Chapter Four

Tahoe

The water is so fucking clear and warm compared to the west coast. Diving is much easier when that’s the case. In order to keep up on my dive qualification, and get paid for it, I have to do a major dive every so often. Today, the lot of us went out and did a dive with full gear. I’m always surprised by how tired I am after a long day of diving. While I’m suspended in the water, my flippers on, it’s like I’m as light as a feather. I’m at peace in the water, a quality that most SEALs have, but some don’t. Some hate the fucking water with a passion. They are the ones that struggle through BUD/s training and only the strongest will make it through. It’s the end of the day, and our sleek, matte gray boat is carrying us across the glassy water back to our docks.

As we pull closer, I see her sitting on one of the old wooden docks to the left, tan legs a mile long, bare feet kicking the water back and forth. She sees us, but she doesn’t see me—can’t distinguish who is who while we’re all wearing the same black wetsuits and gear. She brings a hand up to shield her eyes from the setting sun as she seeks me out.

“Your puppy looks lost, Tahoe,” my teammate Aidan remarks, mirth tainting his observation.

I shake my head as I walk up the deck of the boat, dripping water as I go. “Aren’t dogs supposed to obey?”

He replies, “Puppies don’t. They chew up everything in sight for months. My buddy got a lab and that thing ate the legs off a goddamn table!” It’s like a light switch with most of us. We’re finished working. Now we can talk about dogs, puppies, and beautiful, unnerving woman who sit on docks. I merely shake my head at his analogy.

“Leash trained, then. Job well done, Tah,” my friend says. It’s a joke meant to make me laugh, but it makes my empty stomach swirl with unease. I’ve never been around a woman quite like Caroline before. I thought the innocence was a front, a gimmick to make a man interested. I tested it a few times and came on to her hardcore—full on Tahoe wants to fuck, but while her body responded—her cheeks pinked, her breathing harried, and her eyes widened, she didn’t act on it. No, she wasn’t sure what to do with any of it.

“Shut up, bro. She doesn’t do what I say. She doesn’t do anything I want,” I remark, sliding the shoulders on the wetsuit down. On a second thought, I make a snap decision to lie. I tell him how she sucks amazing dick. We’re grown men and yet I feel the urge to hide the fact I’m spending so much time with a woman in a platonic way. Like maybe they’ll realize I really am truly fucked up and belong in Florida instead of in San Diego with my best buddies. San Diego Tahoe would have a different meaningless brunette every day of the week.

He leans against me as he shimmies his own wetsuit down, like a sticky second skin. “Ah, so the truth is finally freed. All it took was a little southern dime piece to tell you no snakes in the grass. I’ll write it in my calendar,” he growls, lowering his voice as we approach said dime piece. His sentiment isn’t entirely untrue. She’s not telling me no for the reason he thinks. Caroline isn’t answering any of my questions.

I catch her eye, finally, and she smiles, her pink lips tilting to one side. “Don’t bust my balls. Caroline does that enough for ten people. She owes me a decision today,” I remark, aiming my words his way. Checking my watch, I confirm it’s been exactly a month today. A month of me trying to get a read on her, 30 days of trying to get into her pants, two fortnights and two days of challenge and entertainment, of house projects and laughs and stupid arguments.

“You need to seal that fucking deal. I need to get in the air. I’m surprised Leif didn’t break ground on a new airport. We’re all itching for sky diving.” The same time they sent me here, to Bronze Bay, Florida, they opened up several other small SEAL bases in coastal states. San Diego and Virginia Beach are still the main bases, but our reaction times are quicker now that we have smaller ones staffed around the U.S.

“These things take time. You know that. This is taking even less time because we’re handling the deal in first person instead of a middle man coming in here and complicating everything that much more.” I clear my throat. “She’s going to agree to it. We’ll be jumping by next week.” As I say those words, I let my gaze find Caroline. My teammate slaps me on a wet shoulder and heads for the office. I veer in the opposite direction, toward her still sitting on the dock.

Dropping my flippers next to her flip flops, they splash water on her ripped jean shorts. She doesn’t complain or squeal like a typical woman would. The pockets of her shorts are hanging out, exposed against her thighs. With her sun kissed skin and white tank top, she is my favorite definition of Florida. “They let you in here,” I say, joking. When I told Caroline she could come in to my work to talk about the airport arrangements, I made sure I put her name on the approval list.

