Not Another New Year's

by Christie Ridgway

  When he and Finn had been assigned the White House detail, they'd watched with stoic calm as the president did everything from eating ice cream with his kids, to screaming at his staff, to taking catnaps at his desk. Surely, Tanner could retain that same professional detachment when dealing with one farm-fresh schoolteacher.

  He pictured Hannah with a spoon and a hot fudge sundae. She'd pluck the cherry from the mountain of whipped cream first, opening her mouth to suck off a smear of fluffy white. It would leave a dab of cream on the deep bow of her upper lip, and from his position in the corner he'd see her pink, wet tongue curl out to—

  "There he is!"

  His eyes popped open and his chair wobbled on two legs a second before crashing down on all four. He grabbed the edge of the small table sliding away from him and yanked it back to cover the half-hard result of his little impromptu fantasy.

  "Christ, Dez," he grumbled, narrowing his eyes at the two women who'd entered the bar. "That's twice in one day. Haven't you heard of knocking first?"

  Desirée looked unrepentant, Hannah a bit anxious. Tanner was struck by their superficial similarity again, especially with Hannah in obvious Desirée-wear: a pair of white sailor-type pants, tight at the hip and wide at the ankle, worn with flat red shoes and a blue, hooded jacket on top. Lust flared inside him again, and he nearly groaned out loud. What was it about her? Or maybe it was that outfit. During his formative adolescent years he'd hidden a Playboy pinup beneath the American flag tacked to the wall opposite his bed. No wonder red, white, and blue got a rise out of him.

  In a nervous movement, Hannah smoothed her palms down the front of her thighs. Just like that, he remembered the flowery scent of her skin as he ran his tongue down her long legs. Christ. Here he went again, hardening into that one-gun salute.

  Clearing his throat, he forced his gaze off her and onto Dez. "Everything all right?" he asked. "Sure." But she looked a little twitchy now too. "Where's, um, Troy?"

  "Troy is right here," his brother boomed out, swinging shut the bar's front door. "The real question is, why are you?"

  Her chin jerked up. "I—"

  "How many times do I have to throw you out, princess, before you get the message you're not wanted?"

  Dez flinched. "I hear you loud and clear, Troy."

  "She's doing me a favor, bro," Tanner interjected. "Lay off, all right?"

  Troy stalked farther into the room, his eyes only for Desirée. Hannah backed off to give him space, and her movement caught his gaze. He halted, blinking. "Hello." He sent Tanner a puzzled look.

  "Why don't you serve yourself and Hannah a soft drink or something, Dez," Tanner suggested. Maybe he'd have better luck uncovering that plan he needed if he talked it over with Troy.

  "Groovy," the woman answered. "Come with me, Hannah." She headed toward the bar on the other side of the room.

  "Don't mess with anything," Troy called out.

  She smiled sweetly at him over her shoulder. "Just your mind, big man. Just your mind."

  Tanner kicked out a chair. "Sit down."

  His brother obeyed, dropping heavily into place, then adjusting his position so he could keep an eye on the women. "What the hell are you doing, Tanner? Isn't that the honey you waltzed out of here with last night on the way to a New Year's shagathon?"

  Honey. Yeah. She'd tasted so damn sweet. He cleared his throat again. "More like she's my carrot."

  Troy frowned. "Say what?"

  "I made a little mistake in my choice of anonymous, one-night shagees. I didn't discover until this morning she's the niece of Geoff Brooks."

  Troy looked blank.

  "You know, the Secret Service's Special Agent in Charge of the San Diego office, Geoff Brooks? My former boss?"

  "Ouch," Troy said. "But—"

  The television over the bar blared to life, shifting his attention from Tanner. At the other side of the room Desirée had filled a couple of glasses with ice and liquid and she now was using the controls to switch the TV station from ESPN. Basketball lost out to some soap opera, complete with soaring violin music and entwined limbs on satin sheets.

  "Who gave you permission to touch the remote?" Troy yelled over the noise.

