Code Name: Nina's Choice (Warrior's Challenge) (15 page)

“You should,” he said,
and pushed himself to h
is feet. “We’ve tried
everything and it’s not coming back. Not enough for me to be the man you need.”

“Mace!”
Anger gurgled in her gut. “That is not
the reason.” She stood in front of him, blocking his way.

“How do you think I
feel? I see guys watching you
with their tongues
practically hanging out. You’re in my arms every night, but I can’t please
you.”

“You do. We will keep
trying. One day…”

“Yeah, and the Easter
bunny exists too,” he said, showing the bitterness he’d been hiding from her,
and it was
sharp.

“You’re tired and you
need to rest.”

Mace was the most
even-tempered guy she knew, but her decision sparked a flint at the tinder of
his doubts. “What I need to do is get a fucking hard-on,” he stormed. “But I
can’t.”

What the hell do you
say to a w
arrior and a man’s man when it came to
this?
Nothing.
Anything she said would come out
placating or condescending, both were wrong. “I don’t know what to do, Mace,
but I do know that it doesn’t make any difference to me.”

“No,” he growled. “You
don’t miss
the feel of a man inside you? Bullshit.”

“I miss you.”

His eyes burned with
anger. “Fuck.” He turned away in frustration.

“Have you ever
considered it’s not you, but me? Maybe you need someone else.” The thought was
like an auger curling bits of her heart
with the turn
of the handle as it bore deep. She gulped. “
There’s
a whole slew of women who would help.”

He nodded his head
loosely. “Sure, that’s the answer. I’ll just screw around with a line of women
until I hit one that makes me hard.” He gave her a sh
arp
look. “I don’t think so, Nina. When you walked into Base Command the first
time, I was adjusting myself within five seconds. Why the hell do you think I
stayed back? ‘Hey, I’m
Mace,
sorry about the monstrous boner in my
pants, but lady I want to fuck y
ou until you tremble.
I want to spread those amazing legs of yours and fill your wet sex with my cock
until we both forget where we are and who we are.’ Desire wasn’t even in my
scope, consuming you lick by lick was, and that was from fifteen feet away. If
I can’t get it up for you, it’s hopeless.”

She breathed out
slowly, heart hammering in her chest. He rubbed his face with his hands, and
shrugged the angst from his shoulders. “You’re frustrated and I get that, but I
don’t need you ripping my head off whe
n I’m making a
suggestion, that’s all.”

“Disguise it in
anything you want, but you wouldn’t suggest it, unless part of you wanted us to
end and me to move on.” He snagged the crutches and thumped to the door.

“You’re being
childish,” she hurtled at him, al
lowing her inner
mother to come out at the worst possible moment. “Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“You can’t go out,
you’ve been shot.”

“SEALs can do
anything, Nina,” he shouted over his shoulder, thrusting the door open.
“Except this SEAL.
This SEAL can’t g
et a fucking hard-on.”

Nina’s eyes popped
open. Tony stood there, hand
raised
to knock on the door. His eyebrows
twitched and he bit his cheek.

Mace pushed past him,
saying, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Seeing if you were up
to watching the game, b
ut apparently you’re not up to
much.” A flippant smile jerked his lips, Tinman style.

“Going out, you’re
driving.”

Nina stood with her
hands on her hips, shaking her head in disgust.

* * * *

When Tony headed for
Breakers, Mace redirected him to Saint
Elli’s bar. If
you wanted to get laid by a tourist or a San Diego girl, you hung there. When
they walked in, the air buzzed with excitement. The news of the Shark’s demise
filtered into every conversation. Tony must have called the rest of the guys
because
they showed up a couple minutes later. Mace
smelled an intervention.

Tony shrugged
good-naturedly. “Ghost and Snow White are at his place. The guy is overly
protective of that woman. He doesn’t want to leave her side. Marg apparently
put her foot down,” e
xplaining why their senior
officers weren’t present.

“Can ya blame Ghost?
He’s been scared shitless, although he wouldn’t admit it. He’s probably going
to sleep for a week.”

The five of them
huddled at a table for two. It would have to do until something e
lse opened up. Mace surveyed the room. Plenty of young
women stood at the bar flirting with some Navy types. The music was too loud to
talk, and that was part of the reason Mace wanted to come here. A few inquiring
gazes were launched their way. A group of
four gals
strolled up with two beers each in their hands. Tight dresses, straightened
hair, makeup meticulously applied. Yup, they were on the prowl.

