What About Love (Club Decadence Book 6) (13 page)

Twenty laps of freestyle had passed when she slowed, grabbing the edge of the pool for a short breather. Trying not to seem obvious, she scanned the pool deck for T. When that didn’t pan out, she twisted to where she’d last seen him and eyed the lanes on either side of her. She saw a wall of water surging toward her in the lane on her right as a swimmer approached. Mesmerized, she watched as a dark head lowered while thickly muscled arms and broad shoulders rose out of the water. As he neared, he executed a perfect butterfly turn and dolphin kicked back the other way. Once she’d pried her jaw from the pool floor and wiped the drool from her chin, she scowled and pushed off, following in a much less powerful and inelegant butterfly. Leave it to T to do the hardest stroke flawlessly and make it look effortless.

Ten more laps—two of the butterfly, which was all she could manage, the remainder a moderately paced freestyle—and she was done in. Swimming crosswise over the lane ropes, she headed for the ladder and climbed out. Finding her towel, she leaned against the cool tile wall as she tried to catch her breath.

T was going strong and still swimming the fly. Mesmerized, she watched for another ten laps, impressed by his endurance. At the tail end of the tenth, as he approached the far end of the pool, he slowed and diving under, performed another textbook turn. He resurfaced a good six or seven meters from the wall thanks to his long body and began a slow crawl back to her end. A cool down lap, she assumed.

Reaching the near wall, he stopped and popped up. Pushing off in the opposite direction, he floated on his back as he allowed his breathing to slow. Angie watched his slick, tanned body gleaming golden under the lights as it floated atop the water, his chest rising and falling from his exertion.
Out of breath
, she thought with more than a bit of wonder,
he is human after all.

As she dried herself off, he dove under the ropes and swam to the ladder. Emerging in a sheet of water, she tried not to salivate over his dripping, practically bare body. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep from staring at the smoothness of his broad, powerful chest, or the dark hair of his underarms, exposed when he lifted both hands, biceps and forearms flexing as he ran his fingers through his drenched hair, brushing it off his face. She didn’t dare drop her gaze below his waist, sure his wet trunks clung like a second skin. She couldn’t anyway with her brain locked onto the washboard on his abdomen, counting way more than a six pack.

Moving across the pool deck toward her, he lifted both arms over his head and with hands clasped together, arched his body from side to side, and then forward and back as he did his post-swim stretches. Angie nearly came on the spot from the lust inspiring perfection that was Antonio freakin-hot Minelli.

“Your boyfriend is freakin’ hot, sister,” a voice declared, closely echoing her thoughts.

Dragging her eyes away from the water-god who had emerged from the pool, Angie cast a sidelong glance at one of the young women who had been flirting with him earlier. She didn’t spare Angie a glance as she walked by, her attention zeroed in solely on T. Not saying a word, she didn’t correct her inaccurate boyfriend assumption, convinced that her tongue had suffered a stroke and she would blather unintelligibly.

T was close enough to overhear, however, and stopped stretching. He leaned over and grabbed a towel that had been lying unnoticed beside her own on the same chair.

“Morning, darlin’,” he drawled in a low greeting, his voice a little gruff from his exertion. Her eyes followed the towel as he ran it over his face and began to rub down his chest and arms. “You didn’t come to say hi when you arrived.”

“Um, you, uh, seemed otherwise occupied.” Mentally kicking her ass for acting like a love-struck fool, she silently chided herself to snap out of it.

“Shame on you. I needed rescuing and you dove into the pool without batting an eye.” He gave her a teasing wink while lightly swatting her behind with the towel before draping it across his shoulders and hanging onto the ends. “Swimming was awesome. It’s been a while.”

The light swat on the butt reminded her of the many he’d given her on the cross. She turned away and hurriedly began repacking her pool bag. Anything to distract herself from his glistening wet chest. “It looked to me like you could give lessons. Your technique was perfect. Did you swim in school?”

“No. Football was my game.”

“Ah,” she nodded, still not looking up. “Middle linebacker, I’ll bet.”

“You know football?”

That drew her eyes back to him. “Seriously? Are we in Texas?”

