Charlie sat there, and her brain was firing off: Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!

The class started looking around because her instructor, Blue was standing there staring into space, but those aching blue eyes were on her.

They exchanged one more oh, shit look and then he said, “I’m Special Operator Ocean Beckett. I will be co-instructing this course for the next month while I teach you about mental toughness. As you can see from the syllabus, we will be doing open water dives and controlled pool dives. This is an advanced class, and if you don’t think you can handle it, take a hike.”

He stood there waiting for a few minutes, but no one moved. He nodded. “All right. We’ll see how many we have left once this class comes to a close. The navy doesn’t tolerate anything but the best. Keep that in mind as we progress,” Blue said.

He continued to speak, but Charlie’s thoughts were on how she was still going to make this work. They’d already crossed the line. He’d taken her up against the wall in her shower. They were far from rope work. She had some trust exercises for him to perform. Before she realized it, Blue was standing in front of her with an expectant look on his face.

“You not paying attention, sailor?”

Oh, shit! “Sir?”

“We’re going around the class and introducing ourselves. You dropped the ball. Drop and give me twenty.”

She looked up at him and realized he was enjoying this. For the first time since she met him, his eyes twinkled. “Twenty?”

“Okay, make it fifty. Do we want to go for an even hundred?”

“No, sir,” she said.

She got out of her chair and started to get into the position to perform her fifty when he said, “What is your name and what is it that you do for the navy?”

She turned and faced the class. Some were smirking, others were checking her out and some were wondering if she could do fifty push-ups. She smiled and said, “Petty Officer Charlotte Coventry, a member of Mobile Diving Salvage Unit 1, also known as MDSU-1, salvage and recovery diver.” Then she dropped down to the floor and started pressing out her push-ups. Blue went through the rest of the class.

As soon as she was done, he said, “Were you paying attention, Ms. Coventry?”

“Yes, sir.”

“First names of the last two rows of sailors.”

She looked to the men and women there.

“How about another fifty—”

She named them down to the last sailor. Blue smiled again in that sexy, barely-there grin. “Take your seat.”

She sat back down, and the class progressed. As soon as it was over, she waited until all the students filed out.

She approached him, unable to keep herself from noting he had just as fine an ass in those perfectly creased trousers as he did in his boxers…and nothing at all in the shower.

He turned, caught where she was looking, and frowned. “Stop that,” he said as he took her arm and pulled her away from the door to the hall.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in my class?”

“I didn’t know. Maybe if you’d told me your name, I would have realized you’re Ocean Beckett.”

“Yeah, right. This puts a kibosh on our plans,” he whispered.

“It doesn’t have to. Does it?”

“I think the Uniform Code of Military Justice would agree. The regulation is pretty clear. We’re the same rank in the navy and there are no restrictions about petty officers getting involved, but that changed when they made me your instructor. It’s against the rules.”

“Do you want your life back? Do you want to get back on the teams?”

He looked away his jaw like granite. “You know I do. But if we get caught, my SEAL career is over.”

“Then I can help. Breaking the rules is imperative in this case. In fact, I have a trust builder for you.”

“Homework?”

She laughed and said softly, “Yes, and if you don’t perform it well, there will be sit-ups in your future.”

“Touché. But why sit-ups?”

“Because I’ve already seen your ass. I want to see that six pack again.”

He shook his head with a laugh. “You are a piece of work, Coventry.”

“That’s like the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Maybe. What’s this task?”

“You have to slip something to me without me knowing. Something that could potentially get you in trouble if you’re caught. You have to trust me to keep it quiet. Can you do that?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Between sit-ups and push-ups? No. The item is up to you.”

“It can be any item?”

“Anything you choose.”

She met his eyes. “Ocean, huh?”

They softened, and he said, “Yeah. My parents were hippies.”

She laughed and shifted toward him as if she couldn’t seem to help it. He stepped back. Apparently, he was able to only approach Elena, but from what she got from his guilt-ridden confession last night, she was dead.

“Mr. Beckett?”

