Warriors,Winners & Wicked Lies: 13 Book Excite Spice Military, Sports & Secret Baby Mega Bundle (Excite Spice Boxed Sets)

by Selena Kitt

  That was bad enough, hating her client. Anger wouldn’t help anything. What was worse, she wanted him—badly. Her desire for him was making her act like a bitch. She felt like a bitch.

  As she left the restaurant Di realized she couldn’t go back to the office. She needed a way to let off steam, preferably without hurting anyone. It had been a few days since she’d been to the gym, but her bag was still in the trunk. An hour or two of working out hard would help her think straight.

  The gym was fairly empty when she came in. A weekday afternoon was a good time to have the place more or less to yourself. She waved a greeting at Jacob, the trainer the gym had assigned her when she signed up. It struck her that he looked exactly the way she expected a trainer, a successful one, to look. A Hollywood movie couldn’t find anyone who looked more the part. He was well built, of course, as this was a no wimps need apply job, with short-cropped hair and a firm jaw. He wore shorts and shoes and he’d been working out; a sheen of sweat glowed on his black skin. If she’d been asked his age, she’d have guessed him to be a few years younger than she, maybe mid twenties. He seemed personable enough and of course he was outgoing and friendly in a professional smile. Sometimes she’d seen him looking at her with a smile that was far less professional and rather flattering.

  She’d worked with Jacob at first, but she knew little about him. Once he’d set up a routine for her, they hadn’t interacted a great deal. She went in and did her exercises and he’d check with her, making sure she was doing them correctly and sometimes adding or subtracting a little weight. Other than to get questions answered, she had little to say to him. She found him sexy, and when he touched her, adjusting the way she held weights, or her posture, she enjoyed it. Who wouldn’t like having a guy like that cheerfully putting his hands on her body?

  Today the smile he gave her suggested a welcome that went beyond the studied professional friendliness she expected. But then, that was what she needed and wanted to see right then. Trainers seemed good at reading their clients. Maybe they were as good as therapists.

  “Looking for a hard workout today?” he asked, reading her mind. He nodded toward the rowing machine. “It works out the back, the arms, the legs and aggression all at the same time.”

  “That sounds perfect. I’ll get changed.”

  He was waiting, smiling at her when she emerged from the dressing room. She let him adjust the machine for her and soon she was rowing a virtual boat over still waters to the rhythm of a rock beat from a music video on the club entertainment system. He’d been right about the value of this machine for her workout. Soon she began to feel the anger and frustration seep out of her. When she shifted to weight machines, Jacob came around to make suggestions about her posture.

  When she was on the bench press, he came over, clucking. “You need to be directly under the weight, not at an angle. Let me show you.” He put his hands on her hips and moved her gently.

  “I can feel the difference,” she told him. And she could and she also could feel that the touch of his strong hands on her body made her feel wonderful. Aroused. The warmth of his smile played it’s own part. Gone was the professional encouraging smile. This was for her and it made her tingle. “Don’t overdo,” he said. “We don’t want you so sore you don’t keep up your exercise program.”

  “Then maybe I better stop. My shoulders are feeling it already.”

  “A hot shower will help.”

  She looked at him and imagined a dozen things she thought would make her feel much better than a hot shower. They hadn’t been offered, however. She gave him a lingering look, a hungry look. “Good idea.”

  Tina came in the restaurant to find Trevor sitting with a tall older woman. Trevor had asked her to meet him there, so he was expecting her. She wondered what was going on.

  Trevor saw her and stood up. “Dallas, I’d like you to meet Ms. Tina Clarke. She’d the executive that arranged and is executing my public relations activities. Tina, this is Dallas Meredith; the wife of General Meredith.”

  Tina eyed the woman suspiciously.

  “I hadn’t seen Trevor here since the reception,” Dallas said. “When I came in and saw him sitting at the table, I just had to sit down and catch up on things. And that hot therapist of his was here too. Isn’t that amazing?” Tina cringed, wondering if that had been arranged too. It seemed like an extraordinary coincidence. Dallas seemed to think so too. “I almost never see anyone I know here and I come in all the time. And here Trevor waltzes in for the first time, so he claims, and runs into three women he knows.”

  “Tina and I were meeting for a business lunch,” he said. “She likes to brief me on all the important facets of our meetings, who the key people are and so on, ahead of time so that I can pretend I am glad to see them.”

  Dallas stood up. “I love that cynicism of yours. Well, I’ll move along and let you two get to it.” She grinned wickedly. “Of course I mean your meeting. I just came in for takeout anyway, and I’m sure it’s all ready. The General loves Italian food the way I make it, and the way I make it is to have them do it.” She grinned. “I hate cooking, and can’t cook for shit.” She touched Tina’s arm. “But we don’t need to tell men our secrets, do we?”

