“I’m already feeling tipsy,” she admitted, eyeing the bottle warily.
“Tipsy, shmipsy! It’s the first heat wave of the summer! It’s a special occasion.”
Had he just said tipsy shmipsy?
Trying not to laugh, Shelby tucked her hair behind her ears. “No thanks, I’ll pass.” She couldn’t go home until the Padres game ended, but drinking herself stupid was no way to pass the time until everyone left.
And it wasn’t like another drink would help her forget that John Garrett, her long-time fantasy, was in the other room, not wanting to sleep with her.
No amount of tequila could make her forget that.
* * *
“Face it, she’s just not into you,” Carson Scott said with a shrug.
Garrett forced his gaze to stay glued on the television and not drift in the direction of the doorway separating the café from the bakery. His peripheral vision caught a flash of movement—Shelby rounding the counter to chat with Lieutenant Paul Aston and his tequila bottle.
Ha. Did Lieutenant Asshole actually think he had a flying fuck of a chance of getting Shelby Harper into bed? Dream on, brother.
Shelby would never mess around with a married man. Or at least that’s what Garrett kept telling himself.
Because in all honesty, the thought of his sweet, sexy Shelby burning up the sheets with Lieutenant Asshole, or any man for that matter, caused jealousy to spiral down his chest and seize his intestines like a death vise.
“You might as well quit pining over the girl,” Carson added, lifting his beer bottle to his mouth and taking a long swig.
“I’m not pining,” Garrett said defensively. “I’m just…” His voice drifted, his brain unable to come up with an alternative description for the way he felt about Shelby.
Fuck. Fine. Maybe he was pining, just a little. But who could blame him? Shelby was pretty fricking amazing. Look up the definition of sexy California girl in the dictionary and Shelby Harper’s picture would be there—her wavy, sun-streaked blonde hair, her big blue eyes with those incredibly long eyelashes, and the slender athletic body she kept in shape by surfing at Coronado Beach every morning.
Most of the Navy guys who met her thought she was the typical West Coast blonde, complete with the dumb part, but Garrett had only needed five minutes with the woman to know she was the furthest thing from dumb and typical.
Shelby Harper was smart as hell. Funny as hell. Nice as hell.
And there wasn’t a chance in hell that she’d ever get naked with a guy like him.
“Look,” Carson said after Garrett’s silence had lasted a bit too long. “You’ve spent the last year acting like a choirboy, coming in here whenever you’re on leave and buying those fancy-pants mocha latte Frappuccinos without ever telling Shelby that what you really want is to get inside her pants.”
“You can’t tell a woman like Shelby you want inside her pants,” Garrett replied with a frown. He took a slow sip of his beer, but the liquid was already room temperature, and room temperature meant about ninety degrees. He forced himself to swallow the tepid beer, then pushed the bottle away.
“Why the hell not? She fills out a pair of pants pretty fucking nicely.”
She sure did…
He forcibly shoved all thoughts of Shelby’s tight ass out of his head. “I can’t treat Shel the way I treated all the SEAL groupies I hooked up with. She’s…classy and…nice. She deserves more than a couple sleazy come-ons.”
“Well, since you’ve been striking out since day one, maybe a couple sleazy come-ons are what you need.”
“I, uh, kinda tried that,” he admitted. “Just now.” A groan rose in his throat. “I offered to fondle her tits and she—”
Carson hooted. “You did what?”
“—pretty much ordered me to get out of her sight,” he finished.
And now…now she was cozying up to Aston, who was clearly trying to get her drunk enough so she wouldn’t care if he was married or not.
“Look, although the fondling line is gold,” Carson chuckled again, “maybe it’s time you accepted the fact that she’s not interested. And do you blame her? This place is right near the base. Think of all the Navy personnel—and groupies—who come in here. She’s probably heard all about your reputation, man.”
Garrett clenched his teeth, fighting the urge to hit something, but deep down he knew Carson had a point. He was by no means a saint, and Shelby had undoubtedly heard some stories about him, most of them true.
