The Marine Meets His Match

by Cathie Linz

  “Your front door was unlatched. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? Anyone could have walked in.”

  Rad’s presence in her state of undress unsettled Serena. So did the way her body responded to his closeness. So she called up her defenses. “I’ve been meaning to complain to the new landlord about fixing that door.” Her voice was tart, not stupid and breathless. Good.

  “Why did you agree to come to dinner?” Rad demanded, keeping his hands on her bare arms.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about your grandmother?” she countered, wanting to step away but afraid that doing so might dislodge her precarious hold on her bath towel.

  “I was thinking I wouldn’t have to let my family in on our charade.”

  “Well, apparently you thought wrong. Not for the first time, either.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  His obvious aggravation fired her own anger. “You thought pretending to be engaged to me would be a simple matter.”

  “And I thought you were going to help me out and make things easier,” Rad growled. “Not more complicated.”

  One second he was glaring at her, and the next he was kissing her.

  Chapter Five

  Serena hung onto her towel for dear life. There was no use even trying to hang on to her composure. That had flown out the window the second his lips covered hers.

  If Rad had kissed her with anger, Serena would have shoved him away without hesitation. But instead he devoured her with passion. There was no fighting that. Not when it felt so good. This was better than good. This was heaven. All consuming. His hands slid up her bare arms to her shoulders, his touch communicating strength, mastery and tenderness.

  Not that he was subduing her. He was seducing her with every tantalizing thrust of his tongue. She’d parted her lips willingly and was now reveling in the increased pleasure of his mouth on hers. She was burning up inside. The heat of his kiss and his body was exhilarating.

  There was no time for thought, no gradual escalation in the intimacy of their first kiss. It had started out with devouring hunger and it continued on that way, on his part…and on hers. She gave as good as she got, matching his exploration with a boldness she never knew she possessed. Serena Sensuous, that was her.…

  “Yoo-hoo. Rad, are you and Serena ready yet?”

  The sound of Wanda’s cheerful voice echoing up the hallway outside her apartment was enough to shatter Serena’s momentary immersion in desire.

  Gasping, she pulled away, barely hanging onto her bath towel. She stared at Rad with wide-eyed confusion.

  He stared back with an unreadable expression in his dark eyes.

  Leaving him to take care of Wanda, Serena high-tailed it into her bedroom with a speed that would have done her cats proud. Once there, she shut the door and locked it, bouncing her derriere on the wood to make sure the door was totally latched.

  What had just happened?

  He kissed you, you idiot.

  I know that. I’ve been kissed before. But not like that.

  She should cancel, she should tell Rad she couldn’t go visit his brother. She could tell Wanda she wasn’t feeling well.

  Her head was spinning and her fingers were trembling.

  A sure sign of sexual attraction, but maybe it was the flu. She could tell Wanda she was coming down with the flu.

  What was one more lie after so many?

  No. Serena was not going to hide in her room like…like her mother. She was going to hold her head high and get the job done. And the job was pretending to be Rad’s fiancée.

  She hadn’t considered the fact that kissing might be part of the package. Bad planning on her part. She should have thought ahead.

  She could handle this. One step at a time. She dressed quickly. She would manage, just as she’d always managed in the past.

  “I’m bringing someone.” Rad spoke into his cell phone. He’d caught his grandmother before she’d come upstairs, assuring her that he’d be down shortly, and was now calling his brother from the hallway outside Serena’s apartment.

  “Yeah, I know,” Ben replied. “Busha called me to come pick her up at some bookstore.”

  “Why did she do that?”

  “Because your Corvette is a two-seater and if you’re bringing someone that means there’s no place for Busha to sit…unless you planned on strapping our grandmother to the roof of your car?”

  “Very funny.”

  “So, you want to tell me what’s up?”

  “Not really, but I probably need to give you the latest intel on the situation.”

  “What situation?”

  “I’m engaged.”

  “Come again?”

  “You heard me.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Recently. She’s the person I’m bringing tonight at Busha’s insistence.”

  “Does this female have a name?

  “Serena Anderson. She owns the bookstore where you’re picking up Busha.”

  “Nice place.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I just pulled up in front and Busha is coming out.”

  “Listen, whatever I say tonight just go along with it, understood? Busha knows nothing.”

  “She knows more than I do if she’s already met your fiancée.”

  “Serena is a good girl,” Rad could hear Busha saying in the background. “Her mother is three-quarters Polish but taught her nothing of her heritage.”

  Ben said, “I’m sure you’ll fix that, right, Busha?”

  “Remember, go along with whatever I say,” Rad reminded Ben.

  “Don’t I always?” his older brother mocked him.

  “Rarely.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Busha demanded.

  “Rad.”

  “Tell him not to dillydally. I am going to make cheese pierogies tonight.”

  “You heard her.” Rad could tell his brother was having a hard time not cracking up. “No dillydallying.”

  Rad’s muttered curse relayed the fact that he did not appreciate his brother’s humor.

  “So does Striker know?” Ben asked.

  “No.”

  “Mom and Dad?”

  “No, and don’t you even think about telling them.”

