F-BOMB: SEALs Love Curves Series

Lily

Lily couldn’t stop talking. No matter how many times she told herself to just shut up, it didn’t work. She always babbled when she was nervous, and finding your best friend’s apartment trashed and knowing his neat-as-a-pin self would never leave even a dirty dish in the sink let alone trash his place, she freaked out.

But those nerves had nothing on the ones brought out by his sexy-as-all-hell brother.

Lily saw pictures of Archer before, but seeing a picture and being face-to-face with the man were two very different things. His skin was darker than Jaymes’s was, like a golden honey that she was dying to dip her finger into for a taste. His eyes were the same dark chocolate color, bordering on black when she said something he didn’t like. She really needed to get a handle on herself.

Archer topped her by at least eight inches, but at five-five, that wasn’t something too unusual. What was unusual was feeling normal next to him. She had hips that threatened door frames, but she had nothing on his shoulders. The thrill it set off in her sex was something she hadn’t felt in far too long.

The best part was all the hardness of him that offset her soft parts. When she flung herself at him, she knew instantly it was a mistake, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go until the solid strength of him seeped into her pores and gave her just a tiny bit of it. He was the kind of man who could stand in front of a firing squad and not blink. He had strength for everyone around him. It was what made him a hell of a SEAL, according to Jaymes, and exactly what she needed when she was terrified.

“Jaymes always tells me when he’s doing something that’s not normal,” Lily explained. “We talk constantly. If he was off playing a new game or working on a project, he’d have warned me he’d be out of touch. He knows better than to run off without telling me where he’s going.”

Lily clamped her mouth shut and spun toward the stove. She busied herself pulling food out of the fridge to avoid explaining what she just admitted.

Without asking, Lily cracked half a dozen eggs into a pan. She chopped onions, peppers, and mushrooms and tossed them in when the eggs were almost done. She grabbed a bag of shredded cheddar and sprinkled some on top, then spun to give Archer breakfast.

He watched her as she moved. She could feel his eyes tracking her around the small kitchen. It was opposite hers on the second floor, but she spent enough time at Jaymes’s that she knew her way around it just as well. Hell, she was the one who stocked his fridge most of the time.

“You spend a lot of time here,” Archer said. It wasn’t a question, more a statement he was figuring out. Learning her.

Lily nodded. “Yeah. Jaymes hates to cook so I do it. Cooking is a lot more fun when I have someone to do it for.”

She sat across from him at the tiny table she insisted Jaymes buy when he moved in. It wasn’t right to not have one, she told him. He wanted to put a bar in, but she wasn’t having that. They weren’t in college anymore. Thirty was way too old to have a bar instead of a dining room table.

Archer ate in silence, shoveling the food in so fast Lily wondered if he actually tasted any of it. She, on the other hand, was so anxious sitting in the same room as him that she could barely choke down the small amount of food she’d reserved for herself.

“Thank you for coming,” she finally said, unable to take the quiet any longer. “I know Jaymes will be pissed when he finds out I called you, but I didn’t know what else to do. I covered for him at work, but I don’t know how long I can do that without making his boss suspicious.”

“You know his boss?”

Lily nodded. “Jaymes has been there four years. I’m always his plus-one at company events and stuff. I’ve gotten to know all his coworkers pretty well. He’s been looking for a new job for a while, but he doesn’t really know what he wants to do. I told him I’d get him a job at the hospital, but he doesn’t want to do that.”

“Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?” Archer asked, lifting his eyes to spear her with a look.

The venom in his eyes shocked her. She wasn’t sure what he was after, but she wasn’t feeling all that friendly toward him at that particular moment. His eyes were dark with a dangerous glint to them that rose the tiny hairs on her arms. She knew his job with the SEALs wasn’t the friendly sort, but she didn’t have any concept of how deadly the man in front of her could be until he set his glare on her.

“Why would it be a conflict of interest?” she asked, thanking God her voice was steady.

