Sara Jane Stone - Command Performance

Tonight she wanted to touch.

Some wore uniforms, but most were dressed in civilian clothes. Still, their military-issue haircuts gave them away. They might be wearing jeans and T-shirts, but they were soldiers. Not that this was surprising. It made sense that a car show near a military academy would be overrun with soldiers and cadets. Most men liked cars. The guys in this tent probably spent 50 percent of their free time rebuilding their engines.

Not Maggie. She’d never even changed a flat tire. Not once.

Her nerves kicked into gear again. Her fingers drummed against her thighs as she picked her way through the crowd. She fought to quiet them and focus. She was on a mission. And it had nothing to do with car parts and everything to do with hard-bodied males.

When they reached the temporary wooden counter, Maggie signaled the bartender. “Vodka tonic, please.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything before adding a glass of white wine to the order.

Their drinks arrived and Maggie took a long sip from hers. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ordered hard liquor. She rarely drank the stuff, always afraid she might have inherited her father’s love of booze, and when she did have a drink, she generally preferred a glass or two of wine, or a beer on a hot summer afternoon. One sip of vodka and she was feeling warm and a little tipsy, which was surprisingly pleasant. It even dulled her desire to drive back down to Manhattan and hurl something at her ex. A few more of these and she might have the guts to follow through with Olivia’s crazy plan.

“Liv, you do realize most of these guys are soldiers. Probably half either teach at or attend West Point.” Maggie noticed she’d downed half her drink. “What if I end up having to deal with one of them while researching my book?”

“Relax, you won’t.” Olivia shook her head. “Anyway, I thought the men you were interviewing were based in Tennessee.”

“They are, but the generals are in town.”

Olivia reached over and patted her hand. “I promise I’ll make sure he’s not a general.”

“But I could never date a soldier.”

“It’s only for one night,” Olivia reminded her. “Why should you care what he does for a living if you’re not planning on seeing him beyond tonight? Maybe you’ll get lucky and find a mechanic. This is a car show.”

Maggie drained the rest of her drink. “What if I pick a guy and he turns me down?” Her nerves—and the vodka—sent her stomach into somersaults. “What if I make a complete fool of myself? It’s not like I have a lot of experience with men.”

“Look at me.” Olivia leaned closer. “You can do this. Now. Tonight. If you don’t, then duty, responsibility, your need to be the best at your job—it will smother you.”

Maggie held on to the bar with one hand as Olivia’s words sank in. Her sense of duty had started smothering her years ago when her father began drinking. This was her chance to escape. If she didn’t act now, she might lose the part of herself that craved orgasms. The part of herself that wished she’d told her fiancé she wanted wild sex on his desk and so much more.

“You’re right,” Maggie said softly.

Olivia smiled and signaled the bartender for a second round. “Now, look around. See anything you like?”

Feeling the vodka pulsing through her, Maggie boldly scanned the refreshment tent. What was she looking for? Muscles. The kind that came from the hard work required to transform a man into a soldier or from lifting engine parts. But four out of five guys in here looked like they could bench-press her one-handed. And thanks to her breasts, she wasn’t one of those hundred-pounds-soaking-wet women.

She took a second look and mentally eliminated about half of them. Too young. She wanted a man who knew things about sex. She wanted an orgasm that left her breathless, boneless and begging for more.

Her gaze landed on a green polo, tight but not too tight. And those biceps? They shouted touch me. Her eyes drifted over his shoulders to his face, framed by straight brown hair. She’d always liked brown hair. Staring at his profile—he was deep in conversation with an equally handsome but not quite as sexy man across the table—she could see his mouth curving upward in a half smile. Those lips. He had the type of mouth that begged a woman to say kiss me lower down, please.

Maggie clutched her drink and drew her gaze away from his face. Twelve months of unfulfilling sex had driven her mad if she was thinking about his lips kissing her there before she’d even said a word to the guy. She blinked and took in the rest of him. She could see the endless length of his legs stretched out beneath the table.

Her body tingled as she drank in the sight of him. With a long, sculpted body like that he must know how to do things, deliciously sinful, wild things that previously only existed in her fantasies. He turned and looked right at her, and then smiled. She tightened her grip on her nearly empty drink. Those eyes. That mouth. She’d bet her inheritance that man knew ten ways to give a woman the best orgasm of her life. If he looked at her like that much longer, she might come right here. Her thighs tightened at the thought. This man would say yes. He wouldn’t turn her down. Not after that look.

Maggie blinked and turned to the bartender. “Cancel the vodka tonic. Just water, please.”

The liquor had made her bold, maybe even a little reckless, but if she wished to remember every detail about tonight, she needed water. “Do you remember George Clooney when he was young? When he was on ER?”

“Oh, yeah.” Olivia took her wine from the bartender. “He was on the show when we first started watching it in high school.”

“Green polo, blue jeans at eight o’clock.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow. “He’s not your usual type.”

“He has George Clooney’s eyes. Bedroom eyes.” Maggie reached for her water and drained half the glass. “Tonight, he’s my type.”

2

CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER Hunter Cross knew a come-on look when he saw one. A look that said, I want you naked in my bed. Tonight.

He leaned back on his rickety wooden folding chair and let a slow smile spread across his face, a move he’d perfected at sixteen to get the captain of the debate team into the backseat of his mother’s car. He’d always had a thing for supersmart girls. Of course, he’d moved beyond sex in the backseat since high school, but not much. Commitment was a dirty word in his mind, and long-term made him shudder. Not even the woman at the bar with her soft shoulder-length curls or touch-me breasts would tempt him to change his mind.

Across the room, the blonde pursed her lips, unsure if she should proceed with their unspoken dance. That expression. It was a mix of bold and innocent, an intoxicating combination that went right to his crotch. He let his eyelids lower slightly.

“I know that look isn’t for me,” Riley, his friend and former team leader, said from across the table.

“The blonde at the bar. She just gave me a green light.”

Riley chuckled. “You’ve been in town for less than three hours and you’ve already found a woman.”

“Hey, I’ve been laid up in a hospital for two months.” Before that, he’d been in Afghanistan. He would have left unscathed if his team hadn’t been ordered to rescue three female aid workers traveling to a remote clinic. And thanks to a teammate’s mistake, he’d taken a bullet in the process.

“How’s your arm?” Riley asked, his expression serious.

“Fine.” Hunter rolled his shoulder. It still ached. Nothing the blonde couldn’t fix.

“Logan feels awful about how it all went down.”

Hunter started to say it wasn’t Logan’s fault, but stopped. They both knew it was. His friend and teammate had been distracted after losing his young wife to cancer before they shipped out, and as a result he’d messed up—and Hunter had been shot.