Saving the Seal 2: A BWWM Navy Seal Interracial Romance (13 page)

“Please.” Owen rolled his eyes, closing his journal as he finished his entry. “In three months all you’re going to wanna do is sleep with your wife and spend time with your kid.”

“That’s what
you
think,” Sean retorted. But Owen knew better. Even when he was angry with her, Sean couldn’t help the lovesick puppy look that came over him when he spoke about his wife. They would make up within the week, for sure.

After updating his fellow SEAL on the current situation – stalker still on the loose, Genny not even able to pee without being watched, half the town on high alert – Owen signed off to prepare for his daily session at the shooting range. He was finding his stride – and the targets – a lot easier these days. He found he was better when he just imagined the paper bullseye was the stalker’s head.

He hit the mark every time.

Owen was packing up a bag with his scope and gear when he heard the front door unlock. He straightened, immediately wary. It was two in the afternoon. Genny didn’t get off until much later that night.

Before he had time to go into full defense mode, however, Eddie bounded through the living room and to the door, confirming that it was, indeed, Genny who had entered. Owen’s lover trudged through the entryway and into the kitchen, but when the SEAL caught sight of her expression, he froze.

Her usually bright hazel eyes looked haunted. She was stiff, her bag clutched tightly to her and her hands trembling slightly. Immediately, Owen dropped what he was doing to rush over to her. “Genny, are you Ok? What the hell happened?”

He took her into his arms, and she still didn’t relax against him. She was so cold, ice might have flowed through her veins, and she quivered like they were outside in mid-winter. The SEAL felt his heart drop. “Genny,
answer me
. Are you alright?”

“He talked.” The young woman returned faintly – almost inaudibly – against his chest.

“Who talked?” Owen demanded, his heart racing. Staring up at him, her eyes filled with grief and hatred, Genny replied in a whisper.

“Jonas Kant. He spoke to me today.”

It took Owen about twenty minutes to calm her down – enough time for him to thoroughly ponder what the hell Jonas could have told her to unsettle the psychiatrist so completely.

Genny was used to dealing with difficult cases. Though she hadn’t disclosed any names to him, she told him she dealt with patients who had tried to hurt her, men who couldn’t escape the recurring nightmare of watching their fellow soldiers murdered again and again around them. There was a man who had threatened to end his life in her office and a young woman who did nothing but scream in grief at the death of her brother – who had also been active duty when he’d died.

And then there was Owen himself, with his night terrors, his horrifying dreams and his full scale outbursts of frustration.

What could be worse than that?

Owen made a cup of strong coffee and got Genny to sit down on the sofa as she drank it. As if sensing her distress, Eddie hopped up next to her and lay his head comfortingly on her thigh with a concerned whine.

Genny sipped at her coffee slowly. She had almost finished it by the time she finally spoke. Owen listened in silence, not daring to interrupt her.

“It started when he was three. His mother died in childbirth and he has no living grandparents, so his father has taken care of him his entire life. He never paid him any real attention until he was three. That’s when his nanny was dismissed and Jonas was left alone with Daniel.

He touched him for the first time not long after that. He insisted that it was how he showed Jonas his love, and that if Jonas loved him in return, he would allow it. He was a child. What was he supposed to do? He was forced to grow up like that, with his own father preying on him day after day, year after year.

He’s a shut in. Homeschooled since kindergarten and hidden from the world. He managed to make it through schooling, but his only friend was his father. As he grew old enough to go out and do things on his own, Kant started having him bring other boys back to their house. They would play doctor…all of them together.

Daniel’s requests grew wilder as Jonas grew older. Apparently, on several occasions, he had his son dress up like his deceased wife before he molested him. He told ‘her’ how much he loved her and how much he hated Jonas for ‘killing her’. Jonas grew to believe that the only way that he could incur his father’s good will was by constantly pretending to be his mother. So, he did. For more than fifteen years, he dressed almost as a woman constantly and fulfilled a role both mentally and sexually that was far beyond him. And worst of all, Daniel always remembered who he really was when he was finished with him.

Jonas got the tiniest bit of freedom when Daniel started working at Riperton. Because he was spending so much time at the hospital, he didn’t pay as much attention to his son. Somehow, Jonas got hold of enlistment papers for the army and sent them off. Of course, when he didn’t show up for basic, they came to his house to retrieve him. Daniel let them take him, buying their silence with some of the money borne from his deal with Trace and the pharmaceutical companies.

For two years, Jonas served. It was the first time in his life he’d been outside Daniel’s tightly controlled cage and though he was awkward, he excelled in hand to hand combat and found the presence of his fellow soldiers comforting. But, when his contract was over, his father froze his bank accounts and forced him to come home.

Daniel, bored, started spending his funds on lavish parties and paid sex workers. He didn’t need Jonas any more so he started to neglect him. He grew tired of the control he had over the poor boy. He locked him away – gave him old clothes to wear and barely fed him enough to keep him alive. Almost no one knew he even
had
a son.

They
found
him when they repossessed Daniel’s house after he was incarcerated. He was chained in a three by three closet, dehydrated, and starving. He was only rehabilitated in a halfway house for a few weeks before they referred him to our department at Riperton.”

For a long moment after Genny finished, silence hung between them. Owen knew that the young woman could get into big trouble for divulging patient secrets, but this one…

Jesus Christ.

He would never have thought he could, but Owen found himself feeling sorry for Jonas. If he’d really gone through all that….if his father had ruined him so completely…then Daniel Kant was even more of a bastard than any of them had ever known.

“Why…” Owen swallowed thickly, the revelation buzzing in his ears, “Why hasn’t he told the cops about any of this?”

