Unleashed (Mr. Black Series Book 1) Read online

  I watched as Elijah used his shirt to wipe his face, then I knelt down and laid my hands over his in an effort to take the shirt from him. The tension was tangible as we locked eyes and exchanged a thousand words in that brief moment.

  “Let me take care of you,” I whispered as I tugged on the shirt. Elijah released it from his grasp, essentially giving over to me what little control he had tried so desperately to hang on to.

  Staring into his eyes, I ladled some of the water on the shirt, using it to give him a makeshift bath. Gently washing the dirt and blood from his body, I felt a wave of electricity between us that was undeniable. He cupped his palm to my cheek, caressing it with his thumb.

  “I’ve never had a woman take care of me in this way,” he confessed.

  “I can leave if you wish,” I said as I pulled the rag away from his chest.

  “I didn’t say that,” he said as he grabbed my wrist and pulled it back toward his body. “I’m saying that you are completely different from all the others.”

  “Is that a good thing?” I asked.

  “It’s an amazing thing,” he replied quietly.

  Through the thin material of the rag, I felt every ridge and valley that worked together to form his muscular upper body. Tantalizing me. Tempting me. My oh so virtuous womanly desires were urging me to throw caution to the wind and reveal my face to him. I poured another ladleful of water onto his hair, which cascaded down his back and off of his shoulders; the dirt and blood running together and puddling onto the floor. Our silence in that moment spoke volumes as we built our connection primarily by sight and touch, and not through words.

  The metal door flung open, slamming into the concrete wall behind it, startling me. It was the guard coming back to fetch me for the next prisoner on the cell block.

  “Are you done yet? There are others that need your attention,” he hollered.

  “Yes…yes…I am done here,” I stammered as I rose to my feet, collected the pail, and followed the guard as he walked out. I glanced back one last time, making eye contact with Elijah, shooting him a small wink, before the guard slammed the door behind me.

  ***

  Elijah

  I was intrigued. If this had been another time or place, she would surely have been next on my list of conquests. I stared at the door for a while, daydreaming about her, wondering how her skin would feel pressed up against mine. The decadent thoughts ran through my mind as I lay back down on the ground, wanting to fall asleep to keep myself from feeling the ever mounting desire that wracked my body.

  BRIEFING DAY

  While I waited for sleep to arrive, I thought back to the days leading up to my capture. It had been a normal couple of days at work, other than the usual paperwork that needed to be processed; there was nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever. During briefing day, I walked into the cold conference room which housed wall to wall plasma screens for debriefs and mission development meetings. That day, the commander walked in behind me with a black folder, which meant a new high priority mission had been handed down.

  “Black folder on deck, y’all,” I said as I took a seat at the table opposite the commander.

  The color of the folder indicated the priority of the mission, black being the highest; it called for the most elite SEAL unit to respond. Upon hearing my announcement, the team quickly ceased their chatter and took their respective seats. The commander pointed the remote toward the plasma screens and pressed play. The screens flickered on, showcasing maps, and street views of a small city just inside Sierra Leone.

  “Inside your folder is the SITREP and mission critical information,” the commander said as he handed each member a black folder with our individual names embossed into the upper right corner.

  According to the SITREP, or situation report, my team had been tasked to repel from a Black Hawk onto the roof of a suspected terrorist hideout. The intel had been vetted by the CIA and the NSA, both agencies collaborating to create a plan that was, in their words, seamless. Get in and get out, was the gist of the mission.

  We were to extract a high value target with information pertaining to countless bombings being set off in highly populated areas in European cities. They were to transport him to an awaiting navy destroyer, anchored just inside international waters, where he would be interrogated for any pertinent information regarding any further bombing attempts.

  “And now for the bad news, guys. There is absolutely no description of the target to go along with the intel; only that the target is missing the top portion of his ear, which was apparently sliced off during a particularly brutal interrogation he’d undergone,” Commander Almen said.

