Hunter's Heart (16 page)

They edged to the boat rail and watched the creatures glide effortlessly by. One jumped completely out of the water only a few feet away. Another followed. Then alongside the boat, one popped straight up, bobbing there, looking at them. A smaller one did the same at its side.

“Hey guys,” Hunter said, saluting. “Nice to see you.”

The larger one bobbed its head, squeaked and then they were gone.

“Oh, my gawd. That was amazing.”

“See ya at work next week,” Hunter shouted.

“Is working with dolphins another crazy thing you tell people you do?”

“Don’t tell anyone that, ’cause we do work with them. The Navy trains dolphins to protect ports like Norfolk. They can be mean mothers. In the Keys one pounded me hard enough to crack a rib.”

He was serious.
And
for the first time he shared about his job. What a roller coaster day this had been. He cupped her face in his big hands and kissed her with what she’d come to call an everything kiss. Powerful, gentle, sweet and lustful. Warming and comforting her. How was it he always provided what she needed at the right time? It was as if he’d uploaded a chip into her brain to read her emotions.

“Hunter.”

“Hmmm.”
His breath came hot on her ear.

“Make love to me.”

He straightened, hazel eyes searching her face for a long moment, considering. “It will be my extreme pleasure.” He took her hand, guiding her below. Silently he pulled out the bunk, converting it to a large bed. From overhead storage—like those on planes—he brought out a quilt and pillows and together they arranged them.

Finished, they stood face to face. Celia hooked her fingers into the waist of his shorts and tugged them down over his slender hips and incredibly muscular thighs. He groaned faintly when she cupped his balls.

Even though it was obvious he enjoyed what she was doing, he took her hand away. His hands went to her hips then turned her so he could untie and disappear her suit top. When she turned back, he bent, easing her bottoms down, planting an occasional kiss on her body. He straightened. His large and very warm hands held her slightly away and he looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

Hunter lowered her to the bunk and rested between her spread legs. His lips and tongue caressed her breasts while his fingers tenderly explored the soft wet flesh between her thighs. She quivered under his touch and her breath came and went in gasps and moans.

“Hunter,” she said hoarsely. “Hunter, please.”

There was a quick movement, then a startling moment of joining and mingled sighs of pleasure. For a moment, they were both still.

Hunter moved against her. She responded and they began a slow rocking, in concert with their pleasure. She entered a kind of suspended state of awareness, her breathing, heartbeat, slowing. Her senses heightened and accelerated. Each sense fragmented and refined. The world moved in slow motion, allowing her to fully experience the newfound awareness.

Her breath rasped loud in her ears as if she used a breathing apparatus. Sea birds’ calls were as sharp and clear as the brilliant blue sky framed by the hatch above them.

Water gently lapped against the hull, in sync with their movements. She relished his salty taste. His musky scent mixed with tangy ocean smells. His soft lips on hers. His tongue gently exploring her mouth in contrast to the hard demanding thrusts between her thighs. The overwhelming pleasure she derived from each of his strokes. The pleasure she took, knowing she gave him pleasure.

The rush began between her thighs. Her back arched to take him in deeper.

“Now,” she whispered. “Now!”

The sensations came together, swirling in a kaleidoscope of color and explosive release that left her boneless as the jellyfish they’d seen. As she drifted on a cloud of satisfaction, she heard a voice from what seemed like a very long way off, a voice crooning about love.

She returned slowly from the afterglow-induced sleep, her head resting on his chest, listening to the slow thump of his heart. His arms locked around her.

“Welcome back,” he said, stretching luxuriously under her.

“Hmmm.”
She managed to open an eye and tried to move but succeeded only in wiggling her sweaty body against his. “How long was I out?”

“A little over an hour.”

“What?
An hour?” She forced both eyes open. “Why didn’t you wake me?” She lifted her head and pushed damp hair from her face to see him. He snorted.

“Because I was sleeping until a couple of minutes ago.” He dragged his thumb along her jaw line. “You hungry?”

“Hmmm.”
She was. “But I don’t want to end the day. Please, I don’t want to go back yet.”

He patted her rump then rolled off the bed and pulled on his shorts. “Not going to end. Not going back. I’m taking you to a seafood place on the water, Aunt Nellie’s. We park the boat and eat on the dock. Rough place, but the food is fresh out of the water and it’s fun.” He leaned and kissed each breast. “I’ll get us going. You, get dressed because I’m already aching to do that to you again.”

“Hmmm,”
she said, thinking it would be impossible to duplicate what he’d done—not to mention the resulting feeling.

Aunt Nellie’s was everything Hunter said it would be and more. The tied up then walked the dock until they found an empty table. The tables were weathered and warped pieces of plywood nailed to the dock railing on one end, supported with two-by-fours on the other. The
chairs
were lengths of tree trunks or ancient stools.

“We want the seafood tub,” Hunter said to a man who came to the table with a bucket.

“Been here before?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Hunter said.

“Good. Ya know the drill.” He unceremoniously plopped the bucket stuffed with newspaper on the plywood. “Ya also know we don’t serve no alcohol, not even beer. Sweet tea and water comes with your order. And ya know not to feed the flying rats,” he said.

Hunter nodded and the man was gone.

“Flying rats?”

“Seagulls,” Hunter laughed, then pointed up. “See the fishing wire strung everywhere?”

She looked up and saw filaments strung like a bizarre spider web overhead and nodded.

“If they didn’t have that the birds would swoop in and take food off our plates.”

“Okay.” She nodded and kept a wary eye on two birds floating in the water nearby. “What are we supposed to do with this?” she asked, fingering the newspaper. “Swat a bird if it breaks in?”

