But then he’d always had a thing for brunettes. And redheads. And blondes. Hell, he loved women. But he really loved brunettes. One brunette in particular, the one he hadn’t married or slept with or even made it past first base with, for God’s sake.
Focus on the swim. The team.
The damn game. “Cuervo, are we playing this or not?”
“Next trio up… topic is singers,” Cuervo announced. “Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera. And Kesha.”
Huh? “Who the hell is Kesha?”
“Are you sure you’re not too old for this job?”
“Still young enough to outswim you, baby boy.” Liam surged ahead of Cuervo. Swims were a lot easier on his abused knees than parachute landings or runs. But a pararescueman needed to be ready for anything, anywhere. Any weather.
Thunder rolled like a bowling ball gaining speed, and his teammates were the pins.
All games aside, this little dip in the rain was about more than a simple training exercise. More than team building. He needed his pararescuemen in top form for a mission they usually didn’t handle—the external security for an upcoming international summit being held at NASA. Not normal business for pararescuemen, but well within their skill set to act as a quick-reaction force if anything went down. After all, isn’t that what a rescue was? A quick reaction to something going down? Trained and prepared to fight back enemy-combatant forces if necessary to protect their rescue target.
This made for a tough last assignment. His final hoo-uh, ooh-rah before he said good-bye to military life. Since he was eleven years old watching vintage war movies on a VCR with his cancer-stricken mama, all he’d wanted was to be that man who took the hill and won the woman. His mother had lost her battle. But Liam had been determined to carry on the fight by putting on that uniform.
Damned if he would go out with a whimper.
Fang slapped the water. “Can we get back to the fuck-me game?”
“Hey,” Wade Rocha’s voice rumbled as deeply as the thunder, “no need to make this crude.”
“Oh, excuse me,” Fang gasped. “Now that you’re married, you’re all Sergeant Sensitivity.” Gasp. Stroke. “I guess we’ll call this… kill one, marry one…” Gasp. Stroke. “Make sweet, flowery love to one.”
Rocha muttered, “You’re just jealous, smart-ass.”
Fang chuckled and spluttered. “Not hardly. Monogamy until I’m in the grave?” He shuddered. “No thanks. Not into that.”
But Liam was.
He’d tried his ass off to make the happily-ever-after thing work. Tried three times, in fact. Problem was, he had a defective cog when it came to choosing a woman to spend his life with. Didn’t help that he’d always put the mission first, something that hadn’t sat well with any of his wives. A small fortune spent on marital counseling hadn’t been able to fix the relationships or him.
And still, he couldn’t get that one woman—that one brunette—out of his mind, no matter how many times he chanted, “Old patterns, not real, get over her.”
He was a romantic sap who fell in love too easily. He kept looking for that classic silver-screen ending. Guy gets girl. Roll credits.
If only he could have persuaded Rachel Flores to go out with him once they’d returned to the States. They’d worked together rescuing earthquake victims in the Bahamas six months ago. Had become good friends, or so he’d thought. After they got back, she never returned his calls.
Sure, if they had dated, the relationship would have self-destructed like all the rest. Then he could have walked away free and clear, no regrets, no lengthy explicit dreams that woke him up hard and unsatisfied. Now he was stuck with images of Rachel rattling around in his noggin until he wouldn’t even notice another woman if she were waiting on the beach ahead wearing nothing but body glitter and a do-me smile.
Except there wasn’t anyone on the beach. Just a stretch of sand and trees and a five-mile hike waiting to set his knees on fire after he hit the shore.
His life had been about training and service since he’d joined the army at eighteen. Became a ranger. Then got his degree while serving, became an officer, and swapped to the air force and pararescue missions.
Training. Honing. Brotherhood.
He’d sacrificed three marriages and any social life for this and would have kept right on doing so. Except now his thirty-eight-year-old body was becoming a liability to those around him.
One week. He had one week and a big-ass demonstration left. Until then he would do his damnedest to keep his team focused and invincible. He wasn’t going to spend another second fantasizing about a particular sexy spitfire brunette with as much grit as his elite force team.
Liam narrowed his eyes against the sting of salt and the pounding rain pushing through the surface like bullets. “I’ve got a new game, gentlemen. It’s called Pick Your Poison.” Stroke. Breathe. “If you’ve gotta die in the water…” Stroke. Breathe. “Would you choose a water moccasin? An alligator? Or a shark?”
***
Rachel Flores learned to break into cars when her mom rescued animals from locked automobiles. But she’d never expected to use that skill to lock herself and her dog inside a vehicle.