by Cat Johnson
Yeah, the way the two of them got along like oil and water, that was pretty much what she’d tell him should he ever suggest them hooking up. In his dreams.
Shit. Hawk rose from his bed and headed to the bathroom to clean up. He needed to get laid for real and soon.
Chapter Eight
Emily stirred real cream into her to-go coffee cup thinking how much she loved Europeans. No skim milk for these folks, unlike skinny-conscious Americans. In the dim light of dawn, she watched the people bustling past the window. She and Jai had met to grab coffee before heading back to Hohenfels to meet Hawk. The town nearest the US Army garrison had some surprisingly good coffee shops and restaurants.
Emily realized she was finally getting some of the military-speak down. She even knew what a garrison was now, and her uniform knowledge had been greatly increased after yesterday’s photo session with Hawk. She tried not to think about that.
The best part of yesterday had been at the end of the day when they’d gotten away from the garrison and Hawk’s bad mood.
Emily and Jai had found a great spot to eat out after that. They’d had a quick but sumptuous dinner before, jetlagged, they crashed early. The hotel wasn’t bad either. Too bad she’d barely slept.
“Why did we decide to meet so early?” She tried not to sound too whiny then smothered a yawn.
“Because the Army starts their day early. And because we need to set up the shots and be ready to go when and if the sun finally comes out today.” Jai looked up at the overcast sky darkening the pink-tinged sunrise. “I hope it doesn’t snow.”
So did Emily. It was bad enough that, though exhausted, she needed to be on her toes to handle Hawk. The last thing she wanted to deal with was snow during their outdoor shots. She had on her good leather boots and she hated snow...and cold and early mornings, no matter what time zone they happened to be in.
Sunrise. Honestly, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen one of those.
Tired, dreading the day ahead and feeling a need for sugar as well as caffeine, Emily grabbed some sort of rich-looking German pastry and added it to their two coffees on the counter.
She yawned again and got out her wallet to pay. After a brief exchange with the thankfully English-speaking clerk, they left the warm shop for the frigid walk to their rental car.
Jai frowned at her as he turned the key in the ignition and waited for the car to warm for a minute before throwing it into drive. “Why are you so tired? We turned in at like seven o’clock local time. You should have had plenty of sleep.”
“I didn’t sleep well.” She hoped Jai would leave it at that and not question her further as to why.
Not sleeping well was an understatement for last night’s torture. Emily had gotten back to her room after dinner and called Katie’s office line to leave a message. She’d had to lie on the voicemail and tell Katie that everything with Hawk was going perfectly. That she could handle him no problem. Then she’d fallen into bed, only to be tortured with more thoughts of Hawk as she relived each and every word exchanged between them.
That’s probably what led to her dreaming about him. She hoped that was it anyway. Whatever the reason, dream she did.
It started with a photo shoot, which was understandable considering they’d had one that day. However, the model was BB and Katie was there. To her horror, Katie had begun to take BB’s uniform off until he was nearly naked, then they’d started kissing each other as she watched.
Emily cringed even now at the thought. In her dream, she’d tried to look away but couldn’t. Then something even more disturbing had happened. BB had morphed into Hawk, and the woman the mostly nude Hawk was making out with was suddenly no longer Katie, but Emily.
Her hands had been all over those big muscles of his as she stroked up and down his torso. It was so realistic she could feel the warmth of his skin, the hardness of his bulging biceps, the tickle of the hair on his chest against her palms. All while he’d made love to her mouth with his tongue.
She’d woken up totally freaked out and a little bit aroused. That had been it for sleep for the night. Her brain spinning and her body clock messed up from the time difference, Emily had given up on bed and taken out her laptop.
Jai had downloaded the day’s shots to her computer so she’d spent the rest of the time until she’d had to get ready to meet Jai working. She’d taken Hawk’s photos and played with the layout for some potential print ads.