At best, she knew his past was a revolving door of women. Lots of women. At worst, she was aware of his wild streak. Maybe even the threesomes, some with none other than Carson Scott, the guy sitting right beside him.
But his reputation was the reason he’d tried taking a different approach when it came to Shelby. He hadn’t been overly flirtatious, hadn’t acted disrespectfully, and he certainly hadn’t made it obvious just how badly he wanted her naked beneath him while he drove his cock inside her and made her scream his name while she came…
Shit, definitely not a good idea to be thinking about stuff like that. He was already hot enough thanks to this heat wave.
Next to him, Carson wasn’t finished with his lecture. “Shelby’s not a wild chick, Garrett. You said it yourself—she’s nice, wholesome, you know, the kind of woman who’d probably freak out if you suggested, I don’t know, trying something other than the missionary position. She’s got a body that won’t quit, sure, but there’s this whole innocent schoolgirl thing going on there. Maybe it’s the freckles.”
“I like the freckles.”
“Yeah, me too. But I’m telling you, women with freckles are ridiculously vanilla when it comes to sex. I speak from experience, man.”
Garrett laughed. “Let me guess, your little black book has an entire section reserved for freckle-faced women.”
The other man just grinned, which made Garrett wonder if Carson really did categorize his conquests… Nah, even Carson wasn’t that sleazy.
His brain stumbled over the word sleazy, and he had to wonder if that’s how Shelby saw him. He hoped not, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she did. Even though he’d bid goodbye to his wild ways, his reputation did precede him. So did his rep as SEAL, though Shel didn’t seem all that impressed with his line of work. Most women were ready to rip their clothes off when they found out he was a big bad SEAL, an all-American hero. Yet he got the feeling Shelby viewed his job as a turn-off. He knew she’d dated a Marine a couple years ago and that the relationship had ended badly, so he’d always made a point not to talk about his work. Not that it helped. Seemed like nothing he did impressed the woman.
“You don’t want to have sex with Shelby Harper,” Carson was saying, still sipping on his beer.
Garrett rolled his eyes. “Cuz she has freckles?”
“That, and she’s too fucking sweet. She’s definitely not the type who’d be uninhibited in the bedroom.” Carson laughed. “Can you ever see her going for kinky sex, or hell, a threesome? Shit, I’d love to be in the room and see her face if you ever suggested something like that.”
A cheer echoed through the café. Garrett shifted his head and saw a couple of petty officers high-fiving over another run from the Padres.
Not interested in the game, he turned his gaze back to Carson, but not before he caught another flicker of movement from the corner of his eye. He quickly glanced at the doorway leading to the bakery, but it was empty.
Okay. He could’ve sworn he’d seen a flash of yellow—Shelby’s clingy little tank top maybe?—but when he peered into the next room, he saw she was by the counter, still chatting with Lieutenant Asshole.
Another wave of jealousy slammed into him, even fiercer than the first. Goddammit. He hated the raw emotion that Shelby, with her vivid blue eyes and mouthwatering body, evoked inside him. It killed him how much he wanted her. All she had to do was bat those long lashes in his direction, give him the slightest hint that she was interested, and he’d be by her side in
an instant. No, screw by her side. One word—and the word was yes—and he’d be so deep inside her pussy that neither of them would be able to walk again for days.
The thought made his cock twitch.
He needed to get out of here. If it weren’t a million degrees out there, he might have left. Gone home, taken a quick dip in his condo’s pool and slid into bed. But spending the rest of the night in the dark, sweating out this heat wave, was seriously unappealing. Shelby’s café was the only place with power. Besides, as annoying as it was watching her with another man, at least he could keep an eye on her while he was here. Make sure she didn’t get plastered and do something stupid. Like the lieutenant.
Yeah, that’s why you’re sticking around, a small voice taunted.
Fine, so maybe a part of him was hoping Shelby would get plastered and do him.
A guy could dream, right?