“He’s scared.” Genny replied almost immediately. “The man’s father ruled over him for his entire life, Owen. To Jonas, it doesn’t matter if Daniel is standing in jail or right next to him. His father still has control.”

Fuck. Owen was no psychiatrist, but that sounded like a mind fuck and a half. He ran his hands through his hair as he lay back against the couch. Could they really have been wrong about Daniel Kant all this time? Had he not only victimized hundreds of vulnerable soldiers, but his own son as well?

“You know…” Genny brooded darkly, her gaze hard. “It almost makes me wish we hadn’t put him away, so he could get a harder sentence.”

Her statement startled the SEAL, who had never heard her speak with such malice before. Though he knew Genny could anger when her temper was stretched too thin, this was something else entirely.

Something almost like the vengeance he’d sought for those who killed his team in Fallujah.

“Gen,” He started softly, drawing her against him. “It’s over and done with now. The man will never work again. His career is through and he’s probably going to spend the rest of his life in jail.”

Taking a deep breath, Genevieve exhaled slowly. “I know…I know. I just…I can’t believe no one ever knew. I almost feel like I could have helped him earlier…if I’d said something sooner…”

“Don’t you dare.” Owen clutched her tightly to him in reassurance. “Don’t blame yourself for this. What happened to the kid is Kant’s doing, not yours.”

“Still,” the young woman replied, shaking her head. “For the past two months, everyone in the office…
hell
, everyone that knew about his coming to Riperton has been waiting for him to snap. Waiting for him to be just like his father. He’s been suffering all this time, and no one gave him the benefit of the doubt. Are we really so cynical?”

She was really beating herself up over this.

All Owen could to think to do was comfort her. For as long as he’d known his lover, she had taken her work very seriously – so seriously that she edged on making her patients issues her own. This particular case had already been personal. Now she wanted to take all of the responsibility onto her own shoulders when she deserved none of it.

For at least twenty minutes, neither of them spoke. Genny clung to Owen in the dim living room, with Eddie looking on empathetically.

To say that the SEAL felt no small amount of guilt would be an understatement. Could he help it if he was trained to see the danger in everything? If his number one priority was to protect those he loved? He was less compassionate than Genny – less forgiving.

Probably why she was the psychiatrist and he Special Forces.

However much empathy he had or didn’t have, he couldn’t stand to see her so upset with herself. After a long moment, the dark-haired man slid two fingers beneath her chin, tipping up her face so he could mold his lips to hers.

Genny didn’t give in at first. Her mouth was stiff and unyielding beneath his. Slowly, patiently, Owen began to massage her shoulders.

After what seemed like an eternity, the tension slowly began to ease from Genevieve’s muscles. She relaxed, bit by bit, until she finally slumped fully against him, her lips parting beneath his coaxing tongue.

She’d been crying. He could taste the salt on her lips. The faint scent of her perfume washed over him as he lent her his warmth and his support. Personally, he couldn’t understand how she did it. He’d almost fallen apart after one nightmare experience had worked at his sanity and ripped away men who had deserved to live full, long lives.

Genny had to live through those horrors every day, with each patient she saw.

For all his training, all the missions he’d been on and all he’d been through, Owen was beginning to realize that, of the two of them, he certainly wasn’t the bravest.

As Genny’s body melted against him, their kisses grew more insistent. When the young woman tugged at his lower lip alluringly before nipping at the corner of his mouth, Owen groaned, low in his throat. He reached over to lift her into his lap, shifting Eddie away from them.

At this point, the pup knew the drill. When the hot and heavy stuff started, he was banished to the kitchen with a chew toy. After nearly a month and a half, he went automatically, without a single peep.

Genny began to tug at the hem of the shirt Owen wore impatiently, and he was as hard as a rock in an instant. Christ, how he loved this woman. He might have issues putting it in layman’s terms, but he couldn’t deny it. Every movement of his body – every kiss and every touch – was a dead giveaway.

He let Genny remove his shirt before he returned the favor, unbuttoning her blouse hurriedly. It disappeared somewhere into the cushions of the couch beneath them as Owen tugged at the lacy cups of her bra. It took little work to get the flimsy thing around her waist, and the sight of her nipples, perked up in desire for him, made him groan.

The SEAL lowered his head to take one distended peak into his mouth and Genevieve gasped, arching against him. She tasted sweeter and sweeter every time. Owen didn’t know what humbled him more – that she tolerated his bull-headedness, or that she told him multiple times a day how much she needed and wanted him.

Even when he couldn’t say it once.

As he drew on her nipple, she squirmed beneath him, her fingers tunneling through the mess of his shower-damp hair. He loved it when she tugged from the roots, as if she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to escape or to have him closer. The reality of the matter was that she had little choice. Once he had a hold on her, he wasn’t letting go until both of them were thoroughly satisfied.

His head raised to her neck, where he lavished the long column with kisses and bites that he knew would leave marks, be he hardly cared. Right now, she needed him; and he couldn’t think of a time when he didn’t need her.

He wanted to savor her – to taste every part of her and show her with his body, if he couldn’t with his words, how much she meant to him. How she left him in awe of her and what she did.

But Genny wasn’t having that.

Her fingers found the button of his pants, undoing it swiftly before she pushed his jeans impatiently over his hips. Owen knew it would be pointless to try and dissuade her, so instead, he merely hiked her skirt up over her flat stomach to expose the lacy confection of her panties.

She had
no
idea what those things did to him – and she never gave him any warning as to when she would be wearing them. Most days, it was just plain cotton underthings; mind you, that never made her decadent body any less appealing to him…but those little scraps of lace? They drove him absolutely insane.