  “No,” Tina said. She felt like she was missing some subtext, but couldn’t tell for certain.

  As Dallas went to the cashier and paid for a large box of Italian food, Trevor leaned forward. “She likes to pretend she messes around, and loves to flirt.”

  “Was that what that was about? Flirting for sport?” Tina asked.

  “I’m not quite sure.”

  “And that doctor, Diane, was here?”

  “She was. She was eating her lunch. I didn’t even see her. Dallas is the one who saw her.”

  “And you are going to tell me that you didn’t have any idea she’d be here?”

  “That’s right.”

  Tina ordered a glass of wine and considered what was going on. She could buy the General’s wife coming in for takeout, but she the idea that the therapist was running into Trevor off base didn’t ring true. Trevor played people, and didn’t mind doing it. She needed to watch herself.

  “This afternoon we are going to a ceremony honoring…” she started, deciding that for the moment she wanted to play things as business as usual. Trevor flashed her an unsettling smile, letting her know he was onto her game.

  When Diane came out of the dressing room, she found Jacob sitting in the juice bar. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked. “I just got off duty.”

  The idea of refusing a fresh glass of juice seemed rude, so she accepted and soon they were chatting. Jacob turned out to have been a psych major in college, switching over late in his program. “I was spending more time in the gym than the library, and a friend who was an econ major pointed out to me that I was diluting my capital. I couldn’t have that, now could I?”

  “So you became a trainer?”

  “A physical therapist. But working as a trainer here pays better, and you meet a better class of people.” His grin at the last phrase was sweetly suggestive. He was flirting and she didn’t mind in the least. It helped get the chance meeting with Trevor off her mind. She had no business thinking about him at all. So when Jacob suggested dinner, she agreed. It wasn’t as if her social calendar was overfull, and in Jacob she would be with a man who had no involvement in her work at all. That alone seemed freeing, and his apparent attraction to her stroked her ego. And she needed that.

  He took her for a dinner at a small Hungarian restaurant she didn’t know. The food was good and he was wonderful company. By the time they were finished, she found herself liking him a lot.

  Not wanting the evening to end, she invited him to her place for a drink. He accepted but as soon as they stepped inside her apartment he wrapped his arms around her. His passion overwhelmed her, and she wanted him. Jacob held her and kissed her neck and face as his hands ran over her, touching her through her clothes and then moving under them, finding her b
are skin and setting it on fire.

  She stroked his face, adoring the passion he aroused in her with his fiery caresses. Her hand fondled his head when he bared her breast and put his mouth to it. Somehow she had her legs around him and he walked to the couch, putting her on it and tugging her panties off, undoing his pants and bringing out a wonderfully hard cock, and climbing over her. She intertwined her fingers behind his neck and stared at his face as he moved closer. She gasped as his cock entered her. Her legs hooked his, opening her legs for him as he took her on the couch, filling her with his powerful cock, fucking her hard. His eagerness, his masculine power was fantastic.

  “Watching you on that rowing machine, seeing the ripple of your thighs, I wanted to fuck you right there,” he told her. “I got so goddamn hard.” And she could see it, that picture as he did, seeing herself the way she looked through his eyes at that moment. It was the most erotic vision she could imagine. And then, with his hard cock plunging in her in a rhythm that recalled the music in the music video that had been playing at the gym while he watched her with his cock growing hard, she exploded. She came with a cry that was almost anguish, and she grabbed at him with her arms and legs, taking him deeper inside her, feeling his hands clutching her ass cheeks.

  “Oh fuck,” he moaned and then his cock was jerking inside her like the wild animal it was.

  She knew she’d never be able to look at the rowing machine the same way again.

  Chapter 7

  Just before Trevor’s appointment, Diane walked down the hall to the break room and refilled her coffee. She was drinking too much of it and it tasted bitter. There were a lot of bitter things in her life at the moment—bitter and bittersweet. She looked forward to seeing Trevor, but the time with him was often a strain. She couldn’t reach him, not really, and expressing how she felt was out of the question.

  As she headed back for her office, she saw him talking to a couple of orderlies in the hallway. They’d been there as long as she had, but she’d never learned their names. Apparently Trevor had. “So Joe, what did your wife find out?”

  The man smiled broadly. “They say she’ll be fine, Captain. Just a broken leg.’ He grinned. “Course, when I said that to her she asked what I meant by ‘just’ a broken leg.”

  The other man nudged him. “You dumb shit. You’re lucky Martha didn’t hit you.”

  “I told her it was a medical term, nothing more.”

  “I bet that went over big.”

  “She’ll get her revenge when she gets home and has me waiting on her hand and foot. Probably have her mother come visit.”

  “Tough it out, soldier,” Trevor laughed.

  “How’s the shoulder, Captain?”