2
Can you ever see her going for kinky sex, or hell, a threesome?
Shelby kept running the words over and over again in her head, wondering if she’d somehow imagined them. It was hard enough to think in this sweltering heat—add to that a shot of tequila and you got one struggling-to-function brain.
But no, she couldn’t have imagined it. She’d heard Garrett and Carson, loud and clear, as they’d discussed her. Scratch that—as they’d discussed all the reasons to not have sex with her.
It was quite insulting that they’d been locker-room talking about her in her place of business. And yet a part of her was…flattered.
Jeez, what was wrong with her? How could she possibly be flattered by the fact that Garrett and his buddy thought she was vanilla?
At least it answered the question she’d been asking herself this past year. Why didn’t John Garrett want her? Well, because apparently she wasn’t wild enough for him.
Oh, she knew he liked her. He’d made that pretty clear during his chat with Carson. But he’d also made it clear that he thought she was sweet. Not sweet, as in “man, she’s got a sweet ass” but sweet as in “I don’t want to fuck her because she’s obviously a huge prude in the sack”.
“I am not a prude,” she mumbled.
“What was that, hon?”
Her head jerked up and she realized Paul was beside her again. “Oh. Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” she lied, suddenly wishing this man would just disappear.
One of the other officers was throwing up in the café restroom, so she’d let the lieutenant use the bathroom in the upstairs apartment, where she’d lived for the past two years. Paul’s absence had allowed her to eavesdrop on Garrett’s conversation, but now she kind of wished she’d never been nosy enough to lurk in the doorway. The last thing a woman wanted to hear was that the man she had the hots for didn’t think she was wild enough for him.
“So what do you say we kick all these losers out and go upstairs?”
Okay, maybe that was the last thing a woman wanted to hear.
She shot the lieutenant a pointed look. “What would your wife have to say about that?”
He looked startled for a moment, then glanced down at the gold wedding band on his left hand as if remembering it was there.
Uh, yeah, buddy, maybe take the ring off before you try to hit on a woman who isn’t your wife.
“My wife and I are actually separated,” Paul said quickly.
Yeah right.
“I’m sure the separation must be very painful for you,” Shelby said politely.
“So, the going upstairs idea…” He looked at her with a hopeful expression.
She just stared at him.
The hope dissipated like a puff of smoke. “Right.” He shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
She opened her mouth to retort that, yes, she could blame a guy for trying, especially a married one, but he scurried off before she could speak.
Trying not to roll her eyes, Shelby watched as Paul ambled into the café, muttered something to the officer he’d arrived with, then left her establishment without a backwards glance.
“Jerk,” she muttered under her breath.
“Please tell me you had something to do with Lieutenant Asshole running off like that.” Carson Scott appeared in the doorway, a broad grin on his face.
“You guys call him Lieutenant Asshole?” she said with a laugh.
“Either that or Sleazebag Paul. It’s hard to pick one, seeing as he’s both an ass and a sleaze. We tend to alternate.”
Shelby peered past Carson’s impossibly broad shoulders, trying to catch a glimpse of Garrett. Apparently the game was over, because most of the men in the other room were pushing back their chairs and heading for the door. A few approached the doorway to thank her for opening up the bakery. She just smiled, waved and wondered where the hell Garrett had run off to. Probably to find a woman who was into kinky sex and threesomes.
Too bad. Because if he’d ever bothered to ask her, he might be surprised to learn that she was exactly that kind of woman. Just because she’d never acted out any of her fantasies didn’t mean she didn’t have ’em.
“So we’re taking off,” Carson was saying. “But we thought we’d help you clean up a little before we left. Garrett took the beer bottles out to the recycling bin. I came in here to get a rag so I could wipe down the tables.”
She was genuinely touched. “You guys don’t have to do that.”
“It’s the least we could do. You didn’t have to open the café tonight, but you did. Might as well repay you with some clean-up.”