Blue shifted away from her, completely and cleared his throat, then said, “Yeah?”

“I have a question.”

“Come in.”

He gave her a loaded look, then he turned his attention to the student who had interrupted them.

Charlie couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away from him as he took his time to explain a dive technique to the young guy. He glanced at her as if to say, take off, and it broke her out of that strange bubble.

He might feel the pain of losing the woman Charlie was sure he was in love with, but God, what else had this man been through.

He had only agreed to being tied after she’d mentioned shibari. She wondered if he had some connection to the samurai. His eyes had flashed, and he’d changed his mind. She had been totally honest with him. She was so closed off, so deeply flawed herself. She couldn’t seem to let anyone in close enough. Working with him would open up her mind and heart. He was the key, she could feel it.

She desperately needed him as much as he needed her. She felt like she was losing herself, too. Helping him to heal and get back to the SEALs would make her have to face her own fears. She needed to get close to him to understand what his deep-seated issues were, teach him to accept human touch again and find his center. Rope bondage wasn’t for the faint of heart. He would have to completely open up to her about what he had gone through before she could begin to help him.

She gave him one more glance and left the room. He scared her. Not something she wanted to admit. There was something about him, something…spiritual, cosmic, exciting.

Her one and only goal was to become a master diver.

She completely understood his need to get back to the teams.

The thing that she couldn’t do under any circumstances was get attached to him. Attraction was something else. The thought of giving him a place where he could find himself made everything in her tighten.

No losing your heart, Charlie.

If she could even open it up far enough for that to happen.

She would be putting herself in the kind of danger she’d avoided for a long time.

Dammit, giving a shit about what happened to him would be her undoing.

Hopefully it would be to her benefit, and then they could both move on.

---

As the week progressed, Charlie attended her classes, then did some extra PT. She felt the need to run off some nervous energy. Halfway through her run, she heard someone coming up behind her. She expected the person to pass, but he came up alongside her.

“Coventry.”

“Mr. Beckett.”

“You an overachiever?”

“I keep myself fit for duty. I love my job.”

“How long have you been in the navy?”

“Ten years. Right out of high school.”

“Always wanted to be a diver?”

“Yes. I wanted to conquer the ocean.”

“Conquer the ocean?” he asked, and she realized how that had sounded. “Sometimes conquering something helps us to see that we didn’t need to overcome it to get past it. Ever thought about that, Coventry?” Someone bumped her into Blue. He caught her against him, then immediately let her go. “You okay?”

“Yes, thanks.”

The side of her body that had touched him tingled, and she remembered what it was like to hold him against her a few days ago as he poured his heart out to his dead girlfriend. The way he had sounded, the deep connection he’d had to her. She had saved him, and she could only thank that poor woman who had lost her life. The guilt must be overwhelming for him. She couldn’t help but be affected by all that muscle, the softness of his hair, the scratchiness of his stubble, and his heartache and fear.

“What did your parents do?”

He turned to look at her. “Is this part of the process? Getting to know each other?”

“For trust to build, that’s an important building block, yes. It’s a simple question. It’s not like I’m asking for access to your bank account.”

He laughed suddenly, and she really liked the sound of it. She hadn’t seen a full-blown smile from him since she’d met his surly self on the plane. Now she understood why. Her intuition hadn’t ever let her down. But here he was, not even a week after meeting her, and he was smiling like she’d just told a great joke.

It was devastating.

What a beautiful man. It hurt her physically that he’d wanted to just walk into the ocean and end all that he had going. She understood trauma. She’d been through it, and she’d survived. She wanted him to come out the other side pain free, and she was confident that she could give him the space he needed to heal. She could give him time to close all those wounds and find his way back to himself. A shiver cascaded over her thinking about getting into him, finding out about him, about every nuance of his psyche, learning the lines and contours of his body, touching and caressing his nerve centers and delving into what made him tick. Mind and body went together, and he hadn’t just been physically assaulted, he had been mentally raped as well. A body could heal, but the scars of having his personal power taken away from him like that was even more damaging. Then add in that he was an alpha male, a warrior, a corpsman, and she could see the layers of pain and the layers of self-recrimination.

