Wet For Her Warriors (Book 5 of the WILD -- Warriors Intense in Love & Domination -- Boys of Special Forces) (3 page)

You should be
gloating
.
Standing on the beach wearing nothing but a doofus gawk does
not
qualify
as gloating.

The reproach
jabbed at Kellan Rush’s brain. Correction: it pounded at him with more ruthless
demand than the blood blasting in his cock, stirring confusion into his mental
mix.

He’d finally
trumped the woman, at least for a second. Normal protocols, Sergeant Rush
style, dictated that his next step be a well-earned wallow in glory. So why the
hell was he stalling?

Because “normal”
didn’t exist in the same world with this woman.

And it was
freaking him the hell out.

In the last fifteen
minutes, she’d knocked him flat on his back, reduced him to speechlessness, and
for the first time in his life, made him wonder if lightning strikes from fate
weren’t metaphysical bullshit. One second, he’d been ready to pummel some sense
into the buddy who’d decided to give up on life by backstroking through a vodka
bottle. The next, he was paralyzed by this beauty with the magic of blue silver
in her eyes, the grace of mist in her steps, and a goddess’s strength in every curve
of her body.

Dear fucking
God, her body.

What the hell
was wrong with him? As a member of the US Army’s First Special Forces Group,
he’d seen physical beauty like hers in every corner of the globe. But this insane
draw to her…it wasn’t understandable, let alone controllable. Wasn’t as though
he could blame this sexy fuckery on anything substantial, either. He didn’t know
her
name
, let alone anything else about her.

He only knew she’d
had the moves to topple him and Tait, two expert of unconventional battle, like
they’d simply been pieces of driftwood.

He also knew
she’d been ready to put a knife through their balls if they so much as sneezed
on her beach.

Most
importantly, he knew that behind all her She-Ra posturing, her grip on that
knife faltered when referring to some asswipe named Benson. Her fear of the guy
had her so spazzed, she’d instantly lumped Tait and him in with the guy and his
goons. Kell thanked fate that Tait, even with half a bottle of Grey Goose in
his system, was alert enough to throw a look indicating he’d hopped on Kell’s
page about revealing their true identities. The mutual gung-ho? They weren’t.
Not yet. When a guy’s work suit was often the cloak of subterfuge, he became
best friends with anonymity. With whatever shit was about to go down with
Benson, they might help her best if they laid low for now.

At the moment,
that was easier said than done. With his personal “tiki god” stiffening by the
moment simply from her stare, his body was mighty stingy with the secrecy. In
this case, that wasn’t a bad thing. Kell reveled in watching her eyes on his
cock. And her breasts, so full and perfect, pushing against her bikini’s halter
top with the new air pumping into her lungs. He fixated on the strawberry tint
of her lips as she parted them, as if her body had gotten the direct download
on
his
fantasy. Damn, he could even picture it. Her bow-shaped mouth
sucking on him shyly at first, but soon pulling as much of his erection down
her throat as she could. Moaning around him. Devouring him…

“Shit.”

Her gasp was
husky—the perfect envelope for a hard-on. Kell cleared his throat and glanced at
the pole jutting from his crotch. Fat fucking chance of a stand-down now. After
looking back up, he gave her a fast shrug. “I tried to warn you.”

“Shut up,” she
snapped. “And don’t you dare think of getting back into those things before I
say.” Her glare referred to the tentative step he took back toward his shorts.
“Kick the khakis over here, point man. Then get moving.” A trace of mirth
seemed to flicker through her crystalline eyes. “Guess you’re uniquely qualified
for the position.”

Kellan dared a
wink. “Just want to serve to the best of my abilities, ma’am.”

The humor vanished
from her gaze. “Your ‘service’ isn’t important to me, Yin-Man. Your silence is.
Lock the mouth. Then walk the feet.” She nodded at Tait. “You’re right behind
him, Stolichnaya.”

Tait wobbled a
finger through the air. “Technically, it was Grey Goose.”

