by Cat Johnson
“No, I’m not asleep. And if I had been, you sure would have woken me up.”
He grinned. “But you weren’t sleeping, so it’s all good. And since you’re awake...there’s a Ratskeller right next door to the hotel. What do you say we go out and sample some of the local culture in the form of German beer and nightlife for our last night here?”
“I don’t know. I thought I’d work on some more print ad mock-ups—”
“You can do that tomorrow during the flight while I sleep off a nice dark-lager hangover.”
Emily laughed. No doubt that would be exactly how the flight would go.
“Okay.” Then she glanced down at her wool trousers and sweater, the same ones she’d worn all day. “Am I dressed all right for a Ratskeller? I don’t think I’ve ever been to one.”
“Em, it’s just a bar. You’re overdressed, I’m sure. Just come on.”
She’d have to trust Jai’s fashion advice. She had no other choice. The rest of her wardrobe already packed in her luggage looked pretty much like what she had on but in a different color. Emily grabbed her wallet out of her briefcase and headed out.
The minute she walked into the bar she felt it, eyes on her. Lots of them, all male, and judging by the fact Hawk stood in the center of the group of males watching her, she guessed they were all soldiers from the neighboring garrison. They weren’t in uniform, but they did all sport the signature military cropped hair. Two of them even walked in sync when they crossed the bar to the jukebox together.
Hawk smiled and crossed the room himself, but he wasn’t following the other two. He was heading right for her. Emily took a deep breath and prepared for another verbal battle.
“Good evening, Sergeant,” Jai greeted Hawk.
Hawk nodded a return greeting to Jai then he turned to her. “Hey, Goldilocks. Fancy seeing you here.”
Her brows shot up, but that was all the reaction she allowed him. “Sergeant Hawkins.”
Jae grinned, apparently amused at her new name, at least as far as Hawk was concerned. “Em. I’m going to get us two beers. Good with you?”
“Yeah, fine. Thanks.” She scowled at her supposed friend for enjoying Hawk’s teasing of her so much, but accepted his offer. Glancing back at Hawk, she had a feeling a beer, or three, would be in order tonight.
As Jai left them alone, she raised her chin. “Do you even know my name?” She confronted Hawk as he towered over her.
He grinned wider. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Then what is it?” Emily crossed her arms and challenged him over the noise of the many bar patrons.
Leaning down, Hawk came so close she could feel his breath brush her ear. “It’s Emily, Goldilocks.”
She shivered involuntarily at the feel of his warm breath against her skin and swallowed hard, unsure what to say.
It was a simple answer to her question, though delivered in far more intimate a manner than she’d expected. She certainly never expected it to affect her as it had.
Deciding the safest course of action would be to change the subject, she did just that. “So, I looked over the shots from today. They look really great. I could email you the proofs if you wanted to see them.”
Then she would have not only his email address, but also an excuse to be in contact with him after she left Germany tomorrow. Why did her heart race at that idea? He was a jerk, most of the time anyway.
Like now as he shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Don’t you care about the ads?”
“I have to tell you, doll. I won’t waste one moment thinking about this modeling thing once the rounds start flying and the baddies start to fall.”
“Fine, I won’t bother you with them then.”
Looking actually sincere, Hawk shook his head. “I didn’t say you’d be bothering me. What I meant was I’ll have a few things on my mind, like bringing the men depending on me home alive. Latest word from where we’ll be in the Afghan mountains is that a storm dumped a few feet of snow and more will be on its way. And that’s the good news, because at least with the snow mounds building up we actually have a perimeter defense.”
“Oh.” Emily didn’t know much about perimeter defense, but she did hate the snow and could empathize with him about that. “Hopefully they’ll get the snowplows to clean all that up before you guys get there.”
Hawk laughed—a deep, rich, genuine belly laugh she’d never assumed he was capable of.
Emily frowned. “What?” Why was this guy always laughing at her expense?
