“Ah, yes.” One thing I’ve learned working at a military pub is that these guys almost never use their first names, so I’ve grown accustomed to learning faces by last names only. “Matt, I know.”
“I know you know.” Though my back is to Devin, I hear the brow-wiggle in her voice, and shoot a scornful look over my shoulder.
“Please. That li’l playboy don’t want nothin’ more than what’s inside my drawers. I called him from my first night working here.”
Devin smiles. “Raine isn’t so bad, Olivia. He’s cocky, but he’s sweet. Really.”
Matthew Raine, one of the Alpha Force Elite operators, is an outrageous flirt, and he makes a point of doing so with me every time he comes in. Granted, he is pretty damn good-looking, with his neatly trimmed light brown hair, square jaw, and mossy green eyes. So good, in fact, he looks like he should be a cover model, not a military badass.
But I’ve got his number. I know just the kind of guy he is—and that’s the kind I want to stay far away from me.
2
Matthew Raine
“Beer thirty,” Nicholas Diego bellows, standing up from his desk.
I’m so entrenched in my work, researching a possible terror cell in Beirut, that the yell makes me jump in my desk chair. It’s not often most of us are stateside at the same time, but when we are, and we’re doing office work—research, briefings, trainings, and the like—we get antsy as hell.
Currently, Joshua Hopper and our commander, Alexander Knight, are both out in the field. The field being Guyana for Hop and Karachi for Knight. I had a brief three-week mission last month that sent me to Syria. When I’m in the office, though, my specialty is trend analysis. I study the research from multiple sources, from the CIA and NSA down to anonymous sources on the dark web and identify where the next threat is coming from. No pressure.
Hence the need for daily beers.
Admittedly, relieving the pressure with some innocent relaxation isn’t the only reason why I look forward to “beer thirty,” as our resident, boy-genius tech wizard calls it. Ever since The Draught hired its new bartender three months ago, she’s definitely been driving my thirst.
I save my work and switch off my computer, smiling at the thought of seeing Olivia in the few minutes it’ll take for us to get off the base and drive the two miles to the pub. Long, straight, shiny dark hair that I know has to feel like silk, large dark-blue eyes, and curves that just thinking about keeps me awake at night. That adorable, sassy, and sexy Southern accent. I can’t help flirting with her every time I see her. She’s never outright told me to fuck off, and indeed she seems amused by me, but there’s something about her that keeps holding me at arm’s length. That invisible barrier has kept me from asking for her number, asking if she’d like to get together outside the pub. It’s a barrier that’s full of some kind of pain, and the more I see her, the more I want to rip it down.
Do I have a crush? Absolutely.
Would I love to lay her down in my bed and worship her body every way she wants? One hundred percent.
Am I in love?
Maybe.
Four of us—me, Diego, Jackson, and Kang—head out to the pub. I think it’s cool that Jackson still grabs one or two beers with us after work even though he has a gorgeous lady waiting on him at home. He met her on vacation in Hawaii, the lucky fuck, and she just so happens to live in the area, too. Could fate smile on me like that a little bit? Sheesh.
When we walk in, the place isn’t yet crowded, which is why we like to get there right around five. Our favorite table in the back corner is, as always, open, so we stroll toward it, calling hellos to Devin and Olivia. I amble over to the bar, my usual routine, and rest my elbows on it.
“Hey, Sweet Tea,” I say to her. It started as a joke when we had a very heated discussion over sweet tea and “unsweet” tea, or, as I like to call it, regular tea. But apparently, I’m an uncultured Yank who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow, so ever since I’ve called her Sweet Tea. That it sounds like “sweetie” is just a happy coincidence. I wish she were my sweetie.
“Hey, Raine-Raine-Go-Away,” she replies, throwing me a sassy glance over her shoulder as she starts tapping our beers. By now, she knows exactly what each of us likes to drink without us asking. I love watching her work. She’s so fluid and efficient, and I also don’t mind at all the sight of her luscious curves in those blue jeans she wears oh-so-well. “How ya perkin’?”
I snort. I can’t help it. I do it every time she says that even though I know it’s just her way of asking how it’s going. “Perkin’ good. How about you?”
She shrugs and turns to set the first two pints of beer on the bar in front of me. “Same as usual. Hear there’s a big party on Friday for your buddy Kang. Yours truly is gonna be doing the cooking.”
I perk up. “Like, Southern cooking?”
“Asian-fusion situation is what I hear.”
I nod, making an impressed face. “Can’t wait to sample it. Let me know if you do a practice run and need a taste-tester. I’m available. For you.”
She lifts a brow. “Starting early, huh?”
“I can’t help it when I’m around someone as beautiful as you are.”
Olivia rolls her eyes, but I don’t miss the pink flush in her cheeks. “Boy, you are some kind of determined, aren’t you? What’s your end game?”
I lean closer toward her. “How about a date?”
“You are out of your mind if you think I’m gonna date you. I know you military types. You like to, uh, make port? Take leave? Report for duty? In lots of women’s beds, if you catch my drift.”
I laugh. “Yeah, your drift is pretty obvious. But that’s not the kind of guy I am.”
Olivia braces her hands on the bar and meets me gaze for gaze. “And what kind of guy are you?”
“You’ll have to give me a shot to find out.”
“Give you a shot, huh?” Olivia turns and grabs a bottle of Jack Daniels from the shelf, pours some into a shot glass, and sets it on the bar in front of me. “There. That’s the only shot you’re ever getting from me.”
I keep my gaze on her steadily as I shoot the whiskey. “Delicious.”
I could swear her pupils dilate a little. As much as she wants to push me away, I know she’s attracted to me, and she won’t admit it.
I do love a challenge.
“Take your beers and get out of here,” she huffs, swatting me with her towel.
I pick up the glasses. “Okay. But we’re not done here, Miss Arnold.”
I don’t miss her little smile before she turns her back on me.
3
Olivia
That boy has some damn nerve.
Yet, even after he’s gone back to his table and I’m taking other orders as more people start trickling in, I can’t help but laugh to myself a little. He’s kept up his interest every day for the past three months. He’s not playing around.
But what if he is?
“How about a date?”