“Technically, I
don’t give a damn.” She flicked her Bowie toward the path. “I wasn’t sure what
I saw flying through the air a few minutes ago. Now that I realize it was your
bottle of hooch, you’ll have the honor of picking it out of my roses once we
get to the garden, anyhow.”

“Not a problem,
dreamgirl.”

Tait’s vodka-inspired
flirt confirmed a suspicion to Kell. His friend was as captivated by the
goddess as he. No surprise there, given how her long ebony hair had picked up
the sunset’s lavender streaks when she first came upon them, but he hoped—fuck,
he prayed—that once T sobered up, he’d see that “dreamgirl” was nothing like
Luna Lawrence. Nor could she be expected to live up to the memory of the woman
who still tortured Tait’s soul.

But as they
entered the shadows of the forest path, the irony of the whole situation didn’t
escape him. Tait and he had been ordered here by John Franzen, their battalion
CO, in order to pull T’s brain out of its mire of grief over Luna, a “special
agent” for the FBI team they’d assisted on a case in LA almost a year ago. The
battalion’s history with Luna dipped back further than the case, but those two
weeks had been the turning point in Tait’s relationship with the woman. Best as
Kell could piece together, they’d plunged so deep that they had everything but
the rings—right before Luna ended the mission in a coma that eventually killed
her.

The aftermath
was an epic mess, validating Kellan’s own life rule about women in all its
practical perfection. Fun? Yes. Sex? Definitely yes. But when a guy had a job
that prevented him from owning even a dog, leaping over the relationship cliff
was asking for disaster—the same kind of shit show that had taken over Tait’s
soul and psyche, and now threatened to decimate his military career.

The guy had paid
his dues on the psychotherapist’s couch for months before brass finally cleared
him for active duty again—but on his first mission back in, T proved he’d lost
his edge, unable to shove his emotions into proper boxes. As a result, he
miscalculated a shot so bad that they almost lost an ally soldier to a
blue-on-blue shot—a friendly fire bullet from Kellan’s rifle—and the real
criminal had gone free. Less than three hours later, Franzen ordered the two of
them to take mandated R&R in his family’s place, located a quarter mile
down the beach from here.

Banishment in
paradise
.
It sounded like a brooding emo fan fiction website, but with a few choice
expletives thrown in, the words perfectly matched the title Kell slapped on the
assignment when they got here a day and a half ago. Yet despite his bitter
bitch party, he hoped their CO was nailing it right with the call. Before Luna,
Tait had been more than his sniper team partner. They’d been best friends. Bunkmates.
Drinking buddies. Able to communicate complete paragraphs by using only three
words. Before Luna, they’d been—

Yin and Yang.

Crazy. Ironic,
even. The title might’ve been something Luna herself concocted, and was invoked
by a woman who bore more than a subtle resemblance to the woman. But damn it,
this Bowie-bearing goddess was more than that. A
more
that demanded to
be seen for its own beauty and unique fire, not just a beautiful substitution
for a ghost. He’d take Tait to the mat to pound it into the guy’s brain if
necessary.

Astonishment almost
halted him in the middle of the bamboo-planked walkway. Was he, the most
happily unattached guy on the team, admitting to putting a woman on his priority
list?

He snorted and
kept walking. She wasn’t on the
top
of the damn thing, for fuck’s sake.
And it didn’t mean he was turning heel on Tait or the goal they’d been sent
here to accomplish. If Tait didn’t leave this rock in two weeks with his head
tighter than a newly-calibrated rifle, Kell was officially under consideration
for having his own ass yanked off missions for a while, if not permanently.
Franz had made that much clear, apparently following some mysterious commanding
officer wisdom—or insanity. As if it mattered. Tait’s mental fitness was the
priority here, and he wasn’t about to muck up the op.

But for one
second, it felt good to simply forget all that pressure. For right here and now,
it felt incredible to let his dick fly in the wind for something other than a mission
or a mate.

It was crazy. So
what if it could only be temporary? Maybe a little temporary insanity would
give him a better window into helping Tait. Besides, if “crazy” kept him in the
vicinity of this goddess a while longer, then crazy looked just fucking
perfect.