  “Hey, it’s your funeral,” Ben noted cheerfully.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “See you later, bro.”

  Rad turned around to find Serena standing behind him.

  She’d exchanged her bath towel for a very respectable and in his opinion way-too-long black skirt. Her red sleeveless top looked like Busha could have knit it, but it did show off Serena’s breasts even if it also covered them up. When she moved forward he was intrigued to see the slit in the skirt that revealed the curve of her knee and just a hint of thigh.

  Her blond hair was piled on top of her head with a few loose strands falling around her face. She wore dangly silver earrings and a silver bracelet and watch. No rings.

  He eyed her bare left finger. “We have to get an engagement ring tomorrow.”

  “I’ve got the book signing tomorrow.”

  “With the Sexual Goddess.”

  “That’s right.”

  “We’ll go after that. We have an agreement, remember.”

  “There’s no way I could forget.” There was no way she could forget the kiss they’d so recently shared either. Although Rad apparently was not suffering from the same difficulty. Judging by his attitude, he’d moved on. For a moment she thought he’d given her a heated look when he’d first seen her, but then he’d regained his war face, devoid of expression.

  He was no doubt accustomed to kissing so many women that she was just one in a crowd. And while she’d kissed a fair number of men, she’d never experienced the jolt of raw pleasure she’d felt when his lips had covered hers.

  Even now, just the memory of it was enough to set her heart racing.

  Serena Sensuous needed locking up so that Serena Serious
could come back out and regain control of the situation. “Tell me about the brother we’re visiting tonight.”

  “Ben doesn’t know the real story.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “The real story being?”

  “That this is a fake engagement.”

  “Fake” somehow sounded cheesier than make-believe or pretend engagement. She stifled the unexpected pang by focusing her attention on locking her apartment door. By the time she turned, she’d shoveled her emotions beneath a calm veneer. “Tell me which brother Ben is again.”

  “He’s the second oldest.” Rad shot her an impatient look while holding the downstairs door open for her. “Maybe you should be writing this down so you don’t forget.”

  “Ben, the caretaker in the family. Married his wife Ellie a little over a year ago. She had a child named Amy that Ben has since adopted. Amy is six. Am I right so far?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Two hours later, Serena knew even more. She’d discovered that Amy had asthma and loved a stuffed dragon named Ernie Infernie, based on stories Ben made up for her. And that Ben adored his new family. He also loved razzing his younger brother, who seemed to enjoy razzing him right back. There was a camaraderie there, that as an only child, Serena could only envy.

  “They’re something, aren’t they?” Ellie noted fondly as she watched the two men jockeying for position in front of the state-of-the-art outside grill. “I have to confess that the first time I saw the brothers all together, I almost drowned in the ocean of testosterone.”

  “Ben’s the first brother I’ve met.” Serena took a sip of iced tea.

  “He’s the best one, but I may be prejudiced in saying that.”

  Serena shared a smile with Ellie, who then added, “I’m sure you think Rad is the best one.”

  “I’m sure the brothers are all special in their own way.”

  “They’re all Marines, you know.”

  Serena nodded. “I know. Rad already told me.”

  “When he caught the garter at the renewal of our vows ceremony a few months ago, no one really believed that Rad would ever settle down.”

  “I can understand that.” Men like Rad didn’t marry brainy booksellers and settle down. They went with seductive sirens with exotic names like Giselle and had sex with them in the back seat of his Corvette.

  Wait, his car didn’t have a back seat.

  Okay, then he had sex with them in other evocative places—against a wall in their apartment, perhaps.

  “We think it’s a good thing, though,” Ellie stated.

  What? Rad making love to the exotic Giselle was a good thing?

  “He needed someone to give him roots.”

  If only Ellie knew the truth, that Serena was only a fake fiancée and that her own roots didn’t go that deep. She’d moved around so much as a kid that she’d always longed for someplace permanent, a place you kept and didn’t pack up and leave.

  But that was the lifestyle of the military and therefore of their family as well. Just one of the many reasons why Serena shouldn’t get romantically involved with Rad.

  “Not that Rad doesn’t take his responsibilities seriously,” Ellie was saying. “And since I’ve only been married less than eighteen months myself, I’m probably not experienced enough to be giving you advice.”

  “Sure you are. If you’ve got any tips on how to deal with stubborn Marines, I’d be more than happy to hear them.”

  Ellie laughed. “You sound like me when I first met Ben. When he walked into the bar where I was working, I didn’t want anything to do with him. He started giving me orders almost instantly. They can’t seem to help themselves. Even now he reverts back sometimes.”

  “How do you manage? You don’t seem like the mild and meek type.”

  “You’ve got that right. How do I manage? I remind him that my independence is one of the things he loves about me.”

  “Does that work?”

  “Rarely. Distracting them works really well, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Taking a new plate load of meat, Ellie sauntered on over to her husband. She placed her hand on his bare arm and leaned closer to whisper in his ear. Ben immediately stopped his argument with Rad and grinned down at his wife, tugging her closer to plant a kiss on her lips.

  When Ellie returned to Serena she grinned. “See what I mean?”

  “That won’t work with Rad.”

  “Why not?”