“Hi guys,” the tall,
slender blonde greeted, keeping a steady bead on Tinman. He turned on his
famous “ke
ep it coming babe, I like what I see” grin.
A little brunette hovered over Mace’s right shoulder. She wasn’t as brave as
the rest. Probably the
newcomer,
and the other girls were teaching her
to hunt. He let out a deep breath, and mentally slapped himself
for being an asshole. His phone buzzed and he read the
text.

Please don’t be an ass. Where are you?

He quickly typed a
text back to Nina.

St.
Elli’s.
Go to bed.

He tucked his phone
away before she sent another one.

The girls found some
chairs and made
themselves
welcome. Stitch and Ditz did what they
always did, and made their happy marriages known. The other blonde turned her
attention on Tadpole. He had a girlfriend, but not a keeper. At least it didn’t
look like it as he flirted with the little blond
e.

“What happened to
you?” Samantha, the little brunette, asked, sitting demurely with her legs
crossed and looking uncomfortable in the short dress her friends had no doubt
put her in.

“Just an accident,” he
said, keeping his attention on the beads of swe
at
running down his glass.

“Were you on the job?”
she asked meekly.

He turned his eyes on
her and hers shied away.
She fiddled with the hem o
f
her dress. A wave of instant empathy flooded him. There
was no reason to be a jerk to her. “No,” he said, giving
her a smile. Her cheeks blushed. It had been a while since
he’d talked with another woman, but every woman seemed bland in the shadow of
Nina.

“Mace, hey, baby.”
Sheila appeared and kissed him on the cheek. The brunette shied even more.
“Samantha, this is
Sheila.”

“Hey,” Sheila said.
“Having a drink with a hero, I see.”

Samantha looked
confused.

“Mace brought the
Shark down,” Sheila explained.

“No, I didn’t. I got
shot in the leg, Captain Austen brought him down.”

“You guys work as a
team. I know you had
something to do with it.” Sheila
crouched and gave him a warm smile.

Instantly, Nina’s
suggestion popped into his head and his guts twisted with guilt. It wouldn’t
work anyway. He knew that. He and Sheila had some good times, but the passion
wasn’t there.
The soul-biting need to possess her
wasn’t either.

Shy to begin with,
Samantha excused herself and left, not able to read the situation and probably
feeling like she couldn’t compete. He knew the feeling. Sheila plunked her butt
in the empty chair. “How ar
e you doing otherwise?”

“Good,” he lied.
“Listen
,
I’m going to head out.” He gave Tinman
a sign and pushed himself up.

“Where
ya going?”
Tinman wasn’t about to let him extract without a reason.

“To
the range.”

“Now?”

“I need to kill
something,
it might as
well
be paper.”

“You want a ride
?
” he asked
,
leaning forward in his chair.

“Nah, I’ll grab a
cab.”

Tony swept an uneasy
glance at Sheila, “Whatever, man. Take it easy.”

“Mace, I’ll give you a
ride,” Sheila said, swinging a thick swath of hair over her shou
lder. “I probably need a little practice myself.”

“Thanks.”

They reached the car
and Sheila paused beside him before unlocking the door. Her hand brushed down
his back, attracting his attention.

“Now that there are no
eyes surveying,” she hesitated. “Maybe
the range
isn’t where we should go.”

Images of the past
rolled around in his head. Of course they came with a red, flashing guilty sign
attached. Sheila waited, but her expectations were clear. Out of all the other
women he’d spent time with Sheila had probably come the closest to Nina. Sultr
y and sexy wavered around her, and they’d made each other
breathless in the past.
“Maybe it’s me.”
Nina’s words rattled his decision to
stay the course. He didn’t move when Sheila’s palm came to rest against the
roping muscle on his hip and pressed gently
as if he
needed a reminder. Obviously his shaft did, because it responded to her touch.

Chapter Ten

He gazed into Sheila’s
sharp, but pretty features. “Think I need to hear some empty casings hitting
the cement.”

Sheila removed her
hand and unlocked
the doors.

When they’d met up for
lunch after Sheila returned from her deployment, she’d spilled her guts. A
common gut spilling for most enlisted when they debated whether it was time to
get out or sign up for another term. She’d been in the Marine Corps
since she was eighteen, specializing in the weapons field.
She was twenty-eight and wondered if she should devote herself to an entire
career in the Corps or try civilian life. She’d hinted at marriage and Mace
steered clear, instead of engaging her in the
topic.
Basically, she needed a shoulder and a sounding board, and he had offered it.
The only reason he’d shared his injury with her and what it affected was to
deter her from thinking a roll in the hay was possible after their beer. “Guess
you decided to
stay in for a while.”