“Tablecloth,” Hunter said, removing some from the bucket.”Help me spread it.”

Their dinner, all manner of shellfish, was brought in a washtub and dumped on the
tablecloth.
A beat-up saucepan with melted butter, a pile of lemon wedges, and a hot seafood sauce was added to the table. Utensils were wooden mallets, nutcrackers, and picks. They also were given buckets of warm water and a pile of clean rags for hand cleaning.

The last twenty-four hours, her emotions had plummeted to the depths and lifted to highs she hadn’t experienced in her thirty years. She looked at Hunter. Life, living, really was a gift. A gift he’d given her.

“Last night was a full moon,” he said, pounding a crab leg with a wooden mallet. “Tonight it’ll be almost as full. When we leave here, do you want to watch it rise?”

She stood, leaned over the table and gave him a sticky kiss. “I most certainly do. I don’t want this day to ever end. Can we do it again next Sunday?”

He kissed her back, then shook his head. “No.”

She dropped onto the tree trunk seat.

“Next Sunday is a team get-together. I’d like you to go with me. Meet the guys and their families.”

She went expressionless, said nothing and he feared she was going to say no.

“Will there be a lot of people there?” she asked, haltingly.

He nodded. “Not a lot. Fifty maybe.”

She used the back of her hand to move strands of hair from her face. “That’s a lot for me.”

He reached across the table and took her hand.

“They’re all friends. Most are kids. I want them to meet you. None of them bite. Well, except for Darla.”

“Hunter.”

He really liked hearing her say his name.

“You always say they’re your family.”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“I’m just going to ask. You’re taking me to meet your family. Does this mean you, we, we’re serious?”

“Come here.” He took her hand and pulled her around the table to sit on his lap. “I’m serious.” Shit, he had been since that night at Pappy’s. “Are you feeling
serious
?”

She nodded. “Kinda.”

He laughed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s something else,” he said.

“What?” Her voice was filled with trepidation.

“I won’t be available this week.” He’d be gone to Florida. Night swims. “It’s training. But I can call.”

“It’s okay for you to tell me?” she whispered.

“It’s good. We’re serious, remember?”

“Can you tell me where you’ll be?”

“No. Most of the time you’ll know where I am, but not on this one.” Homeland Security was in charge. It was more a training for the Coast Guard. The teams, acting as the bad guys, would swim from the ocean into the Intracoastal Waterway and place devices on key bridges. “I can tell you I won’t be out of the country.”

“Is this dangerous?”

“Babe, danger is a relative thing. That is not something you want to dwell on or we won’t make it. Understand?”

She gulped. “Yes.”

“I’ll give you some phone numbers to call if you need anything. I don’t want you feeling you’re alone.” Especially if anything happened. This was a real-world training. The Coasties knew it was training and the SEALs wouldn’t be shot by their own side. Civilians were another thing. Armed civilians who didn’t know it was training, who would shoot first and ask questions later, were always a concern.

“You’re going to have to go back to your stump before my stump starts growing.”

She blinked a few times and finally got his drift. Instead of getting up, she ground her tight ass against him until he groaned and forced her off his lap.

Thanks to a haze-free horizon the moon rise was spectacular. Like Celia, he had no desire to end what had been one of the best days of his life. Bathed in the moon’s shimmering luminosity they stayed on the water late into the night.

The team flew to Florida on Homeland Security’s tab. A nice Gulfstream that landed at a small airport, kicked them and their gear out and was gone before they could pack the rental vans.

Home, for the next few days, was a beach-side hotel central to the target bridges’ locations. The Coast Guard would receive high-probability threat warnings for several locations. They’d evaluate the threats, determine which were valid, and defend those targets.

The team challenge was to get in, get out undetected. In this case, it was hard not to root for the other guys. Just as long as the
other guys
weren’t the sharks that cruised those waters. The job was for three nights. Two teams, two bridges a night.

First night they went into the water a mile beyond the St Augustine Inlet. They swam in and set boxes on the bridges north and south of the inlet. There was no sign of the Coasties and they made it in and out without interference. They did have to skirt around several fishermen. One turned a high power beam on him and would have had him if a school of manta rays hadn’t swum by, diverting their attention.

They made it back to the boat on the outgoing tide and were in their hotel room a little after dawn. After cleaning up, they spent a couple hours in the hotel conference room going over deets and eating breakfast. He figured the Coasties were doing the same, only with a little ass chewing added in.

He and Bambi went back to their room to crash.

He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his cell. He hadn’t intended to call Celia every day. He hadn’t thought he’d miss her so much. But, Christ, he did. It wasn’t even the sex. He missed that for sure but he missed other stuff like the way she tucked her body against his when they watched TV. Her scent. The way his watchband caught in her hair. Her hopping to music. It was hard to remember what life was like before her.

“Man, call her,” Bambi said. “I’m going to get ice. You got fifteen minutes for some quality phone sex.”

He twisted on the bed to look at Bambi. “I hadn’t thought about phone sex.” Bambi gave him a one-eyed, raised eyebrow
, are you serious
look.

“Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck do you think they made face time for? You are a fucking babe in the woods,” he said, shaking his head.

Hunter felt like one too.

“Damn. I am ashamed,
ashamed I say
, of my SEAL brother. This is what comes from no serious relationships. Fucking thirty years old and never had phone sex. We should start calling you Babe.”

Hunter zinged a flip flop his direction. “What about you and Amanda?” Hunter asked.

He grinned. “Caught her before we went to breakfast. While you were in the head and taking a shower.”