Being a victim was much more difficult than being a SEAL. One came from confidence and honor, and the other had nothing, no power, no honor, no recourse but to believe that somehow, he had brought this on himself.

But she was pretty sure there was something else going on there, an old wound, a ghost that was chasing him. She wanted to name that, bring it out in the open and get him to deal with that first. That was imperative. Whatever that bitch had done to him, it was just as much a mindfuck as what she had done to his body.

“That’s pretty powerful,” she said, giving him a sidelong glance. Wanting more of that smile that was still on his lips, as if it was more than her silly comment that was making him smile. She’d like to think it was about her.

“What?” he asked as it faded into amusement, his eyes warm.

“You should laugh more. I’d like to hear that again.”

He looked away as if he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “I haven’t had much to laugh about lately,” he murmured.

“So, I might have to make that a priority to make you laugh at least once each day.

That intimate look was there when he swung his gaze back to hers. “Oh, yeah? I think it might be a challenge, Petty Officer Coventry.”

“Like one hundred push-ups.”

“I was messing with you, so yeah.”

“You liked it when I was able to name all the sailors in the class, didn’t you?”

“Maybe. I wouldn’t have had a problem with you doing one hundred push-ups. I think you got that in you.”

“I can do quite a few, so I think so, too.” She nudged him. “So, Mr. Beckett, what do your parents do?”

“They run a surf shop on Maui. Still at it after all these years. My dad’s a surfboard shaper. He was once a pro a long time ago. My mom took care of the family and was a stay-at-home, cookie-baking, nurturing force of nature in my life. She is awesome.”

“Sounds like your childhood was idyllic.”

His eyes clouded over, and she saw that shadow for a moment. Aha, there it was, that thing, that wound. She’d definitely get there with him. “For the most part,” he said. “I loved surfing. I did that as often as possible. Now that I’m in the SEALs and stationed in Coronado, I do it in my spare time.”

“The waves are gnarly?”

There was that smile again. Connecting him to something that he loved would always bring out the joy inside him. Remind him that he wasn’t really truly lost, just couldn’t quite find his way at the present. She’d continue to find moments like that to show him who he had been, who he had become, and then where he was now. All three of them would then mesh into one, and then maybe he could move on.

“Yeah. Do you know what the impact zone is?”

She looked at him, and it was her turn to smile. “At the exact moment when the wave breaks. It’s the most chaotic part of the wave and packs the most punch. Most surfers don’t want to be in the impact zone. Bad juju. Lots of bruising.”

He chuckled again, and his brows rose. “You do surprise me, Charlie.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Well, maybe once we get to know each other a bit more, that will be evident.”

“Maybe,” he said with another small smile. “I’ll see you around.” He peeled off, and she unabashedly watched his big, gorgeous body move away from her. It was clear to her now that he hadn’t even been taxed as he ran beside her. Navy SEALs, wow. Muscle-packed, intelligent, lethal gunslingers.

What a strong and beautiful challenge.

Once she got back to the locker room and was stripping off her shorts, a pair of black lace panties fell to the floor. Frowning, she picked them up. They were delicate, intricate lace, and as she looked at them even closer, she realized they were a thong.

She couldn’t imagine—oh, my God. Blue. He’d planted them on her when that guy had run into her as he’d passed them. Her breath caught at the intimate and sexy thought of wearing these with him knowing that she had them on.

She sat down on the bench, fingering the lace, thinking about him picking them out. He had to have gone to a lingerie store to get them. That big man amongst all the pretty satin, silk, and lace. He probably hadn’t been at all embarrassed about picking out women’s underwear. She just got that sense about him. She suspected that he figured out her size by having his hands on her ass as he thrust into her, sending awareness tumbling her gut over and over again.

That shiver that had begun at the airport when she’d met him and got the strangest urge to tie him up increased tenfold until she was fighting off the need to touch herself.