He shot her a crooked smile, and a flicker of heat sparked inside her belly. Carson really was an attractive man, she realized. She’d been lusting over Garrett for so long she’d barely noticed what any of his friends looked like. Now, she actually took the time to look at Carson Scott, really look at him. And she definitely liked what she saw.
Dirty blond hair, cut short but not short enough that he looked like all the crew cut boys who walked around Coronado. His eyes were blue, his features classically handsome, and he was as ripped as his friend Garrett. Obviously you couldn’t be a Navy SEAL without possessing one of those hard, sleek bodies that never failed to make a girl drool.
“Do I have icing on my chin or something?” Carson teased. “Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten one of those cupcakes you brought out to us.”
“No, nothing on your chin,” she said, cheeks warm as she turned away and stopped checking him out.
She rounded the counter and grabbed a rag, then handed it to him. Trying not to stare at his ass, she trailed him into the café and watched as he efficiently wiped down all the tabletops. Carson had just finished when Garrett returned, the chimes over the door jingling as he walked inside.
Shelby’s heart immediately did a couple of jumping jacks. Damn it. Why did John Garrett always manage to make her pulse race?
“Thanks for having us.” Garrett’s voice was slightly gruff.
“No problem.” She swallowed when she saw him edge back toward the door. She was suddenly anxious for him not to leave.
She still couldn’t believe he thought she was vanilla, and maybe it was crazy—fine, it was crazy—but she got the feeling a golden opportunity was staring her square in the eye. That tonight would be her one chance to show him that she wasn’t the sweet, freckle-faced prude he obviously thought she was.
“Well…good night,” he said.
Their gazes locked, and she could swear the air hissed and crackled with mutual attraction.
Fine, it was probably the heat making the crackling noise, but still…
She broke the eye contact and slowly glanced over at Carson, who’d dropped the rag on one of the tables and was moving toward his friend.
Don’t let them leave.
The urgent voice inside her head caught her off-guard, but only for a second. Because after that second was up, she realized she really was looking at a golden opportunity. A delicious, ridiculously tempting opportunity.
She’s too fucking sweet. She’s definite
ly not the type who’d be uninhibited in the bedroom.
God, it would be so wickedly satisfying to prove them wrong. Show Garrett that his kinks didn’t scare her and that she was perfectly capable of taking him on. Taking them both on.
Heat simmered in her belly, radiated in her limbs and made her weak with…lust. Oh God. She’d always imagined what it would be like. Two men. At the same time. The guys she’d dated in the past would have been appalled if she admitted to that particular fantasy. Even Matthew, who’d seen nothing wrong with sleeping around on her, would have been horrified.
Was she crazy? Perverted? Suffering from heat stroke?
Maybe, but who the heck cared? They were all adults here. And yeah, maybe she was a little tipsy from the tequila, but like Lieutenant Asshole had said, tipsy shmipsy. What was so wrong with acting wild and crazy every now and then?
If wild was what she needed to be to show Garrett she could rock his world, then why not?
“See you later, Shel,” Carson said.
Garrett’s hand was on the doorknob.
“It’s still early,” she found herself blurting. “You guys should stay and hang out a while longer.”
His hand froze as he glanced at her over his shoulder. “You want us to stay?”
She managed a feeble shrug. “Sure. Sleazebag Paul left his tequila bottle here. We might as well put it to good use.”
Both men just stared at her, but Garrett’s hand did drop from the door handle…
“Besides,” she added, “it’s so hot out there.”
“Pretty hot in here, too,” she heard Carson murmur.
She met Garrett’s gorgeous brown eyes and offered a little smile. “So. What do you say?”
* * *
Garrett decided he was dreaming. Because, really, there was no other explanation for what just happened. One moment he and Carson were about to leave Shelby’s café, the next she’d somehow convinced them to stay and put a quarter-full tequila bottle to good use. He didn’t know why he’d agreed, but somehow he had, and now here he was, watching Shelby Harper toss her head back and take a shot.
Out of Uniform Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 2