  Dez gave him another of her saccharine smiles and raised her voice as the music climaxed. "We'll make a deal, okay? Next time you're over at my place, I'll let you play with my vibrator."

  Tanner shot his brother a look. "Next time?"

  Troy's face was ruddy, though it wasn't clear whether it was in reaction to the pointed question or Desirée's mention of the personal appliance. "Forget that," he responded in a gruff voice. "I gave her a ride once. And we were talking about you. What does it matter that your honey—"

  "Hannah."

  "—Hannah is something to Brooks?"

  Tanner pretended he could smile about it. "Before he left on his ski vacation last week, he asked me to do him a favor while he's gone. I agreed to be her tour guide."

  His gaze wandered to the bar again. Standing with her back to him, Hannah had her elbows on the bar and her head tilted toward the overhead TV. Her long dark hair hung low on her back, halfway to that tempting—forbidden—peach of her ass.

  "Then grab a cocktail napkin and draw her a map," Troy suggested. "It's not like she can get herself lost on Coronado."

  Tanner grimaced. "She already lost her luggage and her purse." He explained to his brother what had happened to her at the airport, and made a mental note to check in with the Lindbergh Field authorities the next day. "Dez offered her clothes and a temporary place to stay."

  "So your obligation's complete."

  "It's not quite so easy as that." Nothing had been in months. His life used to be how he liked it— interesting, meaningful work, a woman when he had the itch, family around when he had time for a home-cooked meal or when he felt like kicking back and drinking beers with his brothers. Then, in the blink of a camera's eye, he'd lost control of it.

  "I told you Hannah's my carrot. If I take good care of the female package Geoff left in my trust, then he'll take good care of me."

  Though unspoken, he and his boss had made that agreement. With Tanner's penance almost a year old, if he made Hannah Davis's trip successful, then he would get his heart's desire.

  Troy narrowed his gaze and his eyes gleamed like his shaved head in the overhead lights. "Brooks is finally letting you back in the Secret Ser vice, then. It's about time."

  "Give him some credit. He could have accepted my resignation right after the assassination attempt."

  "Instead he put you on indefinite leave, when we both know who was at fault for that kiss seen 'round the world." Troy sent a look toward Desirée that should have scorched the linoleum.

  "Hey, that could be my wife you're setting on fire with your glare," Tanner said, then tried not to laugh at his brother's classic double take.

  "Huh?"

  "Desirée asked me to marry her this morning." Now that he thought about it, maybe he could use Dez's guilt to get him something he really wanted—that how-to-handle-Hannah plan. If he demanded, surely Dez would be his partner in the tour business for the next ten days. If he was never alone with Hannah's pouty red mouth and those incredible long legs, then maybe he could forget about his hunger to have them both wrapped around certain of his body parts.

  "Well?"

  Tanner blinked at his brother, who was red-faced again. Was that steam coming out of his ears?

  "Well, what?"

  "Are you marrying the princess?"

  "Am I—no!" For God's sake, he was just days away from getting his life back under his own control. He wouldn't screw up that independence for Desirée, or any woman, for that matter. "This isn't the time in my life for romance, that's shit for sure."

  Troy sat back in his chair with a satisfied air. "Just checking."

  "Do I look stupid? She's beautiful and rich, but—"

  "Also shallow and spoiled and in need of some discipline." Troy nodded to himself, and Tanner didn't fo
rget that his older brother had spent years drilling brand-new Marines.

  He cleared his throat. "Troy. Bro. Dez is not one of your raw recruits. You can't—"

  A crash jerked both their heads toward the bar. Beside it had stood a six-foot stack of plastic racks holding clean barware, ready to be put away. Now half were knocked over, and dozens of broken glasses were shattered at Desirée's feet.

  She looked up, her eyes wide and fastened on Troy's face. "I'm sorry. I was demonstrating to Hannah a new dance move I saw at a club the other night and..." Her shoulders shrugged.

  Troy shot up, his chair legs screeching against the clean floor like fingernails on a chalkboard. He flicked a glance toward Tanner. "What were you about to say? That I can't whip her into shape? Well, I sure as hell can try."