  “So we’re supposed to look at everyone’s ear before we kill ’em?” Oliver, an explosives expert on the team, asked. He laughed as he tilted back in his chair and looked around the room to see if anyone else was laughing alongside him.

  “Fuck. Now we aren’t gonna be home in time to watch Dancing with the Stars,” Erik, the sniper of the group, said with a slight chuckle.

  “Ahem.” The commander cleared his throat, signaling that it was his turn to speak. A silence fell over the room as he opened his mouth. “Listen here, gentlemen. This folder right here holds the fate of thousands of innocent lives. If I have to investigate every fucker’s ear in that building to stop another attack, then that’s what I’m gonna do.”

  He slammed the folder onto the table with a stern look blanketing his face. The tension was palpable as Erik and Oliver shifted their gaze down toward their laps, trying to avoid eye contact with the rest of the room.

  The commander’s face loosened. “Now go home and have sex with your wives or girlfriends, play with your kids, and have a good meal. I’ll see you bright and early. Report to the tarmac at zero five hundred,” he said as he shuffled some papers around the conference table.

  In unison we stood straight up and barked, “Yes, sir!”

  The group filed out of the room, chatting amongst themselves.

  I stayed behind to speak with the commander privately. “Sir?”

  “Yes, Black?” he replied without looking up from the paperwork.

  “Sir, have you put any thought into signing my request for separation?” I asked.

  “No!” the commander barked.

  “No, you haven’t, or no―”

  “No, I am in no way signing shit.”

  “But sir―” I was interrupted.

  “How long have you been with me, Black? Since I was a Lieutenant?”

  “That sounds about right, sir.”

  “And in all that time, have you ever known me to pussyfoot around?”

  “No, sir, I―”

  “And do you think my time is worthless?” the commander asked me, staring straight into my eyes.

  “No, sir…I―”

  “So listen here, asshole, ’cause this is the way I see it. I put a lot of fuckin’ time into you, and goddammit, you’re the best fuckin’ soldier I’ve seen come out of BUD/s in the last ten years. Shit, maybe even the last twenty. I am not gonna send in any separation paperwork, smoke signal, or stone fuckin’ tablet from Moses himself, that’s gonna get you off my team. I need you to watch my six while all of these other jokers fuck around and laugh their way to hell. You got me?” the commander asked once again, with the same stern look blanketing his face.

  “Yes, sir…I―”

  “I can’t fuckin’ hear you, Black!” the commander barked as he held his hand up to his ear.

  “Hooyah, sir!” I yelled, saluting proudly.

  Although his delivery might have been a little crass, it was the highest form of flattery that I had ever received from him, and I knew he was not a man to freely hand out such compliments. Having known him for years, he had always been as squared away as they came, but after the sudden death of his wife, he buried his sorrow in his work and an overbearing exterior, keeping people away at a manageable arm’s length.

  Deep down inside, I knew he never truly got over her deat
h, as she was the great love of his life. I noticed that after she died, he volunteered for mission after mission, almost as if he hoped that one day he too would be taken. But who could blame him? I was lucky enough to know her, and she was an amazing woman.

  “Now get your ass in gear and get the fuck outta here,” he said with a slight smile as he shifted his gaze back down to the paperwork.

  “Yes, sir,” I said as I picked up my bag and walked out of the door.

  I made my way to my car and thought about what the commander had said.

  Maybe I should reconsider leaving the military. I mean, what’s out there, anyway? It’s not like I have a wife or kids to go home to like the other guys.

  “Fuck it, I got nothing to lose,” I said under my breath as I tossed my bag on the passenger seat and screeched out of the parking lot, headed to my studio apartment.

