SEAL the Deal (26 page)

No response from Jack.

Mick raised his eyebrows. “She’s okay,
though. Just some minor blood pressure issues.”

Jack answered only with the clicking of
his fingers on the keyboard.

Mick sat at his desk. “Then on the way
out, Maeve mooned the statue of Vice Admiral Stockdale.”

Jack abruptly stopped typing and turned to
Mick.

“Had to see if you were even listening.” Mick
smiled. “Well, you should have come. It was a good tour. They were hanging on
my every word.”

A snort came from Jack, his face sullen
and his fingers pounding keys with a vengeance.

“Are you really backlogged with work, or
are you pissed about something? I can’t tell.”

“Pissed about everything, really. Got a
ton of work to get done before we get out of here for the holidays and now my whole
damn family wants to have a freaking reunion in Disneyworld this Christmas,
which seems like a nightmare to me. Why the hell would I want to waste my time
at Disneyworld when I have no wife, no kids, and no interest in talking mice?”

“Might be fun seeing your nieces and
nephews enjoy it.”

“Then
you
go.”

Mick threw his hands up. “Okay, I’ll back
off.”

“Thank you,” Jack said with mock
gratitude.

Mick sorted through a pile of mail that
had accumulated on the desk. He sliced open an envelope that didn’t look like
the standard military mail. “Huh. What’s this?”

Jack glanced over. “Some ball invitation. Don’t
get excited, Cinderella. I got one, too.”

“You going?”

Jack grimaced. “Why the hell would I want
to go to another military ball?”

“I hear you there. What’s the occasion?”

Jack shrugged. “Who knows? Probably some Four-Star’s
wife bought a new ball gown and needed someplace to wear it.” Sarcasm laced his
every word.

Mick shook his head. “You’re in a hell of
a mood.”

Jack grunted.

“So why don’t you take that girl you
started seeing?”

Jack looked at Mick as though he had grown
a horn in the middle of his head. “Why would I do that? A woman goes to a
military ball and she suddenly starts thinking she wants to be a military wife.
Before you know it, she’s dropping hints about her ring size and whether she
prefers platinum or gold.”

“You’re right about that,” Mick noted,
pondering whether or not it would be a smart idea to invite Lacey. “But then
you’d be closer to having those kids to take to Disneyworld with you.”

Jack glared, clearly displeased that Mick
had figured out why he was really pissed.

Mick stared at the invitation, then tapped
it on the side of his wastebasket, debating whether or not to toss it in.

“Are you asking Lacey?” Jack asked,
frowning.

Mick set the invitation aside thoughtfully
and let the question hang in the office unanswered for the remainder of the
afternoon.

Lacey wasn’t much of a cook, but with a
little coaching from Bess over the phone, even she would admit that the Chicken
Parmigiana looked tasty. The aroma of fresh roasted garlic and sautéed onions that
hung divinely in the air would be the perfect greeting for Mick.

She felt a familiar charge of anticipation
when she heard his key in his front door. Silly, she thought, to still respond
that way.

His voice called in from the foyer. “Lacey?
You here?”

She appeared, wooden spoon in hand,
wearing a tidy apron over her work suit. “I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to
surprise you with dinner.”

“You here is the best surprise I could
ever have named. Dinner or not.” He loosely wrapped his arms around her waist
and met his lips to hers.

“How was your day, dear?” she asked
playfully.

“Perfect now.” He groaned a bit as he
pulled her body full against him. “So what did I do to deserve this, so that I
can be sure to do it again?”

Lacey’s eyes danced. “Oh, I think it was
all those salutes you got during our tour yesterday. Something about watching
people salute you gets me a little…”

“Turned on?” Mick offered helpfully.

“Mmm…”

“So, um, how much longer does it have to
cook?”

“It’s ready now.”

“Damn,” he said. “Because so am I. But not
for dinner.” With that, he kissed her again deeply, tracing his tongue lightly along
her teeth and gently teasing her breasts with his light touch as his hands
pushed past the apron. “This is like a Doris Day fantasy, you know.”

“Really? Aren’t you a little young to know
anything about Doris Day?”

“Are you kidding? Every guy has his Doris
Day fantasies,” he said, nimbly untying her apron and lifting it over her head.
“The woman was timeless.” He planted a trail of kisses down her neck. “She was an
icon.” He unbuttoned her top three buttons. “She was…” he cupped her breast in
his hand and kissed it, “…not nearly as sexy as you are right now.”

Lacey whimpered, completely lost to him. Giving
in to her own yearnings, she struggled to unbutton his uniform with her one
free hand.

The sudden harsh sizzle of water boiling
over into the flames had her rushing into the kitchen on pure instinct with
Mick following.

“Pasta’s ready.” Laughter was in Mick’s
voice.

Lacey let out a sigh of relief seeing her
dinner was not ruined. “That was close. Now no more distractions, Commander,”
she pointed the wooden spoon at him then licked the remains of the sauce from
it.

“Then you’ll have to stop doing that.”

“What?” she said, taking another sample of
the sauce.

“That.” His eyes were shaded with lust as
he eyed the spoon she was lifting to her mouth.

Lacey figured it out. “Oh, you mean this?”
Batting her lashes and tracing her tongue along the side of the spoon, she then
sank the spoon full into her mouth and let out a seductive purr.

Mick’s lashes fell to half-mast. “Now I
know why they call it a wooden spoon.”

Lacey grinned. “Bad joke. Now sit back and
let me serve you.”

***

They managed to get a few bites of the
meal in them before Mick swept her into his arms and took her on the rug in
front of the fireplace at Lacey’s suggestion. The bedroom upstairs seemed too
damn far at the time. She had needed to have him inside her, to feel his hands
stroking her, caressing her, manipulating her into positions that made her
blush even as she lay naked alongside him moments after.