Hawk could barely respond through his laughter. “Oh, Goldilocks. There aren’t going to be road crews cleaning up for us.”
“Isn’t where you’re going kind of like the set up here at Hohenfels?”
Hawk tilted his head to one side and grinned. “No, it’s not.”
“Oh. I figured all bases were probably the same,” Emily shrugged. What did she know? It was pretty rude of him to think she should.
“No, doll. They’re not, but I’m not going to a base anyway.” He smiled, shaking his head. “If I was going to be at Kandahar or Bagram, then yeah, maybe we’d have some services, but not where I’ll be. We literally have some dirt huts and a few rail boxes. Supplies will have to be choppered in and dropped to us. It’ll be like going caveman.”
Not appreciating his delight at her expense, Emily grumbled, “That should be easier for some of you than others, I suppose.”
He raised one dark brow with amusement. “You calling me a caveman, doll?”
“Maybe.” Emily smiled, enjoying her own cleverness.
It was the strangest thing, but bickering with Hawk kind of got her excited. Even his calling her doll was starting to sound sexy, and she hadn’t even drunk the beer that Jai was now carrying her way.
Hawk, looking like he got as much pleasure from the sparring as she, grinned wide as Jai joined them.
“Sergeant, did Emily tell you? The shots we took at the training village today are awesome.”
“Good, I’m glad.” Strangely, Hawk looked like he meant it.
Emily grasped the topic of work before she gave in to imagining running her fingers down Hawk’s massive forearm, and other things.
“I agree with Jai. The SpecOp ads Katie shot with BB were all taken in a studio. They were good but nothing like ours. The ones we took outdoors today look really authentic, like we actually shot in the war zone. As great as BB was, I think our Army ads will be even more effective because they look so real. Right down to our caveman model, here.” Emily grinned and sipped her beer.
Hawk raised his glass in a salute. “Thanks. I think that may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Emily laughed. “You’re welcome.”
“Fucking Dalton.” Hawk shook his head and took another swallow from his own glass.
That got Emily’s defenses up. He could pick on her, but no one picked on her boss’s fiancé in front of her. “What’s wrong with BB? He’s practically perfect.”
Hawk laughed. “If he’s your perfect man, sweet thing, then I don’t know what the hell you’re doing hanging around with me.”
Annoyed with him all over again, she stood a little straighter, but he still towered over her. “I’m not hanging around with you. You’re hanging around with me. Jai and I came here tonight to absorb some local color before we leave tomorrow morning.”
Jai glanced from her to Hawk and back again with a strange expression on his face. “Um, I see Sergeant Pettit over there. I think I’ll go ask him...something.”
Hawk grabbed Jai’s arm. “Pettit knows the truth about all this, and he also knows I’ll kill him if he spills the beans. But as far as the rest of them know—” he bobbed a head in the direction of the soldiers across the room standing with Pettit, “—you and she were here for the last two days taking photos of the garrison, not of me. Let’s keep it that way, understood? As far as my squad is concerned, my assignment was to be your escort only. That’s all. Got it?”
Jai laughed
and shook his head. “Yeah, I got it. Don’t worry, Sergeant.”
Hawk looked more than a bit concerned as he watched Jai cross the room.
“He’ll keep your secret,” Emily assured him, thinking all the secrecy was stupid since his face would soon be in ads pretty much everywhere.
Hawk continued to track Jai as he joined the group of soldiers. “How long have you known him?”
“Jai? A few years, I guess. He’s discreet, I promise.”
He raised a brow. “You two fucking?”
“What? No.” She nearly choked at the question. God, he could be so crude sometimes. “You are the rudest, biggest, nosiest...” Unable to figure out how to insult him more, she left the sentence open ended.
“And you hate how you find me attractive.” His treated her to a crooked grin before sipping at his beer.
“You? Attractive? Ha!” That accusation had her sputtering. Okay, maybe she did think he was hot, but he didn’t have to know that. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re a job. Nothing more.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Goldie. Maybe you’ll start believing it. Although, I find that alcohol usually has the opposite effect on a woman’s libido.”
