Soldier With Benefits (Military Men Book 2) (4 page)

Louie turned away to grab a pair of socks but not before a vision of her long, lean body and rounded breasts with pert nipples seared to his retinas. God, he wanted to sink into her pussy again, love her slow and show her tenderness. But he resisted, instead choosing a strategic battle. Instinct told him that was the only way to win the war.

Faint rustling indicated Mac was moving. The woman was staring at his arse. He could practically feel the heat from her eyes. Dammit, she needed to get with the program. How could he keep his hands off if she openly showed her interest?

Louie concentrated on controlling his unruly cock, thinking of cold things while he reached for his shoes.

“You said everyone would be there.”

“Yeah, to burn off energy.” He could have commented further but didn’t want her to get the idea he hadn’t liked the way they’d rid themselves of adrenaline.

“Right.” The word came out so crisp it damn near saluted.

Louie glanced at her, wary now and a little worried. “The gym is down the hall, third door on the right. You’ll probably hear everyone before you get there. Some of the boys like to play basketball.” He didn’t give her a chance to reply, instead leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

Damn, this relationship stuff was worse than picking his way through a minefield. But worth it. A slow grin bloomed as he remembered her, all liquid fire and warm silk in his arms. Definitely worth the trouble. Still grinning, he strode down the hall. The way he felt right now, he could take on Simon at a little one-on-one basketball and give him a real hiding.

* * * * *

A mistake. When she made them, they were doozies. She shouldn’t have jumped Louie like that, shouldn’t have given in to temptation.

But she had. Done deal.

Mac opened her bag and pulled out a pair of shorts. After a brisk cleanup using her precious store of wet-wipes, she yanked open a locker, saw it was empty and decided to take a moment to unpack. Her body felt well-used, a little sore, but power pulsed through her like the kick of one of those energy drinks. All due to Louie.

The thought brought a frown. She grabbed a sports bra and thrust her arms into it, pulling a gray tank over the top. Five minutes later, she admitted prevarication had become her middle name. Mac jerked open the bedroom door and headed for the gym. If Louie had told everyone he’d banged her, she’d soon know. The gossip and hits from the other men would make life unpleasant but not impossible. She’d lived through worse.

Rowdy shouts and thumps guided her, as Louie had promised. A faint tang of sweat filled the air along with colorful curses when she walked through the door. The sounds and sights were comforting and familiar, part of the male-dominated world she inhabited.

Most of the men were playing a boisterous game of basketball and paid her no attention. So much for her ego. And maybe she was guilty of judging Louie by her ex-fiancé David. He’d liked to brag about his sex life, something she’d discovered late in the piece. It was one of the things they’d argued about before he’d told her to forget their engagement and sauntered away without looking back. A bitter snort escaped. The perfect relationship was a fallacy perpetrated by wedding planners.

Mac walked over to the equipment area and worked through a series of stretches to warm her muscles. She glimpsed Louie in the middle of the melee, a symphony of muscles and smooth moves as he ducked and dribbled the ball down the makeshift court. Mac’s body heated instantly. She cursed and started working through the exercise circuit someone had set up. From the start, she pushed herself, trying to outrun her wanton thoughts.

Lift. Pump. Grunt. Her breathing deepened, heart thudding with the exercise. The man might be good at releasing the buzz but that didn’t mean she needed him. It wouldn’t happen again. Yep, she’d keep her hands off, do the job, collect her money and go home to check on her father before grabbing another contract.

Mac moved to the next station still thinking of her father. She needed to check out the email situation. She’d promised to send a note to the head nurse at the home, let her know she’d arrived and how to reach her in case of an emergency. Maybe she should think about getting another cell phone. Nah, the way she killed them off it was becoming expensive. Her lip quivered a fraction when she recalled fishing the last one out of the toilet. It had never worked after that.

Mac grunted, lifting weights that tested her strength. The burn felt good until her arms started shaking on the sixth rep.

“You should have someone spotting you.” Simon, Louie’s second-in-charge, took the weight from her and set it back on the rack.

Louie stood beside Simon, a frown on his sexy face. Her heart squeezed out three hard, fast beats before she regained control of her breathing.

