SEAL's Proposal Read online

  SEAL’S Proposal

  Take No Prisoners Series

  Elle James

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  Take No Prisoners Series

  SEAL’s Honor (#1)

  SEAL’s Desire (#2)

  SEAL’s Embrace (#3)

  SEAL’s Obsession (#4)

  SEAL’s Proposal (#5)

  From the Author

  To all the romantics who wanted to give or get that perfect proposal.

  Escape with…

  Elle James

  aka Myla Jackson

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  From the Author

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Author

  Excerpt from SEAL’s Desire

  Other Titles by Elle James

  SEAL’s Proposal

  Copyright © 2014 Elle James

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Chapter One

  ‡

  “Gator. Check it out. Bogey at ten o’clock, two hundred yards. You take him while I take the one on top of the east building.”

  Irish’s voice filled Special Operations Chief Remy “Gator” LaDue’s ear. He’d already spotted the man as he’d studied the mud-and-stick walls of the Afghan village. Through Remy’s night vision goggles, a bright green heat signature glowed where the sentry stood guard near the main entrance of the walled village. “Got ’im.” He took a breath of the cool, crisp air and held it as he stared through his night scope and zeroed in on the Taliban fighter, pinning him with an optical red dot.

  The fighter’s head dipped, and then rose to stare out at the night to see where the laser light originated. Before the man could react, Remy gently squeezed the trigger, sending a round through the fourteen-inch barrel of his suppressed H&K 416, at the same time as Irish fired on his target.

  Thankfully, the Taliban fighter didn’t yell an alert before his body slumped to the ground.

  Remy shifted his sight immediately to the top of the east building in time to see the heat signature of a man drop to the dirt. He should have felt some regret over taking a life, but these men, the Taliban who’d taken over this village, had raped and killed a female U.S. soldier, and dumped her body in the desert with no regard for life, human rights or decency. They were ruthless terrorists whose leader was their main target that night.

  Their mission was to annihilate the Taliban leader with minimal collateral damage.

  “You two are making this look too easy.” Fish moved up next to Remy’s position next to a large boulder, his weapon at the ready.

  His jaw tight, Remy nodded. “In and out. That’s my aim for the night.”

  Irish chuckled softly. “Sounds like you’re hooking up with your girl, not running a mission in the sandbox.”

  “Gator’s gettin’ hitched.”

  Fish’s announcement came through the headset in Remy’s helmet. His chest tightened and a niggle of fear swept through him. He hadn’t let fear control him during BUD/S training as a Navy SEAL, or any of the thirty operations of which he’d been a part. But now… The one mission that meant more to him than any other in his life had him shaking in his combat boots. “Mitchell hasn’t said ‘yes,’ yet.”

  “Have you asked?”

  “No.” He knew Mitchell loved him. The big question was, did she want to marry him? They’d been living together for ten months, ever since he’d come back on Valentine’s Day to claim his pity date.

  “What are you waiting on? Ask her already.” Fish nudged him with his elbow.

  “Unlike you bunch of dumb fucks, I want to do it right.” While he spoke, he kept a close watch on the compound, searching for other guards while waiting for their team leader to make the call to breach the wall and take out the Taliban leaders who had entered the structure earlier that day. “I want to make it special.”

  “Do you have the ring?” Big Bird’s deep voice sounded over the headset speakers.

  “Big Bird’s right,” Irish said. “You know it’s all about the ring.”

  Caesar Sanchez laughed softly. “Like you know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I read books,” Irish insisted.

  “Fuckin’ romance novels?” Caesar asked with a snicker.

  “No.” Irish paused, and then admitted, “Well, yes. It’s like sneaking into enemy strongholds, collecting intel about what women like and don’t like. A man can’t be too well-armed.”

  Remy snorted. If anyone could be overly armed, it would be Irish. He liked his weapons, and he didn’t mind carrying the extra weight into battle.

  “Anyone know what the fuck ‘radio silence’ means?” Lieutenant Reed Tucker, Tuck, their team leader spoke quietly, but with authority, into the headset. “Irish and Gator, you’re coming with me. Dustman, Nacho, and Big Bird, cover until we get to the wall.”

  Remy climbed to his feet, and then, hunkering low, he crept across the dry earth toward their target.

  “Do you have the ring?” Caesar asked as Remy crossed the open space between the hills they’d been hiding behind and the village walls.

  He didn’t respond until he’d reached the wall without incident. “Really? You ask me if I got the ring when I’m in the fuckin’ open?”

  Irish low-crawled across the front wall to the opposite side of the entrance.

  “What do you see?” Tuck asked, not responding to the chatter.

  “Got one headed our way,” Irish spoke in a clipped tone.

  Remy peered around the corner of the gateway. A man in the traditional dress of the Afghan people walked toward him, carrying a not-so-traditional M4A1, probably pilfered from the body of an American soldier he’d killed.