She got up and opened her locker and tucked the thong inside. She had no idea how this trust building thing would go, but however it did go, he was off to a fine start.

She headed to the mess after that and got herself something to eat. She had another class in an hour, then a shift with the swim locker.

The next day, unable to help herself, she looked around the busy Mess Hall to see if he was there. Sure enough, he was sitting alone, eating. His body language told her he was either consciously or subconsciously isolating himself, on guard, like he didn’t want anyone to approach him.

Made total sense to her. He was consumed with what had happened to him, and there were probably many triggers that would bring back the trauma. She was wondering how he was functioning at all.

Unable to help herself, she walked over to him and slid her tray onto the table across from him. He looked up, his expression closed until he saw that it was her. His jaw clenched, and he asked, “Are you stalking me?”

“Yes,” she said as she settled on the bench.

Lo and behold, she got another smile. It was smaller than what she had been able to get out of him while they’d been running. She could also see he wanted to know her reaction regarding the underwear, so she deliberately avoided talking about it. Let him stew and ask about it. Bringing it up would bring up more conversation that could only benefit him.

Instead, she had more strategic questions of her own. “Why are you guarding yourself so hard?”

“I’m not,” he said, his eyes snapping, immediately going into defensive mode.

“Oh, you totally are. Why?”

He looked down at his meal and toyed with his food. “I get certain reactions if I’m not vigilant.”

“Reactions? Like what.”

He huffed a breath and jerked up from the table. Without a word, he left her and strode across the Mess, dumped his uneaten food in the trash, sent his tray crashing into the others, and exited the dining hall.

Okay, that was a loaded one. Had to have something to do with being socially unacceptable. He had no idea how much personal power he had. How much strength. She would show him that, too.

He might not realize it, but he was using that power to keep himself in check. Take each day as it came. He was completely demoralized by getting kicked off the teams. There was something fundamental going on there, too. She ached to get to the meat of that issue as well, but at this point, she wanted to see his reactions when she asked him something hard. Building trust was a bitch, but without it she couldn’t move forward with him.

He was scared as hell. That flash of anger was masking his fear and, she was sure, his disgust. Until he got everything out, that poison that Natasha had fed him would kill him slowly. It had to be eradicated.

She really needed to know about that psycho bitch as well. She wanted to know what she had done to him, what she had specifically said to him. Had she used force, coercion, drugs, manipulation to get him to reveal the information she’d used to hurt him so deeply? It was a core injury, a moral injury that was at the root of this. She wasn’t going to pull any punches to get him to open up.

When he sat down abruptly, she let herself rejoice just a bit. She hadn’t seen him come back in, but she was glad that he had.

His hands were clenched on the table, and she ached to touch him, but he wasn’t ready to accept that, and this was much too public a place for them to engage in any body trust. She settled for picking up the apple on her tray and holding it out to him. It required him to open at least one of his hands and accept it. Relieve some of that tension.

“What do your parents do?” he asked, and she could barely contain her excitement at how hard he was trying.

A lump formed in Charlie’s throat. She never talked about her parents. It was just too damn hard. But she’d promised this man she would build trust with him, and at the first moment when he reached out, she couldn’t balk. She set her hands in her lap because remembering her father made her ache with such a terrible pain, she almost couldn’t breathe.

“My dad owned a multinational pharmaceutical company. He was an M.D. and started it later in his life. He wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, and he had so many programs and ways to try to make drugs available to the people who really needed them.”

“He doesn’t own the company anymore? He retired?”

“Something like that.”

“And your mom?”

She closed her eyes, and she could almost smell the beautiful, clean scent of her perfume, see the understated way she always looked so put together, the way she’d laughed and played with her and her sister. Her mother had been a rock, supported her father through every damn thing he’d wanted to do. She’d been there for him in medical school, during his residency, through the company’s initial development, and for the huge success afterward. She fought back the tears, but the joy her mother had possessed shot through and hit her heart like a battering ram, and some of her armor loosened.

