Romanced by a SEAL: Hot SEALs Read online

  ROMANCED BY A SEAL

  Hot SEALs

  Cat Johnson

  As a SEAL, Jon Rudnick dodged copper and lead without flinching, but just the thought of one tiny gold band around his ring finger has always sent him into a cold sweat. Love is one thing, but marriage is another. He’s not sure he’s ready for that just yet . . . until a near miss serves as a wake-up call he can’t ignore.

  Now he’s ready, but his girlfriend Ali has gone from rushing him toward the altar, to running in the opposite direction at full speed. Hell if Jon can figure out why, but he knows one thing—all’s fair in love and war. He’s not going to rest until he makes Ali his again. This time for good.

  Don’t miss Night with a SEAL where Jon first meets Ali!

  Hot SEALs

  Night with a SEAL

  Saved by a SEAL

  SEALed at Midnight

  Kissed by a SEAL

  Protected by a SEAL

  Loved by a SEAL

  Tempted by a SEAL

  Wed to a SEAL

  Romanced by a SEAL

  Rescued by a Hot SEAL

  More Hot SEALs coming soon in print, eBook and audiobook!

  Sign up at catjohnson.net/news for new release alerts.

  CHAPTER 1

  Dusk had already fallen when Jon parked his truck in the lot.

  The early spring air was overly warm for this time of year, but having been to almost every hellhole on the planet, he’d take a balmy evening in Virginia any day.

  He pushed through the scarred wooden door, exchanging the evening shadows outside for the perpetually dim interior of the dive bar.

  It was a good time and a good place for the meet, though it had taken a bit of fancy talking on his part to get away from Ali just before dinner.

  Tomorrow while she was at work it would have been so much easier for him to get away, but as things came to a head, this meet with his contact couldn’t wait.

  When the man had sent the signal to set up the rendezvous, Jon had sucked it up and lied to his now live-in girlfriend. What the hell else could he do?

  He hadn’t known what he’d been about to get involved in when he and Ali had discussed her moving in with him a few months ago.

  Hindsight always was twenty-twenty.

  Tonight she’d come home after a full day at her job and had worked hard to cook him a beautiful homemade meal. One which he couldn’t stick around long enough to eat.

  He’d made a bullshit excuse about why he had to leave the house and he’d seen the resulting look in her eyes. Part anger. Part disappointment.

  The look wasn’t the worst of it. That had been delivered with a single blow. One word said in a tone so dismissive it was like a dull knife carving a hole in his gut.

  “Fine.”

  What was it about that word—fine—that got to him? That single measured syllable seemed so much worse than if she’d yelled or cursed at him.

  Hell, anything would have been better, because it was clear from the glare and her body language that things were not fine at all.

  He didn’t have time for this. Not now. Not given what he was involved in. His life was about to change radically and Ali couldn’t be a part of any of it. He needed to remember that, pocket his emotions and forge ahead.

  Spotting his contact in the back, half hidden in a dark corner lit only by a dusty neon beer sign. His face was in shadow beneath a baseball hat pulled low.

  Jon made his way over.

  The man watched him walk. No one else in the bar noticed Jon’s arrival or seemed to care. That’s why they’d set this place for the meet. It always had a mix of drunks who couldn’t give a shit what went on around them.

  It was definitely not a place Jon would usually visit for fun . . . or unarmed, which is why he’d strapped on his leg holster.

  That feeling of being naked without a weapon was his own issue to be worked on. A result of seeing and doing too much in his thirty-something years on Earth.

  “Rudnick.” Hasaan barely raised his eyes as he lifted his beer bottle and downed a swallow.

  “Hasaan.” Jon nodded as he scanned past the few patrons in the establishment. “There a waitress here?”

  Hasaan snorted out a laugh. “What do you think?”

  “Yeah. I figured. Another one?” he asked.

  “Hell, yeah. Thanks.” The man—probably about the same age as Jon—tipped his head as Jon turned toward the bar.

  No surprise his contact was downing the beer. No one would want to be in this place sober, that’s for sure.

  In fact, Jon might have to leave his shoes outside the door of the condo when he got home. The way each step stuck to the floor, God only knew what was on it.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” The bartender looked like he doubled as a bouncer judging by the thickness of his neck and forearms, and the scar slicing across his upper lip.

  “Good, thanks. Two longnecks, please.”

  “You got it.” The bartender opened the bottles and planted them on the dinged bar top.

  Jon threw a bill down and grabbed the two bottles. “Thanks. Keep the change.”

  The man nodded his gratitude and Jon headed back to the corner where they’d have privacy for their business. More than that, he’d avoid a conversation with the lone drunk seated on a barstool and talking back to the news anchor on the television hanging above the bar.

  In Jon’s experience, there were good dive bars and bad ones. Arnold’s Tiki Bar, hidden away down the end of a narrow alleyway in Waikiki, with its three-dollar Longboards and five-dollar Mai Tais, was a good dive bar.

  This shit hole—not so much. There was good reason he’d never been here and why he wouldn’t have to worry about seeing anyone he knew.