An acidic laugh
tumbled off Tait’s lips. He didn’t think his brain would argue much with his
feuding feelings, considering that he stood in the middle of a garden in the
dark, in nothing but his briefs, doing battle with the thorns of a nasty-ass
rose bush in order to retrieve the vodka bottle
Kellan
had thrown here.

His head spun as
he bent over, fishing for the elusive Grey Goose. His ears rang. How much of
that shit had he downed before Kell found him and hurled the bottle away? More
than he remembered, obviously. Sufficient to put him in a stupor that had him
comparing the damn clouds in the sky to Luna’s hair, but not enough to render
him numb to her memory. Not half enough.

That was before
Heaven had dropped her twin on the beach in front of him.

Okay, officially,
she’d
dropped
him
first. One second, Kellan had stormed across
the beach and all but torn him a new asshole for indulging in the bender; the
next, they were both tripped, flipped, and stunned, flat on their backs in the
sand. When he’d pried his eyes open and received a horizon filled with that
ebony hair and those incredible eyes, his senses had screamed with the first
logical conclusion.
Hallucination
. There. Handled. Clean and simple.

But when his
vision cleared and she was still there, especially after Kell started talking
to her, he’d known he was in true trouble. This creature, with her exotic
beauty and take-no-shit spirit, was real. The comprehension had been the
Universe’s biggest embrace and coldcock in one. The dilemma that followed was
no easier to wade through. Did he drag her into his arms, thanking fate for
reminding him that the strength he’d adored in Luna still lived on so
incredibly in the world? Or did he grab his shorts and run like hell before he
dirtied her life with the taint of his? He had to stop the carnage somewhere,
right? He’d just turned twenty-seven. Maybe seventeen years was long enough to
maintain the ridiculous fantasy that his life would make a difference to
someone, that his love wasn’t the courier of their ruin.

Or their death.

More laughter
peppered the air. This time it sure as hell wasn’t his. There was a distinct
hitch at the end of the bursts, Kellan’s brand of “adorable yet awkward.” The
guy had perfected that laugh a long time ago, and Tait had watched him use it
to snag women from Tacoma to Tangier.

Was the player trying
to use it on…
her
? Now? Standing there on the path with his schlong
flapping in the breeze between them?

Tait growled as
he found the bottle and snatched it from the bush. He ran into a shitload of thorns
along the way, creating a few bloody tracks along his arm, which went unnoticed
beneath his immediate case of
what the fuck
.

Common sense
jabbed its way past the booze and his ire. The woman, whoever she was, obviously
had a brain beneath that sleek hair. She was smart enough to see through a fuckpuppy
like Kell. If not, Slash-Man would learn what
she
was all about real
quick. A woman like that would demand the best of a man. She was bold and strong
and unique, Waterford crystal meant for filling with champagne. In Kellan’s
world, relationships were plastic party cups.

The guy would wrap
his head around that disparity any minute now. Just in case he didn’t, Tait
hustled back, bearing the Grey Goose with a gamely grin. “I’ve beat aside the
rose bush dragon and retrieved your treasure, my lady.”

When he extended
the bottle, his damsel tucked in her chin while arching both brows, a move full
of serious sass. It was also the first that didn’t remind him in some tiny way
of Luna. That came as a welcome relief to his tormented senses—only his cock
didn’t read the memo. The woman was a torch on him, her bronze curves and fiery
spirit igniting parts of his body that had been doused since last June. A lot
of those sparks were familiar friends, but a bunch of new flames snuck in, too,
burning in strange and scary ways. The fire licked up his staff and nipped at
its tip in a blaze that was thoroughly unique to this island goddess.

Who the hell was
she? Where had she come from? And why did she look like she hadn’t given
herself permission to smile in months?

“I’m no more your
lady than his sweetheart. Got it?” For a moment, she seemed years younger,
indulging a teenager’s eye roll. “What the hell? Did Benson let you all watch ‘Shakespeare
Your Way Into Her Panties’ online? Tell him he wasted his money.”