Working with the pictures of him had done nothing to dispel the memories of that dream, but at least the work she’d done in the wee hours was a good non-sexual excuse to explain her lack of sleep to Jai.
“I woke up really early so I mocked up a few ads. I’ll show them to you when we get there.” She was happy to steer the discussion back to business.
“How do you think they look? Do you have all you’ll need for the interior shots and close-ups?”
Emily had to admit, she was pleased with what she’d had to work with and what she’d come up with. Of course, telling Hawk he made a great model would never come out of her mouth except maybe under extreme torture.
“I think so. Although, since he’s so far away...” and such a pain in the ass, “...we may want to take some extras. And I never did get him into his dress uniform yesterday.”
Or out of it, except in her dream...
“Mmm. Right. Make sure I’m in the room when you ask him to put his dress outfit on. That should be fun.” Jai grinned.
Emily scowled. So much for her supposed ally.
Hawk stood by the window and watched Goldilocks and Rasta-photographer park in front of the Head Shed and get out of their car. Surrounding him, on nearly every available surface, was all the photographic equipment from the photo session he’d been forced to partake in yesterday.
Today, he’d have to do it all again, under the direction of the blonde who’d had him coming in his sleep like a teenaged boy.
He studied her more closely today than he had yesterday when he’d dismissed her as a young, silly-though-cute annoyance. This morning, watching her juggle a large briefcase and an extra-large cup of coffee as she walked down the path from the car, he realized his nocturnal imaginings had given her a slutty sort of makeover. She didn’t wear fuck-me high-heel shoes or butt-bearing mini-skirts and her nails weren’t long, red talons at all.
Cocking his head to one side, he wondered why his brain would do that, because the blonde before him—nose pink from the cold, unruly curls tousled by the wind, all bundled up in her thick wool sweater and looking like the girl next door, was pretty damn cute in her own right.
He moved to the open doorway of the room, where he had a view of the main entrance of the building, just in time to see her push through the front door along with a burst of wind.
Goldilocks finally looked up and noticed him watching her.
“Morning.” She met his gaze, mumbled the greeting and then looked away.
She made an obvious effort to not walk too closely to him as she passed him in the doorway. She seemed to be concentrating overly hard on setting her briefcase on one of the tables, all while not looking at him.
If Hawk wasn’t mistaken, she was avoiding eye contact as she set up her laptop. Had he been such a beast yesterday that she couldn’t even look at him today? Thinking about it, he realized the answer was most likely yes, and that made him feel pretty shitty.
The new face of the Army, like it or not, and he was portraying himself as an ass. Probably not the best idea since performing even this bullshit assignment badly could negatively affect his chances at a promotion.
Smiling, Rasta-man’s greeting was quite a bit more welcoming than Goldie’s. “Morning, Sergeant. Have you heard the weather forecast for today? All I could get on the television in the room was in German.”
Predicting the weather here in winter was a no brainer. “Cold,” Hawk answered simply.
Unwinding an incredibly long and multi-colored scarf from around his neck an
d dreadlocks, Rasta grinned. “Yeah, I’d gathered that already. But what about snow?”
The answer to that he had actually heard from one of the guys at chow. “No snow.”
Rasta grinned. “Good. See, Em. Nothing to worry about.” He turned toward Hawk. “City girl here reacts badly to snow.”
Goldilocks, aka Em, glanced at her photographer as if she wanted to take Rasta’s scarf and strangle him with it.
“Will you be okay if we do shots outdoors today in this cold?”
Hawk raised a brow at Rasta’s question, remembering his recent fun in the four-foot-deep drifts in the Alps. “Don’t worry about me. You should probably worry about her though.”
“I’ll be fine, thank you.” She raised one blonde brow and shot Hawk a less-than-friendly look then turned back to her laptop screen. “Jai, can you take a look at the ad mock-ups so we know what more we need to get today?”
Very pointedly, she’d moved the subject away from her and onto the job.