He quirked one dark eyebrow at her. The edge of his lips lifted, just enough to show that he found her question funny. “Nepotism and all that. Is it not frowned upon in your job?”

“Nepotism? That’s for relatives. I’m not related.” Realization dawned when amusement filled his gaze. “Really? Back to you thinking I’m sleeping with your brother? What do I need to do, slide under the table and give you a blow job to prove I’m not screwing my best friend?”

His expression turned murderous at her offhand comment, and she immediately regretted her words.

Was he the kind of guy who would take her up on that?

“That won’t be necessary. I’m just trying to figure out why you’re trying so hard to convince me you and my brother aren’t together. You cook for him, you know his home, hell, you were sleeping in his bed,” he waved his hand at her, “in that. Any sane person would draw the same conclusion I am.”

Lily glanced down at her clothes and immediately crossed her arms over her chest. She was so terrified when she heard someone in the apartment she didn’t think to grab her robe. Then when she saw who it was, and realized he wasn’t there to kidnap or kill her, she couldn’t think straight.

Jaymes was like a brother to her. She never thought twice about what she wore when he was around. He didn’t look at her that way, so she dressed for comfort, even at night. Wearing something dowdy around Jaymes in the guise of modesty was wasted since he couldn’t care either way.

“Excuse me,” Lily said, pushing away from the table and going to Jaymes’s room. She had clothes in there, clothes she wore all day. Jaymes gave her a drawer in his room to keep stuff, but she felt guilty taking over his space so she kept a bag in the office. Which was where she found the pajamas.

She’d almost forgotten about them, but when she saw the silky fabric stuffed at the bottom of the bag, Lily couldn’t resist wearing them.

Now she was regretting that decision. The weight she’d gained since she bought the silky pajamas turned them into laundry day pajamas over a year ago, and she’d added a few more pounds since then, making them nearly indecent.

She slipped on a pair of shorts that fell to her knees and snagged one of Jaymes’s sweatshirts. She tugged a brush through her long hair and tied it up into a ponytail, then splashed cold water on her cheeks. Archer might be a pig, but she couldn’t deny the way he lit her up.

Damn him.

She went back to the kitchen and was surprised to find him at the sink washing dishes.

“I was going to do that,” she said.

He glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “You cooked. Nice sweatshirt.”

“It’s Jaymes’s.”

Archer turned off the water and dried his hands. When he turned, he leaned his hip against the edge of the counter and studied her. The darkness was gone, but she could sense the questions he wanted to ask.

She had a few of her own. Like why didn’t he ever call his brother? Or visit? Or why didn’t he cheer Jaymes on when he joined the Navy? They were virtual strangers, and it bothered Jaymes. Lily itched to lay into his brother and find out why they weren’t closer.

“So, best friend, tell me what you know about my brother disappearing,” Archer said. Gone was the light she glimpsed for a second, and the opportunity to ask her own questions. He was in work mode, and she could tell nothing would drag him out of that.

* * *

Archer

Archer watched Lily as she moved around. He was disappointed that she’d covered up, but it was for the best. The last thing he needed was to play in his brother’s sandbox.

She rambled on about Jaymes’s work and how much time he spent at the office. She worried about him not eating enough and his happiness. Archer didn’t believe for a second that there wasn’t more to the relationship between the two of them than friendship. She was either in love with Jaymes, or a mother hen. Archer never knew what either was like so he had no clue which was the truth.

Unless you counted Adrian Malone. Rocky to the rest of the Team, Adrian was as close to a mother hen as Archer had ever known. God knew his own mother couldn’t have cared less.

“Okay, stop. What do Jaymes’s eating habits have to do with his disappearance?” Archer asked Lily.

She sighed and threw her hands up. When they slapped against her thighs, her lip trembled.

Fuck.

Women in Archer’s life cried for one of two reasons. Either they were trying to get him to do something he didn’t want to do, or they were shot. A quick scan told him Lily didn’t have any unapproved holes in her, which meant she was about to ask him to do something that would only piss him off.