“You’re right,” she said, sitting up. Using the bottom of her tank top, she blotted the sweat off her face. “No excuses, except I needed to push myself.”

“Don’t do it again,” Simon said.

“I won’t.” She wasn’t only talking about the weights, and she saw from Louie’s face he guessed the direction of her thoughts.

“We’re all going to watch a movie after we clean up. You’re welcome since you’re part of the team,” Louie said.

Probably something with naked women. Mac knew better than to watch a movie with the guys without checking first. This time she’d give it a miss completely. “Thanks, but I need to check my email. Is there somewhere I can do that?”

“Most of the guys have their own laptops,” Simon said.

“You can use mine,” Louie said. “If you’re finished here, I’ll log you in.”

“Thanks.” She stood, feeling uncomfortable with the silence that fell. Rooming together had suddenly become too intimate. Not that she could do anything about it. This was work, the best way to earn lots of money fast and ensure her father had the best healthcare possible.

The three of them headed for their rooms, Simon entering one several doors away from theirs. Mac opened their door and stepped inside. The sharp clunk of the door closing made her jump, even though she was expecting it.

“You okay?”

Mac forced a laugh. “I’m fine. Where are the showers?”

“You passed them on the way to the gym.”

Shoot. She hadn’t noticed since one man dominated her thoughts. Not good, especially for a soldier.

Louie frowned. “We’re not set up for women here. The showers, I mean. There are no cubicles, just the showerheads along one wall. Everyone showers together.”

“Don’t worry. I’m used to sharing. It won’t be a problem unless someone grabs something they shouldn’t.”

His face cleared and she watched a twinkle appear in his eyes. Her stomach lurched in a zap of attraction. “Do I need to warn the men about you? Are you likely to grab?”

Mac spluttered a couple of times before realizing he was kidding. She drew in a sharp breath, strove for control. “I’ll try to control myself.”

“You’re welcome to grab me anytime you want.”

Dangerous territory.
Again
. Suddenly the silence between them throbbed with possibilities. “I don’t think we should do that again. All I want is to get through my contract alive.”

Louie’s inscrutable face didn’t reveal a thing. “That’s what we all want. My laptop is on the desk. Just help yourself whenever you want to use it. The password is Fiji Islands. One word, both with capitals.” He grabbed a towel and a navy blue toilet bag and exited their room, leaving her gaping after him.

Fiji Islands
.

Mac closed her eyes, struggling to deal with the memories, the emotions he’d tugged to the surface by uttering his password. Unfortunately shutting down her sight made her other senses jump to the fore. Louie’s scent wound through her, seductive and enticing. The sexual throb she’d worked off in the gym came back to haunt her big-time. Damn the man.

She grabbed her towel and wiped her face. Although a shower sounded tempting, she decided to wait until the men started their movie before venturing into that territory. They needed to get used to having her around, start thinking of her as one of the boys first.

Mac yanked out the spindly chrome and wood chair and gingerly settled her weight. When nothing disastrous occurred, she settled back and opened the lid of the laptop. It whirred while it powered up and finally she entered the password,
FijiIslands
. Why had the man used those particular words? Her mind sped through the possibilities and kept coming back to the same one. Fiji had meant something to him. But that didn’t make sense. Why hadn’t he bothered to contact her?

Oh yeah. He wouldn’t have been able to because she’d given him a false name. In the past she’d always been big on keeping her private life separated from her sex life. Her choice of occupation attracted nosy questions, sometimes outright hostility. And she’d found out the hard way not many men liked to share the responsibility for a father who suffered from Alzheimer’s. That had been something else she and David had shouted about the night they broke up. Her eyes misted as thoughts of her previously robust father flooded her mind. Ex-army, he’d always seemed larger than life. Seeing him robbed of dignity made her heart ache. Sometimes the loss of pride was worse than the fact he didn’t remember her, even on his good days.