“You mean besides the dress...uniform?” Rasta-man laughed as he walked toward a pissed-looking Goldilocks.
Hawk’s ears perked up, not about the dress uniform part, but about Goldie having the ads done already. She moved fast. He’d assumed these frigging embarrassing photos wouldn’t hit until well after next week when he was safely gone, but maybe he’d been wrong.
Trying to not look overly interested, Hawk used all of his vast skill and prowess learned over multiple tours of duty and sidled stealthily behind the two bent heads at the laptop. Glancing past Rasta-man’s dreadlocks, he caught a glimpse of a portion of an ad. His ad. That was his eye glaring back at him off the screen.
Damn, no wonder Goldie wouldn’t look at him today. He did look kind of scary in that one.
Goldie turned in her seat, glimpsed his face and let out a frustrated huff of air. “You don’t like it.”
It hadn’t sounded like a question, but rather a resignation-filled statement of fact.
“I didn’t say that,” Hawk defended.
“You didn’t have to. You’re frowning.”
“No, I’m not.” Hawk consciously smoothed his brow muscles.
Goldie turned back to the screen, but he thought he heard a mumble sounding like, “Yeah, right.”
With the click of her short pink nails against the keyboard, the picture on screen changed to another one.
The two marketing gurus were discussing some fine points of demographics and target markets or something and didn’t even notice him until Hawk readjusted his stance to try and see around them, which caught Rasta’s attention.
“Hey, man. Sorry. I’m in your way. I’m sure you wanna see.” Moving aside, Hawk got his first full glimpse of himself.
He heard Goldie sigh. “I’m sure you hate this one too.”
Hawk considered the photo before him on screen for another second. Legs planted wide, he stood wearing his T-shirt and camouflage pants with his arms crossed in front of his chest. His jaw set firm, there was no smile on his lips. His nose showed and part of his eye, but that was it. She’d cropped the photo so you couldn’t see the rest of his face or even identify it as him. He loved it.
Realizing he stood in that same pose now, Hawk had to admit, Goldie and Rasta had really captured his essence.
Hawk decided to throw Goldie a bone for her efforts. “I like it.”
Visibly taken aback by the compliment, Goldie shook her head slightly as if she hadn’t heard him correctly. “You like it?”
“Mmm, hmm. You cut off half of my face. I like it.”
Couldn’t have her getting too cocky, now could he? At least Rasta-man seemed to appreciate Hawk’s sense of humor. He broke out laughing while Goldie’s face twisted into an angry frown.
“I agree. Not seeing your face is preferable. Perhaps I’ll crop them all like that.” Insult delivered, she spun back to the laptop.
“You do that, doll, and I’ll owe you a big kiss plus some.”
Goldie emitted something resembling a snort.
He smiled. She was sure fun to play with. In fact, reevaluating his former opinion of Goldie, Hawk decided he wouldn’t mind at all playing with her some more. In all sorts of ways.
Still chuckling, Rasta moved across the room to fiddle with some of his camera equipment. “Em, I think we’re good on indoor shots for now.”
“What about the dress-uniform ones?” Goldie shot Hawk a look. “Are you going to have any problems with us shooting you in your dress uniform?”
“As long as you don’t use real bullets. No. No problem. Shoot away.”
Hawk smiled as she rolled her eyes at his corny joke. He was pretty certain using real bullets had crossed her mind at one point that morning.
“Interior shots we can take anytime using the lights, Em. I’m anxious to get outdoors and scout some locations for the exterior shots while the weather is still good.” Rasta-man glanced up from packing a bag full of stuff, most of which Hawk wouldn’t have been able to identify the use of. Then again, it wasn’t his job to know photography equipment. It was his job to know his garrison.
Hawk really, really did not want to be helpful for this thing he was being forced to do. But against his will, his brain went into overdrive and he actually had an idea for the outdoor shoot. Rasta would love it and take a hundred more photos of him because of it, but Hawk knew he was going to share his idea anyway. Though it had crossed his mind at one point to let them flounder on their own.