He glanced at
Kellan. The tension in his friend’s shoulders surely mirrored his own. That
name was back again.
Benson
. The dickface—yeah, by now he felt safe
going there—had caused one too many shadows across the woman’s face to make
their ruse acceptable anymore. Time to separate themselves, especially in her
perception, from the bastard’s posse. He gave Kell a quick nod to communicate
as much. Kell didn’t need any more encouragement. He stepped over, took the
bottle from her, and curled a hand around her elbow. “So about this Benson—”

“Perfect.” She
interrupted him as the glare of headlights swung through the night, showing that
they stood in an expansive garden of flowers and fruit trees that led to a
sprawling two-story home with lots of windows and a wraparound lanai. “I’ll
just tell him myself.”

Fortunately, she
remembered to return their shorts as she turned up the walkway at a determined
march. After setting the vodka on a work table, Kellan slammed back into his in
less than fifteen seconds. It took Tait that long just to figure out where the
leg holes were. He fell over trying to get his second leg in, officially
verifying he’d had too much to drink. Or maybe not enough. Sanction for that
came from the bottle itself, now at his eye level, shockingly not empty after
its end-over-end flight into the roses. “Fuck it.” He wiped off the opening and
chugged another shot.

The warmth in
his blood and the fuzz in his head did their duty as liquid courage. He sprang
to his feet with a surge of surprising grace, if the toppled bucket of papayas
didn’t count.

After dodging
the rolling fruit, he ran to catch up with Kell, who’d trailed the goddess up
to the house’s lanai. They followed her to the front end of the porch and
shouldered against each other as truck doors made foreboding
thunks
against
what had been peaceful air.

He blinked hard
and focused. Though the hooch dulled his senses, old instincts and hardcore
training beat through his blood like a favorite song, impossible to forget. “Three
Escalades, six henchmen,” he murmured to Kell without moving his lips. “But
only the two flanking Mr. Big are carrying heat. They’re the only ones in
jackets.”

Kellan answered
by softly clearing his throat. Though the sound confirmed he’d heard every word
of the assessment, the guy’s lips flattened, also disclosing that he smelled
the fresh shot on Tait’s breath.
Whatever, tight ass. I’m the only choice
you’ve got for backup, so deal with it
.

But the cavalier
viewpoint fled as he joined his friend in glancing to the woman who’d prevented
them from tearing each other up on the beach—who clutched at his gut as she
hoisted her quivering chin. With her hand still clenched on the Bowie and her
shoulders thrown back, she was desperate to convey whatever shred of strength she
could to these invaders of her world.

Invaders
? After fast
assessment of the men, Tait decided it wasn’t a stretch. Shit. These pretty
boys belonged in this rustic setting as much as kittens on a battlefield. Every
one of them looked like they’d stepped off the pages of some fancy men’s magazine
after a three-hour burn in the gym. He bet they’d all had manicures today, too.
Gag.

Whatever
irritation he’d logged for the lot was eclipsed by the disdain on the goddess’s
face as the main pretty boy strolled forward. In white shorts and a light blue
polo with a precision cut to his salon-streaked blond hair, the guy was one
Botox treatment away from having his testosterone card revoked for good. But Tait
had to hand it to the man for sincerity points. The dude was good, damn good.
He owned that sheep’s fleece over his wolf’s pelt with the commitment of a
religious zealot minus the Jesus sandals.

“Miss Hokulani
Kail. My, my, my, you are stunning this evening.” He tilted his head, giving
her a onceover that turned Tait’s nerves to barbed wire. Kellan’s growl betrayed
his friend’s agreement. The only good thing about the exchange so far was that
they finally learned her name.
Hokulani
. He imagined some rock band
writing a song about it, the kind requiring everyone in the stadium to wave
glow sticks in time to its ethereal chant.

She stepped
forward, chin still level. “I’d invite you in for some wine and arsenic,
Gunter, but hadn’t planned on all the boy toys being along.” She glanced back
at Tait and Kellan. “You didn’t tell me the whole gang was coming. You planning
a slumber party for later? Going to sit around and swap tips on cuticle care
and after-the-bender eye bags?”

