Night Maneuvers. Jillian Burns
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In his apartment off-base in Vegas, Mitch stood at the open refrigerator door staring at his options for dinner. He could handle doing without for thirty days. Last time hadn’t been that bad even when he’d been on leave and partying every night on the Las Vegas Strip. All he had to do this time was avoid temptation.
Should be easy enough to do if he only went from work to home and back. He had plenty to keep his mind occupied. Air combat training. Classroom instruction. Changing the oil in his Jeep. Organizing his CD collection in alphabetical order.
And then there was always television…
He pulled his frozen dinner from the microwave, plunked it down on the coffee table, and sat back on his leather sofa. Peeling the plastic back, he poked around at what was supposed to be Salisbury steak while grabbing the remote. Let’s see. Sunday night. He scrolled up the schedule of channels. Infomercial for the Girls Gone Wild DVD? No. Reruns of Babewatch—no! He punched the remote again. Desperate Housewives…
Screw this! A cold beer and a good game of eight ball was what he needed. Too bad Lily had Grady on such a short leash nowadays. But Hughes was usually up for a game. Even a bad-tempered Hughes was better than no Hughes at all.
Even though they’d texted and emailed, he’d missed her while she’d been stationed at Langley. With Jackson fighting in the sandbox back then, and Grady…well, even before he married Lily, Grady had never been much for having a good time.
He pulled out his cell and punched Hughes’s number. After a couple of rings it went to voice mail so he left a message telling her to meet him at the officers’ club for a game of pool. Then he shoved off his sofa, grabbed his keys and hopped in his Jeep.
As Mitch pulled up to the officers’ club, he scanned the parking lot, but Hughes’s Mustang wasn’t there. Damn. Where was Hughes tonight? He pushed through the door and headed for the bar, ordering an appetizer and a draft of beer on tap. After finishing two beers and most of a plate of wings, he realized he’d been checking his watch for forty-five minutes. So, fine. She wasn’t coming.
Reaching for his wallet, he paid his bill and strolled toward the pool tables at the back of the room. Empty. Didn’t anyone else get out on a Sunday night? He chalked a cue stick, racked up the balls and had just lined up the first shot when he caught sight of a slinky red dress clinging to a cute little figure sauntering toward him. Her layered golden-brown hair blew around her heart-shaped face.
As his gaze traveled down her slim legs, his mouth went dry. He was a sucker for do-me stilettos like the ones she was gliding in.
He turned his back, hoping that ignoring the lady would get the message across, but he felt her come up behind him. He inhaled and some exotic perfume teased his senses and shifted his pulse into high gear. Damn it, where was his wingman when he needed her?
“You called my cell?”
Mitch spun so fast his cue stick hit the edge of the table, bounced up and almost whacked him in the face. “What the—” He looked the woman up and down, from her round pert breasts to her shapely legs, and back up to her face. “Hughes?” He choked on the word.
He squinted into her amber eyes. He’d never realized her eyes were more golden than brown. Or that she had such long lashes. Or that her lips were so…kissable.
He jerked away, bumping into the pool table. This was Hughes. His best bud. The grease monkey he called when his Jeep needed a new carburetor. Not some hot babe a guy thought about nailing. “Good God, Hughes, are you wearing makeup?”
Her lips tightened, and then she smiled and raised a feminine brow. “Alexandria.”
“What?” Was that his voice sounding all hoarse?
“My name is Alexandria.” She leaned closer, moistening her lips with a pink tongue.
“Alex—” he cleared his throat “—andria?” Was the AC broken? The room felt hotter than a Memphis summer. He tugged on his T-shirt. This just wasn’t right.
Her brows drew together and she lifted a dainty hand with soft pink nails to cup his cheek. “Are you feeling all right?”
He flinched as if he’d been burned and scooted sideways, away from her scent and touch. But distance only gave him a better view of her incredible figure.
Mitch had seen her in a tank and shorts plenty of times, sweaty from a hard game of B-ball or a day in the Nevada heat under the hood of her Mustang. Now his imagination mutinied and envisioned her sweaty tank clinging to curves he’d never thought of her having before.
Damn, this wasn’t helping his problem. He shifted his weight from one boot to the other.
She glanced around and sauntered over to the rack of cue sticks.
The way she walked, so…soft and sexy. God, had Hughes always had such a luscious ass? It looked just the right size to cup in his hands.
Snap out of it, McCabe. She was up to her old tricks. He’d punked her but good a few months ago and now she was just trying to get him back. They’d been pulling pranks on each other since their academy days. It would serve Hughes right if Mitch took her home, stripped off that dress and found out what those ripe tits felt like in his palms. But he wasn’t about to break his word to Jackson. He still had twenty-two days of celibacy left. Maybe after that he could—
What was he thinking? He couldn’t sleep with his best bud. That would just be too weird.
“So, you want to play or what?”
Play? A trickle of sweat dripped down his temple.
She gestured toward the pool table.
Oh, pool. Right. She wanted to play pool. “Uh, sure.”
She turned and moved down the row of racks, inspecting the different sticks along the wall.
“You did this to yourself just for a practical joke?” he blurted out.
Her step faltered and she fell sideways into the cue sticks, sending them tumbling down.
Before he realized he’d moved, he caught her in his arms. She grabbed his shirt for balance as her ankles righted themselves. A horrified expression flickered over her face, and then was gone. He could feel her heat. Lust crawled over him. Intense. Unwanted.
She struggled out of his hold and stood on her own, smoothing her dress down over her hips. Her fingers slid over her flat stomach and down into the indentation between her pelvic bones, as if she was going to touch herself there.
He tried to swallow, but a hard lump blocked his throat.
A lieutenant appeared from behind Mitch and began picking up cue sticks and replacing them in their slots. “Is the lady with you, Captain?”
Mitch turned to the wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant. The guy was practically drooling, undressing Hughes with hungry eyes. Had Mitch flown through a wormhole in his Falcon this afternoon and landed in an alternate universe? He looked back at Hughes. “Uh…no.”
The lieutenant grinned and edged close to Hughes. “Well, pretty lady, can I buy you a drink?”
Hughes scowled at him. “No.”
“Aw, come on. Are you sure?” He put his arm around her waist and tugged her close against him.
The Hughes Mitch knew would’ve maneuvered out of the lieutenant’s hold, grabbed his thumb and bent it back to the point of breaking for calling her “pretty lady.” But this new Hughes grabbed the guy’s shoulders with wide-eyed surprise.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” The kid crooned as his hand slid down Hughes’ spine to the top of her butt. “I’m Drew.”
Mitch’s stomach cramped. He had a primal urge to crack the jackass’s jaw. Hughes wouldn’t actually go home with this kid. There were rules against fraternizing and he was pretty sure this guy was one of her students.
Hell,