  Anger surged in Remy, but he held it in check, pulled his knife from the scabbard strapped to his thigh and waited for the man to cross the threshold of the gate. As soon as he spotted the armed man step through, Remy had him in a headlock and dispatched him, blood staining the sand around his feet.

  Dragging him to the side, Remy dropped the dead man and joined Irish against the wall. “Gate’s clear,” he said.

  The rest of the men moved in while Irish and Remy covered, keeping a close watch on the road leading from inside the compound to the gate, should another guard or sleepwalking Taliban bastard decide tonight was his lucky night.

  As he sat with one hand on the trigger, the butt of his weapon nestled against his shoulder, Remy lowered his other hand to pat the buttoned pocket on his pants leg where he’d tucked the ring box. Yeah, call him a stupid, sentimental fool, but, as added incent
ive to return to the States alive and well, he’d brought along the ring he planned on giving to Mitchell.

  A movement in the village caught his attention, a door opened and a light flared in the lenses of his NVGs. A group of men exited one building and strode toward a truck. “We have movement,” Remy warned the team.

  “We’re all here. Let’s get this party started,” Tuck replied.

  The men standing in the narrow road paused to talk, some of them climbing into a truck.

  Remy slipped around the side of the gate. Clinging to the dark sides of the buildings, staying out of the moonlight as much as he could, he crept forward, confident that Irish had his six.

  “Let’s light this place up,” Tuck said.

  Four more members of the team infiltrated the compound, sliding through the streets like snakes, clinging to the darkness, blending into the blackest shadows. Big Bird and Dustman remained outside the walls as backup, and to cover any incoming threats.

  “Want me to take them?” Irish had a fully functional M79 launcher. One round would take out the truck and the people standing around. Any weapon they wanted, the Naval Special Warfare Group, DEVGRU, got it for them. One of the perks of being a SEAL.

  “Let the truck go,” Tuck said.

  Firing a grenade into the mix would wake the entire village. They still needed to locate the Taliban leader and take him out. If they started the fireworks now, the leader would have the opportunity to slip out the back door, or sneak over the wall and escape. They couldn’t let him go. The young female supply clerk he and his suck-ass subordinates had sexually molested and beheaded deserved justice. Shooting the bastard wouldn’t be enough. Remy wanted to dismember him one limb at a time, starting with his dick. He was an animal to treat a woman like that.

  Every time Remy thought of that young soldier, he couldn’t help thinking about Mitchell. As an agent with the NCIS, she’d been in some tight undercover operations that could have gotten her killed or badly injured. A definite hazard of her position.

  One that bugged the shit out of him. He didn’t like that he couldn’t protect her. But she wouldn’t have it any other way. She prided herself in her ability to fight and defend herself. On numerous occasions, she’d told him she never wanted to rely on someone else to get her out of a tight spot. She had to escape on her own.

  Remy understood her desire to be strong, but there was strong, and then there was team-strong. He’d learned through BUD/S training that no man was an island. You looked out for your buddy, and he looked out for you.

  With Mitchell so damned determined to look out for herself, she’d never mentioned the “M” word. Marriage had never been part of their conversation. As much as he loved Mitchell, and he knew she loved him, Remy was afraid she’d turn down his proposal, refusing to marry him, viewing the arrangement as a sign of weakness. He had some convincing to do to persuade her that marrying him showed considerable strength. With the two of them dedicated to their jobs and no immediate desire to give them up, the decision would be a show of self-confidence and faith in each other to get married.

  Or so he’d practiced in his speech. But the moment had to be right. He’d planned on popping the question while on their Christmas vacation in the Rockies. The only thing standing in his way of leaving for the trip was this mission, an operation they’d been planning since they’d received intel the Taliban leader was holed up in this village, holding its inhabitants hostage, threatening to kill the women and children should word that he was there leak out.

  One brave old man, who’d seen more than his share of Taliban strong-arming and senseless murders, had left the village in the middle of the night and walked all the way to an American marine outpost to report on what was going on.

  Within a matter of hours, the word was passed to all the right places. SEAL Team 10 had been given satellite photographs and been briefed on the buildings the Taliban had taken over.

  The truck lumbered toward the SEALs’ positions, and they fell back into the alleys and behind boxes or barrels, out of the direct beams of the dingy truck headlights. Once the truck was past, Remy moved closer.

  The men who’d been standing outside reentered the nearby building, and the door closed behind them. A guard stood outside, an AK47 in his hands.

  Irish took the lead, slipping up as close to the building as he could.

  Remy tossed a pebble so it landed several yards farther into the village.

  The sound jerked the guard’s attention away from Irish’s position for a moment.

  That was all he needed. Irish lunged forward, grabbed the man by the throat and sliced a deep slash, hitting his carotid artery.

  The man slumped to the ground, his eyes wide, staring blankly at the moon above.

