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FRIDAY EVENING, CAT, her tool caddy in hand, let herself into the Powell house. Leda had asked her to do a few repairs in the upstairs bathroom, so Cat headed right up the stairs, her boots rapping against the glossy wood. Leda and Cat’s mom had headed for Vegas around noon, but Cat had the key. And she knew her way.
She should. She’d run tame in this house most of her life. She’d taken piano lessons from Mrs. Powell for a month before they’d both realized that it was a lost cause. Then, knowing Lucia’s obsession with turning her daughters into ladies, instead of telling Cat’s mother that it was pointless, Leda had spent an hour twice a week teaching Cat to appreciate music even if she couldn’t play it herself.
It hadn’t been fear of her mother—well, not just fear of her mother—that had Cat going along with the lessons. Nope, her ten-year-old self had sat through hours of Beethoven, Bach and Tchaikovsky in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Mrs. Powell’s only son.
She’d lived for those glimpses of the fourteen-year-old Taylor coming home from baseball practice with his grass-stained knees and his crooked smile. For the offhand “hey’s,” the rare times he’d sit and chat. She’d ripped herself away from her obsession with power tools to learn baseball just so she’d have something to add to the conversation.
At twelve, she’d learned to work on engines so she could help him rebuild the engine in his ancient Chevy. When she was fourteen, she’d snuck out one night to follow Taylor on a date. She hadn’t been able to get an up-close look, but she’d seen enough going on in the backseat of that Chevy to send her budding hormones haywire. All she’d wanted, all she’d been able to think about for months, was getting him to do to her what he’d been doing to Marcy Carter.
But by fifteen, after a lot of reflection and watching of the bimbo parade across the street, she’d been smart enough to figure out that she wasn’t Taylor’s type. No amount of wishing would make it otherwise. She’d never be petite and curvy. She’d never be giggly or girly. She’d never be his girl.
So she’d settled on being his friend.
But...
At the top of the stairs Cat turned left instead of right, heading for Taylor’s old bedroom.
She and Taylor might just be friends, but they were friends with benefits. The naughty sexual benefits might all be in her mind, but that was beside the point.
She stopped in the open doorway of the bedroom and breathed deep. It smelled like the rest of the house: clean and slightly citrusy. But she liked to think that she was breathing in a little of Taylor. She dropped her tote by the door and stepped into the room.
Even though he hadn’t lived here since he’d left for college, Mrs. Powell hadn’t changed her boy’s room. Instead of sports figures or rock bands, the framed shots on Taylor’s wall were beach scenes and inspirational military posters.
A California king, his bed was too big for the small room but Taylor had hit six-two in his midteens, so Mrs. Powell had probably been thinking of her son’s height. Cat, however, thought of all sorts of things when she saw Taylor’s bed.
Picturing him lying there, his blue eyes bright as he reached out to touch her. His fingers would be a little rough when they skimmed under her shirt, sliding along her skin. He’d smile, that crooked grin of his making his dimple wink when he stripped her naked.
Cat ran her hand over the denim bedspread then, with her eyes closed, sat. Her cheeks tingled with heat but she still gave the bed a little bounce. She’d been doing this since she was seventeen and had started doing repairs for Mrs. Powell. Sneaking into Taylor’s room when nobody was home, bouncing on his bed.
She justified it by accepting that this was the closest she’d ever get to bouncing on Taylor himself.
Laughing at herself, Cat gave one last bounce on the trim blue spread before jumping to her feet and crossing the room. Before she grabbed her tote, though, she took a trip through Taylor’s past via the scarred bookcase next to the door.
Trophies for everything from track and field to shooting to debate. Framed photos of Taylor and his mom over the years. Adorable at twelve in his Sea Scout uniform. Sexy at sixteen with his first car, a beat-up Chevy. Hotter than hell a dozen years ago at his high school graduation; Leda’s smile wide enough to crack her face. And Taylor in Navy whites. Cat sighed, tracing her finger over the image of that gorgeous face. His brown hair shorn so short that those big blue eyes looked huge in his serious face. It was the only photo that didn’t feature his crookedly sexy grin.
Cat sighed. Then, rolling her eyes at the silliness of her crush, reached down to grab her tote. Time to get to work.
Leda wanted the drip fixed in the bathroom sink and the broken tile by the tub replaced. So Cat pulled out her pipe wrench and started work. And if she let her imagination roam to dreaming about Taylor naked in that shower, hot water spraying over his muscular body, dripping down that hard flesh, so what?
It just proved how good she was at her job, multitasking while on the verge of a climax.
* * *
“LIEUTENANT POWELL, DO you have anything to add to your report?”
“No, sir.” Taylor stood at attention, back straight, chin high and eyes straight ahead.
He felt the stares of the chief warrant officer, of the captain, of the O5 from Naval Intelligence. He heard papers rustling, the click of the keys as someone took notes.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been called in for a personal debriefing. It wouldn’t be the last. That didn’t make it any easier.
No question about it, life was ugly.
Sometimes his part in it made it better.
Sometimes it made it uglier.
Taylor accepted that.
Debriefings only put a spotlight on the good, on the ugly.
“Lieutenant, you engaged with a minor subject. You left said subject for dead, is that correct?”
Still at attention, Taylor didn’t spare a look for the NI weasel. But he did take great pleasure in mentally flipping the guy the bird.
“The enemy was armed,” he repeated. Again. This time he added, “Said enemy had a finger on the trigger and one of my teammates in the crosshairs. According to intelligence provided by NI, everyone inside the installation was to be considered a terrorist. Standard—”
“That’s enough, Lieutenant,” the captain interrupted. “You’re not here to justify following orders or for doing an exemplary job.”
Right.
Even though it felt like it.
But Taylor was too well trained to let his thoughts, or his dislike of the NI weasel, show.
“I’m not concerned with justification,” the weasel said. “Lieutenant, given the severity of what you faced, have you requested a medical exam?”
“I wasn’t injured. Sir.” Since it was his only option for expressing his opinion of that idea,