  Then he stalked toward the bar, the room heating up as he approached. Tanner followed his brother, taking in Hannah's expression, which looked as wary as his might be if he didn't know his brother so well.

  Crossing his arms over his wide chest, Troy came to a halt before the mess of broken barware, his legs splayed wide, his burning gaze trained on Desirée.

  She swallowed hard but stood her ground. "I can pay for the damage," she said quickly. "Oh, you will, princess," Troy said, his voice deadly soft.

  Hannah looked up in some alarm as Tanner reached her. He tried to reassure her with a smile as he wrapped his hand around her wrist. His orders via her uncle, showing her a good time in good ol' Coronado, certainly shouldn't start off with what ever knockdown, drag-out Troy had in mind for Desirée. It wasn't going to be physical, of course, but it probably wasn't going to be pretty either.

  "I think that's our cue to leave," he said.

  And only once they were out the bar's door and into the January Southern California sunshine did he remember he'd already blown his plan.

  They were alone again. And he was going to have to keep control of himself if he was going to regain control of his life.

  Chapter Nine

  Despite himself, Troy admired the princess's courage. When faced with his wrath, many a Marine "boot"—new recruit—had looked like they were one second away from screaming for Mommy.

  Desirée, on the other hand, looked like she had steel in her spine and ice in her heart.

  Then he remembered that her mother would be unlikely to come to Dez's aid anyway. The once-supermodel, now famous only for her numerous addictions and nearly as many ex-husbands, had never cared a rat's ass for the daughter she'd given birth to twenty-four years before. When "the Kiss" had first become big news almost a year ago, Troy had read every article and watched each of the tabloid TV stories, wincing for his younger brother all the while.

  But remembering the quotes from Desirée's mother, his gut gave a twist for the girl now facing him down. "I never wanted a child," the beauteous but dissipated Maureen was quoted as saying. "Her father insisted, though, and then we were both disappointed that the baby was a girl."

  Stupid-shit people. Both of them. If Troy ruled the world, parenting would be strictly licensed and heavily regulated.

  He reached out to grab Desirée's upper arms and pluck her from the tumble of broken glass around her feet. She gasped in surprise, squirming in his hold. The silky ends of her dark hair waved across the top of his hands, and prickles rose along his skin, tickling everywhere.

  He dumped her a few feet away and then rubbed a hand over his shaven head. "Are you hurt?" he ground out, sounding meaner than he meant to.

  Her wide-eyed gaze dropped from his face to her arms, bared by this tiny, distracting, diabolical T-shirt she was wearing. It was yellow, thin as a handkerchief, and lopped off across her belly button, leaving inches of golden skin between the hem and the waistband of her low-riding scarlet jeans.

  "I'll let you know if I have bruises tomorrow," she said.

  Aghast, he took a quick step forward. "Did I—" He stopped, noticing her too innocent look. "I was talking about the broken glass, as you very well know," he said. "Were you cut?"

  She shook her head, not even bothering to glance down at her feet, clad in turquoise suede boots, with heels higher than a Manhattan skyscraper. "I'm fine."

  But she wasn't. For months she'd been hanging around town, making life hell for his little brother and Tanner's friend Finn. Finn called her the "Mad Gift Giver" because she kept trying to come up with appropriate thank-yous for the way the other man had saved her father's life. She'd yet to find a way to pay back Tanner for the havoc she'd wreaked on his.

  "You're nuts," he told her, remembering what Tanner had said a few minutes ago. "Thinking my brother would even for a minute consider marrying you."

  Her expression didn't change. A beat passed, and then she shrugged. "It was just an idea."

  "An idea for what?" he threw out. "What the hell goes on inside your bratty, puny brain?"

  That seemed to pierce her cool hide. "Magna cum laude." Her eyes glittered as she tapped her chest.

  Her tits were maybe the best he'd ever seen. Round, and her bra must have been flimsy because he could see her hard little nipples poking against the fabric of her shirt. He swung his gaze back to her face, hoping she hadn't noticed what he'd been noticing.