  Because the engagement wasn’t real, so Rad wasn’t vulnerable to her feminine wiles.

  “Go ahead, try it.” Ellie nudged her forward.

  “No, I couldn’t. Not in front of everyone.” Serena would die of embarrassment if Rad rejected her, or worse looked at her with pity. She felt bad enough deceiving his lovely family.

  “The pierogies are ready,” Wanda announced from the kitchen behind them. “We are sitting down to eat now, yes?”

  “Affirmative, Busha.” Ben waved his metal prongs in the air before using them to rescue a steak from the grill. “Let’s eat.”

  “Just remember what I told you,” Rad cautioned him.

  “I can’t believe you did this. You, an intelligence officer, the ‘answer man’, and this was the best cover story you could come up with?”

  “Shut up or someone will hear you.”

  “If you want this to work you need to stop looking so guilty.”

  Now Rad was really offended. Him? Look guilty? As if he were a wimp who wore his heart on his sleeve. There were those who even doubted he had a heart. He liked it that way. It made life less complicated.

  “You know your problem?” Rad retorted. “You’ve been domesticated.”

  Rad could tell that Ben was now equally ticked-off. His older brother stepped forward, his chin thrust out. Then he stopped as if some kind of internal light bulb had suddenly been switched on. Ben appeared dazed and then he just grinned stupidly. “Yeah, I guess I am domesticated. When I’m at home. And you know what? I like it. I downright love it. Having a wife who loves me and a child who makes every day brighter, oh yeah. I do downright love it.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Crazy in love. Yeah. I am. You should try it.”

  Rad was horrified at the idea. “No way. I did that once.” His voice was low yet sharp. “Never again.”

  “Liza would have wanted you to be happy.”

  “This isn’t about her, it’s about me.”

  “Are you two coming in or am I going to have to come out there?” Wanda demanded, her hands on her hips.

  “We’ll be there in a minute,” Ben replied.

  “We’ll be in right now,” Rad stated. “This conversation is over.”

  “Still the hothead in the family.” Ben shook his head.

  “Still trying to fix everyone’s problems,” Rad retorted.

  Ben tossed an oven mitt at him.

  “Oh, yeah,” Rad scoffed. “Like that’s gonna hurt me. I tell you, it’s sad to see a fellow Marine like you lobbing oven mitts. What has the world come to?”

  “Sorry, I left my hand grenades at the office,” Ben drawled.

  “I haven’t, so don’t mess with me.”

  Unable to hear their discussion, Serena watched the two men, so alike yet different. Both were extremely good-looking. But Ben had a more open nature than Rad.

  They ate inside in the large great room off the kitchen. The meal was a study in organized chaos, with bowls laden with food being passed from hand to hand as multiple conversations went on at once. Her father would have a fit. She was surprised Rad wasn’t ordering silence and demanding everyone speak in turn. He’d said it himself, he did not like chaos.

  Yet there he sat, looking a little brooding at times, but not barking out any orders. He smiled at his niece often while she laughed or gazed at him adoringly as she was now.

  Rad shook his head at Amy. “Stop batting your eyelashes at me, Princess. I am not going to talk your f
ather into building a miniature golf course in your backyard.”

  “Why not?” Amy stuck out her bottom lip. Serena recognized the beginning of a pout. Her goddaughter Becky had been a pro at the maneuver.

  “Because the miniature golf course is only a few miles down the highway.”

  “But I can’t drive there.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  “So I can’t play whenever I want.”

  “And that’s a tragedy to be sure,” Wanda agreed sympathetically. “How about I teach you some new games after we eat?”

  “What kinds of games?”

  “The best kind.”

  “Which means it must be Polish,” Rad noted dryly.

  Wanda nodded. “Granica is similar to tug-of-war.”

  “Something Marines are very good at,” Rad noted.

  “Then we shall have one on each team.”

  Rad took his responsibilities as team leader very seriously. A glance over at Ben told her that he felt the same way. Both had intense expressions and were using that Marine voice. “Okay, listen up. Busha will give us instructions on how to play. Working together we can win this contest. Go ahead, Busha.” Rad nodded at his grandmother.

  “We hold on to a very long stick…” Wanda began.

  “Daddy says Uncle Rad has to beat women off with a stick. Is that how we play this game?” Amy frowned her disapproval.

  Wanda patted her shoulder reassuringly. “Your daddy was just using a figure of speech meaning that your uncle is popular with women. Beating women is a bad thing.” She shot her grandsons a reprimanding look. “Right, Ben? Right, Rad?”

  “Affirmative,” both replied, their outraged expressions indicating their thoughts.

  Ben added, “A strong man helps those in need.”

  “A strong man protects those in need,” Rad stated.

  Wanda smiled and nodded her approval before returning to a lengthy explanation of the game, which as far as Serena could tell, was just an adaptation of tug-of-war. Only in this case, a stick was used instead of a length of rope.

  Rad and Ben were the first in line on their respective sides, then came Serena and Ellie and at the ends were Wanda and Amy.

  “One to get ready,” Amy shouted, having been assigned the role of starter. “Two to get set. And three to go!”