Benson chuckled.
“We’re all about the
aloha
spirit at Benstock, Lani. You know that.”

“
Aloha
is
about giving, Gunter, not getting. It has nothing to do with your brand of
greed.”

Pretty Boy’s
face went tight. “Damn, I’m troubled to hear you say that.”

Tait took his
turn to stifle a snort. If Benson was really “troubled,” he and Kell were Princes
William and Harry.

Hokulani was a
little more delicate about expressing her disgust, letting out a delicate
sniff. “My opinions trouble you less than your sock odor, Benson. So cut the
bullshit and tell me why you bothered to drive all the way out here with your
backup dancers.”

The man’s face
relaxed again. Another laugh played at his mouth. “Or what? You’re going to
‘cut us’ with that nasty blade of yours, darling?”

She stomped
forward again. “What the
hell
are you here for, Gunter?”

The two closest goons
to Benson stomped up, reaching for the pistols Tait had detected. Their boss restrained
them with a raised hand. “No need for wasted tempers, people.” He directed a
slick smile up the steps. “We’re just here for a simple property walk-through,
Lani. You can even stay in the house if you want. All I need is a stroll on the
beach and the orchard, and a quick peek at that beautiful lookout point.”

She bypassed the
sniff in favor of a full snort. “The beach, huh? Well, that does explain the
watch dogs.”

Benson frowned.
“Excuse me?”

Tait joined
Kellan in moving up a little. Giving up the jig was past due, and they’d
already missed the first opportunity, so—

“
Bah
,” Lani
bit out. “Innocence, especially feigned, just makes you a bad drag queen,
Gunter. Take one more step, and I’ll add trespasser to that.”

The man spread
his arms. “Darling, as I’ve clearly stated, we’re just here for a friendly
visit.”

“And in what
universe will I let you do that without a shred of justifiable paperwork? You’re
a fine piece of work, thinking I’ll let you tromp all over my land, scheming how
you’re going to ruin it in the name of time shares and condominiums just because
you threw the word
aloha
into the mix.”

He lowered his
arms on a heavy sigh.  “I thought we’d been through this. We want to enrich the
beauty of Hale Anelas, not strip it. We
are
maintaining a natural
preserve, remember?”

“Three acres is
barely a park, let alone a reserve.”

“What about the
land we’re setting aside for the horses?”

“You mean the corral
for the fifteen heads you plan to keep out of the fifty-four I have now? The ones
you’ll save to tote fat tourists up and down the beach?”

After a moment
of steady silence, Benson slipped his hands into his pockets. He took a couple
of steps, the movements measured and fluid, another indication of the pure oil
flowing in his veins.

“If you want to
keep doing this the hard way, Hokulani, that’s fine by me.” He made an attempt
at elegance with his emphasizing nod but evoked a drunk lizard, instead. “But
you need to accept how this is going to play out. The money you’re making from
selling the fruits and desserts is barely paying for your groceries, utilities,
and private academy for Leo. You’re six months overdue on the property mortgage
itself.”

“Because
Benstock has blocked every application I’ve submitted to reopen the B and B.”
Tears tinged her retaliation, gashing Tait’s chest open as if she’d turned on
him with the knife. “You’re a maggot, Benson. You kill things in order to feed
off of them, and you love it!”

Pretty Boy shook
his head as if dealing with a small child. “Red tape troubles shouldn’t be an
excuse to call people names. What would Leo say if he were here?”

“How do you know
he’s not? Or was it you who ‘conveniently’ had the fencing team practice moved
to tonight, as well?”

Benson let the lizard
nod have an encore. “I’m not the monster you keep assuming, Hokulani.”

She swallowed so
hard that Tait heard it this time. “No? There are three other properties for
sale in this area, Gunter, but you’ve targeted Hale Anelas for your new resort.
My family home. My only livelihood. The only thing I have left of my parents.”