  "That's graduated with high honors," she said, her lip curling in a sneer.

  "Semper fidelis," he shot back. "That's Marine talk for I can kick your butt into Monday."

  Her sneer made way for a smile. "Troy, it is Monday."

  He wanted to strangle her. Embrace her. Kill her. Kiss her. From the moment they'd met through every moment since, she'd gotten on his very last nerve...and somehow still wrapped his libido around her dainty little finger.

  Even now he could feel that pooling heaviness in his groin, and it only made him angrier.

  It was time someone taught her a lesson. She couldn't go around making messes in other people's lives and expect that a gift, a smile, or a marriage proposal, for God-frickin'-sake, would make up for it. He jerked his thumb toward the dozens of glasses now turned into thousands of shards. "Well, Ms. Magna Cum Laude, what are you prepared to do about that?"

  Her smile fell away. She stepped toward him and put her hand on his arm. "I am sorry. It was an accident."

  His muscle hardened beneath her soft touch. This close, he could smell her too, and it was sandalwood and some other exotic spice. A mysterious scent, and for a moment Desirée reminded him of the women he'd glimpsed in Afghanistan, almost completely hidden except through the latticed screens of their voluminous robes.

  But she wasn't camouflaging any of her body. All the curves and planes were out there for him— for anyone—to see. And he already knew who she was inside—spoiled and selfish. He shook her hand off his arm.

  "Still, princess," he said. "You're going to have to make reparation."

  She tucked the hand that had been touching him underneath the other arm. "Of course. I can do that." Her hair slid over her shoulder as she glanced around the bar. "Let me get my purse. Do you take American Express, or would Visa work better for you?"

  "I don't take credit cards at all."

  "Yes, you do," she answered, sounding annoyed. "On the few occasions I've been in here before you saw me and ordered me out, plenty of people have used plastic."

  "That's one of your problems, Desirée. You think money—plastic money, no less—can solve everything."

  She rolled her eyes. "There's an ATM a block over. Tell me how much you want for the damage and I'll be back with it in a flash."

  Troy shook his head. "That's not good enough either."

  Now there was a little wild look about her. "What the heck is it you want, Troy?"

  To scare her off. To finally get her to go away. For months she'd been worming her cute little ass into his world. She'd made it too far already. His own mother had wanted to invite her to the family home at Christmas, for God's sake.

  Yeah, he'd known Desirée had no one and likely nowhere to go for the holidays, but she was the enemy, wasn't she? Sn
eaky like them too. It was a different kind of war they were fighting these days, war in which the combatants didn't wear traditional uniforms or fight with traditional weapons. And Desirée could slay him, if she only knew, with her body in those jeans and T-shirt. With a kiss like the one she'd given his brother in front of all the world.

  He had to find a way to stop it! Troy Hart had medals for bravery, but she made them all seem a sham.

  It was much too easy for her to make him weak.

  "I want you to work, really work, to pay off the debt," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Her mouth pursed in suspicion. "What do you mean? You want me to go find a job?"

  "I'll give you the job. Right here. Starting right now." She would run, of course. He sensed that inside that poised shell of hers she was as scared of him as he refused to be of her.

  She propped one fist on one sweetly rounded hip. "Doing what?"

  "What ever I say." He shrugged. "Swabbing the deck, cleaning the heads, the kind of real grunt work that will ruin your manicure as well as your mood."

  "And if I refuse?"

  "Then you leave town, princess. Find yourself another kingdom in which to play."

  He watched her mull his proposal over. There was her pride to consider, but he didn't think it was any match for the idea of true labor. Labor supervised by him.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, he held his breath so he wouldn't take in another lungful of that bewitching scent of hers. He was just a couple of seconds from finding peace, he figured, and he deserved that after all the sound and fury he'd experienced during war.

  "So, uh, well," Tanner said, looking down at Hannah. The late afternoon sunlight bounced off her dark hair, finding threads of red and gold he hadn't noticed before. "Did you do all right with Desirée?"