  That served him well for their purposes tonight.

  He set the bottles down with a plunk and pulled out a chair, eyeing it to make sure there was nothing disgusting on the seat that he could carry home on his pants.

  No one knew he was here tonight. No one knew what he was involved in. Not his business partner Zane, not his friends, and not his girlfriend Ali—and it needed to stay that way.

  “Any problems?” his contact asked.

  Keeping his eye trained on the door and the drunk at the bar, just in case, Jon said, “Nope. Did you expect any?”

  “From you? No. Not really.”

  Jon chose to take that as a compliment.

  After all of the years he’d spent training and working, Jon was well equipped for what he was currently involved in. But of course, one couldn’t get complacent when it came to dealing with Daesh, aka ISIS, aka ISIL.

  It didn’t matter what name the press used for the group, the facts remained the same. As an organization, they were deadly and they were savvy. But now they were also on the defensive as they tried to hold on to the regions they’d taken control of so easily just a couple of years ago.

  That could make them desperate and dangerous.

  Like a fighter against the ropes, ISIS would fight even harder rather than go down. And Jon was going to help them.

  “When was last contact?” Hasaan asked, keeping his voice low.

  “Two days ago.” The message had come through the mobile messaging app Jon had been using for the past months to connect with the ISIS recruiter.

  Did the creators of the app realize that the end-to-end encryption provided the perfect venue for untraceable communications? Did they care?

  “Is everything in place?” Hasaan asked, pulling him back to the conversation.

  “Yes.” Jon lied smoothly, as he always did.

  Contact had been made. Plans set in motion. Exact dates and times would come next. That was all true, but as far as everythin
g else being ready?

  No. Not quite.

  Lying to his partner Zane and the guys who worked for their company had been one of the most difficult things he’d ever had to do.

  Hiding the truth from Ali had been even worse. He saw the anger in her every time he skirted a question or disappeared. The secrecy was driving a wedge between them, harming his relationship with her and with his teammates.

  The overall cost of what he was doing could be high. The damage possibly irreversible.

  The stress of it all was affecting him physically. Jon had to consciously unclench his jaw repeatedly throughout the day and when he woke in the middle of the night.

  He had to believe it was worth it and forge ahead, no matter what the risk.

  “You sure you’re ready for this?”

  The question had Jon pulling his attention from observing the room and looking directly at Hasaan. He found the man’s full gaze leveled on him.

  Drawing his brows down in a frown, Jon asked, “You doubting me?”

  “No. You doubting yourself?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What you’re getting into is dangerous shit.”

  “I’ve been in dangerous situations before.”

  Seemingly satisfied with that answer, Hasaan tipped his head in a nod of acceptance, while Jon tried to quiet the voice in his head.

  The danger he was about to walk into was different. This time there was no government backing him. No teammates to watch his six. No friend to break the news to Ali should anything happen—he squashed that thought before it fucked with his head any more than it already had.

  Downing the remainder of the beer, Jon planted the bottle on the table and shot Hasaan a glance.

  “Let’s wrap this up. I gotta get home.”

  Ali might be pissed at him, but a sudden need to get back to her rode him hard.

  Hasaan tipped his head again, pushing the chair back with a loud scrape. He led the way to the men’s room.

  Inside the filthy room, in front of the single urinal, he reached beneath his shirt and pulled out an envelope. Handing it to Jon, he said, “Passport and cash.”

  Jon shook his head. “I don’t need money—”

  “It’s local currency. There are times that American dollars might call unwanted attention to you over there and it’s better if you don’t appear on any bank surveillance videos exchanging US money.”

  Jon should have thought of that himself. He had to get his head back in the game.

  He extended his hand to take the envelope. “Good thinking.”

  “It’s my job.” Hasaan hesitated before meeting Jon’s gaze. “If the shit hits the fan—”

  “I’ll deal with it.”

  Hasaan’s deep scowl and exasperated huff silenced any further comments Jon might have made. “Stop playing the bad ass and let me finish.”

  Jon pressed his lips together and nodded.

  “There’s a name and number written in that envelope. Memorize it then destroy it.”

  Brows raised, Jon glanced from the envelope to Hasaan. He knew well the Amn al-Dawla, ISIS’s state security, monitored communications. A foreign recruit would be watched even more closely.

  Although if the shit did hit the fan and he became compromised, avoiding detection by counterintelligence would no longer matter.

  “Got it?” the man asked when Jon didn’t comment.

  “Got it.” Jon extended his hand and shook Hasaan’s. “Thanks.”

  Maybe he wasn’t completely on his own in this thing after all.

  CHAPTER 2

  Too angry to eat the dinner she’d spent hours shopping for and preparing, Ali yanked hard on the kitchen drawer.

  Just like everything else in Jon’s life, even the drawers in his condo were neatly organized. Rolls of plastic wrap lined up in precision formation amid aluminum foil and boxes of plastic bags in every size.

  The sight only ramped up her anger.

  Everything in Jon’s existence was in perfect order except for his relationship with her.

  She was the messy junk drawer of his life.

