close to the water line, even with all the tactical gear he had on.

  “I hope so,” Wes muttered. “I’m ready to get the hell off this beach and go home. Preferably before tomorrow night.”

  “You sound like a man who’s worried about missing a date,” Dalton teased. “You finally going out with Kyla?”

  “It’s not a date,” Wes said sharply, a lot sharper than necessary considering the guy had to know Dalton was messing with him.

  “It’s not, huh?” Dalton said. “Are you and Kyla meeting up somewhere to hang out together, as in doing something social like eating dinner, going to a movie, or whacking a golf ball across a small course decorated with cheap, imitation dinosaurs?”

  “Well, yeah, but…”

  “No buts,” Dalton stated flatly. “It’s a date, dude.”

  “It’s not a date,” Wes insisted, picking up his pace and forcing the rest of them to keep up. “Kyla asked if I wanted to go see a movie with her and her friends from school. You know, those two guys she always hangs out with—Owen and Andrew.”

  “Damn, are you seriously that clueless?” Sam asked. “We’ve all seen the way she looks at you. She probably invited the Tweedle Twins so you wouldn’t feel pressured to consider it a date.”

  Wes muttered a curse. “I already told you—we’re just friends. There’s nothing else going on.”

  Everyone was silent for a while after that, nothing but the steady thump of boots on hard sand and the slight sound of deep breathing.

  “I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Sam, especially since the last time he was on a date it was with his sister’s Barbie dolls, but I think he’s right,” Dalton said. “Kyla’s been trying to get you to notice her for a while. So, what’s your problem? You don’t like her or something?”

  Holden couldn’t see Wes’s face clearly, but if the way he tensed as he ran was any indication, he was seriously uncomfortable with where this conversation was headed.

  “Of course, I like her,” Wes said. “Kyla’s about as perfect as any woman could be. But she’s had it pretty tough the past few years with her father’s murder and stuff, and I’ve always gotten the feeling that she thinks of me more as a friend than someone she wants to jump into bed with.”

  “Any reason you can’t be both her friend and her boyfriend?” Holden asked. “Did you ever think maybe that’s what she needs more than anything?”

  Wes considered that. “Maybe, but I’m not going to risk our friendship to see if I’m right.”

  Holden wished he could say Wes was wrong, but he had to admit, the guy was doing the exact same thing he’d do in his situation.

  “While we’re on the subject of women,” Noah said over his shoulder. “What’s going on with you and Kendall? From what I saw at the wedding, you two seem serious.”

  Holden shrugged, which was tough to do while running. And kind of useless when the person who asked you the question was in front of you and couldn’t see what you were doing anyway.

  “I didn’t plan for it to turn into anything serious when I helped her out with that asshole ex of hers at the rehearsal dinner,” he admitted. “I figured I’d help her out of a jam and that would be it. Now, she’s staying at my place.”

  He’d told them about Kendall’s place getting trashed during the Osprey ride last night. The only thing they’d wondered was whether he wanted them to track down Isaac and beat the shit out of him.

  “But this is more than just giving Kendall a safe place to stay, right?” Wes prompted. No doubt he was glad they were talking about something other than him and Kyla.

  “Yeah, it is. Or, it was.” Holden frowned, thinking about the look on her face when he’d left last night. “But then we got the call for this exercise and now I’m not so sure.”

  “She freaked out?” Dalton asked.

  “Not really,” he said, vividly remembering the look on her face as he’d stood there taking the call. “In fact, she didn’t say much about it. But I saw the panic in her eyes. She obviously didn’t like the idea of me leaving like that, especially since I couldn’t tell her where I was going or when I’d be home.”

  “Kendall wouldn’t be the first woman to have a problem with that.” Wes said. “You think she’s going to be there when you get back?”

  “I’m not sure.” Damn, he hated even thinking about the possibility. “But I’ve seen that look on a woman’s face before…when things get too real too fast. It’s the same look Mia got in her eyes before she bailed on me.”

  Dalton threw another look over his shoulder. “It might not be that way with Kendall. She strikes me as strong and independent. She seems like a woman who can put up with you being a SEAL.”

  Holden didn’t say anything. What was there to say? He hoped Dalton was right. Because the idea of Kendall going back to her apartment with Isaac still out there being an asshole worried the hell out of him.

  He was still thinking about it thirty minutes later when they finally reached the coordinates for the extraction point and didn’t find a chopper waiting for them. Sam cursed. He wasn’t the only one. Holden muttered a few expletives himself as he tapped the buttons on his military wrist computer to pull up the location of their alternate pick-up point.

  So much for getting home anytime soon. He only hoped Kendall wasn’t worrying about him too much.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ARE YOU EVEN listening to me?”

  Isaac’s question jerked Kendall out of her reveries. She gave herself a mental shake, realizing she had no idea what her boss had said. She had no idea how long she’d zoned out. Hell, she barely remembered walking into the San Diego field office.

  “Of course,” she lied. “Every word.”

  Isaac frowned, like he thought she was full of crap. Kendall returned his gaze, telling herself there was no real way he could know what she was actually thinking. Because if he knew the only thing running through her mind at the moment was concern over Holden’s safety, Isaac’s head would probably explode.

  Even now, her big, sexy SEAL could be in the middle of a combat zone in Syria, Yemen, Niger, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter getting shot at by psychos with AK-47s
.

  She couldn’t believe how much she wanted Holden to be okay.

  Kendall was on the verge of hyperventilating when she realized Isaac was talking again. Crap. She sat up straighter in the chair in front of his desk and forced herself to calm down and pay attention this time.

  “The NSA is losing their friggin' minds,” Isaac said. “While you’ve been working your cover with Lockwood, the person who stole the Key has been busy driving up interest in the sale by showing exactly what the device can do. And unfortunately, they know exactly how to generate a buzz.”

  “What did they do?”

  Isaac’s mouth tightened. “They used the Key to hack into the secure side of Lockheed Martin’s mainframe, then stole drawings and schematics on their newest 5th generation stealth fighter’s missile defense system, which they immediately posted to the Dark Web. The NSA is doing everything they can to get it off there, but in reality, the damage is already done. The DOD is saying it will likely cost millions to change the F-35’s defense systems at this point. And just to show they’re not playing favorites, whoever has the Key waltzed into the Kremlin’s computers and stole the performance characteristics for the Russian’s S-400 anti-aircraft missile system. That system is in Syria right now and what it can do was supposed to be the most closely guarded secret the Russians had. Putin is probably executing poor IT people in the Kremlin right now.”

  Kendall sat there stunned. Everyone said the Key was a game changer, but this was unreal. The stuff they’d stolen for demonstration purposes was the kind of crap countries went to war over. It was one more thing that made her really question how Holden could have been involved in something like this. He was in the military, fighting and bleeding in places like Syria. Would he really betray his country like this? It didn’t seem to fit.

  Isaac sat back in his chair. “I can’t help thinking Lockwood somehow knew we were onto him and arranged this deployment—or whatever it is—to get away from us.”