  “About the same. Getting stronger though.” Then he then noticed Diane watching them. He nodded in her direction. “I gotta go, boys. I have an appointment with my vet and she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  They looked up. The one who’s wife had a broken leg grinned at her. “The Captain is rabid, doc. You should keep him under observation for about six months.”

  They liked having him around. “I’ll take that under advisement,” she told him. Saying it, she was stuck by how pleasant the idea of having him felt. As they went into her office, he moved close and his warmth was almost overwhelming. “Those men really relate to you.”

  He shrugged. “I talk to them. I find them interesting.”

  She realized she’d misjudged his outgoing nature. He did like people, and took an interest in them. At least people like that. “There’s more going on than that. Lots of people talk without connecting. You seem to understand them and they enjoy telling you about themselves, their lives.”

  “I suppose. I never thought about it much. I just enjoying chatting with people who aren’t self important.”

  She let him sit there as she sipped her coffee. She crossed her legs and saw they caught his attention. It flattered her that he admired her legs, but that was also part of the problem. She decided to confront it. “Would you be happier if I got a man to evaluate you?”

  He blinked. “Why? I mean what makes you think I’d want that?”

  “I think you see me as a woman first and as a professional second.”

  “Well… I can’t ignore that you are a good looking women. I don’t think you’d be thrilled if I did.”

  “And I think that when it comes to women, you focus on them as women—sex objects.”

  “Maybe so, but is that something that would keep you from recommending me for a return to active duty?”

  “No.” She waited to see if he’d ask, but he didn’t. “I’ve noted you are sexist, but to be honest, no one who matters gives a shit about that.”

  He laughed. “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “That you’re sexist?”

  “No. ‘Shit.’ I never imagined I’d hear you swear.”

  “You aren’t going to get to know me at all if you base it on the impressions you get in this office and nothing else.”

  He stretched out, putting his arm on the back of the couch. “I could say the same to you about me. What the fuck makes you think having little chats with me in this artificial world you create in your office will tell you if I’m good to go for the Army? If I really had cared to, I could’ve come in here spewing a bunch of angst about my bad fortune and suffering, let you console me and you’d rubber stamp my return to duty. I’ve been honest with you, as much as I can be here, and you are punishing me for it.”

  “I’m not trying to punish you.”

  “You think that with all the waiting I’ve had to do… waiting to heal, waiting for orders, that waiting for you to decide isn’t punishment?”

  “What if I said I’d recommend your return to active duty status on the condition that you continued therapy?”

  “Can’t happen. If that was official I’d be tainted goods. The Army can accept that a man gets shot and heals, but they aren’t so clear about mental damage. If you say I need help, that would be the end of my career.”

  She watched him and decided he was right. The Army didn’t trust the idea of healing from mental problems. It wasn’t something they could see. You couldn’t have the soldier take a mental fitness test that would convince them they way running twenty miles with a full pack would make them think he was physically okay. “You relate to other soldiers pretty well.”

  “Yeah. Not that does do me any good.”

  “Instead of coming here tomorrow, I want you to meet me at the hospital. There’s someone I want you to talk to.”

  He sneered. “A second opinion from another shrink?”

  “No. I want you to talk to a patient.”

  “What for?”

  She smiled. “So I can see what happens. I want to see you, watch you outside of the artificial world I’ve created in my office. I want to find out what the fuck makes you tick.”

  His smile told her that she’d finally connected on something resembling the level she needed to and that it came at a price. You are taking a risk in making this personal. “So, instead of you evaluating me here, you want to see how I do talking with someone else who needs help?”

  “More or less.”

  Trevor stood up. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “I’ll meet you at the entrance to the hospital.”

  “It’s a date,” he said.

  Sometimes talking with him was like dueling. She was trying to break down the barriers that kept her from understanding him, and he was goading her, trying to break down the barriers put up to keep him at bay. It would’ve been frustrating but she was too pleased to care.

  When he was gone she shifted her thoughts to Paul. He’d called her phone the night before. She’d turned it off while she was in bed with Jacob, and hadn’t seen the message. He’d wanted to come over. She thought about going to his office and making some lame excuse, telling him the batteries had died or something. But lying that way went against her nature. So did telling him the trut
h before she worked out what path she was taking. Going so quickly from not having anyone in her life to being involved, in various ways, with three men, was overwhelming. Pleasant, at times, but definitely sending her hurtling down a slightly dangerous path.

  Trevor arrived at the hospital the next morning looking amused and curious. “Ready?” se asked as they went up the elevator to a recovery ward.

  “This feels weird.”

  “Why?”

  “Going in to see a patient isn’t my thing.”

  “No. But you like to talk to people; you enjoy getting to know them. Don’t think of him as a patient. He is another soldier who was shot up pretty bad. He was hurt worse than you and he won’t talk to me about what is bothering him. I think his attitude is affecting his physical recovery. In his case, it isn’t about returning to duty, which isn’t an option, but to life.”