SEALed Bride: A Bad Boy Romance (Includes bonus novel Jerked!) (10 page)

I unclipped my microphone and placed it on the chair as Nash did the same thing. He grinned at me. “Good job,” he said.

“I don’t like her,” I said, and quickly regretted it.

His grin got huge. “Yeah? Because she wants to suck my cock, and that makes you jealous?”

“No,” I said. “Because she seems stuck up.”

“Yeah, okay.” He smirked at me, shaking his head. “Seriously though, you did great. We should celebrate.”

“Don’t you have a bunch more interviews to do?”

“Sure,” he said. “Afterward.”

“What should I do?”

“Go find Liv and sit with her. She’ll keep you safe.”

I nodded and started to walk away. I paused and looked back at him. “You didn’t mean any of that stuff, right?”

He cocked his head at me. “Acting, remember?”

“Right. Acting.”

I turned and quickly walked away.

So that was my first media interview. It was actually pretty painless, much easier than I had expected. Granted, Livy had specifically set us up with an easy first interview to ease me into the process. They’d only be getting harder and more intense from here on out.

But still, I found that sitting there and pretending like I was in love with Nash wasn’t so difficult. I mean, I didn’t love him for real of course; he was a cocky asshole. But he was charming and warm and kind when he wanted to be, too. There was more to him than just some dickhead Navy SEAL, though he was all SEAL.

All muscles and power and strength.

I quickly found Liv and sat down next to her. She more or less ignored me, which was fine with me.

I spent the next few hours watching Nash answer question after question, his smile plastered on his face.

M
y face was fucking tired of smiling by the time the day was finally over.

Mercifully, nobody wanted to interview Selena. Whether it as because they didn’t know who she was or because Liv did a good job of scaring them off, I couldn’t be sure. But we got through the day with only minor inconveniences.

“You’re good at that,” Selena said to me in the cab ride back to the hotel.

“Thanks, I guess,” I said.

“Seriously. You don’t seem like the media type, but you’re good at it.” 

“It’s not really something I want to be good at.”

“Why not?”

I sighed, looking out the window. “This was never my idea,” I said softly.

“What do you mean? Aren’t you happy your book is doing well?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “Hell fucking no,” I said. “I never wanted a book to begin with.”

She frowned at me. “I’m confused.”

I looked at her and shrugged. How could she understand? She couldn’t, especially considering I wasn’t supposed to tell her the truth about this whole book deal farce.

For me, it was just another fucking mission that had to be completed. The money, the fame, it was all just shit I had to deal with.

The only thing I wanted more than anything else in the world was to get back out in the field. I wanted to feel the sun on my face, to feel the terror in my heart as I rode out into battle. I wanted to feel fucking alive again.

I was a soldier, a Navy SEAL. I was a fucking warrior. I wasn’t some media asshole smiling for the cameras and trying to act like I gave a shit about the same fucking questions.

How could Selena ever understand that? She’d never experienced combat, never felt like what she was doing was the most important thing in the world. I’d felt like I had purpose out there fighting for my country and killing terrorist bastards.

Back in the States, sitting in front of cameras, I felt like a fucking clown.

“Nothing,” I said finally. “It’s nothing.”

“Come on,” she said, “you wanted to say something.”

I grinned at her. “Let’s go celebrate.”

She smiled uncertainly. “That was an abrupt change in conversation.”

“Yeah, well, take the hint.”

She laughed. “Celebrate what?”

“Your first interview. We got through that shit together.”

“I don’t know.”

“Driver,” I said, “you know a bar near here called Mickey’s?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Take us there.”

“Hold on,” Selena said. “I didn’t say I wanted to go.”

“Take us, driver,” I said, and looked back at her. “Come on. One drink.” 

She sighed. “Fine.”

We pulled up outside the bar a few minutes later. I climbed out and paid the cabbie and then smiled at Selena.

“Welcome to the best dive in the city.”

She laughed. “It does look like a shithole.”

“Hell yeah. Real people come here.”

Mickey’s was the epitome of a dive bar. The door was old and the paint was peeling off, and the sign was basically nonexistent. Unless you knew about it, you’d never want to stop and walk inside.

I’d been to NYC a ton of times during the last couple of years. I never failed to visit Mickey’s at least once, usually way more often. I pushed inside the door, dragging Selena behind me.

Inside, it was dark and it was loud. People sat up at the bar and at random tables, and I found us two spots at the end of the bar. The floor was slightly sticky and half the lights didn’t work, but it felt like fucking home.

It helped that they knew me here and knew not to fuck with me. The bartender gave me a nod and brought over a whisky. “What can I get for the lady?”

“Whatever he’s having,” she said.

He smirked at her and came back with a whisky, placing it down in front of her.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” I said to him.

“No problem, Nash.”

Selena looked at me. “You know him?”

“This is my favorite bar. Plus, I’m a little famous. I let them take a picture of me in here for their wall in exchange for leaving me the fuck alone when I come in.”

She laughed. “Where’s the wall?”

“Men’s bathroom. It’s just me and Regis Philbin.”

She cracked up and sipped her drink, making a face. “I’m not a whisky fan.”

“Why order it then?” I asked, taking a sip of mine.

“You’re always drinking it. I guess I wanted to try it.”

I laughed. “Takes a mature tongue.”

“I don’t have a mature tongue?”

“Not like mine, you don’t.” I smirked at her. “You’d be lucky to feel my tongue.”

“Doubt it. Your tongue is too busy flapping in front of the cameras.”

“Yeah, well.” I knocked back my drink and motioned for another. “Not my choice.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You ever do something that made you feel whole?”

