Bound by the SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 5) Page 3

  But Arielle wasn’t one of his trainees. She wasn’t a child in a war-torn country. She wasn’t even scared of him. She could certainly take care of herself, he had no doubt.

  That didn’t stop him from wanting to protect her.

  To make sure she knew she could trust him.

  Peculiar feelings to have about someone he’d suspected of being a thief not that long ago.

  “What’s with the Catgirl get up, Ms. Day?”

  She frowned up at him, her brown skin rippling as her forehead creased, then smoothed out. She had a shitty poker face, but a spectacular response time for fixing it. He believed she was a teacher—she had the personality to remain frosty despite repeated aggravation.

  And he was starting to get the appeal in aggravating her.

  “They’re just yoga wear.”

  “Is all black your usual clothing color of choice?”

  “Yes.” No. The true answer flared in her eyes. He’d bet any money most of her clothes were light and airy, like the ocean breeze. She’d look spectacular in turquoise. Coral. White.

  Of course, she looked spectacular in black spandex, too.

  “If I were the punishing kind, you’d have earned a spanking for that.”

  She laughed right in his face and he grinned.

  “No?”

  She shook her head. “No. Not my thing. But thank you.”

  “Thank you?”

  “For the laugh.”

  “Maybe I was serious.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re no Dom.”

  “And there you go again, revealing a little too much knowledge,” he teased.

  She hesitated, and he cursed himself for being too familiar.

  He took a deep breath. “The first time I tied someone up, I had no idea what I was doing. She asked me to do it, and I was a SEAL, you know? I know my way around knots. But my hands were still shaking like whoa.”

  She blinked at him. Right. That was a weird thing to share. But he was trying to show her this wasn’t one-sided, the secret thing.

  He tried again. “My friends don’t know, either. I mean, they wouldn’t care—and there are other kinky guys in the service. Just like tonight, it just takes a few slips of the tongue and we piece it together. But we all keep it on the D-L.”

  “D-L?”

  “Down low. You can trust me with this.”

  She relaxed against the wall. “Okay.” She licked her lips and the little pink swipe of her tongue grabbed his attention.

  Don’t think about her tongue, he told himself. Too late.

  He pushed off the wall and paced backward. “We should call Cara again.”

  “Or we could keep this a secret, too.” She gave him a small smile. “Just until they’re back. I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

  That was a bad idea. That he was strongly considering it was the wrong call.

  He was thinking with his dick. No, higher than that. His heart. He was a sap for this woman, he was quickly realizing. And okay, his dick had some complicated thoughts about her tongue. And those yoga pants.

  But still, he had a responsibility here. He opened his mouth. “Sure,” he heard himself say. “That makes sense.”

  Relief washed across her face. “Oh, good. Thank you.”

  “On one condition.” Thank Christ, his brain had taken over again. He wouldn’t take back his agreement, but he’d hold her to it in a different way.

  She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  “Tell me what you’re looking for.” At first, he wasn’t sure she’d go for it. He wanted to step forward again, press her back against the wall. Press her to trust him. Press her until she made that gasp again because she liked being held down, maybe.

  Spanking wasn’t her thing. Rope was.

  That was two secrets of hers that he had now.

  He wanted another. He wanted the big one, the one he had no right to ask for because he was a stranger.

  She pinned her gaze on him and blinked. Measuring him up. He held his hands wide. You can trust me with this.

  “A statue. I think. I’m not sure, exactly. I’m looking for something my father left here. He sent me an email a week ago, asking me to retrieve it.”

  A week ago? Brayden wanted to ask her more about that, but he resisted his natural instincts to take over and waited.

  “I didn’t want to get involved,” she finally added, her voice heavy. “But he said he needed it by Monday. I emailed back and told him I could ask Cara if she’d found anything in the renovations, and more information for what I was looking for exactly…because nothing with my father is easy.” She laughed and shook her head. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “We’ve got all night.”

  She dropped her head, then tugged at the bottom of her shirt, peeling it up her torso.

  Brayden felt a spike of fiery interest in his gut as he watched a slice of her soft abdomen come into view, then the nip of her waist and the bottom of her rib cage, delicate and lovely.

  But she wasn’t doing a strip tease for him.

  She pulled a Ziploc baggie from a hidden pocket on the inside of her shirt before letting the fabric settle back against her rubbed-bronze skin. Her hands shook as she opened it and unfolded a piece of paper.

  He took it when she held it out to him. It was a typical printout from a browser email program, complete with the to and from email addresses.

  Bunny,

  Sailed to BVI without incidence, but when I got here, my accounts were more than I expected. Had to sell the boat. Not all bad news, though. I got a great price and was able to settle everything in full.

  Have a new opportunity lined up. Just short on capital. Could use some help retrieving something of mine, from my reckless youth. Don’t make that face, darling. It’ll be fine. You know I can’t trust anyone else with something this important.

  It’s in the place where your mother finally agreed to marry me. Where I once had four legs, then two, and will eventually have three. That future me is what you’re looking for.

