Kiss of Surrender

  The one wearing the red upper garment was none other than the bane of his life, Nicole Tasso, and Trond couldn’t stop staring at her. It wasn’t only his eyes that were appreciating her, either. Another part of his body was on full hot-damn-gotta-have-that alert.

  And then he noticed the most amazing, alarming things of all: the expanse of bare skin from her midriff to her navel where a small gold ring winked at him. Leastways, it felt as if the wink was directed at him personally.

  “I think I’ve died and gone to Heaven,” Geek said with a mischievous chuckle.

  Or somewhere else in my case.

  Sly looked as if he’d swallowed bad meat, watching intently as other men ogled Donita in a stretchy white top through which brown nipples stuck out like pretty sentinels.

  F.U. was sitting a little straighter in his seat in an attempt to add height to his short stature. If he only knew, it wasn’t his size that repulsed women.

  Cage laughed. “The last time they wore that gear, we had to bail them out of the city lockup.” Then, to Trond’s horror, Cage waved at the women to join them. In fact, he was already pulling another table over to connect with theirs.

  The band began to play, “R. E. S. P. E. C. T.,” that song that was like a woman’s anthem in this country. But in Trond’s head, another word entirely was being spelled out, T. R. O. U. B. L. E.

  Clueless men are ageless . . .

  “Oh, this is bad. Really bad,” Nicole muttered as they made their way across the tavern.

  And Nicole wasn’t referring to the wolf whistles and lecherous looks they got in a pathway that opened as a gauntlet for the three women. Sly and Kendra were sitting at the table where they were headed. That was bad. But what was really bad was sitting dead center . . . the T in what was bound to be trouble for her tonight. Trond Sigurdsson.

  She should just tuck tail, turn around, and go home.

  But wait. Maybe this would be her opportunity to get a little closer to him, to discover what secret he was hiding, to find out if there was something in his background that could endanger the special forces teams here at Coronado. She’d already gone to Commander MacLean weeks ago with her suspicions, and he’d told her that Trond’s paperwork from the Jaegers was ironclad. Unless she had concrete evidence against the man, he advised her to stop her private investigating.

  That had never stopped her in the past, and it wouldn’t stop her now. If she’d asked more questions before marrying Billy, maybe . . . well, just maybe things would have been different.

  So, with a bravado fueled by good intentions, she sat down next to him and tried her best not to notice how good he looked and—mercy!—even how he smelled. His dark hair was military short, shaved on the sides and only about a half inch on top. He’d shaved this evening and showered; she recognized the Axe deodorant soap, but even that couldn’t mask his own unique skin scent. He wore a short-sleeved denim shirt with epaulettes on the shoulders that resembled silver wings. In a crowd of unisex T-shirts, his shirt seemed odd. Not unattractive, just odd. It was probably some designer fashion in Norway or maybe something associated with his Jaegers. The shirt was tucked into straight-leg jeans. Nicole’s old detective skills helped her to make these kinds of quick observations. Of course, not usually with so much appreciation.

  She decided to follow up on her idea to lure him into revealing his secrets with a little politeness since outright suspicious questioning hadn’t worked in the past. “Hi!” she greeted him with a bright smile.

  He jerked away from her, as if stunned that she could be pleasant. Or maybe it had been her peppy “Hi!” She knew from past experience how much he disliked her “peppiness.” Then he said, “I can see your nipples.”

  So much for pleasant! She glanced downward and could have died. Oh God! I forgot the Band-Aids. “I swear, Easy, if there were a jerk parade, you’d be the drum major.”

  “What? Sassy, Sassy, Sassy, you earn your SEAL nickname when you wear a garment like that. And then you are offended when men notice.” His eyes were glued to her chest, and their usual pale blue shade seemed to be morphing to silver. It must be the lighting.

  “Most men wouldn’t be so crude as to comment.”

  “Why not? I like big nipples.”

  She felt herself blush, from her forehead to her toes. “So, now I have big nipples as well as a big butt?”