  Driving away from North Island and over the Coronado Bridge, I passed by a car with a small boy in the back passenger seat, whose face was pressed against the window. The boy couldn’t have been more than four years old, with sandy brown hair and green eyes. Our eyes locked as the cars drove side by side. The boy pulled his face away from the window and waved at me, grinning from ear to ear. I waved back and smiled as I stepped on the gas pedal and whizzed by him. The boy’s image stuck in my head, my stomach pitted with the vague feeling of emptiness. I knew what it was―why the intangible feeling gnawed at me all the way home. I longed for a family to call my own. A wife to kiss in the morning, a son to whom I could pass on all the lessons I had learned in life, and maybe a daughter to cherish with all my heart. But I had never been lucky in this area of my life; always meeting the type of girl looking for an extra stripe on my uniform.

  I suddenly found myself in my usual parking spot, unaware that I had driven the whole way home as I daydreamed about a family. I shook my head clear of those thoughts and took a deep breath before grabbing my bag and heading to the front door.

  The minute I walked into the apartment, I threw my bag on the floor and sat on the couch to unlace my combat boots, then flicked on the television before I got up to grab myself a beer. I surveyed the contents of the fridge, which boasted three bottles of beer, one lemon, a jar of pickles, and an open box of baking powder. Grabbing one of the bottles of beer, I shook my head at the dismal sight as I kicked the door closed behind me. I plopped back down on the couch, twisted the cap off of the bottle, and flung it toward the out-of-date coffee table I found at the corner consignment shop for $3.50. The cap bounced a few times and then landed on the standard beige apartment carpeting resting on top of a stain that had been there since I had moved in. To this day, I still wasn’t sure what had made the stain, except that no amount of deep cleaning could get it out. I flipped through the channels as I sipped on the cold bottle, looking for something funny to take my mind off of the long trip to Africa in the morning. There was absolutely nothing to watch, so I settled on a news station reporting on the war torn region I was trying so hard not to think about. I found the woman’s voice slightly boring, which lulled me off to sleep, the fresh bottle of beer perspiring in my left hand and the remote in my right.

  BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ!

  The alarm on my phone vibrated wildly on the coffee table next to my keys. I groaned as I leaned forward and cracked an eye open to look at the screen.

  “Fuck me…0430!” I said in a crackled voice as I set the remote down on the coffee table and pushed myself off of the couch. I poured the rest of the beer into a clay pot that held some sort of plant which I also found in the apartment when I moved in; probably a remnant from the past tenant who had also left the stain.

  “All right, buddy, you enjoy that ’til I get back,” I said to the plant as I threw the bottle into the trash and proceeded to undress as I headed for the bathroom.

  I flipped on the shower and jumped right in, letting the cold water invigorate me and get my adrenaline pumping. With the water starting to finally warm up, I stood with my arms crossed and head tilted back toward the shower head, letting the water massage my head and shoulders. It cascaded off my hair and over my face as I held my breath and contemplated the mission. Looking down at my Suunto wristwatch, a gift from the manufacturer, yet another perk of being a SEAL, I caught a glimpse of the time.

  “Fuck, I’m gonna be late,” I said as I shut the water off, jumped out of the shower, and quickly got dressed.

  On my way out of the apartment I passed a frame that held a picture of me and my ex-girlfriend, Heather. We were at a bar for her twenty-fifth birthday party, and one of the guys had taken a picture of her licking the side of my face.

  She was a particularly beautiful woman, with long brown hair, a slender figure, and a smile that could move ships, but she was as loose and easy as they came.

  I had come home early one day and found her in bed with Oliver. Although I had since forgiven Oliver for the affair, he still held a slight grudge after I beat the shit out of him and sent him to the hospital with a broken nose. Surprisingly enough, the affair and the subsequent beating did not affect our working relationship, a testimony to the brotherhood we shared as SEALs.