Sheila shrugged as she
slowed for a red light. “I don’t know what I want anymore. I’m still confused.
At least I have some time before I get my next deployment.”

Sheila didn’t ask
about Nina. He sensed she wanted to, but she probably
didn’t want to hear the answer. Right now, his and Nina’s future was swimming
up a muddy river. Once he’d calmed down other thoughts began to merge with his
doubts. Was it because he was a SEAL? Did Nina finally come face to face with
what that would mean
, like so many girls did and then
turned their backs on the guys they liked?

He and Sheila checked
in with ID at the shooting center and small arms range, one of many, but it was
open to the public as well as utilized by service personnel. They set up in
the pistol lanes and fired off a few rounds. Mace took his
earmuffs off and waited till the targets returned to view their groupings. His
was a single hole through the balls. Freud would have had something to say
about that.

Sheila curbed a grin.

“It’s not
funny.”

She chuckled. “Yes it
is.” Her face lit up when she laughed, making her look like a totally different
woman. Most of the time her blue eyes were intense and too deep in thought.
Being in the Marine Corps had taken the carefree from her, and replac
ed it with cold, hard knocks like the rest of them who
served.

He made sure his
weapon was safe and moved to her stall. “Your squeeze is too fast. It’s causing
a drag on the barrel.”

Sheila
peaked
her brows. “I don’t remember you
telling me that before,” s
he teased.

He laughed. “Yeah,
well, we’re talking handguns, not heavy duty machinery. Besides,” he sighed,
“the machinery is unserviceable right now.”

“So
what?”
She shrugged. “It’s not forever from what you told me. Just needs time and the
right motivatio
n.”

Mace crossed his arms
and leaned against the cubby wall. “That’s what Nina keeps saying.”

Sheila’s smile dimmed.
“You and she are pretty tight, huh?”

Her eyes searched his
for a flicker of doubt. “Maybe you need a change of scenery. I know we’ve only
b
een sheet buddies, but I do care about you, Mace. I
think I always have, but I didn’t want to seem too intense. I know that scares
the crap outta guys.”

He shouldn’t have done
it, but he wasn’t thinking straight tonight and his fingers sought out a curl
of
hair resting on her shoulder. Instantly her hand
came to rest on his chest. “Sex is a part of life. If I can’t hold up my end,
there are very few women who could spend the rest of their lives with that.”

“I told you I’m
undecided about signing up for anot
her few years. My
priorities are changing. I want a family one day. I understand the military
life, and the months of separation. You can still have a full life, Mace, and
children are not out of the question, it’s just the delivery system that has to
chan
ge. Besides, if you remember I like to cuddle,
and so do you.”

He felt his phone buzz
with a text, and he didn’t have to look to know who it was. “Listen, we had
good times together. And you are a wonderful woman.”

Sheila raised her hand
from his chest. “I
get it. Please don’t give me the
letting-me-down-gently speech. I was just offering an option, maybe one that
might work.”

He smiled at her.
“Thanks, but…” He caught movement from the north wall and his heart clattered
to a stop. Nina leaned against a whi
teboard, watching
them. Her face was a plane of indecision. Sheila turned and saw her there. “Uh,
well, I suppose I better head out. Looks like you have a ride home.”

He doubted that.
Although Nina’s expression remained bland, her eyes had gone from green
to “Hulk” mad.

Sheila quickly
gathered up her empty casings, the weapon and left. The problem with loving an
analyst was they could roust just about any information they set out to find.
Nina had been trained by the best, and he wasn’t surprised she found
him. He was also going to land one upside Tony’s head when
he saw him next.

Nina didn’t move.
Guilt skewered his guts. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He would never take
Sheila up on her offer with Nina in his life. He was a one-woman guy—well, he
was now,
and the woman he currently loved was
seriously pissed at him.

Nina stood on her
long, lanky pipes wearing a pair of skimpy shorts and a running bra. Every cell
in the woman called to him. Her red locks rained across her chest, a tempting
reminder of what
it felt like coiled around his
fingers and swaying against his chest when she rode him. All that was Nina had
been absorbed by his heart. If she left him, he’d probably become a man like
Ghost, with a long string of go-to women to satiate his needs, if tho
se needs ever found their feet, but the opposite of what
his heart needed, so it would never feel this kind of pain again.

Nina pushed herself
from the wall once Sheila had passed, and took an offensive position in front
of him. Whatever Nina had in store
for him, he would
shoulder it. His leg was starting to scream now that the anesthesia had worn
off, and the best place for him was under the covers with a pillow pulled over
his head.

Nina held her hand out
to him. Calmly she said, “I have an idea.”