  I need you to find it by a week Monday.

  Love,

  Dad

  Brayden frowned. Yes, that was cryptic. “And he never replied?”

  “No. So…when Cara said they were going away for the weekend, I thought…what could it hurt to come and take a look?”

  “And then I found you.”

  “And tied me up.” One corner of her mouth lifted in a rueful smile. “I didn’t plan on that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Whatever. So anyway, now you know.”

  He nodded as he looked at the paper again. “Do I want to know about his reckless youth?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Did he involve you in something illegal?” Brayden didn’t like that idea at all.

  “Probably not.”

  He jerked his head up and pinned a glare on her. “Maybe you should have stuck with a firm ‘no thanks, Dad’ if you weren’t sure.”

  “And there you go with that right-and-wrong thing again. It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s a long story.” She waved off his protest. “I know, we’ve got all night. But…”

  “Enough secrets?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not a secret, actually. Cara knows all about my dad. It’s just exhausting to talk about.”

  “We don’t have to.”

  She jerked her head toward the cupboards. “You know what? I need a drink.”

  Oh. He waved his arm wide in that direction. “Be my guest. You’d know better where anything would be than I would.”

  She smirked at that. “Yes, I would.”

  “You’re going to make me apologize for tying you up, aren’t you?”

  “Repeatedly. Beer or rum?”

  “Beer.”

  She went to the oversized fridge and grabbed two green-glass bottles, then popped the caps off with a bottle opener magneted to the side of the unit. “Cheers. To fucked up
family tales. Please tell me you’ve got one, too.”

  “Dirt poor parents, brother in prison…I can hold my own.”

  “Good.” She sank into her chair and tipped her head back to stare at the ceiling. “Okay, short version is…He chose me. He didn’t have to. He loves me and so when he asks for something, I can’t say no. If he needs something, I need to help him. End of story.”

  “Shouldn’t it be the other way round? He’s your father.”

  “Yes. In every way that counts, in any way that matters, he’s my dad. But I’m not his. Not biologically.”

  FIVE

  HE’D HEARD CRAZIER STORIES. AND IT EXPLAINED HER LOYALTY, NO DOUBT.

  But as Arielle continued to spill her guts in between sips of beer, Brayden couldn’t help but wonder why the balance was tipped so heavily toward her being the caregiver for the so-called parent.

  “My mom died when I was a kid. She was the love of his life, and she broke his heart over and over again. And then…she was gone.”

  Shit. “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly.

  “Your turn.” She took a deep breath.

  “My brother killed someone. Fight over a girl gone wrong.” This next admission felt like a rock in his chest. “I haven’t been the best brother to him since he’s been away.”

  Her eyebrows pulled together slightly, a little twitch of something that could be read as either concern or judgment. He definitely deserved the latter. She didn’t say anything, though.

  “I know that’s selfish.” He took a long pull of beer.

  “It’s not.” She held his gaze, steady and surprisingly kind as her eyes looked straight into him. “It’s called drawing boundaries. I know all about that.”

  “Like telling your father you won’t break into an estate to find a statue he wants to hock?”

  She blushed. “Exactly. Except I should have stuck to that line.”

  “Sometimes I wish I could bend, though.” He finished his beer and lifted the bottle in the air. “Want another?”

  She hesitated. “Sure.”

  He crossed to the fridge. When he came back, he changed the subject, because fuck maudlin-wallowing. “Your father’s email…what did he mean with those clues about what you’re supposed to find?”

  She took a sip, then wiped the corner of her mouth with her fingers before leaning forward. “It’s a riddle. What starts with four legs, then two, and ends with three legs?”

  He shook his head. “Dunno.”

  “A man. Born a baby who crawls on all fours. Then he learns to walk. And finally needs a cane in his old age.”

  “Ah.”

  “There was a statue of an old man he brought home when I was a kid. My mother freaked out and told him he couldn’t keep it in the house.”

  “So you think he brought it here?”

  She nodded. “This is where he married my mother, the other clue in the email. She worked here for a brief time. She’d come over from the Philippines as a nanny—by way of New York, where the Parry family spent most of their time—and when she got pregnant, she was sure she’d be sent home. He’d met her in town, and she confessed her situation to him. He asked her to marry him.”

  It sounded romantic, but she’d already told him it didn’t have a happy ending.

  “So they were married here, and she was let go by the Parrys. But instead of being deported—the worst case scenario—she married a local and I was born here. It wasn’t the life she envisioned for herself.”

  “She wanted more.”

  “Yeah.”

  “America?”

  Arielle shrugged. “I’m not sure. Yes, the American Dream. But it was more than that. She liked working here, for the Parrys. She liked wealth.”

  He could paint the rest of the picture. Arielle’s father trying to provide that wealth by any means necessary. Fights. Fading dreams.

  He didn’t know what to say, so he went back to the statue. “Is it valuable?”

