Special Forces: The Recruit

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with a woman—actually slept with one. Most of his interactions involved horny, half-drunk sex and him leaving the woman’s bed immediately after, before anything more could begin to develop. No attachments, no feelings. Just physical release. That was his mantra.

But Tessa Wilkes had already busted through that boundary in a big way. Even if they were mostly negative, he had definite feelings about being here with her.

Torsten owed him huge.

He eventually surprised himself by drifting off to sleep. Maybe it was the companionship, or maybe it was how damned delicious Tessa felt in his arms.

He did wake up a couple of times during the night, tensing in anticipation of flashbacks from the night he should have died—the mission he’d been lucky to be medevaced away from with a destroyed leg and no future on the teams.

Nightmares were standard issue to men in his line of work. The shrinks said dreams were how guys like him worked out their emotional crap over killing people for a living. Whatever. He didn’t run around spilling tears for his victims. They were bad people in need of killing.

But tonight the nightmares never came calling.

Nothing came to him except the sweet smell and quiet breathing of the woman snuggled up against him, filling the darkness with soft curves and comfort that lulled him back to sleep.

Too bad this was a onetime good deal. In the morning, he was going to unleash holy hell on her, and that would be the end of cuddles in the dark with Tessa Wilkes, wannabe Medusa and soon-to-be former trainee.

Chapter 4 (#uf45f6dd5-9c4c-5168-8a80-4d52617fdaee)

Tessa arched her body in a cat stretch, moaning a little in the back of her throat as a confident male hand cupped her breast, thumb stroking lazily across her straining nipple. An arm was heavy across her waist, pinning her in place, and another heavily muscled arm acted as a pillow under her left ear. The smell and feel of man and muscle surrounded her, cocooning her completely in security.

Protection. A completely foreign concept to her, especially coming from a man. Slaps and fists were her childhood fare from most men. Her whole life, she’d been responsible for taking care of herself. Seeing to her own safety. If she didn’t do it, no one else would. And yet, here was Beau, doing it unconsciously. As naturally as breathing.

Or maybe he was just copping a freebie feel.

Either way, she had never spent a full night with a man before, and certainly not in a man’s arms. It was shockingly...nice. The intimacy of it was staggering. It was something she could definitely get used to. Maybe not with this guy, and definitely not at this time in her life. But someday.

Her decision to pursue the Special Forces had pretty much precluded her having long-term relationships, given the time demands of her constant training. She was confident that, as long as she was on the teams, she would have to dedicate every waking minute to it.

The first new Medusa. Her. Who’d have thunk?

Deep satisfaction settled into her gut, along with a big dose of fist-pumping exultation. She’d climbed the impossible mountain and made it to the unattainable peak.

Although truth be told, she hadn’t climbed the real mountain yet. She had no illusions about how hard her upcoming training was going to be. If the past few months had been a taste of things to come, the main meal was going to be a bona fide bitch. Particularly since her teacher didn’t seem the least bit thrilled at the idea of her actually becoming a Medusa.

And as hard as it was going to be, she simply didn’t have time for a personal life, no matter how nice it felt to snuggle with a hot guy. Correction: a smoking-hot guy who clearly was as turned on by her as she was by him. And yes, that made it worse. Eyes on the prize, girlfriend. Eyes on the prize.

Still. A pang of regret coursed through her. She really didn’t need to have glimpsed this other existence she might have had.

Of course, she could have a life like this if she wanted it. A man to sleep with every night and wake up to every morning. All she had to do was quit. Walk away from Beau and the Medusas. She had no doubt his orders were to do everything in his power to make her give up; he wouldn’t stop her if she decided she wanted this more than being a trained killer.

Thing was, she’d made it her life’s work to become exactly what he was. To be stronger, badder and bolder than any jerkwad man she could ever possibly encounter. It was really no choice at all. She had to go for the chance to become a Medusa.

Her gut warned her, however, that she wasn’t likely to feel this safe and protected again until she left the Medusas for good—either by choice or in a body bag.

Was a life of constant danger really what she wanted? It was all she had ever known growing up. But Beau had unwittingly—or maybe wittingly, knowing him—given her a glimpse of another world. Another way of life.

She lay there, caught between sleep and wakefulness, contemplating the choice. All the while, the big, strong warrior claimed his woman—

Whoa. Wait. What? She jolted the rest of the way to full consciousness with a mental lurch. She was nobody’s woman! No matter that Beau was draped all over her and she was practically purring and rubbing herself against him like a cat in heat.

Apparently, their subconscious minds had no qualms about crawling all over each other. No matter that this man was about to be her trainer in a supersecret and superintense program that didn’t officially exist. And no matter that she emphatically didn’t want a long-term relationship with any guy. Ever. Not in this lifetime.

Obviously, there would be no rules during her training out here in the middle of nowhere. No oversight. No limits on what they could and would do. Did that mean there were no sexual boundaries, either?

She knew there would be mind games galore as part of her training. They were part of any special operator’s training. Was this semiseduction part of it?

Would Beau take this further?

More important, would she let him?

Belatedly, reason kicked in. This was Beau Lambert she was talking about. He clearly didn’t like the idea of her becoming a Special Forces operative, but he’d been nothing but polite to her yesterday. He’d caught her when her strength had given out, holding her patiently until she could stand on her own two feet again. He’d fed her and seen to her needs, getting her water and a shower. Hell, he’d put Jimbo Kimball on the floor when the guy had made a rude advance to her.

Her gut told her in no uncertain terms that Beau Lambert was no creep. And she trusted her gut.

Sure, he was a healthy, red-blooded male, and his frequent, umm, male reactions, in her presence were a dead giveaway that he thought she was hot. But he’d spent an entire night in bed with her and not done a single thing about it.

She trusted him. More or less.

His palm cupped the weight of her breast and she gasped in spite of herself. Liquid lust shot straight from his hand to her crotch. She squeezed her thighs together tightly, but it didn’t help. Her core throbbed hungrily, desperate for this man. It had been way too long since she’d had sex. It didn’t help that she had utter faith he would know exactly how to appease that particular aching need.

She tried to move away from his hand subtly, without waking him. But the mattress was so narrow she had nowhere to go, and his arm tightened with easy strength, holding her snugly against him. Was he awake? Was this her first test?

Her eyes narrowed. She never had been the type to walk away from a challenge. She rolled over to face Beau and insinuated her thigh between his. The guy had an impressive erection going. Not lacking in that department at all, she noted. She rested her palms on his chest, tracing the gorgeous collection of muscles there and letting her hand drift around his narrow, muscular waist to his back. Her nose nestled against the junction of his neck and shoulder, the heat of the man furnace-like.

Abruptly, he came wide awake. He didn’t move in any way to indicate to her that he’d woken up. One minute he was relaxed against her, and the next she was clinging to a deadly predator thrumming with tension, prepared to pounce at any second and eat her alive.

Beau was so appealing to the eye that it was easy to forget just how dangerous a man he was. His pretty-boy looks lulled a person into a false sense of security. She could see how Jimbo had made the mistake. Memory of that cold, flat, killer’s calm in Beau’s eyes last night in the restaurant flashed into her head. She wasn’t just playing with fire here. She was playing with a lit blowtorch.