Special Forces: The Recruit. Cindy Dees
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fix.”
A single chin lift was all the acknowledgment she got. At least he didn’t feel obliged to comment that if she thought initial Spec Ops training was bad, she should try the real deal. Whether he was showing sensitivity to her having just been thrown out of the program or he figured it went without saying that real operations were worse, she was glad for his forbearance. Her patience was way too thin right now to deal with man-snark.
He turned on the headlights and she squinted into the illuminated swath, making out only a thicket of vines, brambles and more trees. “Where in Louisiana are we?”
“Southern Louisiana. Not close to anyplace you’ve ever heard of.”
“What’s here?”
“The next step in your career.”
“What career?” she asked sourly.
He glanced over at her, his expression inscrutable. They bumped across a sandy field and turned onto an asphalt road crowded by towering trees. Cypress, mostly. The night was noisy. Crickets and frogs and God knew what else were audible over the Jeep’s engine.
“Why’d Torsten tell me I was going to Phoenix if your orders were to bring me to Louisiana?”
“Not the city of Phoenix. Operation Phoenix,” was her escort’s only, and cryptic, answer.
Huh? She leaned back to wait and see where he took her.
Lambert drove confidently, his hands moving on the steering wheel and gearshift with the ease and precision of a race-car driver. Bulging biceps flexed under the sleeve of his T-shirt, a sight she never got tired of. It had been one of the best perks of the training she’d just left. The man-candy factor had been through the roof.
Special operators weren’t generally men who packed on weightlifter’s muscle. They focused on stamina and high-repetition calisthenics that moved their own body weight. Their muscle was lean and hard as steel. And hawt as heck.
She’d put on some hard, lean muscle of her own over the past few months of training. But not enough, apparently. Lost in silently delivering the rant inside her head to the icy major who’d thrown her out for no good reason, she wasn’t inclined to engage her taciturn babysitter in conversation.
After about a half hour, lights appeared ahead, and a sad-looking strip of ramshackle buildings that might once have been a reasonably prosperous little road stop came into sight. Lambert turned into the potholed parking lot of a one-story motel that had seen much better days.
He parked at the end farthest from the office and swung out of the Jeep, and she spied him using his hand to give his right leg a little boost. He snagged her pack before she could reach for it, and she was forced to follow him and her gear to a door whose paint was peeling back to expose rusting metal. The night air smelled of brine and rotting grass as Lambert fished a key attached to a plastic paddle out of his pocket. He opened the door and stepped back to allow her to enter first.
How in the hell did he already have a key to a room in this dive? Her hackles leaped to suspicious attention along the back of her neck. “What is this?” she asked, not moving forward.
“A motel room.”
“You’re hilarious.” She rolled her eyes.
“You wanted a hot shower, right?”
Man, that was tempting. But in some guy’s cheap motel room? Even if he was possibly the hottest guy she’d laid eyes on in, well, forever? She said wryly, “I don’t have any idea who you are. Why on earth would I go into a motel room with you in a strange town whose name I don’t even know? You can go ahead and cue up the ax-murderer theme music right now.”
He shrugged. “It’s no skin off my nose if you stink. We can head out to your assignment now, if you want.”
Crud. A shower really was tempting. In the flickering red light of the busted neon sign spelling out M-O-E, he was one fine-looking man. His tanned skin was smooth and taut over razor-sharp cheekbones. His nose had been broken before and wasn’t perfectly straight, but the slight imperfection made the perfection of the rest of his face even more pronounced. Even the hint of razor stubble on his jaw was hot.
She was usually immune to men like him. After all, she worked in the Army, which was chock-full of fit, well-groomed men of discipline and energy.
But this guy. He was a stud among studs. There was an aura about the guys operating in the real world—a hardness, a confidence, self-awareness that called to her in some nameless, primitive way.
Not that she was looking to hook up with any man, thank you very much.
Lambert stepped inside, flipped on a light and paused to adjust the thermostat. Downward, hopefully. It was a sweltering night and sticky as sin. He glanced up without warning, catching her staring at his gorgeous profile. “You coming in?”
“Who are you really?” The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it. Dang, this guy messed her up. She never blurted stuff out like that.
“Just a guy doing a job. You can call me Beau.”
“Lambo’s your field handle, right? Let me guess. It’s short for Lamborghini and not Lambert.”
“Correct.” His eyes briefly lit with approval.
Hah. She’d nailed it. “You got a rank, soldier?”
“Yes.”
And, on cue, he went all caveman on her and didn’t share said rank. It irritated her enough that she refused to ask him what his rank actually was. Major Jackass. That was his rank.
“With all due respect, Beau, why in the hell are we here? Wherever here is.”
“Torsten didn’t tell you?” he replied sharply.
“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be asking.”
“Come in and close the door. You’re letting in mosquitoes. And if I have to be in an enclosed space with you, please take a shower. You really do stink.”
“Screw you,” she said mildly.
His gaze snapped to hers, hot and willing. Her breath caught. Realizing belatedly what she’d just said, she rolled her eyes and stepped inside.
He held out her rucksack and she snagged it without comment as she passed by him, heading for the bathroom. She locked the door, stripped and turned the water on as hot as it would go. It was strange and disturbing knowing Lambert was right outside while she was in here, naked, like this.
Hyperawareness of her escort skittered across her skin, and it made her jumpy. It wasn’t that she was a prude. Far from it. But she could still feel all those acres of yummy muscle against hers. Smell his deodorant.
No amount of vigorous scrubbing erased the feel of him off her body. And, truth be told, she wasn’t sure she wanted to forget the sensations that had torn through her. They had been...amazing.
Irritated at whatever head game he was playing with her, she blasted the water, letting it pound her muscles until the water ran cold—which actually felt pretty good, too. Only then did she reluctantly pour the freebie bottle of shampoo over her head and scrub her hair blessedly clean. She soaped down her body, rinsed off and stepped out of the shower feeling like a new woman.
She toweled off and then stared down at the filthy mess that was her clothes. There were no clean ones in her rucksack, which held only combat and survival gear. She sighed and used the bar of soap in the bathtub to give her tank top, cargo pants and underwear a scrub and a rinse. God. How did women in the past wash all their clothes by hand like this?
She wrung out the garments as best she could, then pulled and plucked the soggy clothing onto her body. Oh, Lord. Beau was gonna love the wet T-shirt look. It didn’t help that her nipples were puckering with cold underneath her damp sports bra and thin tank top. Bracing herself for his disdain, or at least a rude stare,