One Intrepid Seal

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She nodded, wedged the flashlight into the netting and pointed it at Diesel’s arm. Then she tried to untie the knotted bloody fabric.

Every time her knuckles grazed the wound, Diesel flinched.

“It’s getting red and puffy around the wound. You need medical attention.”

“Why? I have you.” He winked.

She frowned.

“Why the frown?” He touched her cheek.

Was she frowning? Reese schooled her face, ripped off another strip of fabric from her shirt, made a pad with part of it and pressed it to his wound, maybe a little harder than she should have.

He flinched. “Mad about something?”

“This whole situation. I’m supposed to be on a diplomatic mission with Ferrence Klein, protecting him from threats, not alone in the jungle with a stranger, far from my client.”

“Sometimes plans change. Missions change. You have to learn to roll with the punches.”

She glanced at the nest of branches. “I’m rolling.” She nodded toward the makeshift bed. “You sleep. I’m taking first watch.”

“I don’t need much sleep. You can go first.”

Her lips curled on the corners. “Do you always argue this much? You’ve lost blood. You need to rest.” She switched off the flashlight and remained in an upright position, refusing to lie down beside him.

Diesel could tell by the stubborn tilt of her chin that he couldn’t change her mind. Used to catching Z’s wherever and whenever he had the opportunity, he’d make use of this time to refill his internal store of energy. “Have it your way. But wake me in a couple hours. You need to sleep, too. We might have a long trek ahead of us tomorrow.” When he woke, he’d figure a way out of the jungle and back to his normal routine.

He lay staring up into the darkness, wide awake, wondering about this woman he’d rescued from the rebels. She wasn’t like most women he knew. “How did you end up hiring on to protect Klein?”

“I had some connections,” she replied.

“What’s your background? What makes you qualified to protect Klein?”

She hesitated only for a moment before firing back, “What makes you qualified to recover him?” She was feisty and gave as good as she got.

Diesel chuckled. “I’m in the navy. My team was tasked with the mission to rescue you and Klein.”

Silence stretched between them.

“Four years active duty in the army and two years on the MMA circuit.”

“MMA?” he asked.

“Mixed Martial Arts.”

“Why the army?” he asked.

“Why the navy?”

“Family legacy. My father was a marine, my grandfather was in the navy. I guess you could say it was in my blood. I like a challenge,” Diesel said. “Your turn. What’s your story?”

“Why do you care?” she said.

Diesel sighed. “Look, I’m just trying to get to know the woman I’m sleeping with in the jungle.”

Again, she was quiet for a few moments before speaking. “My parents died in car wreck a few days after I graduated high school. I had nothing keeping me there, no home to go to. A recruiter said, Join the army, see the world. So, I did.”

“But you didn’t stay in the army.”

“No.” The one word was spoken in a tight, sharp tone.

“Deploy?”

“Yes. And when I got off active duty, I became an MMA fighter.”

Diesel stopped suddenly, his brows rising. “Seriously?” He touched her arm. An MMA fighter was the last thing he expected to come from her mouth. “I mean, you’re in great shape and all, but I didn’t picture you as someone who’d fight for sport. Why the MMA?” he asked.

“I had some anger management issues I needed to resolve.” She shifted. “Are you finished with the interrogation?”

“I am.”

“Good, because you’re supposed to be sleeping.”

Diesel suspected there was a lot more to Reese’s story than she was sharing, but he wouldn’t push her more. If she wanted him to know more, she’d tell him. He had enough to go on, for now.

He’d hoped talking would make him less aware of her tight body. When she’d been in his lap, he’d been so turned on, he’d thought for sure she’d notice. Her body was honed, her attitude determined, but she was vulnerable enough to make him want to protect her. And if that meant holding her in his arms through the night, so be it. He swallowed a groan on that last thought. Maybe it was a good thing they split the watch and slept in shifts. Nowhere in his life did he have room to fall for the long-legged, curvaceous bodyguard, even if she was pretty hot in the red glow of the flashlight. And she had gumption. No. He needed to complete this mission and move on.

He lay on his back, unable to ignore the warmth of her thigh pressed against his. Swallowing a groan, he focused on sleep. He’d never had trouble falling asleep before he’d met Reese. Why start now?

Chapter Four (#uf60fe08d-6982-5313-8852-41cb415e065d)

Reese sat beside Diesel in the nest of boughs and stared through the gaps in the camouflage he’d applied to the netting. Every time the man moved, he brushed up against her, making her heart race and her body light up. What was wrong with her? Even if she wanted, she couldn’t begin to sleep with her thoughts running wild over her rescuer.

When Diesel had flashed his smile and winked at Reese, butterflies had erupted and swarmed in her belly, and heat had spread from her center outward. Not only was the man as hard as a bodybuilder, he was charming and sexy, too. A triple threat to her libido. She shook her head. She was in a tree, in a jungle with a man she’d met only a few hours ago. How could she be having lascivious thoughts about him when they were both covered in sweat and dirt?

She could hear the steady breathing of the man beside her. Darkness kept her from studying him. Time passed slowly with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company. Every sound made her tense up until her back ached. In the wee hours of the morning, her head dipped, and sleep threatened to overtake her.

She didn’t want to wake Diesel. He was the one who was wounded. His body needed time to recover.

Guilt made a knot in her gut. She’d already botched her first assignment. Ferrence’s father would fire her as soon as she got back to civilization. She wouldn’t have a job, and word-of-mouth about her failure would see to it she never had another bodyguard client. The least she could do was watch over the navy SEAL.

But she was so darned sleepy.

The man lying beside her moved. A second later, a hand touched her shoulder, and Diesel pressed the drinking tube against her fingers. “Drink and then sleep.”

She didn’t argue. Too tired to do anything but what he commanded, she sipped from the tube, the liquid soothing her dry throat. Then she lay on the bows and closed her eyes.

Reese must have fallen asleep right away. When she opened her eyes, she could make out all the shapes and shadows within the nest Diesel had created.

One thing she couldn’t see was the man himself.

Reese bolted upright and listened for the reassuring sound of him moving around outside the mosquito netting.

She heard sounds, but they weren’t the sounds she expected. Something was moving down below—a lot of somethings. And there were several grunts and other sounds she couldn’t quite place. She leaned forward and pressed her face to the netting. In the clearing below, dark shapes moved about. Some big, some smaller, but none of them human.

Her heart leaped into her throat, and she fought back a gasp.

A troop of gorillas had moved into the clearing and appeared to be setting up camp. Even from her perch high above them, Reese could tell they were big. Mothers sat preening their babies. Adolescent gorillas romped in the clearing, wrestling and tumbling.

Reese looked for the alpha male but didn’t see him. He had to be there. All troops had an alpha male, and the alpha could be extremely fierce.

Where was Diesel?

“Shh,” came a soft whisper close to her ear.

The sound was so quiet, she almost didn’t hear it. Reese turned toward Diesel on the other side of the mosquito net.

He pointed down and mouthed the words alpha male.

Reese gulped. She worried that, if the alpha male caught their scent, he could climb the tree and rip them apart. Holy hell. And she thought being caught by Congolese rebels was bad. At least they hadn’t been capable of ripping her apart with their bare hands. There would be no reasoning with a male gorilla.

Reese remained still, afraid to move and disturb the branches of the nest Diesel had built. Thankfully, they were at least twenty-five feet from the floor of the jungle. More importantly, they were twenty-five feet from the male gorilla. At the very least, they had a head start at climbing higher.