“They did take my driver’s license and gave me this badge thing,” she says, holding up a lanyard and a plastic card. “Like I’m going to steal secret intel or something,” she scoffs, turning her eyes to the setting sun. “You stole this beach. I learned to walk here, you know?” Caroline nods to the right, toward a long section of beach that now sits untouched. We bought all of the land, including the beach when we established our base here. “The question is, why did they let you in here?” Her gaze rises to meet mine. Crystal blue. Her eyes are almost see through in this light—the color of a pale blue, fluffy cotton. She raises one brow, urging me to answer.

I pull my arms out of the sleeves and push the wetsuit down my torso until it’s resting low on my hips. “Because I always get what I want,” I reply. She studies my tattoos for a moment and then turns away like she’s committing a crime by looking at my bare body. These southerners have rules I’ve never heard of before. It makes me smile.

Leaning back on her elbows she says, “You can use our airport. I came to tell you that. Not because you always get what you want, because it’s a sound business decision. My dad is clearing out hangar five for you. If you need more space than that, let us know. I’m sure three would work as well, though that one is a little closer to my house than I’d like.”

“Yes!” I exclaim, jumping in the air. When I land, Caroline startles and then gasps. “Excellent. Thank you,” I say, my enthusiasm surprising both of us. Maybe because it took more convincing than I thought it would, maybe because I count any victory as something to be celebrated.

“Don’t kill me, dear Lord in heaven, you about scared me to death. You can sign the paperwork the next time you’re over my way.” She pulls her feet from the water and perches her heels at the edge of dock and hugs her knees up to her chest.

Sitting next to her, I scoot until my wetsuit covered leg brushes against hers. “Aren’t we going to your house right now?” Almost every day ends at her house. It’s become an unspoken routine. “I was going to put up the lighting fixture in the living room area.” I started following her around to convince her, sexually, into giving us the airport. It was a challenge and this is such a small town there really wasn’t much else to do. As I got to know her better, it turned into something else entirely. A friendship founded on opposites. “It was the last thing that needed to be done. I need to finish it.” It’s the hanging chad of house projects and I’ve taken more ownership of her place than I had any right, but it’s given me something I didn’t know I needed. Companionship.

Caroline shakes her head and turns her face my way. “We’re going out tonight. I owe you one real date, remember? Then you can be free of me. No more doing me any favors to win my good graces. You sign and the deal is finished. We’ll be business partners at the airport, but I’ll stay out of your way and you’ll stay out of mine.”

Pride is an awful thing. Right now, it keeps me from demanding a friendship and her attention. It’s also what won’t allow me to give up. “You’re going out on a date with me?” I ask.

She brushes her long, wind-tangled hair out of her face and juts her chin into the breeze. “One drink,” she replies, cheeks blushing.

“I do have a question for you, though,” I say loudly, trying to get her full attention. Caroline makes a hmm noise and crosses one tan leg over the other. “Did you know this entire time you were going to agree to the airport terms?” What I’m really trying to determine is if she’s so stubborn, she’d wait until the last possible moment to give in to my demands.

With one hand behind her head, holding her hair into a makeshift ponytail and the other holding her flip flops, she walks by me, my sheer size forcing her to brush against my body to get around me. “I didn’t know what I was going to do.” I hear the lie in her tone. She goes on, telling me different reasons for her hesitation, but I don’t hear truth in any of them.

While her back is to me, I pull the wetsuit down my hips and bend over to get it down off my legs and feet. When I’m bare but for the tiny, black speedo I wear under the skin, I say, “Admit it, you just wanted to watch me work on your house.”

Dropping her flip flops, she whips around so fast that her hair has to catch up, her face a mask of anger. Then her blue gaze dips to the lower half of my body. Slack jawed, and wide-eyed, her temper rises. “You know that’s not the truth. I told you I didn’t need your help.” Stabbing a finger in my direction, she tries and fails not to look at my body. It’s not her fault, I’m taking up all the space in front of her. I hold my hands out to the sides and let them fall. Water laps against the dock and a seagull cries off in the distance. Caroline swallows hard. “I guess that answers my question,” she whispers under her breath. “What’s under the kilt? What’s under the wetsuit? Valid questions I never knew I’d know the answers to.”