They put another two helpings of the meal
on plates and ate them—well, part of them—in front of the fire. But
their meals grew cold again as he tempted her once more.

Hours later, they lay satiated in front of
the fireplace, keeping warm despite the fading embers.

“I should put another log on,” Mick
murmured, his face still buried in Lacey’s hair.

“Don’t go,” she objected, not anxious for their
bodies to part. She locked her gaze on his in a plea and found herself lost in
his steel blue eyes. There was a kind of soft joy in them tonight that made her
wonder, even hope, that he was growing to love her, too.

Because yes, she loved him. She laughed a
little, imagining Maeve and Bess rubbing it in that they were right. They had
known before she did.

Mick smiled, a little warily. “What?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s funny? You were laughing a moment
ago.”

Lacey shook her head dismissively. “Nothing.
Just funny how life is sometimes.” She adjusted her body to nestle her head
against his chest. The reassuring rhythm of his heartbeat lulled her.

Relishing the feel of her skin moving
against his, she reached above their heads and pulled the shirt from his
uniform closer. She traced the edges of the emblems and ribbons that were a
mystery to her, just as he still was in so many ways. “What do all these mean,
Mick?”

“Hmm?”

“These bars and symbols. What do they all
mean?”

Mick pulled the shirt over to him and
started naming them off as though they were menu items. “Well, these oak leaves
on the collar tell people my rank is Lieutenant Commander. And these two
ribbons are for expert pistol and expert rifle.” He adjusted his weight as he
took the shirt in his other hand. “This is my Sea Service Deployment ribbon
with bronze stars for the number of tours, and then this is my Overseas
Deployment Ribbon with a silver star for five tours and a bronze star for one
more. This is for Southwest Asia service three separate times.”

Lacey’s eyes were wide. “Wow. You’ve been
busy.”

Mick let out a slow breath coming to his
personal awards. “This one here,” he started, pointing to a ribbon near the top,
“is a purple heart.”

“You got a purple heart?”

“Two,” Mick answered casually. “The first
was for this knife wound in hand-to-hand combat with an insurgent who was
trying to toss a grenade at my team.” He turned on his side, revealing a
well-healed scar on his side that was camouflaged amid his rippling muscle
tone.

“My God.”

“The gold star on it means I got a second purple
heart for getting shot in the shoulder on my last mission.” He lifted himself
up a bit and pointed to a scar just below his shoulder.

Lacey paled.

“And these are just some more personal
awards. Bronze Star with combat V. Joint Meritorious Service Medal. Navy Cross
from my last mission with the SEALs.”

She touched her hand to her mouth, and he
must have seen the uneasiness in her eyes, because he rushed through the last.

“And these ones are Navy Commendation and
Navy Achievement Medals, and some Unit Commendation Medals.”

With Lacey at a loss for words, the silence
between them was broken only by the faint crackle of dying embers.

Mick tried to lighten the tone. “So, all
in all, we call it chest salad.”

“Chest salad?”

Mick just smiled and nodded.

“I call it impressive, myself.”

He shook his head dismissively. “It’s not
much, really. It’s just my job. We pin things on for everything. It’s like
wearing your résumé on your uniform.”

Lacey stroked his shoulder where the worst
of the two combat scars seemed to tell a story of its own. “First time I saw
this one, you were mowing Maeve’s lawn.” She smiled at the memory, feeling as
though a lifetime had passed since then. “I always wondered what it was from,
but was too afraid to ask.”

“You shouldn’t have been afraid to ask me.
You can ask me anything.”

Leaning closer, she kissed the scar
meaningfully. “That’s not how I was afraid. I was too scared to hear the truth.
I sometimes try to forget what you did, and what you’ll do again. The risks you
take. The thought of something bad happening to you…”

Mick took her in his arms. “Hey. I’m not
letting anything happen. There are always risks in life, but I’m one of the
best trained out there.”

Lacey’s smile was brief as she tugged the
shirt from Mick’s grasp, this time to wrap it over her naked body. Her fingers
reverently touched the many emblems pinned to his shirt that now had so much
more meaning to her. “So this is why everyone salutes you when you walk by?”
she asked with a coy smile.

“Or tells me when I’m supposed to salute
to someone else.”

“Exactly. But that’s not as much of a
turn-on.”

Mick laughed. “Okay, then. Back to the
image of people saluting at me...”

His laughter was buried beneath her kiss. She
let her hair fall onto his chest as she tasted him, the hint of tomatoes and
onions reminding her of the leftovers on the stove. She groaned. “I forgot to
put the rest of the chicken in the refrigerator. It’s probably bad by now.”

“Honey?”

Lacey’s expression warmed at the endearment.
“Yes?”

“No offense to your dinner. But it doesn’t
hold a candle to what you offered for dessert.” He wrestled her back underneath
him and stroked the side of her face affectionately. Leaning over her to kiss
her, he stopped, brow furrowed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just wondering something
actually. Do you like balls?”

Lacey’s eyes widened. “Uh, I like yours. Is
that what I’m supposed to say?”

Mick laughed. “No, I mean the kind where
you dress up in a gown and dance and all that.”

“I haven’t been to one.”

“Well, the Navy is having a big one in
February. Do you want to go?”

Lacey glowed at the invitation, and for a
fleeting moment pictured herself sweeping across a dance floor in Mick’s arms. She
sighed, wriggling out from under him. “No. Thanks, though.”

“No?”

“Mick, it’s a really sweet offer. But I
don’t have a ball gown, and I doubt even Maeve has one I could borrow.” Frowning,
her lips formed a tight line. “And I’m a bit tight on money till I sell one of
these listings.”