“Yeah, what was I thinking?” He smiled ruefully. “This was nice. Cross training might be the way to go to mix things up for a while. We had a pool growing up. I was like a fish back then, practically living in it during the summer. Although I didn’t really learn technique until the Army.”

“They teach swimming in the Army?”

“I was Special Forces. They don’t let you in if you can’t swim. I had the basic knowledge; they helped me perfect it. I also dive and jump out of planes on occasion.”

“For some reason I thought the Seal teams did all the diving and swimming.”

“Navy frogmen,” he scoffed. “More like glory hogs. The difference between the Seals and SF is that we work harder, kick more ass, and run more ops, but don’t act like roosters and crow about our successes on the six o’clock news or try to get someone to turn it into a fuckin’ screenplay.”

“Oops!” Her hands came up in surrender. “Sorry, a touchy subject, I see.”

“You have no idea.” His irritation morphed into a grin as he took in her suit, from the high scooped neck to the regular cut thighs, skating on down her legs and back up. “I see swimming four times a week does a body good.” He stretched his arms above his head once more, dropping a hand behind his head one at a time and pulling on his elbow with the opposite hand in lat and arm stretches. “The butterfly is a great entire body and cardio workout, but killer on the arms.”

“Yeah,” she breathed, mesmerized by the display. “And low impact.” Swallowing with difficulty, she wrapped her towel around her torso, covering her nipples, which weren’t hard from the cold. “Um, I’m gonna hit the showers.”

“We’ll grab something to eat on the way to the office. Got a text from Cap. He scheduled a meeting at noon, which gives us time for target practice and another round in the simulator before that.”

The simulator. Crap! Wasn’t that just great? Nothing like a healthy dose of humiliation to start the day. Suppressing a groan, she focused on the meeting with Cap. “Has something else come up since yesterday?”

“No clue, little bit, he didn’t say.” He tweaked her chin, like a big brother would, then headed off to the men’s locker room.

When he’d disappeared, the woman from earlier came up to her again. “My mistake, I thought you were a couple. Is your brother single, sweets? If so, can you introduce me, please? He is fah-reaking gorgeous.”

Irritated by her assumption, although she’d thought the same only a second ago, she cast a smug look at the pretty younger woman. “Sorry,
sweets
, but if you think big brother is hot, you should see his boyfriend.”

“No!” she squealed, holding her stomach as if she’d been dealt a mortal blow.

“Isn’t that always the way?”

“Figures,” she scowled. “All the best looking ones are gay. Hell, if I was a man and that sexy wall of muscle glanced my way, I’d change sides too.” She stomped away with a frustrated, “Damn!”

Angie didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt, more like a good healthy dose of vindication as she too hit the showers.

*****

“Show me what you’ve got, trainee.”

Rather than observing from the control booth, T stood beside her and a few inches back, his long arm easily reaching the touch pad on the wall that started the simulator.

“Are you going to stand right there and watch?” she complained. “You’ll distract me.”

One dark brow quirked upward. “If you can’t focus with me quietly observing, we’ve got problems.”

She turned back without another word. He was right. She had to concentrate and block out the distractions around her, no matter how infuriating, and incredibly sexy they were. She took a deep breath to steady herself as the lights flashed a countdown. Her mind went through a list of what he’d be observing, her stance, her grip, her concentration and most importantly her aim.

The lights overhead flashed green as a buzzer sounded. It was go time. Instead of a street scene, he’d programmed the pop up target mode, beginner’s level. Randomly, a head and upper body outline, like on the firing range, would appear holographically for about two seconds.

She pulled the trigger and missed on her first try.

“Keep your eye on the target.”

She bristled. “I’m not a rookie, T.”

“You scored thirty-seven percent last time, Angie.” He didn’t need to add what she already knew, that pretty much sucked.

She completed the round without further comment, or at least what she could before the simulator shut off, flashing red. Another fail.

“Dammit,” she cursed, hollering in frustration.

T walked to the control panel on the wall and pulled up a summary of her session. “Fourteen hits and twenty-six misses. It calculated a no win scenario and shut down.”

“Well, crap. That’s worse than the last time.”