  Remy moved to the door, opened it and stepped into a narrow hallway. He switched to his MP7 submachine gun, a lighter, quieter weapon he normally used in close combat, especially when searching buildings from room to room. On the previous mission, Irish had killed a man with this weapon in one room, while the people in the next room never heard the shots fired.

  Using the tip of his boot, Remy nudged open a door. A man lay on a pallet inside. With his knife, he took out the man without ever waking him.

  Irish moved past Remy to the next doorway and waited for the team leader. Tuck moved into place, and with his weapon raised, Irish pushed open the door. The room was filled with cardboard boxes and wooden crates. A supply closet.

  Remy hurried past to the next door, behind which he could hear voices. This had to be it.

  Seeing Irish and Tuck were in position, Remy nudged the door open with his MP7. Seven men glanced his way with unsuspecting glances. Tuck and Irish opened fire, mowing down four of the seven men, their cries of surprise and pain reverberating around the room.

  The other three dropped to the floor and hid behind boxes, firing at them with whatever weapon they had in hand.

  Remy dove into the room, somersaulted, and came up firing. He hit one of the men only half-hidden behind a wooden crate. Another man aimed a rifle at him. Remy threw his knife, but not quickly enough.

  The Taliban fighter’s bullet clipped his thigh. A sharp twinge of pain burned across his skin, but didn’t slow him down. Remy fired again, neutralizing the man with the gun, leaving only what appeared to be their target, cowering behind a crate.

  Then the man stood, yelled something about Allah, pulled the pin on a grenade and lobbed it toward Remy.

  Irish shot the Taliban leader as the grenade rolled to a stop at Remy’s feet.

  “Well, fuck.” Remy bent, picked up the grenade and raced down the hall. He didn’t know how long he had, but at least, he’d get the explosive away from his buddies. As he passed the room with the dead man on the pallet, he lobbed the grenade inside and closed the door, then threw himself to the ground, covering his ears.

  An explosion shattered the wall beside him, slinging plaster, sticks, mud, and debris through the hallway. The concussion vibrated against Remy’s eardrums, but he’d been fortunate to plug his ears before it happened. Still, a persistent whine filled his ears and blurred his vision.

  Dust rose like a fog, choking off any visibility and filling Remy’s lungs. He pulled his T-shirt up over his nose and staggered to his feet, brushing the crumbled stones and broken bits of wall from his shoulders.

  “Gator?” Tuck’s voice barked through Remy’s headset.

  “Still among the living,” he answered, and coughed up a lungful of dust. “Did we get him?”

  Tuck pushed past Remy, hand trailing on the wall to feel his way toward the exit. “Target was eliminated. Got a positive ID and a color photo for a souvenir. Let’s get out of here.”

  Unless they eliminated all potential threats, the exfiltration portion of a mission for the SEAL team was even more dangerous than infiltration. Now, the enemy had been alerted.

  Tuck was first through the door, poised and ready.

  Remy could already hear the pop, pop, popping o
f gunfire. Not until he emerged into the open night air did Remy feel the warm wetness of something dripping down his leg. Blood. A thought caught him in mid-stride, and he came to an abrupt halt, lowering his weapon for a moment to feel for his pocket. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea—

  A sharp report of a rifle and the whiff of a bullet winging past his ear made Remy drop to the ground and search the corners and rooftops for the sniper who’d almost plugged him in the head. Movement snagged his attention from the top corner of a low building, two structures away. Aiming through his rifle’s sight, he waited. One thousand one. One thousand two.

  A green heat signature at the top of one of the buildings lit up his NVGs.

  The terrorist raised his rifle and fired. The bullet hit the ground beside Remy.

  Unfazed, Remy steadied his hand, inhaled and caressed the trigger. The bullet left the chamber one second, and in the next, hit its target.

  The man who’d been firing at Remy slid off the corner of the roof and hit the dirt at the base of the building.

  “We got trouble coming,” Big Bird said into the headset. “Two trucks full of Taliban headed for the village. ETA, five mikes.”

  Tuck spoke, “Time to blow this popsicle stand.”

  The plan was to leave the village as soon as they’d dispatched the target.

  Remy followed Tuck and Irish through the tunnel-like streets toward the rear wall. A loud explosion shook the ground.

  When Remy rounded a corner, he faced the back wall of the village, which now had a gaping hole where Dustman had created their escape route. Remy counted heads. The gang was all there, minus one. Big Bird, who had been the lookout at the entrance to the village.

  With the entire village awake now, and two truckloads of angry Taliban heading their way, getting out wouldn’t be a cakewalk.

  Tuck was on the radio calling for their taxi. If all went according to plan, their ride would be there in less than two minutes. The group held their positions.

  The thumping hum of rotor blades filled the air, and the two Black Hawks from the 160th Night Stalkers swooped in and hovered at the prescribed location on the north side of the village. Big Bird joined them, and they slipped through the crumbled wall and out into a poppy field. Gunfire erupted from one of the rooftops.