The Stripper and the SEAL Page 4

  “I’m gonna lift you up,” Vasiliev told her. He dropped the suitcase and folded his hands into a cradle for her foot. “I’ll boost you up. Rusty’ll catch you on the other side.”

  “My bags...”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get them over there for you.”

  He was waiting for her to put her foot in his hands, and while it felt a little weird, Gabrielle didn’t think she’d make it over the wall any other way.

  Still she hesitated. “What about you?”

  He grinned. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll get over on my own. Just let me know if there’s any barbed wire or shards of glass on the top I have to look out for.”

  It was a good thing he mentioned that, because it wouldn’t have occurred to her to check. As she rose toward the top of the wall, seemingly effortlessly, she took a good look. “No. Nothing I can see. Some bird droppings.”

  “I’ll be sure to wash my hands,” Vasiliev said dryly. His voice wasn’t strained at all from lifting her straight up in the air. “Go on. Rusty’ll catch you on the other side.”

  Petty Officer Russell—she recognized the auburn hair—was waiting. He gave her a nod. “Evening, ma’am.”

  From his demeanor, he didn’t seem to think the situation was strange at all. Maybe Lieutenant Vasiliev called him in the middle of the night all the time, for rides.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” he told her, “jump. I’ll catch you.”

  It was a long way down. The wall was taller than Russell. Taller even than Vasiliev, back there on the other side.

  “Go ahead,” he told her, the top of his head almost level with the top of the wall. “I don’t wanna be standing here when your friends come back.”

  She didn’t want him to, either. So she swallowed hard, and launched herself off the wall.

  As promised, Russell caught her and kept her from falling. He made sure she was steady on her feet and able to stand on her own before he pointed to a truck parked a few feet away. “Go on over there. Out of the way.”

  As Gabrielle moved away from the wall, she realized they were standing in a narrow alley surrounded by other walls and fences. Other than a lot of overgrown vegetation and the occasional trash can, plus assorted trash that hadn’t made it into the cans, the alley was empty.

  Behind her, she heard a scraping sound, and looked back in time to see her suitcase appear on top of the wall. “Catch,” Lieutenant Vasiliev’s disembodied voice said.

  Petty Officer Russell caught it, and handed it off to her. “In the truck.”

  She lifted it into the back, and turned back to see her big shoulder bag come sailing over the wall. Her mouth opened involuntarily—and then closed again when she realized that Vasiliev had zippered it shut before throwing it. Her belongings would be jumbled inside the bag, but at least they wouldn’t end up all over the ground in the alley.

  “Truck,” Russell said and handed it over.

  Gabrielle waited for her small handbag to follow, but it didn’t happen. Instead, it was Max Vasiliev’s head that rose slowly over the wall. There wasn’t much light in the alley, but there was a sliver of moon, and that was enough to see the muscles in his arms and shoulders tense as he lifted himself slowly up to where he could put a knee on top of the wall. Her elegant little handbag was slung across his chest, the handle—literally—at the end of its rope.

  “All right?” Russell asked.

  Vasiliev nodded, and took the time to grin down at her. She wondered whether he’d moved in slow motion to give her time to admire that very admirable musculature, or whether that was just the way he had to move to get over the wall.

  He jumped off, and landed lightly on the balls of his feet. “Here’s what I need you to do,” he told Russell, as he dug in his pocket. “My truck’s parked on the street on the other side of the motel. The license plate is on the ground on the opposite side of the wall.”

  Russell’s eyebrows arched, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Here’s the key. Gimme yours.”

  They exchanged keys, and Vasiliev continued. “Go get my truck. Put the license plate on it before you drive off, just so you don’t get pulled over on the way. And meet me at my place.”

  Russell nodded.

  “Look out for a tail.”

  The corner of Russell’s mouth turned up, and Vasiliev rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I know you know what to do. But there are people after this girl, and not the kind of people you want after you. So be careful. I checked for a lookout and didn’t see one, but that don’t mean they didn’t leave a guy behind. It just means he’s good.”

  Russell nodded.

  “We’ll see you in a few.”

  Russell nodded. He backed up a couple of steps before running at the wall, hauling himself up and over. It took a couple of seconds, and didn’t involve any kind of slow and deliberate showing off of muscles. One second he was there, the next he had vanished into the dark on the other side. They heard a couple of small sounds, and then nothing.

  “Let’s move,” Vasiliev said, gesturing her toward the truck.

  She gave him a look. “I bet you’re pretty used to telling people to jump and having them jump, aren’t you?”

  He smiled. “Most people tend to think it’s a good idea to do what I tell them to do.”

  She could see why.

  “As for Rusty,” Vasiliev added, “on the job, he does what I tell him to do because I’m his lieutenant. Tonight, he did what I told him to do because I asked for a favor and he came to help.”

  “Must be nice.” To have friends you could call, who’d come and help when you needed it.

  He looked at her for a second, but didn’t respond. “We should get going,” he said instead. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

  The challenge was clear, and so were the implications. He’d gotten Sergei off her tail, at least for now. If she’d prefer to take off on her own from here, she could. Or she could go with him, and see what happened.

