Julie Miller - At Your Command

“Captain Zachariah Clark at your service, ma’am.”

Becky licked her luscious lips with that sinful tongue in an assessing, appreciative look that made his entire body lurch.

“I’ve never seen you in uniform before,” she said. “You wear it well.” She scanned him from shoulder to shoulder, from head to toe. “Take it off, Captain.”

In a single beat of time, the atmosphere in the room thickened.

“The hotel cleaners just sent it up, starched and pressed,” he tried to argue.

“So we’ll make it a point not to wrinkle it,” she said, grinning wickedly. “Come on, soldier. Take it off and come over here.” Becky reached for the knot of terry cloth between her breasts and dropped her towel.

She was naked.

Damn. Zachariah’s penis throbbed to shameless attention as he stood, transfixed, by all her abundant glory. His body knew he was fighting a losing battle. He might as well go with it.

“At your command…”

JULIE MILLER

is an award-winning author – with a National Readers Choice Award, a Daphne du Maurier Award and a PRISM Award, among other prizes. She’s been a finalist in several other venues, including the Golden Heart contest. She has been a multiple nominee for Romantic Times BOOKreviews awards, including Best Blaze ®, Best Contemporary Paranormal and Romantic Times BOOKreviews ’ Career Achievement Award for Series Romantic Suspense. Some of her thirty-plus books have appeared on the USA TODAY and Waldenbooks bestseller lists. Born in Missouri and now living in Nebraska, julie gets support from her small but mighty writing group, the Prairieland Romance Writers, as well as her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Find out more about the author at www. juliemiller. org. You can e-mail her through her website or write to her at PO Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162, USA.

Dear Reader,

It’s hard to believe that At Your Command is my thirtieth book! Many of my stories are still so fresh in my mind that it feels as though I could find a town on a map, walk up to a door, knock – and one of my characters would answer.

At Your Command features one such character, a man who jumped off the pages. Captain Zachariah Clark was Travis’s e-mail buddy in my Mills & Boon ®Blaze ®novel, Basic Training . By the time we met him in person in that story, Clarksie had created a rather large presence for himself. Now this big, sexy marine has come home after serving in a war zone. But his reunion with a wife he barely knows may not go as smoothly as he hopes. Being apart for eighteen months is hard. But sometimes, coming home can be even harder.

Do you have a favourite fictional character you’d like to meet in person? I’ve always thought hanging out with Miss Marple or Atticus Finch would be cool. You can visit me online at www.juliemiller.org and share your thoughts.

Enjoy,

Julie Miller

BY

JULIE MILLER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my Mizzou buddy, jas.

I remember brainstorming behind the dorm (while we sunned ourselves without a thought about skin cancer and wrinkles…er, pardon me, laugh lines!) to create wonderful stories that I wrote in all my notebooks. Eventually I took bits and pieces of those ideas and put them into my computer years later when I decided to seriously pursue this writing thing. You didn’t think I was crazy for having such an imagination – instead, you joined in the adventure with me. You even gave me a “writing kit,” full of paper and folders, properly marked with all my working titles. I still have it.

What support. What encouragement.

What a friend.

1

Eighteen months ago

MARINE CORPS CAPTAIN Zachariah Clark was so tuckered out he could barely put on his uniform, much less speed up the process.

But, oh, man, what a way to go.

He had only five hours until he had to report for duty at the training base in Quantico, Virginia—forty miles away. Against city traffic. Through the mushy dregs of the snowstorm that had blanketed Washington, D.C. He should be kickin’ his ass into gear and bookin’ it out of this hotel.

But as he tied off his boots, all he could think about was the naked woman in the shower, singing a bluesy rendition of “Too Darn Hot” that danced against his eardrums like a seductive whisper and heated his groin like the touch of a slow, firm hand.

“Keep dressin’, Clarksie,” he chided himself as he carefully buttoned the fly of his camouflage pants.

After nearly a week in this room with Becky Owens, he thought he would have gotten the woman out of his system. He’d already had her six ways to Sunday, and she’d had him back.

Enough, man! Duty calls.

But she was in there.

Naked.

Absolutely his favorite version of the Beckster. He’d seen her in every role from buttoned-up exec in a chaste gray suit to adorable sex kitten in her funky flannel pajamas. He’d had fun with them all. But naked? He swallowed hard, doing his damnedest to blank out the image of soft, decadent curves, flexing and bouncing with each precise movement she made. The pale, perfect skin, the result of her Scandinavian heritage, would be steaming beneath the spray of the water.

Naked.

Zachariah reached for the khaki T-shirt he’d pulled from his duffel bag. Maybe if he kept puttin’ his clothes on, he’d quit obsessing about takin’ hers off.

Of course, he wouldn’t have to take off anything because she was already…

Naked.

Shit . His dick stirred in response.

“Helluva pep talk, Clarksie.”

He pulled the T-shirt over his head, stretching the cotton over his chest and arms until the Corps tattoo of eagle, globe and anchor peeked out beneath the sleeve on his left bicep. Yeah. Focus on that. Think Semper Fi. Think duty. Honor. His responsibility to his men and country. Neutralizing threats around the world. An eleven-year career.

Naked .

“Geez.”

Zachariah’s pants tightened.

He resolutely tucked in his T and pulled his camo overshirt off its hanger as Becky’s husky serenade ended. The pulse of beating water dwindled to a few noisy drips and then silence. Lordy. If she walked out here naked…

Zachariah inhaled a deep, steadying breath and buttoned his shirt. He was a Marine, damn it, not some lovesick puppy. Though, with his mug, he hadn’t had the same success as some of his poster-boy comrades; this wasn’t the first time he’d come home on leave, picked up a woman at a bar and spent the night with her. It was the first time he’d spent six nights with the same woman. The first time he’d ever had any trouble kissing her goodbye, thanking her and walking away.

Hell . He was beginning to feel like he was never going to get enough of her. The cool, conservative attorney with the secretly sinful alter ego wasn’t intimidated by his crew cut or brawn or bad-ass bravado. If anything, the challenge of going head-to-head with him seemed to excite her. It excited him. From the moment she’d walked into Groucho’s Pub in the heart of D.C. nearly a week ago, and refused to let him buy her a drink, the game between them had been on.

How could he leave before the game was finished?

The bathroom door creaked open.

Despite his best, self-preserving intentions, Zachariah’s gaze searched the mirror over the hotel room desk where he was dressing. He zeroed in on the cloud of steam filtering into the archway behind him, a tempting prelude to the Venus who’d follow.