“A stay-at-home mom. She raised us, and that was more than enough fulfillment for her. She planned the meals, supported my dad, and was there in every way for my sister and me.”

“Sounds like my mom.”

She could hear the love and affection in his voice. He was making more connections to his childhood. “Do you have a picture of her?”

With a sheepish half-smile, he pulled out his wallet and opened it. She took the leather warm from his body. The heat of it absorbed through her skin, running through her like wildfire. She looked down into a beautiful smiling face. It was clear where he got his looks. He was a male version of her. The same expressive eyes, the same bone structure. Where hers was delicate, his was strong, her lips finely formed, his full and thick. And that smile of hers was as bright and stunning as Blue’s.

She felt that loosened armor slip a little.

“Wow, you look just like her.”

She didn’t want to let go of his mom or the warmth of her smile. It made her hurt so much for her own lost mom and how she had been the last to go, pleading with Charlie to survive, to live, to fulfill all her dreams and never forget them.

Her chest filled, and her throat clutched, the memory of those words burning her brain. She had done that, moved forward, but she had, by necessity, relegated her parents to a part of her heart that she had closed off. She hadn’t remembered them; she had closed them out along with the memory of how they had so courageously died.

She thrust out the wallet, her throat so tight, she wasn’t sure she could get anything out of it, but she rose, glancing at her watch. “Oh, God. I’ve got to go. What time do you want to come over tonight, so we can talk some more?”

“Talk? That’s it, no…um…tying?”

“No, we won’t be doing that for a while. Relax.”

Her eyes were burning, and she needed to run. “What time?”

“Six. I’ll bring dinner.”

“All right.” She bolted because she couldn’t handle the crack of the door that she had opened on her family and the memories that flooded her as she took care of her uneaten food and stacked her tray. As soon as she stepped out of the Mess Hall, she bolted into the alley next to it and leaned against the wall.

Holding back the tears, she worked hard to handle the breaching of her armor, the opening of the flood gates of all that she had buried in the past. She might be helping him to get back to what he had lost, but he was giving her what she needed, too.

What was she thinking? Of course, he would ask about her life and her family. She just wasn’t at a place where she could let go and tell him everything. She pushed off the wall to go, but her name on his lips stopped her in her tracks.

“Charlie.” His voice was so close to her ear, the warmth of his body at her back. She swallowed her pain and her memories and turned. Damn, he was so close. The scent of him screwed with her system so bad, she just stared up into those aching blue eyes.

His expression changed when he saw her face. With a slow, gentle movement, he brushed the backs of his fingertips against her cheek.

She got lost in his eyes, a tumbling, pull-the-rug-out-from-under-her sensation, and then it was as if she were freefalling into open space, one that was warm and comforting. He leaned in and said, “When I kissed you for the first time, I thought you were someone else. That wasn’t exactly a good way to get acquainted. Let me try that again stone-cold sober because, damn me, I can’t think of what I have to do next today until I see what this is like.”

All she could manage was a hard breath. Without any protest from her on the subject, she lifted her chin, offering her mouth like a sacrifice. His full lips were so tantalizing.

Then they were pressed against hers and she realized that the kiss he’d given “Elena” had been more innocent, as if he was taken by her purity, but this kiss was carnal from the first touch, filled with white-hot heat and yet softness beyond belief. There was shock and awe and a melting she’d never felt in her life. He wasn’t kissing his dead girlfriend. He was kissing her.

She could only compare this…this amazing kiss to the ones she’d shared with Sam. They seemed almost chaste compared to the way her body responded to Blue…to Ocean. Saying his name only made her sink deeper into his kiss as she wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to get as close to him as she could, pressing her body against him. This…her breath suspended in her chest…this was passion. This was what she was looking for in her relationship with Sam. All of a sudden, vulnerability wasn’t just about telling him things about her family and her own trauma, vulnerability was all about opening herself up to him as a man, intimacy that would mean something.

Oh dammit, she was getting herself into some major trouble here and they had only begun.