  “Would you drop me off at the bus station if I told you to?”

  “If that’s what you want.” His voice was perfectly even. “It’s your choice. I don’t keep women around against their will. I have thoughts on what you oughta do, but it’s your life and your decision. I can take you to the bus station. Or the airport. Or to a different motel. Or you can come home with me, and we’ll talk about what’s going on.”

  She tilted her head to look at him. “Why are you doing this?”

  He tilted his back. “I’m a Navy SEAL. It’s my job to save the world.”

  Gabrielle managed to keep from snorting, but her expression must have given her away.

  The corners of his lips turned up. “And you’re a pretty girl. Most men are happy to help a pretty girl.”

  “You’re hoping to talk your way into my pants,” Gabrielle translated, throwing his words from earlier back at him.

  The smile widened, but he didn’t respond. “I’ve had my own experiences with the Bratva. It’s not something I’d wish on anyone.”

  That would explain it. Or at least some of it. Combined with his need to save the world and his desire to get in her pants.

  “I’ll go with you,” Gabrielle said, “but I’m not promising anything.”

  He gestured for her to precede him to the truck. “Good thing I’m not expecting anything.”

  He got behind the wheel and let her open her own door. A few seconds later, they were bumping down the alley, overgrown vegetation brushing the windows, and then they were out on the street and picking up speed away from the Ocean View Motel and everything that had happened tonight.

  * * *

  It wasn’t a long drive. Ten minutes later, they were pulling into the driveway of a small brick house in a neighborhood she thought might be a half a mile or so from the water.

  For some reason, she hadn’t expected a house. Perhaps it was spending years in DC, where she’d always lived in apartments. Or maybe it was the fact that he had a New York
accent, and that automatically meant shoebox living. She had expected him to live in an apartment. The house, small as it was, was a surprise.

  She stood for a second and looked at it.

  “It isn’t much,” Vasiliev told her, “but it’s mine.”

  “I wasn’t passing judgment.”

  “I’m sure you’re used to better.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just grabbed her suitcase and bags—everything this time—out of the bed of the truck and headed up toward the front door. He was halfway there when a pair of headlights cut through the dark.

  Gabrielle froze. Vasiliev stopped at the bottom of the short steps and squinted down the street. Her suitcase dropped to the concrete walkway with a little crack as he reached for his gun.

  Then the headlights turned off, and he relaxed again as the truck made the turn into the driveway and parked beside the truck that was already there.

  The engine turned off, and Rusty stepped out.

  “Any problems?”

  Rusty shook his head. “Anything else you need?”

  “Go on home and get some sleep. We’ve got PT in the morning.”

  Rusty nodded. The men exchanged keys and some complicated handshake, and then Rusty gave her a nod on his way past, but didn’t seem to find it necessary to say anything. They watched as he got into his truck and drove off down the street, and then Vasiliev picked up the suitcase again, and headed for the front door. “Sorry about that.”

  Gabrielle wasn’t entirely sure what he was apologizing for—dropping her suitcase? scaring her?—and since she didn’t want to ask, she just ignored the comment.

  He unlocked the door and waved her inside. While she walked past, she noticed he did a last quick up-and-down survey of the street before going inside and closing and locking the door behind them.

  Gabrielle stopped just inside the front door to look around.

  It opened into a combination living room and dining room, with a doorway to what was probably the kitchen at the other end. On this end, another door led into a small hallway, where she’d bet she’d find a bathroom and two, maybe three bedrooms. It hadn’t looked like a big house, so she’d guess two. On the other hand, they built rooms a lot smaller sixty or seventy years ago, so she might be wrong.

  The place looked like a man lived here. The furniture was big and dark, black leather, and there were no flowers or potted plants, and no pictures, save for a panoramic view of the New York skyline, framed above the sofa.

  It was neat and tidy, though. A stack of magazines on the glass top coffee table was neatly squared with all the corners aligned, and although there was a coaster on the table, there were no empty beer bottles or cans, or empty chip bags or pizza boxes anywhere.

  The place didn’t actually look like anyone lived here. Of if they did, like they didn’t spend much time here.

  “Bedrooms are through here,” Vasiliev told her, nodding to the little hallway. “I don’t get much company, sorry. You’re gonna have to make do with the futon in the office.”

  No problem. Part of her had been a little worried that he’d offer her part of his bed, and she would have to find a way to turn him down. Not that it wasn’t tempting—not that he wasn’t tempting—but jumping in the sack with one guy while she was on the run from another probably wasn’t a good idea.

  Even if the fact that he hadn’t offered her part of his bed was a little disappointing, too.

  The first room on the left was the office. One of the smaller bedrooms, it had a futon against one wall—black leather again, with shiny chrome legs—and a desk against the other. A set of hand weights sat on a rack under the window, the smallest one a lot bigger than she could lift, and the single picture on the wall featured—she squinted—Coney Island?

  “Bathroom’s across the hall.” He dumped her suitcase on the floor. “No ensuite, sorry. But if you give me warning, I’ll try not to catch you coming out of the shower.”

  “You saw me naked earlier,” Gabrielle told him. “I don’t care if you do it again.”