“No worries. I’m going to fix you.”

“How? Dan tried and couldn’t.”

“I noticed straight off there are three things you’re doing wrong. Grip, focus and follow through.”

“That’s pretty much everything.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

She huffed a soft laugh of capitulation. “So fix me, oh guru of the gunnery.”

“Weapons Sergeant, and I plan to.”

“Pardon me?”

“For eight years I was the team’s weapons specialist, meaning I got to shoot and blow shit up. I also got to teach and problem solve for the guys, which is why Cap has me train the new recruits.”

“What was Dan?”

“A freakin’ Jarhead, baby. As if…”

She laughed at that, having heard his opinion of the other military branches. Little did she know he was only half-joking.

“Don’t get me wrong, Dano’s a good man, but he didn’t have the training I did. Nothing compares to the forty plus weeks of classroom and field training the Army put me through.” He punched a few keys, resetting the simulator for another round. “So, trainee, are you ready to lay off the sass and get serious.”

She saluted crisply, replying sharply. “Sergeant, yes, Sergeant!”

“Smart ass,” he shot back, although with little heat. “I’ll let it slide this once because you’re cute, despite the attitude.”

Instantly, she deflated more than another fail at the simulator could do. He thought her cute. Yep, he had definitely put her in the friend or kid sister zone. Hell!

“Listen up,” he said near her ear. Angie hadn’t seen him move and jumped slightly. “First, grip. If correct, you will fire where you look. Second, focus. You’re not keeping your eye on the target. You line up the shot, but recheck your aim at the last instant before you fire. If only for a split second, this will affect your shot. A stationary target, gives you that time. For a moving one, you don’t have the leeway and it causes you to miss. Lastly, is follow through. You lift your head to check your shot when you should be keeping your target in sight for a follow up or moving on to the next threat.”

Her mouth opened, snapping shut and biting her tongue the next moment when she thought better of what she was going to say. He obviously had the training and knew what he was talking about. Heaven knows no one and nothing else had helped her improve. So, she stashed smart-ass-Angie away for the time being, cleared her head and body of the strong attraction she felt for him, and listened.

*****

T spent the next half hour showing her what he meant. Most importantly, he adjusted her hold and hand position on the gun. With his big hands moving over her smaller ones, he taught her the straight thumb grip.

“This will have the gun tracking up with the recoil. You’ll find it comes right back to the same spot after you fire, or very near to it. Stop focusing on your weapon so much. Think of it as an extension of your arm. The target is your focus. Got it?”

She nodded, having carefully attended to every word, which he liked, except she was much too tense, her habit of biting her bottom lip not the only sign. She needed to relax. He tried to keep it light, continuing with his teasing banter, which he also enjoyed, especially when Angie tended to give as good as she got and wasn’t intimidated by him as women often were.

“Ready to give it a try?”

Again, she bobbed her head in agreement, remaining surprisingly silent. She seemed pensive, no doubt concentrating on all she had learned, but to lift the mood, he couldn’t resist a dig.

“What? No questions, comments, wise ass remarks?”

She released her lip and wrinkled her nose at him, then promptly stuck out her tongue.

He laughed. “Okay, detective sassy britches. Here comes round two. Remember, grip, focus, follow through… let’s see how you do.”

She got into a ready stance and waited for the lights to flash as the countdown started.

“One other thing about follow through. From now on you get a swat for every miss.”

Her head jerked his way.

A target flashed and she didn’t take a shot. “That’s one, Angie.”

“T!” she squealed in protest, as another flash lit up the room.

“Now you’re up to two. Concentrate, or you’ll be standing through lunch.”

“Threatening to spank me is not helping me focus.” Despite her complaints, she had a lock on a target and took a shot. She scored a hit, which made him grin.

“Good shot. I must be helping a little. Keep going.” Standing behind her, he watched over her head, as she fired again with greatly improved accuracy. Despite the noise of the simulator and her weapon discharging, he could hear her quietly talking to herself, recognizing some of his words verbatim. Truly liking what he saw, he admired her determination and fearlessness as much as her beauty and womanly softness, and wished fervently that things could be different.