  She shrugged. “Probably. There was a lot of stuff flowing through his hands back then. Booze, drugs, art. We had a Cézanne hanging on the wall of our living room for a week once.”

  “Holy shit. Did you know what it was?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was that stressful?”

  She nodded. “But he was also my dad. My hero, you know? So I trusted him.”

  “Did he ever get in trouble with the law?” It was an obvious question, but as soon as he’d asked it, her face tightened and he regretted giving in to his curiosity. “Ignore that question.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. It’s none of my business.”

  “He’s not…he’d never hurt anyone.”

  She wanted him to know that her father wasn’t violent. Like Josh. He felt like shit for asking. “He sounds lucky to have you in his corner.”

  “Same for me with him. He was stuck with me, but…he chose me. He’s always loved me. So you can see how I’m hard pressed to be critical of him.”

  “I can.”

  “That’s why…you know, all my big talk about boundaries aside…I’d never let him down.”

  Brayden had a wild hunch it was the other way around, over and over again, but if Arielle had it in her head that her father was her hero, there wouldn’t be anything he could say to change that. And damn it, he didn’t want to steal that from her, not really.

  He just wanted her to…be safe.

  “Okay, I’m in.”

  “In?” She laughed. “For what?”

  “I’ll help you find the statue.” And maybe become an accessory to a crime. Great. Maybe he could Google art theft in Miralinda and see what the statutes of limitation were.

  “You. Help me.”

  “Hey, I’m a clever guy. Good with my hands.” He stood and, with an easy hop, touched the ceiling. “Tall, too. That has some advantages.”

  She gave him a wary look.

  “Come on. Give me a chance to make this up to you.”

  Another look, this time with a scowl attached for effect, but her lips curled into a smile despite her efforts.

  He rolled his bottom lip between his teeth. He could sweeten the pot—maybe for both of them. “Okay, how about this. We trade.”

  “Trade?”

  He grinned, broadly. Wickedly. Oh yeah, this was a great idea. “Trade. I’ll help you search for this statue. We’ll explore every inch of the estate. Leave no stone unturned.”

  “And in exchange?”

  “You let me tie you up again. This time…with some discussion beforehand. And, with your consent, I’ll explore every inch of you, too.”

  SIX

  NO.

  That was the only sensible answer.

  It wasn’t what came out of her mouth. “That sounds like blackmail, Mr. Lucas.”

  Oh, God. She was flirting with him. And it felt…weird. Good.

  He grinned. “Only if you like blackmail.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Only if you want that excuse to tell yourself this is all my fault.”

  She did want that. She licked her lips. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “I do?”

  “Of course. Now I need to help you search simply to restore my reputation in your eyes.”

  “Well,” she said tartly. A total facade. “Given how our acquaintance began this evening, I agree, that’s for the best.”

  “Bring your beer, woman. Let’s go see what we can find. A statue, huh?”

  She’d hoped it would be as simple as going upstairs and finding a hiding spot in the wall.

  Her luck wasn’t that good.

  Brayden rapped his knuckles all over the wall in one room, then the other, and she did the same. He taught her about studs and what hollow spaces sounded like, and after an hour, she agreed with his assessment that the wall she’d gotten so excited about would probably yield nothing. She couldn’t bring herself to bust open the plaster.

  For one t
hing, then she’d have to tell Cara what she’d done—in which case, she might as well ask permission first.

  For another…this didn’t feel right.

  This wasn’t like her father, to carefully plaster over something.

  He’d have put it somewhere in a hurry.

  “Floorboards, maybe,” she mused, and Brayden immediately shifted to a slow walk back and forth across the room. Then the next, but there were no loose boards, and half the rooms had recently been refinished. The same threat of damage applied here, as well.

  “Could it be in plain sight?”

  “The future me is what you’re looking for…” Arielle spun around and grabbed Brayden’s forearms. “Yes. In plain sight. Gah, why didn’t I think of that? You’re a genius.”

  Under her palms, his muscles flexed, and she glanced up at his face. Whoa. He was right there. She’d practically thrown herself into his arms.

  “I am?” He lifted one eyebrow. “Good to know.”

  “‘The future him’ is what we’re looking for. So we need to look…look…scan around, I guess, for something that looks like the future him.”

  “I don’t know the present him.”

  She let go of him and stepped away from the warmth radiating off his body. “He’s tall. Not like you’re tall, but normal tall.”

  “What am I?”

  “Freakishly tall.” She paused. “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “Good. And he’s…outgoing, charming.” She rolled her eyes. “Everything you’d expect in a con man.”

  At least Brayden laughed at that. “So…how will he age? What does future him look like?”

  She pointed at him. “Don’t say in a jail cell.”

  He held up his hands. “I’d never.”

  “But my father would. Oh, Dad. That’s not funny.” She scanned the room. No, not in here. She hurried into the hallway. There weren’t any grates on the wall or along the floor. They retraced their steps through the other rooms, ending in the master bedroom.