I laugh, flexing my pecs and shoulders to make myself appear even larger. “You have something else to wear out, right?” Caroline stutters, forcing a reason for her blatant appraisal.

“Do you?” I return, nodding toward her body—the wet spot on her shorts I created.

She looks down, confused. “I didn’t plan on changing my clothes, why?” She walked in to my trap.

Stepping forward, I enter her space and lean down, so my lips brush the curve of her ear. “You’re wet, Caroline. Shouldn’t we take care of that?” I swallow, slide my face into her neck, barely touching her warm, sweet skin. With my lips scarcely brushing her collarbone, I feel her pulse, and can taste her breaths. I’m rapt in my game, so entrenched in my thoughts of fucking and tasting and having this woman as my own, that I forget where we are.

She doesn’t jump away from my touch, the reaction I expect. Caroline eats it up, leaning into my chest with the faltering grace of a woman undone, a woman who craves the touch of something destructive and powerful.

“Hey, fucking Phelps! Take that shit home! Not on my dock!” Leif calls out from the doorway of the office. I don’t pull away, not from something that feels this good after a month of keeping her at arm’s length. Caroline startles at the disturbance and pushes away from me, but leaves one palm flat on my flexed stomach, her fingers curling into my skin.

At her absolute mortification, I heap some more on top. “Your shorts are wet, Caroline. Do you want to change?”

A little line appears in between her eyes and she works her bottom lip with her teeth. “Oh. Oh, of course that’s what you meant,” she says, dropping her hand to the wet spot, taking another step away from me. “They’ll dry. I’ll be fine. Get changed and we’ll go then?” she says, looking over her shoulder to see Leif smiling, waving his hand in the air like a southern mama greeting her child. Cringing, she waves back and stoops to pick up her flip-flops. In a town full of water loving individuals I shouldn’t be surprised by the amount of flip-flop wearing, but it’s even worse here than in San Diego, and it’s year round summer there. “I’ll wait for you up there,” she mumbles, pointing toward an overhang by our office. “I have to trade this thing in for my driver’s license anyways.” I stare at her, narrowing my eyes, as I realize what’s happening. It’s utterly mad she assumes I was talking about her shorts. I could stop her now, take her body into my arms and kiss the shit out of her, let her feel my hard cock straining to get free, but I don’t. That would be me, but now, more than ever, I’m convinced it’s definitely not her.

This will be more entertaining anyhow.

“I’ll meet you at the guard shack,” I say, heading inside to grab my bag, doubtful she heard me over the quick pace of her walk of shame. I shower quickly, rinsing my body of the salt water and make a round of shampoo all over my body for good measure. When I’m dressed in jeans, a black tee, and flip-flops, I go to meet Caroline.

Her laugh is loud and gleeful and I hear it before I see her. Leif is leaning against the guard station, one arm tucked behind his head. Three other guys are standing around her, their lips in varied degrees of smiles. The heat wraps my body, both from my jealousy and from the humidity in the air. Caroline is talking with her hands, shifting from one bare foot to the other. Her blonde hair hangs down her back and skims the top of her jean shorts. Anytime she raises her arms, tan skin plays peek-a-boo, and every one of those bastards see it too. My pace falters when I get close enough to hear the last statement thrown Caroline’s way.

“Consider yourself one of the wonders of the world. Tahoe has left every single woman he’s ever been with. You must be something special,” Aidan says, running his eyes down her legs and back up again. “Or something even better than special,” he finishes after his appraisal.

“Better,” Leif adds on a second before his eyes flick up to meet mine. The sound of ocean drowned out my approach. His eyes widen. These assholes are easily blinded by distracting beauty. Caroline’s back stiffens and she takes a small step away from their semi-circle of testosterone and hard dicks.

My pulse takes over where the ocean left off, drowning my thoughts. With one sentence, he’s destroyed my game. It’s not his fault, no. He’s telling the truth, but I wasn’t honest with him. I told him she sucks my dick. “Fucking vultures,” I say, trying on ambivalence, pretending I didn’t hear what was said, praying Caroline’s delicate manners dictate she doesn’t rat me out. “You ready Caroline?” I ask.