  Heather, however, was not so lucky. I threw her out on her ass that very day with a pair of jeans, a sweater, and a twenty dollar bill to get her wherever she had to go. I threw the rest of her clothes in the dumpster behind my apartment building, throwing in some lighter fluid and a lit match as I walked away. She begged for a second chance, and maybe in another life I would have broken down, but I was getting too old to deal with all of the bullshit these whores brought with them. Although I would never admit it out loud, deep down inside I longed for a woman who would fill the void. I sighed and picked up the wooden frame, pausing to look at it for a moment. Shaking my head, I made my way to the door and dropped it in the trash without a second look.

  I hopped in my car and headed back over the curved bridge to North Island. Entering the main gate to base, I headed straight for the airfield to catch the flight awaiting my team.

  The guys were already waiting inside of the C-130 Hercules when the commander hollered from the ramp of the cargo hold, “Cuttin’ it pretty damn close, aren’t we, Black?”

  “Sorry, sir. Too much partying last night,” I said as I took my seat and got my gear situated.

  The commander looked at me and shook his head as he walked by to deliver his usual speech. “All right, ladies, this is gonna be a long ass flight. Get comfortable. I hope you took a shit at home, and we’ll be serving your inflight peanuts when pigs fuckin’ fly.” Oliver and Erik began to snicker at his joke when the commander turned, shooting them a death stare.

  I looked back at the guys, smiled, and shook my head. “You assholes can’t go a day without getting in trouble, huh?”

  “Why, I dunno…ask your mom,” Erik replied, laughing.

  “Take your tired ass jokes for a long walk off of a short muthafuckin’ pier,” I said, chuckling.

  “Ladies, ladies!” the commander barked as the plane’s engines began to rev. “All ya’ muthafuckers, shut the fuck up!”

  Erik, Oliver, and I shut our mouths and shifted our gaze quickly away from one another.

  “I’m runnin’ a fuckin’ daycare,” Commander Almen murmured.

  The flight to Africa was long and uncomfortable. I glanced around at my teammates, who were spread out in the cavernous spaces of the freezing cargo hold. Some of the men were catching a nap while leaning against their rucksacks, while others laid on their bedrolls poring over mission reports. I spent most of my time memorizing the intel and studying maps of the surrounding areas. I wanted to make sure I got every piece of information loaded into my brain in the off chance something went wrong. Something I didn’t foresee happening since this was a simple extraction mission; but it never hurt to be prepared. After what seemed to take forever, the plane finally touched down in a highly clandestine military location unknown even to the commander himself.

  We gathered our gear and filed out of t
he plane into a wall of heat and pitch black darkness. This was the part I hated the most…the heat. It was the kind of heat that enveloped the lungs, gripping it tightly, making one battle the air for each and every breath. The kind of heat which made all of my gear seem like it was ten times heavier than it really was.

  “All right, gentlemen! Five minutes. I want everyone in the conference room for a meeting. We need to regroup,” the commander said as he motioned toward a faint building in the distance.

  I could slightly make out the general vicinity of the building, as my eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness.

  I took in a deep breath and trudged across the concrete tarmac, trailing behind the group by a few steps. Gazing up at the millions of stars in the sky, I murmured to myself, “Don’t see that in San Diego.”

  “No, you don’t,” the commander said, smacking his hand on to my back as he walked by me, preceding the team into the building.

  CAPTURED

  BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ!

  My phone went off again, but this time at zero-two-thirty, as we were to meet at the airfield to catch our ride on the UH-60 Black Hawk, the Army’s best tactical transport helicopter. I had only gotten about two hours of sleep following the briefing that the commander held after the plane ride. Exhausted, I rolled off of the cot, threw on my uniform, then kicked Erik’s bunk after seeing that he had slept in. “Hey, you’re gonna be late.”

  “Oh fuck!” Erik yelled before his eyes even cracked open.

  He scrambled for his uniform as I shook my head, walking out of the door into the warm, early morning air. The usual excitement that I felt before a big operation was next to nil this morning. I almost wanted to go back into the room and lie down. This was not a feeling I was used to, and I wondered why I was so uninterested in this particular op.