Page 46 of Down and Dirty

Yeah, he had allowed the “love” card to enter his brain for a blip of a second back there on the beach, but he was past that now. He wasn’t in love. Uh-uh. Nope, lust was the name of the game. Good ol’ healthy lust. And it would be healthy for Britta, too, he told himself.

After this weekend, WEALS training would be racheted up. More intense physical evolutions. Less liberties. Focus to the max. This might be his last big chance, and he wasn’t about to blow it.

Seduction was a breeze for Zach. Lack of confidence wasn’t even in his vocabulary. But this time… with Britta… he just wasn’t sure he could pull it off.

Thus far he’d only succeeded with number one, maybe two if he was lucky, and that was thanks to his son who had wheedled and whined till Britta agreed to tuck him in, telling her some outrageous lie about how his father, meaning him, told scary ghost tales that gave him nightmares. It probably hadn’t occurred to her yet that he wouldn’t be able to drive her back to the base and leave Sammy alone.

Britta was upstairs now telling Sammy some bedtime story about a young Viking boy named Svein the Short who wanted to go a-Viking but was considered too little. Not a single ghost in her tale, she promised. Sammy probably empathized with Short Svein since everyone was always telling him he was too little.

There was a knock at the front door. Peering through the peephole, he saw Wilson. Beside him stood a guy flashing a Vortex Security badge; he looked as if he could bench-press a bus. Zach opened the door and invited them both in.

“Care for a beer?” he offered. Please say no.

“Nah. I’m gonna take off.” Scary Larry was already halfway down the steps. “Just wanted to introduce you to one of the guys who’ll be taking over for me. This is Jim Butler.”

“I owe you for all your help, Larry.”

Wilson, as usual, didn’t crack a smile, just nodded.

Once inside, Butler shook his hand. “Your dad hired a team of us. We’ll rotate shifts, but there will always be a Vortex guard protecting your perimeter. You might not always see us, but we’ll be here.”

“Appreciate it. Do I need to fill you in on any details?”

“Not now. I got the file you e-mailed me. If there’s anything new, though, be sure to let me know ASAP. Here’s my beeper number. It’ll go to whoever is on duty, as well as headquarters.” He took out a business card, which Zach put in his pocket.

Afterward, Zach checked the locks on all the doors and windows, set the outside motion detector and the inside keypad, put some wine in the fridge and two stemmed glasses in the freezer, laid out some gourmet cheese and crackers that his mother had bought last time she was here, made a mental count of how many condoms he had in his bedside table, and sniffed his underarms to see if he was okay in that department. He was.

After waiting another five minutes, he tiptoed up the stairs, not wanting to set off any alarm bells in the kid if he was still awake, and certainly not wanting to awaken him if he was catching some z’s.

First he went into his bedroom at the far end of the hall and put his KA-BAR under his pillow and his Glock on the bedside table. Since Sammy’s arrival, he’d put most of his weapons under lock and key. Those that he needed at the ready had childproof safety locks on them, which meant he would need an extra second to be in a firing position in the event of an emergency. But it was the price he had to pay with a kid in the house.

He double-checked his beeper as well. All SEALs were required to have their direct-line-to-command beepers near them at all times, and even though he wasn’t technically on active duty, he could be called up in an instant, like anyone else.

Next, he went back to the first bedroom and, peeking in, saw that Sammy was sleeping. Bless you, Britta! God, the little snot looked like an angel when he was asleep. Britta must have scrubbed his face and washed his arms, because he smelled of Oil of Olay soap, another left-behind of his mother’s.

But then — whoo-boy! — he noticed something else.

Britta’s sandals were on the floor on the other side of Sammy’s bed, but no Britta. That wasn’t where the “whooboy” came in, though. Like Hansel trailing Gretel, he followed her clothes to the bathroom. First her red tank top next to Sammy’s door. He must have stepped over it, thinking it was Sammy’s. Then her jeans out in the hall. Her bra hung over the doorknob of the bathroom which was, thank you, God, open, where her panties lay in the middle of the floor.

“Britta!” he called out, not daring to step inside.

No answer, but he heard the shower running. Forget that “not daring” crap. He walked right in. Then. Stopped. Dead.

Through the sliding glass doors of the shower, he saw Britta, her arms raised, combing her hair back off her face, which was raised under the showerhead, eyes closed. She was a big woman, no denying that. At least six feet tall… and athletically muscled. But, man, a lot of that size went into mile-long, shapely legs, high curved buttocks, and breasts that were full and just the right size for her body. The pink nipples were the… uh, cherries on the cake.

If ever he doubted a man could get an instant, full-blown, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am hard-on, he was a believer now. Testosterone blasted through his body, setting afire every erotic spot along the way, and there were a whole hell of a lot of them. He leaned on the doorjamb when his knees turned to butter and almost buckled on him.

Hesitating for a nanosecond, he shucked his clothes so fast they were strewn all over the place, even his briefs, which landed on the toilet seat, which was closed for once. Probably Britta’s doing. One of his flip-flops slam-dunked into the wastebasket.

Whispering a silent prayer that Britta wouldn’t whack him on the head with the long-handled loofah brush, he opened the shower door and stepped inside.

Britta stared at him, wide-eyed with surprise, and backed against the tile wall. She didn’t try to cover her breasts or pubic hair, like lots of women would. Nudity probably hadn’t been that big a deal in her time, certainly not among warriors. But she did say, “Begone, knave!”

Knave? I’ve been called a lot of things, but knave? Stop grinning. Stop wasting time on irrelevancies. Think quick, cowboy. “Uh, I thought maybe we ought to conserve on water and take one shower together.”

“Oh. We do the same in the Norselands, except we reuse the bathwater, over and over.”

Okay, score one for me. But, yeech!