Hawk smirked and glanced at the beer in her hand, which she had been steadily emptying during their sparring without even realizing it. She’d nearly finished it, and it was starting to affect her head but not her wit.
“I see. So what you’re saying is girls need to be drunk to find you attractive. That’s totally understandable.” Emily smirked right back.
Hawk shook his head. “You are cute when you try and fight with me. The question is why are you fighting this so hard, doll? I know you’re attracted to me. You know you’re attracted to me. You’re leaving tomorrow. I’m leaving in about a week.” He let the facts hang in the air for her to absorb and draw her own conclusions.
“Are you saying we should...” She could barely get the words out past the tightness his unspoken suggestion had caused in her throat.
“Have sex? Yup. I sure am.” He grinned.
Could she do it? Did she want to? Have sex just for fun with a man she barely knew?
Although she did know him, didn’t she? They’d spent two days together. She knew some of his personal and probably all of his military history from his file. She knew that for some reason, BB had chosen this man to represent the entire US Army. She could see that both Hawk’s superiors and his subordinates liked him. All of that had to count for something.
“You sure are doing a lot of thinking in there, Goldie.” Hawk ran one thick finger from her forehead, between her drawn brows and down her nose, tapping the tip playfully. “Stop frowning. You’ll get wrinkles.”
Emily fought the shiver that his touch sent down her spine and decided it wouldn’t hurt to play along, for a bit anyway. “Let’s say, under the influence of some sort of temporary insanity and German beer, that I did consider sleeping with you—”
“Oh, believe me, there’d be no sleeping. Just good old-fashioned sex. Incredible, unforgettable sex. Lots of it.”
Emily swallowed hard. She didn’t know if she’d ever experienced sex that qualified as that before. Certainly not in recent memory. She forced herself to focus on her point again.
“Anyway. If this were to happen, hypothetically of course, what would it mean?”
“What would it mean?” Hawk repeated.
“Yes, what would it mean?”
He laughed. “It would mean that you and I would both walk away satisfied. Me to Afghanistan, you to wherever you come from. It would mean that you would never have to deal with me and my brutish caveman ways again. However, you would have some damn nice memories to keep you warm at night. As would I, and believe me, a year in Afghanistan with no sex, I’m going to need the memories.”
“A year? Really?” Okay, so she’d gone a good year herself without sex, but Hawk didn’t seem like the type to be celibate by choice.
“Doll, even if sex while deployed weren’t against regulations, there aren’t going to be any females where I’ll be. Just those ten ugly mugs over there, and I don’t go that way.” Hawk glanced at his fellow soldiers and shook his head.
“So I could possibly be the last woman you were with? For a year?” Somehow knowing she could be the last woman he’d be with before going off to risk his life in the war got her all tingly. Patriotic even.
Sex for the good of the country. Supporting the troops took on a whole new meaning.
“Mmm hmm, and not just possibly. Most definitely. Tonight is our last hurrah. There won’t be any time with getting ready to deploy to go out for beer or women. You’re it, doll.” He smiled and ran a hand up her arm. It sent a chill through her in spite of the hot, stale air in the bar. “The last woman I’ll touch for an entire long, lonely year. The one I’ll picture at night when I’m all alone in my cold, dark tent.”
Emily drew a shaky breath. Her body wanted this man, and now her brain, which was usually the rational of the two, was starting to think it was a good idea too.
Hawk stepped closer. “Come on, doll. Do something just for the fun of it once in your life. Go tell your friend over there that you’re tired and going back to your room.”
She glanced at the group of soldiers surrounding Jai. “Even if I leave alone and you sneak upstairs later, they’ll notice when you leave too. They’ll all know.”
“My men? Maybe. Probably. So what if they know? Do you really care? You’ll never see any of them again, and they’ll all be envying me spending one of our last nights in civilization with the prettiest girl in this place.”