She looked at me for a second before finally shaking her head. “No. I guess not.”

“That’s how I felt out in the fucking desert, killing bad guys. And you know what? I was good at it.”

“Yeah. That’s what your book says.”

I snorted. “Book doesn’t say shit. That stuff all happened, but not exactly the way it’s written. The truth is way better, but it’s also classified.”

“So why not go back out there?” she asked.

“Can’t,” I said, and I knew I was getting into dangerous territory.

“Why not?”

I thought for a second, trying to decide what she could know and what she couldn’t. “Korengal Valley, a few years ago. I was on a mission to hunt down a pack of terrorists trying to cross into Pakistan.” I nodded at Jimmy and took the drink he placed in front of me, sipping it. Selena was sitting there, staring at me intently.

“It was going well. We hunted them into a wooded area, but our scout overstretched and we got spotted. During the firefight, I took a bullet to the chest.”

She frowned. “That’s the scar right near your heart, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Tore right through me, missed my heart by fucking millimeters. Almost bled out, but our medic saved me, kept me alive long enough to get me out of there.”

“You almost died,” she said.

“Yeah, almost.”

“And you want to go back?”

“I do,” I said. “I don’t think you could understand unless you really did something that made you feel right. But after that injury, the upper brass thought they were doing me a favor by giving me an honorable discharge.” I shook my head, annoyed. That last bit was a slight lie, or at least it was the truth according to the public record.

“And so you wrote a book,” she said.

“Sort of. I was contacted by my publisher, asked if I was interested. Some other guy actually wrote the thing. I just told him some stories.”

She nodded. “So why do this tour though? All this publicity?”

“If I don’t, it all goes away.”

“You don’t care about the money, though. I just don’t get it.”

I frowned, shrugging. I wanted to tell her the truth so badly, but I knew that I could fuck everything up if I did. Instead, I leaned in and grinned.

“The pussy,” I said.

“What?”

“It’s all this pussy. If I weren’t famous, it wouldn’t be so easy.”

She shook her head, mystified. “You’re such an asshole. Can’t be serious for one second, can you?”

“I am serious,” I said, sipping my drink. “That’s my other skill. Fighting and fucking.”

“The only things a well-rounded man needs,” she joked.

“I can drink to that.”

She smiled and we clinked glasses, sipping.

“So what’s your deal?” I asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t seem like the type to be in this just for the money.”

She frowned. “This is all about the money.”

“Okay,” I said. “Obviously you don’t have to tell me. I’m just curious about you.”

“Well don’t be.”

I watched as she practically shut down on the spot, and I couldn’t help but smile at her.

“Sounds like you do have something to hide,” I said.

“I’m an open book.”

“Not exactly. You act like you’re all business, but I know what’s really going on.”

“Oh do you?”

I sipped my drink, nodding. “You can’t stop thinking about me. You keep thinking about what it would be like to slide my big cock between your legs.”

“Do men with big dicks talk about them as much as you do?”

I grinned at her. “We sure do. I’d love to give you a taste.”

“Right here at the bar?” she teased.

“Wherever you want.”

“I’ll take a rain check on that.”

I waved at Jimmy and he walked over. “Gin and tonic, please,” I said.

He nodded and walked away. I snatched the drink out from in front of her and poured it into my own glass.

“Hey,” she said. “I was drinking that.”

“No. You were looking at it. The gin is for you.”

She laughed and thanked Jimmy when he put it in front of her. We clinked glasses again, and this time she actually drank.

I began to tell her stories about the war. People loved to hear stories, and every once in a while I actually liked to tell them. For some reason she was easy to talk to, and she didn’t ask stupid questions. She just listened to the stories, laughed when they were funny, frowned when they were scary, and basically acted like she gave a shit.

Which was nice. I was so used to telling this sort of stuff to television personalities that did not care about me one way or the other. All they wanted was a good spot for their show, and that was it. I was an interchangeable part for them, a cog in the fucking media machine.

And it bored the shit out of me. So it felt good to finally talk to someone who was listening to what I was saying, not just thinking about how it was going to play with their audience.

“So finally,” I said, “we rush into the barracks, and what do we see?”

“What?” she asked, smiling.

“Little John tied up to the fucking bed screaming, ‘The British are coming! The British are coming!’”

She cracked up and I grinned at her. That was one of my best stories, the sort of thing that was so bizarre that it was impossible not to laugh. I hadn’t told it on television, because every part of it was true, and because I wanted to keep some stories for myself.

“You make war sound almost fun,” she said.

“Nah. War wasn’t fun.” I grinned at her, leaning closer. “Fun is sitting here with you. Fun is imagining your pussy on my mouth.”

“That the kind of fun you like?” she asked, smiling back.

“It is. There’s nothing better than making my wife come over and over.”

“You wouldn’t know,” she said, still smiling, not pulling away.

I moved closer. I could practically smell her, taste her. The kiss came rushing back into my mind, and I knew I wanted it again, had to have it again.

She tilted her head, ever so slightly, her lips parted. Her body language was screaming for me to take her right then and there, to kiss her hard and rough and make her mine.

“Nash Bell?”

I looked up, frowning. Standing next to my stool were two tall, thin blond girls. They looked like models trying to make it in the city, and they would have been my type only a few weeks ago. If they had interrupted me back then, I would have taken them both home and fucked them both until they couldn’t walk straight.

But tonight they were just annoying the shit out of me.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Oh my god, wow. It’s really you!” the girl exclaimed. “Look, Lucy. I told you!”

“Uh, hi, Nash,” Lucy said to me, smiling.