Trembling fingers logged in to her email account and her heart beat frantically until she saw she’d only received mail from army friends. No news from the home meant nothing had changed with her father. Her breath eased out with a relieved hiss. Her father had been both pleased and concerned when she’d joined the army. He’d explained the pros and cons of the lifestyle, the danger and positives of the good mates made for life. She’d write him a letter soon. He liked the nurses to read him letters, even though he didn’t know who they were from. Strangely, he remembered some of his army life and this familiarity with some of the contents of her letter gave him pleasure.

The door opened without warning and Louie stepped inside. She gave a girlie gasp and wanted to kick herself.
For God’s sake, woman. Grow a set of balls. You have to stop reacting like a startled recruit around him.

“Everything okay?”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” The edge on her words was sharp enough to carve stone. A giveaway of her turmoil. She concentrated on slow, even breaths, unwilling to admit how close she was to the ledge. Seeing Louie had thrown her because she’d thought of him often and her memories had held regret. Add that to her continued grief over her father’s decline and yeah, she was off her game. “Put on a shirt.”

A smirk bloomed, lighting up his eyes. Man, she was a sucker for a fine pair of eyes. Add a sexy bod and those tattoos to the equation and danger loomed in her future. He prowled closer, his chest as bronzed as it had been in Fiji. Mac studied the white towel, tucked in at his waist, and wondered what it would take to make it fall. Earlier hadn’t been about looking, touching—it had been more about mutual craziness. She’d wanted to feel.

“Do I have to remind you about misconduct?”

“It’s only misconduct if it’s not mutual,” Mac muttered. Hell! Had she just said that? She risked a glance, found him grinning and pouted. “I didn’t say that. It was a djinn, an evil spirit intent on trouble.”

“Look, I know you’re worried we’ve made a mistake. But I want you, Mac. Can’t we let it happen and not worry about complications?” He held up his hands when she would have protested. “No, let me say my piece. I like you, but we’re here to do a job. The job comes first. Always, because that’s the only way any of us leave on our own feet. We can do casual without it blowing up in our faces.”

“Use each other,” she inserted once again with bite because his words weren’t what she wanted to hear, no matter what she told herself.

“Blunt, but basically what I had in mind. Mac, you know me. Better the devil you know.”

“True. Yeah, okay.” There was something wrong with her, leaving herself open for hurt this way. But damn, it would feel good having someone to hold her in the dark of the night when nightmares of death, hers or her father’s, stalked her mind. For a few seconds she worried about gossip until she concluded there would be rumors anyway. It was up to her to divert them and show the rest of the men she was the same as them—a soldier doing a job.

Fascinated, Louie catalogued the play of emotions on her face. In Fiji he’d found it difficult to read her. Now she looked vulnerable. A glance at the laptop confirmed she’d checked her private mail. Bad news from home? He didn’t know much about her private life. They’d talked books, movies, about her work. Her fictional job. Man, she’d sucked him right in with her cover story about her secretarial job. It made him consider how often she’d used the same story with other men. He hated the thought. Seemed he had a possessive streak when it came to Mac.
Play it cool
. He’d need to use his sniper training, exert the patience he’d learned in the army while waiting for a target.

“I was the last out of the showers, if you want to head that way.” The need for personal info, some small snippet simmered through him. “My brother is the lawyer. Apart from that, most of what I told you is the truth.”

She nodded. “Thanks for letting me use your laptop. I’m gonna hit the showers.”

“Sure.” Fuck, she was treating him like a stranger. Louie prowled to his locker, grabbed out a clean shirt and trousers, a pair of boxers and dropped the towel without thinking.

He heard the small whoosh of air from her lungs. When he risked a glance in her direction, she was closing down his laptop. Interesting. He dressed silently, deep in thought. A good soldier always had a plan and a backup one when everything went to crap. “Dinner is at seven,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Despite wanting to stay, he left the room. His new mission would be a tough one, but like any hard-fought battle, the victory would taste sweet.

Chapter Three

Louie jerked awake, heart pounding in the darkness of his room. For an instant he wasn’t sure what had woken him then he heard the whimper.
Mac
. Silently, he climbed from the bottom bunk and stood, watching her shadowed face. She appeared young and vulnerable with her hair loose, lying in tangled curls across her pillow. Another sob emerged and her face screwed into a pained grimace.