Damn, he was good. The caveman didn’t talk often, but when he decided to, it was good stuff. She was really going to do this.
She took her last swallow of beer to bolster her nerves. “Room two ten at the hotel next door. Please try to be as discreet as you can so they don’t know.”
He looked about as surprised at her decision as she was herself. She’d shocked him. Emily took note of that with a smile, then turned to go lie to Jai. He’d most likely see right through her, but she had to make the attempt.
The worst part was what Hawk had said was true. At the moment, with her heart pounding and her sex throbbing, she couldn’t really care what anyone thought about her tomorrow. She was only concerned with tonight.
Chapter Ten
Room two ten. Hawk swallowed hard and stared at the brass numbers on the door while the condoms purchased from the men’s room at the Ratskeller felt heavy in his jeans pocket.
Once within the inner sanctum, Hawk’s plan was to avoid talking at all costs. Emily was most likely the kind of woman to scare off easily. The last thing he wanted was for him to say something wrong and her to change her mind. He couldn’t risk Emily turning tail and running. Not when he was this close. One thing Hawk knew for sure when it came to women, he never assumed he was in until he was, well, in.
Emily. Funny how now that he stood outside her hotel room, feet from her, moments from making last night’s erotic dream come true, he didn’t think of her as Goldilocks anymore. That was quite a change. Usually the women he slept with remained forever Red or Blondie or Legs or whatever name he’d dubbed them at first sight.
Maybe the difference was he and Emily had a professional relationship too. Who the hell knew? Nothing about this girl and his attraction to her made sense.
She wasn’t his usual type. Hell, she was pretty much the exact opposite of it.
They fought like cats and dogs, and at times he was fairly sure she outright hated him. Yet here he was, outside her hotel room and at her invitation no less. Maybe the fighting was what made them so hot for each other.
Hawk realized he was wasting time on the wrong side of the door with all this thinking. Thinking. About a woman. That was also totally unlike him. He raised a fist and knocked loudly, holding his breath that she’d answer.
Answer she did. The door opened and Emily, still in the clothes she’d worn to the bar, stepped bac
k to allow Hawk to enter. He took a step forward into the room and suddenly had an arm full of woman.
Good thing he had fast reflexes. He caught her and managed to not fall backward onto his ass as she dove at him. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she crashed her lips into his.
Hawk shouldered the door shut with the hope it would lock on its own. Angling his head to take full advantage of her hungry kiss, he didn’t give the damn door another thought as Emily’s tongue invaded his mouth.
Figuring they would end up there anyway, he stepped heavily toward the bed with Emily wrapped around his neck and waist. A willing woman literally in his hands was good, but one in the bed was even better. There he’d be free to unwrap the wool-covered package and enjoy what was underneath. More, holding her up was severely limiting his participation in this unexpectedly enthusiastic but more than welcome foreplay she’d initiated.
Hawk prided himself on the prowess of both his hands and mouth, and he intended to show off all his skills for this woman. They may have only one night together, but as he set her down and braced above her, he vowed he would make sure she never forgot it.
Beneath him on the mattress, Emily squirmed and broke their kiss. He raised himself up on shaky arms, afraid he had crushed her with his not-inconsiderable weight.
He needn’t have worried.
All he could do was groan in response when one of her hands pulled at the turtleneck tucked into his jeans while the other fumbled with his fly.
“Clothes off.”
She said only two breathless words. Two words were enough, and he couldn’t agree more. He wanted them skin-to-skin. Since she was obviously willing, who was he to slow them down?
He’d get them both naked, but right now he craved her mouth again. With a long, low growl, he held her head and dove in for one more quick taste of her warm and inviting lips. Untangling his hand from the mass of her hair, he set to work on getting them undressed as fast as possible. She helped, and by the time his clothes were in a heap on the floor so were hers.
Then Hawk really had something to groan about. Her bulky sweater had hid more than just her soft, ivory skin. It also had disguised two perfectly shaped peaks tipped with rosy nipples.