  “Easy bit her butt during Gig Squad today,” Cage informed the rest of the table, every one of whom turned to stare at Trond with incredulity.

  “I never said she has a big ass,” Trond insisted.

  Be nice, Nicole. Think positive. Look for the good in people and events. Part of Nicole’s healing after she’d left her husband seven years ago had involved a concerted effort to avoid negativity. Even when she felt like she was drowning in depression, she put on a smile, and, yes, she’d developed a peppy attitude. She’d found that eventually outward optimism worked its way inward. If that made her seem like a Pollyanna, so be it. Women found their survival skills wherever they could. This guy, though, would be a challenge to Norman Vincent Peale himself.

  She started to turn away from him, but the idiot was on a roll. “In my ti— I mean, where I come from, big nipples are an attribute to be desired. The better to suckle a man’s babies.” Under his breath, he added, “And the man, as well, of course.”

  JAM choked on the beer he’d just drunk. Cage had his face down on the table, shaking with laughter. Geek was grinning from ear to ear, no doubt waiting with anticipation to see what the goofball would say next. Sly and Kendra were doing their best to pretend Donita wasn’t there, and Donita was doing her best to get JAM’s attention to make Sly jealous. Marie had gone to the ladies’ room, to check her nipples, no doubt.

  “If I were you, I would shut up about now,” Nicole warned Trond.

  But did he listen? Nah!

  “And, personally, I wouldn’t mind at all if you remarked on the bigness of some of my body parts.” Then he smirked.

  The smirk was what did it.

  Standing, she picked up a pitcher of beer and dumped it over the jerk’s head. “Oops!” she said, then stomped off toward the ladies’ room. She passed Marie coming back on the way and told her not to worry, that she just needed a breather.

  Almost immediately, she felt like an utter fool. What was wrong with her that she’d overreact to a little teasing? SEALs were masters at the art of the tease, much of it politically incorrect. It was harmless, really. And she’d just given them ammunition for more teasing. She could practically hear their communal thought waves following her: PMS!

  About fifteen minutes later, Donita and Marie came into the rest room and pulled her out of the stall where she’d been sitting, fearing that she might be crying. She never cried, she never allowed herself to cry. Not anymore. And she sure as soap didn’t let anyone see her break down. With a self-deprecating laugh, she assured her friends that she was all right. Probably that time of the month, she remarked.

  She gave each of her friends a hug. Good Lord! How pathetic am I being when Donita is the one in need of sympathy tonight. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Donita nodded. “I’m planning on getting blitzed and laid tonight, preferably in that order.”

  Nicole laughed, which was just what she needed. A little humor to relieve the stress. “Any prospects?”

  “JAM is number one on my list at the moment, but, hey, anything can happen. The only thing I can say unequivocally is, not F.U.”

  They all smiled at that. Poor F.U. had learned sensitivity from the Howard Stern School of Charm. He was an extreme sports enthusiast . . . skiing, hiking, and all that, which should have made him interesting, and there must be SEAL groupies out there who welcomed his advances just because he was in the elite force, but she didn’t know any WEALS who’d let him within breathing distance. The nail in his yuck coffin came the day someone overheard him say, “Never trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die.”

  “Anyhow, hurr
y and fix your makeup, honey. You’re missing the big show,” Marie told her. “JAM went out to get Trond a spare T-shirt he always carries in his vehicle, but Trond didn’t want to put it on over all that sticky beer. So, as we speak, he is washing the beer off his head and bare chest . . .” She paused in a ta-da fashion. “ . . . in the spraying machine.”

  “Better than porn.” Donita waved a hand in front of her face.

  “Every woman in the joint is getting a hot flash,” Marie added, also fanning her face.

  Nicole could only imagine. Unfortunately.

  Within moments, they were all back in the bar, halfway across the dance floor, staring like all the other fascinated females and amused men as Trond stepped out of the spraying machine and used a bar towel to begin drying off his head and chest, seemingly oblivious to the stir he was causing, or perhaps he was just used to that type of attention.