Oh, well. “I had some thoughts about the outdoor shots.”
Looking amused, Goldie turned to him. “Really? You? Had thoughts?”
Hawk raised one brow and rose to the challenge. “Yeah, I do that occasionally. Think. Be real nice to me, Goldilocks, and I might share some of my more interesting thoughts with you sometime. I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.”
His pet name for her went over like a fart in a spacesuit, judging by the expression on her face. He smiled again. Yeah, he definitely was enjoying this verbal foreplay. But time to get back to work so he could get this assignment over and done with.
“Anyway, I don’t know what you’re looking for exactly, if you want authentic-looking combat shots or not, but troops come to Hohenfels for realistic force-to-force combat-maneuver training,” Hawk began.
Rasta’s eyes opened wide. “So you do mission rehearsals and stuff like that here?”
Hawk nodded. “Exactly.”
“What do you use in the simulations? Lasers?”
Well, well. Rasta-man wasn’t just a pretty face with a lot of hair. He had some sort of military experience, probably from behind the lens of his camera, but at least Hawk wouldn’t have to explain everything to them both like children.
“Exactly. We have a laser-engagement system and COBs—civilians on the battlefield—who help us train. There’s a village set up, totally realistic, perimeter razerwire fencing, guard towers, MPs on patrol and civilian housing where the COBs live. You’d never know you weren’t in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Rasta looked excited enough to jump right out of his coffee-colored skin at that description. “And we can get permission to shoot there?”
“Captain said whatever you wanted, he’d approve. Within reason,” Hawk added.
Eyes wide, Rasta began grabbing his equipment faster and stowing it in bags. “Great. Let’s go.”
Goldie watched him. “I guess it’s all set then.”
Hawk grinned. So she didn’t like not being in control. Interesting and something to remember for the future.
Rasta paused and glanced at her. “Sorry, Em. Did you have an idea for something else?”
“No. I think we should trust Hawk’s experience.”
Goldilocks was going to trust him. He liked that idea.
Today was turning out to be pretty interesting all around.
Chapter Nine
In the dimly lit comfort of her hotel room, Emily stared into the haunting eyes of Staff Sergeant David Hawk Hawkins and realized her heart was not
only beating faster, but parts lower were beginning to throb as well.
She reached out one finger. Running it down the screen along the side of his cheek, she shook her head at her own behavior.
Darn it. What was wrong with her libido? She should not be attracted to him. He was an unpredictable idiot. Hawk acted like a total jerk one moment, but then he came up with the perfect suggestion for their shoot the next. He’d even cooperated during it.
She’d seen a different side of him today when he’d taken her and Jai for a tour of the outdoor training village. Then more of it when, familiar, alert, capable, he’d posed for shots with huge, scary automatic weapons like they were an extension of his body.
It was a glimpse into what he must be like when he was with his men being a professional soldier instead of being a pain in her ass as a model.
The man was gorgeous to look at on the outside, and a cocky, male chauvinistic pig on the inside. And she had to admit she wanted him.
Emily leaned back from the laptop screen and the photo of Hawk decked out in his dress uniform. His chest was covered in ribbons or medals or whatever they were called. His face was stern as usual, his chin firm, his eyes piercing straight through her.
There might be more inside this man than she’d seen. Of course, that something more could be either good or bad. There was no telling for sure, but she would never know. She left for New York tomorrow.
Emily let out a sigh. She and Jai had tickets on a late-morning flight out of Germany. She was returning to work and to her boss a success with enough photos for a kick-butt ad campaign. She was also returning home without the Prince Charming she’d been so sure of finding.
A knock on the door made Emily jump nearly out of her desk chair.
“Em. You still awake in there?” Jai’s voice followed the knock.
Happy she hadn’t taken the time to change into her flannel pajamas, knowing Jai would tease her relentlessly for certain if she had, Emily opened the door for him.