“I think you have the wrong idea about me,” she replies to the men, looking them in the face one at a time. Sliding into her flip flops she says, “Tyler is just my friend.” A bead of sweat breaks out on the side of my face and slides down to my chin when she turns to look at me. “Right?” One brow is raised, daring me to say anything different.

“Sure. Just friends,” Aidan answers, chuckling under his breath extending each word in obvious sarcasm. “Whatever you say.”

These men are like me. Or most of them anyways. We’re here because we don’t have attachments in the way of wives and long term girlfriends rooted in San Diego. By proxy that makes us the players, the flirts, the men who don’t settle down or get serious. We’re good at this. My friends think I’ve had a piece of Caroline and now I’m willing to share the wealth. They will continue to think that until I tell them otherwise. Until I show them.

I wrap an arm around Caroline, and can feel the anger leaking from her pores. She’s seething, once in the past she called it, spitting mad. “It’s not whatever I say, it’s the truth,” Caroline hisses, pointing one finger at the group. Their lazy smiles vanish when they realize she’s not of our normal variety. “I am sincerely offended you think I’m sleeping with Tyler. Or doing anything with him, actually. I’m not. I won’t. We are just friends.” I won’t. I won’t. I won’t. Nothing else registers as truth except those two words. “Business partners,” she adds to drive her point home. “Insinuating anything else is purely bad form.”

That’s when the ocean stops beating against the docks, and the gulls stop crying, and my oxygen fizzles into something that isn’t conducive inside a human body. Their faces say everything I’m not. I don’t have to. Until she tells me to. “Tell them, Tyler.” She uses my given name instead of my nickname and I think about how long it took for her to get comfortable enough to drop the legal name. Glancing at her, I see her red cheeks, and the tears of betrayal pooling in her eyes.

There’s no way to salvage this, and at the very least I’m staking my claim. “She’s my friend,” I say, emphasizing the middle word through tight lips. They mutter their understanding, and confusion under their breath. “Mine. Got it?” I say again, meeting their eyes one by one.

Uncomfortable silence descends and with their heads down and their tails tucked, my brothers depart for the office. Caroline slaps her driver’s license against her palm as she shrugs out of my grasp. “Such gentlemen. My word, I’ve never in my life been so thoroughly embarrassed.” Her shoulder is warm under my palm as we walk to the parking lot. I don’t bother replying to anything she’s saying. I’m too busy wondering how long it’s going to take for the guys to tell the entire troop that I’m hanging out with a chick I’m not banging and what that means for my cred.

We depart, her bicycle in the bed of my truck, Caroline sitting next to me stammering on about their rudeness. My stomach does this dance—the salsa of death and nerves. Unknowingly, she’s exposed me in a raw, jagged way. I don’t have too long to deal with that feeling because she connects the dots quicker than I thought she would.

“Did you tell them we were sleeping together? Is that why they said that?” She licks her lips, as her gaze dances over the side of my face. We’re almost to the dusty turn in for Bobby’s Bar, and I keep my eyes focused on the prize.

“If I did?” I throw my hand down on the turn signal and let off the gas pedal. No one is behind me, in fact only two cars drove by going the opposite direction during our short jaunt. “What if I did, Caroline?” I ask, while pulling into an empty gravel parking space marked only by a lime colored post.

She sniffles and looks out the window. “Then I made the right decision being finished with you after tonight. After all of my obligations are fulfilled.”

I tsk. “You’ll be seeing me every Friday, remember?” I correct.

Caroline shakes her head, blonde waves moving over her bare shoulder. “That’s business. Why would you lie to them? I don’t understand.” When she shifts on the worn-out cloth and meets my eye, I almost cave. I almost tell her the testosterone filled truth.

I lie instead. Mostly to preserve the integrity of our night and hopefully salvage my dignity. “I didn’t tell them anything. It’s guys being guys and they were telling you the truth about my sexual history.” If she knows one thing, she should know what kind of sexual monster I am. I’m not afraid of scaring her off at this point. I’m afraid of not having her.

Blushing, she turns away. “You’ve never had a real girlfriend?” A topic we’ve never broached before. Blessedly, it’s not about the guys anymore. I have had a girlfriend. Once. It’s why I’ve never had another one again. The burning inside my chest and the wound she left when things ended, made a gaping, black hole that proved how much power I gave her without realizing it.

I take a deep breath. “Are you offering?” I return, sliding my palm across the truck seat to cover her hand.