“I don’t know. I’ve never been through this. I’m freaking out, and you’re sitting there so calm. He’s your brother for fuck’s sake, but I’m the one who’s losing my damn mind. How are you so calm?”

She swiped the tears that slid off her lashes and crossed her arms again. He had to give her credit, she didn’t act like she gave a shit if he was there or not. There was no request for him to hold her, or to make it all better, or even to go out and find Jaymes right then.

The fucked up truth of it was Archer would have done it if she’d asked. Most of the time when women cried, it made him ready to walk away that much faster. With Lily, he wanted to tuck her under his chin and take on every terrorist in the world to make her smile again.

“This is my job,” he said, rising from his chair to stand in front of her. “I’ve spent the last twelve years of my life doing things you’ve never even dreamed of, finding people who were gone forever and bringing them back. I will find my brother.”

She sucked in a breath, and her eyes went wide. “Do you think this is something the military is involved in? Has he been taken by ISIS or one of those terrorist groups?”

Jesus. That was why Archer hated the fucking media. The shit they spewed had sane Americans thinking the terrorist cells were down the street and waiting to nab unsuspecting people out of their homes. Yeah, the crazy fuckers wouldn’t think twice about it, but they had bigger fish in mind than a computer geek from Niagara Falls.

“I’m sure the military has much more important things to do than chase down my brother.”

Her face screwed up in an adorable scrunch that gave him a glimpse of the girl she was once. Questioning everything. Telling everyone around her what to do, no doubt. “Okay, but don’t you have to go? Some mission or something? Jaymes always talks about how busy you are and how little you’re in the country. Honestly, I was surprised you answered your phone, and even more shocked when you showed up here. I know he’s your brother and all, but—”

“I’m not in the Navy anymore,” Archer said. He hadn’t said the words aloud before. It gutted him to admit it, but it was the truth. She’d find out soon enough that he was sticking around, at least until Jaymes got back. Best to rip the band-aid off and spill now. “My unit was done and a bunch of guys decided to check out. I wasn’t given a choice in the matter.”

“Why?”

Archer slid a hand over his hair. Still military short since he’d only been out a week. If he was on base, he’d be looking for someone to cut it for him. But he wouldn’t step foot on another one. He was out. Done. Retired, officially. Fired in reality.

They couldn’t trust him any longer. It didn’t matter that he didn’t remember taking a shot at Rodney, there was no denying which direction the bullets that killed him came from. So Archer was out, Rodney was dead, and almost all the rest of them scattered throughout the country.

“It doesn’t matter,” Archer finally said. “Where’s Jaymes’s computer?”

Lily chewed on her lip and pointed toward the bedroom. Archer left her standing there, probably trying to figure out how she could get the hell away from him, and went down the hallway. The bedroom didn’t show anything, but the other room was set up as an office. One computer sat front and center on a glass desk. Books lined a shelf behind the desk. A printer rested silently on the corner, cables neatly tied to the metal leg instead of dangling like most people would leave them. Archer was impressed that his brother cared that much about the appearance, but he was a computer guy. Liam “English” Johnson was the same way. The first thing he always did when they set up some place new was connect all his equipment and tie the cables together and out of the way. Seeing the precision in Jaymes’s office surprised him. Few men outside the military were that careful.

Archer powered up the computer and searched through Jaymes’s files. Lily didn’t come in, but after an hour, Archer smelled something that made his stomach growl loudly. He pushed through, looking for something. He knew there had to be a clue somewhere, but he couldn’t find it.

English would find it.

The thought made him pause. Liam was out. He bailed with the rest of them. Could he call him? It wasn’t crossing any military boundaries. They were retired. They wouldn’t be using the tools they had in the SEALs, just the skills. And if it meant finding his brother, it was worth the risk to Archer. He just hoped it was worth the risk to Liam.

Archer punched in the speed dial on his phone and waited for it to stop ringing.

“Johnson.”