Page 1 of Stealthy Seduction
ONE
Hudson Steele tossed a poker chip into the pot and leaned back in his chair, shooting his teammate a lazy grin that dared him to fold.
The dining room of the SEAL base was thick with the scent of peanuts and the brand of trash talk that only happened in a break between ops.
Beside him, Sinclair gave an elaborate stretch, but Steele knew he was really trying to steal a look at his hand.
“Don’t even try it, Sinner,” Steele drawled in his smoothest Southern accent.
“Just trying to work this kink out of my neck.”
“Won’t work. You’re never going to un-kink yourself,” he jabbed.
Sinner flipped him the finger without looking up from his cards. “Funny coming from the guy who hasn’t blinked in five minutes. You guarding your hand or your reputation, Steele?”
Steele shifted in an attempt to ease the tension across his shoulder blades. Poker was about rules—knowing the odds, reading the man across from you, never letting emotion cloud the game. He was a damn rock. Unshakable. Always had been.
“Man’s a stone wall,” Mason muttered, shaking his head. “No poker face, just a poker soul. Cold, calculated…boring as hell.”
“Boring keeps you alive,” Steele shot back, pushing a neat stack of chips forward. “Without rules, there’s chaos. And chaos gets you killed.”
The table erupted in groans and jeers. It was just another night with his brothers, another hand…another pot to take.
“Steele does everything like a Southerner. Did you see how he leaned back in his chair?” Mason liked to trash talk during poker, but Steele wasn’t rattled. Ever. Besides, they were only trying to shake him because he was on a winning streak.
He didn’t glance away from his cards. “No point in moving fast until you need to. Conserve your energy.”
Mason snorted and slapped down his card with a force that couldn’t shake the heavy, expensive dining room table, one of the few pieces of furniture left over from the mansion’s previous owner after it was seized by the government and handed over to the Blackout Charlie team as their base.
The place was a fortress of tight security and routines like poker games and pizza nights. Steele liked it that way.
So when the adjoining kitchen flooded with women, he tried to forget that poker night coincided with hot tub and margaritas night for the women who lived on base with some of the guys.
Their voices grew louder as they crashed their poker game. All attention shifted to the women.
Sensing that their game was on pause until things settled, Steele glanced up—
At a pair of bare legs. Toned. The color of honey.
Slowly, he lowered his cards and let his gaze linger for a beat too long on those fine legs, before raking over the rest of the newcomer…ending in the black hood over her head.
The hood was protocol and must be worn by all newcomers to the base. But even with her face hidden, Steele knew every line of her as much as he knew the sway of her hips as one of the ladies led her into the room.
Then there was the telltale habit she had of tucking her thumb inside her palm.
“What’s Izzy doing here?”
Silence crashed over the group.
“Take the hood off her,” Con ordered.
Alyssa Vargas, who was living on the base under their protection after being targeted by a terrorist, reached up and pulled the hood off the guest.
Loose, glossy brown curls tumbled over Izzy Cruz’s shoulders. She blinked to adjust her eyes to the sudden light.
And her gaze fell on Steele.
Mason was staring at him too. “How did you know that was Izzy?”