  Suddenly, as if he sensed her presence, he glanced up and over at her. Their gazes held for a long moment before he winked. At her!

  She had fully expected anger, or mocking. But a wink?

  No, no, no!

  That wink said in body language as old as time, I have you in my cross-hairs, babe. Beware!

  A laughing JAM handed the idiot a metallic gray T-shirt that Trond proceeded to pull over his head and tuck into his jeans. Even the tucking was an erotic exercise.

  “Ho-ly mo-ly!” she whimpered.

  He couldn’t possibly have heard her this far away, and yet his head shot up, and he raised his eyebrows in question. He knew! The overconfident man knew precisely what effect he had on her.

  Now that the “floor show” was over, people were returning to the bar or their tables to drink, or to the dance floor where the band was now playing that ultra sexy “Need You Now.” She needed to get out of here before she made a fool of herself, or an even bigger fool than she’d already been. There was a back exit, she recalled, and spun on her heels, heading that way.

  She’d gone only a few steps across the dance floor when she was yanked to a halt by a hand on her upper arm.

  It was Trond, of course.

  “What do you want?” She glared at him over her shoulder.

  “You.”

  She turned, inch by inch, incredulous at such an outrageous lie. He’d shown her fifty ways to Sunday since she’d met him how much he disliked her. And now he wanted her to believe he wanted her? Another ploy to move his secret agenda? How dumb did he think she was?

  And he dared to look at her with such unwavering innocence. Men! They were clueless to the bone.

  She did the only thing she could then. She burst out laughing.

  Five

  Some chains are of our own making . . .

  Nicole, you misunderstood.”

  She stopped laughing for a moment.

  “I misspoke.”

  “Oh?”

  “When I said I want you, I didn’t mean want want.”

  She started to laugh again.

  Laughter was not the reaction any man wanted to his lustful inclinations, even if those lustful inclinations were all in her head. Okay, they were in his head, too, and some other places, but only because she’d brought up the subject.

  “So, you don’t want me in that way?”

  That way and a dozen others. Maybe two dozen. “Are you on offer?” What? Did I really ask that? If I had any hair on my fool head, now would be the time to start pulling it. “When you asked what I wanted, I said you, but I never finished the sentence. I want you to stand still long enough so that I can apologize.”

  “Apologize?” she scoffed.

  A pair of dancers—Cage and Marie, doing an energetic Cajun two-step—slammed into Nicole’s back, shoving her against his chest, and he put his hands on her hips to steady her. With the high-heeled boots she wore, she fit nicely against his much taller frame, hip to hip, and other equally tongue-and-groove parts. Especially when she linked her hands behind his neck, preparatory to dancing. How he had moved from his apologizing to dancing was a leap he found hard to fathom. “I hate to dance,” he told her.

  “I love to dance,” she replied.

  Which meant that they continued to sway from side to side in a close embrace.

  Holy clouds! Modern men have it good! Dancing as foresport? Whoever would have predicted that? Lot less energy required to get a woman in the mood!

  But, no, he had to get his mind off that sex pathway to nowhere and on to the matter at hand. He inhaled and exhaled before saying, “I am really sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For hurting your feelings.”

  “You overestimate your powers.”

  “There is no excuse for a vang . . . a man to use words as weapons with a woman,” he barreled on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Yes, you provoke me. Sorely, betimes. And, yes, the mere sight of you ignites this spark within me, and I must needs either kill you or kiss you. And, yes, you are forbidden fruit to this hungry soul. And, yes, I have had two bottles of beer, but I am not drukkinn by any means, lest it be drunk with lust, which men have been known to release in anger when unrequited, but still . . .” He released a long breath after that ridiculously long blather. “Please accept my apology.”

  “That is the most half-assed apology I have ever heard.” With her hands still on his shoulders, she leaned back to see his face better.