  That realization had her pausing, hand on the plastic wrap. No wonder he avoided spending time at home with her. Running out at every opportunity. Each excuse plausible but seeming more flimsy than the last.

  It had been a mistake moving in together. Just because something made financial sense didn’t mean it was right.

  Things between them had started to go downhill shortly after she’d moved in so it was pretty obvious to her that this decision, though practical, had been very, very wrong.

  Hot angry tears pricked behind her eyes as she grabbed the wrap and yanked to tear off a piece.

  The clingy plastic got tangled on the sharp serrated edge. She pawed at it but only ended up cutting her finger instead of the clear wrap.

  “Shit.” Tossing the whole mess onto the counter, she shoved the stinging finger in her mouth and sucked at the thin stripe of red that appeared.

  One handed as she nursed her wound, she grabbed her food-laden plate from the counter, intent on shoving it onto the fridge shelf uncovered.

  Unwrapped food in the refrigerator—that would drive Jon crazy. Perfect. It would teach him for walking out—

  again—this time after she’d gone to so much trouble to make a nice meal for him.

  The spiteful thought had her feeling quite satisfied as she spun toward the fridge . . . and jumped as a scream tore from her throat.

  That was followed directly by a huff of frustration. “Dammit, Jon. Will you please make some noise when you come in? You scared the hell out of me.”

  “Sorry.” He tracked her with his eyes from where he stood in the kitchen doorway as she moved to the refrigerator.

  Judging by the one brow he cocked up as he watched her, he definitely took notice of the unwrapped dish she shoved inside.

  She closed the door and leveled a gaze on him, silently daring him to say a word. That he didn’t comment surprised her.

  “What happened to your finger?” He lifted a chin toward the finger she held up in the air so she didn’t get blood on her clothes.

  “I cut it on the plastic wrap box.”

  He moved forward and took her hand in his, inspecting the wound. “You should clean it and put on a bandage.”

  “It’s not that deep.” She hated that she couldn’t control how her heartbeat sped when he touched her.

  “It could still get infected.” Standing close, he didn’t drop his hold on her hand.

  She raised her gaze and found he was focused solely on her.

  Those piercing blue eyes of his had gotten to her starting the first day she saw him on Rick and Darci’s front doorstep. When he looked at her like this, the depth of the feelings hidden within Jon’s eyes could still make her weak in the knees.

  “Okay.” She felt breathless as she only vaguely remembered what she was agreeing to.

  She reminded herself how often lately she’d seen those eyes go hard and cold as Jon slammed the wall down between them.

  Drawing in a shaky breath she pulled her hand from his grasp.

  He let her, but it was only to reach out and pull her body close. Holding her tight against him with the hands he clamped on her hips, Jon dropped his head and took possession of her mouth with a demanding kiss.

  She wanted to stay angry.

  Wanted to pull away and punish him, not give him what he wanted, but it seemed so long since he’d touched her. And it felt so good to know he still wanted her. She’d begun to doubt that as he became more distant and obsessed with work.

  At least she’d hoped it was work and not something or someone else. She’d begun to doubt that too.

  But right now there was no doubt what he wanted as he plunged his tongue against hers while backing her against the cabinets.

  His grip tightened around her middle as he lifted and set her up on the counter to the side of the sink.

  The space was clear since nothing w
as ever left out or out of place in this household.

  His neat streak would make having sex on the kitchen counter easy. Not that they’d ever done that . . .

  He shoved the hem of her skirt up to her thighs before reaching higher and yanking her underwear all the way down her legs.

  “Jon, what are you doing?” Her eyes flew wide. “Here?”

  Not answering, he stepped closer and leaned low between her thighs. When his tongue connected with her core she didn’t need him to answer.

  “We can go to the bedroom . . . ” Her suggestion trailed off as he pushed two fingers inside, attacking her on two fronts and making her forget that she had complained about their location.

  She sucked in a breath at the sensations shooting through her. He always had known exactly how to touch her.

  Sex—when he had the time and the inclination to have it—had always been good between them.

  More than good. Great. No matter how they’d drifted apart she couldn’t deny that.

  Certainly not now as the heat of his mouth and the motion of his touch pushed her closer to the edge.

  Seconds later she plunged into an orgasm that had her eyes slamming shut and her head thrown back. She gripped the edge of the countertop, feeling the need to hang on to something solid as her body spiraled out of control.

  Her muscles still pulsed when he pulled back. Deft hands left her to unbuckle his belt and then open his pants.

  Jon lifted her off her perch and lowered her onto his cock.

  She hated every hour he spent lifting weights in the makeshift gym he’d created in the back room of the GAPS office, but she had to admit the workouts had visible results. Through the sheer strength of his arms, he braced against the cabinets as he plunged inside her over and over.

  His breath came fast and loud from the exertion as he sped his motion. He came with a loud groan, his body shuddering to completion inside her.

  Seconds ticked by—him still inside her, her still held up by his strength—before he set her feet on the floor.

  Still breathing heavily, he quickly fixed his pants and then rested his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry I missed dinner.”