Nina u
sually let her emotions fly with the crack of her tongue.
The ultra-cool, almost icy tone made him wary.
“I’m listening,” he said just as calmly
,
although he didn’t feel calm.

“Dad’s partner said
you needed stimulation, whether by touch or visually.”

He no
dded.

“I think he’s wrong. I
think you need a challenge.”

He swallowed and
raised a brow, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“You don’t need
another woman to excite you. We need a man.” She gazed at him.
“To touch me.”

The pain in his leg
was forgotten wi
th the firestorm of possessiveness
shooting through him. He waited to speak, so he wouldn’t stutter with anger.
“You want me to watch while some guy makes love to you?”

She remained calm as a
scientist looking at a lab rat. “Yes and no. I know you, Mace.
You’re a man who faces a challenge and takes control. You
always have to come out on top.”

He bit down on the
jealousy piping through his veins like someone had flipped the fog on a fire
hose wide open. “And what if it doesn’t work?”

Nina stepped closer. “
Then you do what you have to do. There is no room in my
heart for anyone else. You’ve taken up all the space. There’s a lot of men who
come back from war and aren’t the same as when they left. Couples who love each
other find ways to work around it and sti
ll have a
wonderful life.” She leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips. “I will
shoulder my fear, and cherish all the important moments with you. It won’t be
perfect. There is no such thing as perfect,” she whispered.
“Except for you.”
Her green eyes g
listened with tears. “Kayla isn’t perfect, but Ghost loves her and he’ll
have to keep fighting to prove it to her. I love you, Mace. You’re my one and
only.” She cleared her throat. “If you think being with Sheila will help, then
do it.”

There was nothing
but truth in her eyes, and his heart squeezed tight. “I
don’t want Sheila, but I don’t think I could watch you with another man. It
would drive me insane instead of drive my libido through the rafters.
Watching some random guy touch you.”
He shook his head
. “I know some guys get off on that, but you mean too much
to me.”

Nina’s eyes flashed
with a mix of hurt and desperation. “And you mean everything to me. If you
can’t live with this, th
e
n
we have to fix it.”

“God damn it, I—”

“Hey guys, you two
okay?” Ti
nman strolled up. “Thought I better make
sure there was no bloodshed after divulging your whereabouts.” Mace and Nina
shared a look and then stared at Tony. He stopped instantly and blinked.
“Something wrong?”
He actually took a step back. “Why are
you loo
king at me like that, Nina? You’re not hanging
Sheila on me. I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he said, flustered.

“I’m taking Mace home.
He needs rest, and we need a ride.”

“My chariot
awaits
.”

* * * *

Nina pushed away from
the satellite monitor
and rolled across the raised
linoleum floor in Base Command, grabbing hold of the opposite console and
swiveling to glance at the SPECOP reports. She quickly processed one new
incoming message with a position report and an update on a team in Japan. Her ph
one bleeped with a text.

Lunch?

Sure.

Come to the in/pools. Class almost
finished.

Nina checked the time.
Thirteen hundred hours. “Hey, Barry, I’m going to run to the galley for some
sustenance. Want anything?”

Barry looked up from
his position at the communications comm. The bay had seen some training action
in the morning, but it ended an hour ago, which left him time to look at girly
pictures on his iPod.
“Sure, Nina.
Bring me back a Dr. Pepper.”

She winked at
him and threw her purse strap over her head as she pushed
open the anteroom door. A
whoosh
of warm air struck her face. She stuck
her head in Captain Redding and Ghost’s office.
“Galley run, taking orders, sirs.”

Captain Redding had
resumed his fatherly p
ersonality with the Shark in
Davy Jones’ locker. In fact, everyone seemed to be breathing easier these days.
“Thank you, Nina, but I’m going to call it an early day.” She turned her
attention on Ghost and jerked back. “Whoo, you definitely need coffee.” Gh
ost looked tired as hell. Nina chuckled.

“Funny, Ms. Samson.”
He gave her a droll look.

She decided to take a
stab in the dark at Ghost’s gray pallor. “Hey, being pregnant makes a woman
crazy. Ya just have to put up with it for a little longer.”

“You’re
telling me,” he grumped. “She’s sweet one second and
throwing things the next. I have to fix a hole in the drywall, since she tried
to take my head off with a frying pan yesterday.”

“I suppose so.”

Ghost’s brow furrowed.
“She’s about to have your baby, Cap
tain.” She paused
for effect. She knew darn well Kayla was worried Ghost would never ask her to
marry him again, and it made Kayla into an über-harpy since the Shark had been
put down. “Whose last name is Adam going to have?”