  He nodded. “I hate to ask...”

  “No. I wasn’t a prostitute.”

  One brow arched. “That wasn’t the question.”

  Sure.

  “When you walk in on them naked, most women either squeal like virgins, or try to seduce you. You didn’t do either. You just stood there, like you were used to being looked at. I thought you might have been a stripper.”

  “I didn’t sleep with anyone,” Gabrielle said. Not entirely true, but for some reason she didn’t want him to think that about her.

  And really, as far as Trent went, there had been mitigating circumstances.

  Or at least she’d told herself so at the time.

  “I didn’t ask if you had.” His voice was strangely kind, and something about it made her want to cry. When was the last time that had happened?

  “I was twenty-two. I needed money. It was that or earning it on my back. I chose the job where no one got to touch me unless I said they could.”

  He nodded. There was a moment’s silence, during which she wondered what he’d say. When he opened his mouth, what came out wasn’t what she expected. “It’s been a long day, and I’ve got PT in the morning.”

  “PT?”

  “Physical training. Six mile beach run, two mile swim, obstacle course. Starting at oh-eight-hundred.”

  Eight o’clock. It was close to three now.

  “Go,” Gabrielle said. “Sleep.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be back sometime in the afternoon. There should be coffee and maybe some dry cereal or something in the cabinet. I haven’t had a chance to do much shopping. Last week we were on a training op in Costa Rica, and then, as soon as we came back, they sent us to Philadelphia on three hours sleep for this Tansy Leighton thing.”

  He grinned. “Not that I minded. It’s always a good day when you get to rescue a damsel in distress.”

  She was hardly a damsel, but she appreciated the sentiment. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  She didn’t intend to stick her nose outside the door during daylight hours. And anyway, she’d brought her own coffee and yogurt from the motel. She’d survive. What she put in her mouth was the least of her concern right now.

  He nodded. “Make yourself at home. I’ll see you sometime in the afternoon. Sheets and blankets are in the hall closet. Good night.”

  He didn’t wait for her to respond, just opened the door at the end of the hall and ducked inside. Gabrielle watched the closed door with her brows arched for a moment, before she went to make herself as comfortable as she could on the futon.

  5

  She was still asleep when Max left the next morning.

  He opened the door soundlessly to make sure she was still there—she might have up and left sometime in the middle of the night. He figured he’d have heard her if she did, but sometimes miracles happened, and he hadn’t lied about what the last week had been like. They’d done the training op in Costa Rica on just a few hours of sleep, and as soon as they’d come home, they’d hit the sack for half a night before flying to Philadelphia. And while the Tansy Leighton thing hadn’t taken long, and hadn’t been strenuous, it hadn’t involved a lot of sleep, either.

  Now it was two days later, and he was still catching up. Not very successfully. Good thing they’d all been trained in surviving on little to no rest.

  Anyway, she was still in bed when he left in the morning. He stuck his head in and saw nothing but her hair—a tangled mess of dark red curls against the white sheets and black leather.

  She had gorgeous hair, and for a second he got caught in a fantasy of wrapping it around his hands and tilting her head back so he could devour that gorgeous mouth... and then he came back to reality. If he ever got the chance to kiss her, the hair would be long gone. As distinctive as it was, it was the first thing she had to change, to have any chance of passing unnoticed. With a face and body like that, it would be hard enough without the hair.

  She didn’t st
ir, and he headed out, making sure to lock up behind him. He also made sure to take a look around for anyone lurking. He didn’t think he’d missed seeing anyone yesterday, and he didn’t think Rusty had missed seeing anyone, either, but it couldn’t hurt to be a little extra careful.

  Nothing jumped out, and he got in the truck and took off.

  When he came back six hours later, everything still looked the same. The sun shone, and there were no shadows skulking behind the bushes across the street. Everything looked peaceful and quiet, which was why he’d chosen to buy this house. A lot of his life was not peaceful or quiet, and never had been, and this was a nice place to come back to after some of the things he’d see and do on a regular basis. A tiny little slice of normal, in a life that rarely came anywhere close.

  He let himself in through the front door. He’d thought maybe Gabrielle would park herself in front of the TV, for something to do and to keep an eye out the window, but the living room was empty. Max dropped his gear and the plastic bag from the drugstore inside the front door and raised his voice. “Hello?”

  There was no answer, and for a second he thought maybe she’d done a bunk. Waited until he was gone—or until she woke up—and then made a break for it.

  Well, so be it. He’d done his best. He’d gotten the Russian and his friends off her trail last night, and if she’d chosen to take the risk of running again, there was nothing he could do about it.

  But then he heard sounds from the office, and headed that way. Habit had him moving soundlessly, slipping along the wall, and pulling his gun as he rounded the corner.

  He moved into the office gun first, and found himself with his 9mm pointed at the back of her head. She was sitting at his computer, which she had somehow managed to turn on—he’d have to talk to Andy about that—with headphones covering her ears, and she was humming along with whatever was going on.

  Until she noticed his reflection in the screen, and then she squealed and jumped up. The chord of the headphones pulled the laptop over to the edge of the desk, and it would have fallen if she hadn’t made a lunge for it.