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Chapter One
Three Years Ago
That all too familiar pre-deployment rush had kicked in a day and a half ago and Mateo Garcia was more than ready to get elbows-deep in the shit, but first he had to see her.
He glanced back up at the big-screen TV at the end of the bar, the one playing a fashion show where Olivia Sweet was owning the runway. Normally, the biggest game of the night or a mixed martial arts fight would be on; this was a Marine bar after all. But the owner obviously knew his target audience, and it had been a stroke of genius to turn on a pre-recorded lingerie fashion show instead of two teams battling it out for last place in the standings.
Every man in the room was salivating as Olivia strutted across the televised runway, her many assets on full display. She wore some sort of sparkly bra and panty set that was probably worth a cool million but the guys watching couldn’t have cared less. She was a Recon Marine’s wet dream brought to life—all curves and mile-long legs and a face so beautiful that it knocked every thought clear out of a man’s head.
“There is no way you know her.” Chance Ferrante sipped his beer. “No fucking way.”
Not only did Mateo know her, he was going to be buried balls-deep inside her before the night was through. It was his and Olivia’s secret pre-deployment tradition. They both got lucky with a no-strings fuck, and he and his team always made it home in one piece. “Care to bet on it?”
Chance’s eyes lit up. His mama had named him appropriately because the man alway took a chance. “Name the terms.”
Mateo almost felt guilty for hustling his friend this way. Then he remembered the vibrator TSA had found in his carry-on six months ago, and the howls of laughter from the rest of the team as they filed by through security. “Loser covers the team’s bar tab.”
The other man’s eyes widened. “On the last night on the town before training lockdown?”
“Not a big deal, unless you think you’re going to lose,” Mateo said.
“Fuck you. You’re on.”
They clinked shot glasses and tossed back the tequila like water.
“So where’s your proof?” Ferrante asked.
“You’ll see soon enough.” Mateo glanced at his watch. Only twenty minutes late. For Olivia, that was practically early.
“You are so full of shit, Garcia. With that pretty-boy face of yours, you pull in more tail on a daily basis than any other guy on the team but not even you are bringing in someone like Olivia Sweet.”
There was movement by the bar’s door and excited chatter zipped through the crowd.
A buzz of anticipation started at the base of his spine. His good-luck charm had arrived. Oh, the people in their small hometown would have a good laugh about that. Everyone in Salvation, Virginia, knew the Sweets were nothing but trouble, every crazy one of them. Not that it mattered to him what the gossips said; it wasn’t as if he was ever going to end up back there again.
He finished his beer in one long pull. “Get out your wallet, Ferrante.”
The bar patrons parted like the Red Sea as Olivia did her sexy walk across the room. She didn’t miss a step as she strutted toward him. Beautiful and Amazon-tall in spiked high heels, she wore a short red trench-coat dress that was unbuttoned at the top, giving the illusion that her tits were about to spill out. On some people it would have looked bulky, but on her tall, hourglass, supermodel body, it was enough to make his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. Especially since he knew exactly what was under it—not a damn thing but her luscious body.
She stopped in front of him. “Buy a girl a drink?”
“I know Ferrante here would be happy to get your drink, along with covering everyone else’s tab.”
The other Marine shook his head in amazement and reached for the wallet in his back pocket.
Mateo got up off his bar stool and held it out for her. She sat down and tossed her hair over one shoulder. The position gave him the perfect angle to look down the deep-V neckline of her dress. His cock twitched at the sight.
This was their game. They played it every few months, whenever one of them could hop a plane and sneak away for a weekend of hot sex. She met him somewhere public wearing the absolute minimum amount of clothing. He’d hold out as long as he could until he had to drag her to his hotel room, where they’d fuck until they were both too exhausted to do anything but breathe.
If he’d been a better kind of man, he’d worry about falling for Olivia Sweet, but the truth was that he wasn’t. He wasn’t a man made for commitments—watching the ugly implosion of his parents’ marriage had turned him off that institution for good. But a good time? Oh he was ready for that any time, any place—which is what made his arrangement with the wild child of Salvation so perfect.
Olivia looked up at him as she toyed with the thin gold chain around her neck that disappeared between the deep valley of her tits. “Like the view?”
“It’s unbelievable.” And it was. He wasn’t going to last long before he had to touch her.
Tomorrow morning, he and his team were headed out to train at a place they couldn’t even tell their families about. To everyone outside of a select number who qualified as need-to-knows, their second tour in Afghanistan would just be business as usual, when in reality it was anything but. He had less than twelve hours before training lockdown and he wasn’t about to waste it in a bar when Olivia was here.
The elevator doors had barely shut before Olivia’s fingers were at the buckle of the belt cinching the waist of her trench dress. Drunk on his nearness, she ignored the security camera in the ceiling. It didn’t mean a damn thing. Hell, who was she kidding? She was the wild Sweet triplet, the one voted most likely to do anything, and all she wanted to do right now was Mateo.
“Take it off.” His hungry gaze never left her as he inserted the penthouse keycard into the slot above the floor buttons.
The elevator jerked ever so slightly as it rose at a glacial pace and she adjusted her stance to better balance on her four-inch heels. The last thing she wanted was to tumble onto her ass during a striptease. Not tonight. Not with Mateo. She’d spent most of her life half in love with him. Making a fool of herself in front of him wasn’t an option.
“The penthouse? Really?” She untied the belt around her waist. The material loosened around her, the sudden influx of air sweeping against her overheated skin.
“I’m a man without commitments or a permanent address unless it’s attached to a military base. What else am I going to blow my money on other than outrageously expensive hotel rooms to fuck you in until you forget your name?” His green-hazel eyes had turned dark with barely reined-in lust. “Now, stop teasing.”
She inched down the zipper. Slowly. She loved pushing him like this. He’d
snap. He always did. And the explosion would be so worth it—for both of them.
He leaned back against the closed elevator doors and crossed his arms, the move making his biceps bulge. “I said take it off.”
She toyed with the zipper but didn’t lower it even a millimeter more. Her nipples puckered against the dress’s soft leather, warmed by her desire-heated skin. “Here? In the elevator?”
Something dangerous flashed in his eyes. Hard. Wild. Ravenous. “Yes.”
She clenched her core muscles tight. She couldn’t help herself, teasing him turned her on. “Why should I?”
“Because you want to.” He closed the distance between them in one swift step, crowding her up against the back of the elevator, centering himself between her open legs. “You want to show the security guard watching the video feed and jerking off behind his desk just how hard your perfect pink nipples are and how slick your sweet pussy is just from thinking about me touching you, licking you, fucking you senseless. You’re so turned-on you’re going to ruin that leather dress you’re barely wearing if you’re not careful.”
Heart hammering in her chest, she realized she’d pushed him right up to the edge where rigid control gave way to ferocious hunger. All it would take was the smallest verbal tap to tip him right over. “I’m not wet.”
“Prove it.” He pressed his hands to the wall on either side of her shoulders and dipped his head so that his hot breath caressed the sensitive skin of her earlobe. “Touch yourself right now.”
Refusing wasn’t an option. Not when she ached for this—for him. His touch. His body. His mouth. She slid her fingers down the rough metal line of the half-closed zipper to the dress’s short hem. Watching him through her eyelashes as he watched her, she drew out her actions, pulling the tension higher.
“You know what happens when you make me wait,” he growled.
She did. And she loved it. But she’d skated the edge for too long, ever since she’d slid across the backseat of the limo, her bare ass on the leather reminding her of exactly who she was going to see and what she was going to do.
