Page 1 of Rescued by a SEAL

Chapter 1

Mason “Riptide” Ryan jumped and shot the basketball from the three-point line, listening to the “swoosh” of the ball as it sunk into the net after sailing through the air. He smoothly landed back on the blacktop and swiped his brow with his forearm.

Nothing like an outside game of hoops on a gorgeous evening, the salty ocean air from a few blocks away blowing around them.

“Whoo-hoo, sailor!” a woman from a group hanging outside the fence of the basketball court shouted. “You can sink into me anytime!”

“Becky!” her friend admonished, shushing her.

Mason smirked as the two women walked away, sashaying in their skimpy shorts and tank tops. He and his teammates were playing on a court at the edge of base, where some of the local women were known to congregate in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Navy SEALs.

And vice versa.

Nothing wrong with playing ball with his buddies while he had a few attractive women cheering them on.

He watched the hips of the woman who’d shouted at him temptingly sway back and forth as she and her friend moved toward a row of men jogging around the perimeter, pausing to smile and wave at the young recruits.

Her short shorts barely covered her ass.

Hell.

Those type of women didn’t seem to care whose bed they ended up in—as long as it was the bed of a military man.

He’d been all about those types in his younger days but just didn’t find them as tempting lately.

Didn’t mean the younger guys weren’t happy to take them home for the night though.

“Three points!” his team member Noah “Viper” Miller shouted, clapping him on the back. “You boys owe us a round of beers.”

Mason chuckled, glancing over at the two other members of their Navy SEAL team across the blacktop. “Anytime you guys wanna pay up works for me,” he said with a grin. “I could go for a couple of beers.”

“Hell, you just want to see Taylor again,” Jacob “Joker” Olson said, bending down to grab the basketball that had rolled to the edge of the court. He easily palmed it with one large hand, glancing up as the roar of twin jet engines temporarily drowned them out, two F-15s from the nearby naval air station flying across the sky.

“Affirmative,” Mason said. “Not that I’ve convinced her to go out with me yet.”

“She got any friends?” Jacob asked.

“The hell if I know,” Mason replied, sauntering toward one of the buildings on base as the rest of the men followed behind him. “She barely said a word the last time we were at Anchors. Usually she’ll hang out for a bit even if she’s working. Take her time passing out drinks and grub so we can flirt a little.”

Anchors, a popular bar on the Virginia Beach oceanfront, wasn’t far from their Navy base at Little Creek. It was always filled with single military men and local women, both looking for a good time, but Mason had taken interest in one of the waitresses there in particular.

And his teammates had clearly noticed.

He imagined the flush that always spread across Taylor’s face as he teased her when he was there with his buddies, that dark brown ponytail swinging back and forth as she moved around the bar, and those chocolate brown eyes warming up every time she looked at him.

Ryker “Bulls Eye” Fletcher raised his eyebrows, his gray eyes flashing. “Think everything’s okay?”

“Dunno,” Mason grunted, stalking toward the door. “She gave me her number a few weeks ago but has been busy every time I’ve asked her out.”

“Crash and burn,” Jacob said with a howl of laughter. “Guess she wasn’t interested after all.”

“Hell, it feels like it,” Mason said, pulling open the door and flashing his ID. “I haven’t seen much of her since we got back from Bogota. Maybe she thought I was blowing her off by not showing up at the bar like usual.”

“She knows you’re a SEAL,” Ryker said. “Taylor knows the drill. We disappear for a while and then come back. Same with half of the other guys in Anchors. No harm, no foul.”

Mason shrugged as they moved toward the locker room. “Something still feels off. She was always flirty in her texts before—flirty yet unavailable, I might add.”

“Shit, you’ve been texting her? Was she sending you fucking heart emojis or something?” Ryker asked with a chuckle.

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