  The arching of her body caused her nether parts to rub against his crotch, and he could swear he saw stars behind his eyelids. Or maybe it was just the disco-style lights blinking off her belly button ring or off her breasts that were nigh naked under the little sparkly stretch top. One flick of my finger and it would be gone. Do I dare? Maybe if I . . .

  “Somehow I don’t see you as the humble type. Did Cage tell you to apologize?”

  Shaking his head to clear it, he looked down at her and smiled. “Cage called me a dumb shit and likened me to an armadillo crossing a superhighway every time I am around you.”

  “Smart guy, that Cage!”

  He squeezed her hips in reprimand.

  “So you’re bird-dogging me now because Cage told you to.”

  “That is not what I said.” Bird-dogging? He knew what that meant, and it was not an attractive picture. Nor did he like the image of himself as an armadillo. Hah! She ought to beware of him lest his fangs emerged full-throttle. She would know then that he more resembled a wolf . . . a fierce, proud, beauteous beast of the wild.

  Nicole must have noticed the indignant expression on his face because she tilted her head in question.

  “A dog? A smelly, ball-licking, hairy hound? That is how you see me?”

  Her eyes widened before she laughed. “Get over yourself.”

  Bird-dogging? Trond could still not get over that assessment. He had never chased a woman in all his sorry life, and he was not about to start now with the most irksome female to walk the planet. He gritted his teeth and told her, “Must you missay me at every turn? That is not why I followed you. I saw the hurt in your eyes, and I was ashamed of myself.” There! That is all the humility I am going to engage in. Take it or leave it.

  “Oh good Lord! That wasn’t hurt, you sorry excuse for a sweet talker, you. It was anger. And even if you had the power to hurt my feelings, which you don’t, the last thing I need from the likes of you is a pity party.”

  I knew this would happen. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. That’s what happens when a man apologizes to a woman. Sets himself up like a target for the arrows of a shrew’s verbal darts.

  “Frankly, I’m the one who needs to apologize for dousing you with beer.”

  Huh? Oh. Well, that is better. Maybe she is not such a shrew, after all.

  “I don’t usually behave in such an impulsive way. Even when I’m provoked.”

  Nay, she is a shrew, all right. “Apology accepted,” he said quickly before her blathering tongue could launch more insult bombs at him, but then he thought of something else. Do I sense an opportunity here? “Shall we kiss and mak
e up?”

  “Only if you want a karate chop to your family jewels!”

  They were still only swaying from side to side. No twirls or fancy steps. But just then Trond noticed that the band had changed songs. “Oh no! Not now!” he said on a groan. Coming to an abrupt halt, he pressed his forehead against Nicole’s.

  “What now?”

  Why does she say that as if I’m always in trouble?

  Maybe because I often am. “It’s that song,” he explained and groaned again.

  “Aretha Franklin’s ‘Chain of Fools’? What about it? I know you’re a fool, but what else is new?”

  Sarcasm ill suits her, but I will not tell her so. See, I can be wise. Is anyone listening up there? “Did you ever see the movie Michael starring John Travolta?”

  “Yeah,” she replied, frowning with confusion.

  “My brothers and I have watched it dozens of times,” he revealed. If she only knew, a bunch of vangels didn’t have much else to do on long winter nights when holed up together. That and Michael Jackson videos to appease the youngest vangel in their ranks, who fashioned himself a born-again moonwalk dancer, like the King of Pop. He only hoped the band didn’t decide to play “Thriller.” He might just have to slit his wrists and drink his own blood dry.

  “And the chains song?” she prodded.

  “Makes me want to dance,” he admitted, reluctantly.

  “I thought you didn’t like to dance.”

  “I don’t.”

  It was probably some subliminal impulse implanted by Mike into the vangels, or at least the VIK. Sort of an archangel joke. Stepping back from her, he closed his eyes in concentration, then began with his arms raised, palm spread as if feeling for something in the air. I must look like every village idiot ever born.

  “Are you crazy? Stop it! People are staring,” he heard Nicole say in a mortified whisper as she tried, to no avail, to tug him off the dance floor.