The Maverick

by Rhonda Nelson

  High cheekbones, full pouty mouth, a nose that was a little too large for her face, but seemed to fit anyway and eyes the shade of a new leaf made her one of the most alluring creatures he’d ever set eyes on. She wore little to no makeup and her hair, though pulled back in a severe schoolmarm knot at the back of her head, was a pale blond the shade of sunlight. The hairstyle and the clothes might have said “Take me seriously,” but the face and the body screamed an abbreviated version— “Take me.”

  As though she’d somehow read his mind, her lips formed the slightest hint of a chilly smile. “Mr. McCann.”

  Guy grinned and inclined his head. “Ms. Beckam.”

  The pleasantries over, Garrett moved into colonel mode and outlined what he expected of them. He handed a class outline to each of them. “As you can see, McCann will be in charge of the team-building aspects of the curriculum and Ms. Beckam, we’d like you to focus on the emotional benefits of building a trusting relationship.” He smiled. “These teams need to feel married in all but the biblical sense.”

  Julia pulled a pair of reading glasses from her purse and perused the documents. There shouldn’t have been anything remotely sexy about that, but for whatever reason, Guy felt his dick get hard all the same. He squirmed and rolled his eyes.

  Clearly it was past time he got laid.

  “The two of you can get together and decide which exercises and lectures will compliment the other. In essence, you’re a team, as well.” He slid a look at McCann and offered a pointed smile. “Might I suggest getting better acquainted over dinner?”

  Startled, Julia looked up. Her gaze darted nervously between Garrett and himself and it was quite obvious that the idea of sharing a meal with him wasn’t what she’d like to do at all.

  Which was probably why Guy grinned broadly at her and heard himself say, “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

  Julia smiled weakly, but didn’t say anything.

  “Wonderful,” Garrett said, evidently pleased. “For lodging, please check in at Olson Hall and they’ll get the two of you fixed up. Gladys has called ahead, so they’re expecting you.”

  “Is that everything?” Guy asked.

  “For now,” Garrett told him. “I’ll be checking in to see how things are going.” He glanced at Julia. “Ms. Beckam, if you have any questions feel free to give me a call. However I think that McCann will be able to field most inquiries. He’s familiar with the way things are run here on post.”

  Julia nodded, shot Guy another one of those looks which said she doubted the credibility of that claim. For whatever reason, Guy got the distinct impression that she’d taken his measure and found him lacking.

  It wasn’t the usual reaction he normally received from women—he didn’t have to beat them off with a stick, exactly, but a smile and a wink usually did the trick. Could it be that she was the exception to the rule? He slid her a brooding glance, intrigued beyond reason. Stranger things had happened.

  Julia stood and shook Garrett’s hand. “Thank you for this opportunity, sir. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.”

  Garrett smiled. “I’m counting on it.”

  Guy acknowledged Garrett with a nod of his head, then followed Julia Beckam out of the colonel’s office. She walked ahead of him without sparing him so much as a backward glance. Tit for tat? he wondered. Or was she simply that rude?

  Time to find out.

  “Do you know where you’re going, Ms. Beckam?” Guy drawled.

  She turned and shot him a wry look over her shoulder. “No, but I have a map of the area in my car and, being as I’m neither blind nor stupid, I think I can figure it out.” She turned back around, purposely, it seemed, dismissing him.

  Both then, Guy decided, scowling. “How about I make it easy for you and you follow me?”

  She didn’t bother looking at him. “Very chivalrous, but no thank you.” Chilly sarcasm hung like icicles in her voice.

  What the fu—? “Do you need help getting that thing out?”

  This time she did turn toward him, looking thoroughly perplexed. “What thing?”

  Guy smiled sweetly at her, provoked past his normal limits. “The stick up your ass. I imagine it’s uncomfortable.”

  A fleeting flash of hurt clouded her gaze, then she blinked and the usual chill emerged. She deliberately retraced her steps. “Let’s get something straight. I am perfectly aware of the fact that you don’t want to work with me. You made that abundantly clear the instant I walked into Colonel Garrett’s office.” She rolled her eyes, made an exasperated huff as though mystified and repulsed by the workings of the male brain. “I’m treading on your precious male territory, or ruining your ‘manly’ team-building exercises with my touchy-feely approach to trust bonding and you’d just as soon not work with me.” She pinned him with a glare. “Well, newsflash, buddy. As shocking as it might be, I don’t particularly want to work with you, either, but it’s a necessary evil and I’ve accepted it. I suggest you do the same.”

  “When did you accept it?” Guy asked as a horrible suspicion rose.

  She blinked, her tirade derailed. “Two weeks ago when Garrett informed me that I’d be working with you.”

  Guy smirked at her. “Newsflash,” he said sarcastically, throwing the phrase right back at her. “I found out I’d be working with you two minutes before you walked into the room. I haven’t had time to ‘accept it’ yet.”

  She paused, her clear green gaze considering and something about that look made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. “Now that’s interesting.”

  “What’s interesting?” Guy asked, unnerved by that probing I-know-something-that-you-don’t look.

  She cocked her head and an infuriating little grin turned her lips. “That Garrett’s put a guy he clearly doesn’t trust in charge of a trust-building class. Irony, I wonder,” she mused annoyingly. “Or something else.”

  And with that parting shot she turned and walked away, leaving him to wonder, as well.

  About her.

  2

  PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE and smoke it, you great ass, Julia thought as she made her way back out to her car. She consulted her map and aimed her car toward Olson Hall. To her chagrin, Guy McCann fell in behind her, then had the audacity to smile and wave when he saw her checking out her rearview mirror.

  Good grief, the man was insufferable.

  In her line of work she was used to dealing with men who’d been dragged against their will into her office by their significant others, had fought prejudice and preconceived notions by thick-headed, cocky blowhards for as long as she’d been in business.

  So the minute that Colonel Garrett had told her that she’d be sharing a workshop with a former Ranger, she’d known—known—that there’d be trouble. She’d fully expected him to be a cool, sarcastic condescending he-man whose new goal in life was to make her feel small and foolish. She’d imagined him all but pissing in the corners of the room, marking his territory.

  What she hadn’t counted on was him being so damned good looking.

  And for reasons she could not begin to explain or even understand that absolutely infuriated her. She frowned. Insult to injury, she imagined, given the weekend she’d had.

  Guy McCann was one of those genuine baby-I-can-rock-your-world bad boys whose charm and irreverence made him all the more irresistible. Bright green eyes, a cool smooth jade, danced with equal measures of intelligence and wickedness and an open invitation to sin that made a girl’s pulse inexplicably leap. And while his smile might have been crafted by a divine hand, it had been honed to perfection by the devil because she’d never seen anything so carnally sinful.

  Exceptionally high cheekbones, a firm angular jaw and a dimple in his right cheek made him all the more appealing. Add a shock of untidy jet-black hair and a body built on David’s scale—even slouched carelessly in his chair, she’d been hammeringly aware of that fact—and he became downright lethal.

  A simple sexy didn’t begin to cover it.
/>
  In short, he was the kind of guy who could charm the pants—and everything else—right off a girl, make her think it was her idea, then cut her loose without realizing that she’d just had her heart crushed beneath his cocky heel. And the instant he crooked a finger and that smile again, she’d get in line for guaranteed misery once more.

  Ugh…sickening.

  He was trouble with a capital T and if she had a brain in her head—particularly given her present frame of mind and her newest personal revelation—she’d drive her car right off this base and hightail it back to Atlanta.

  Unfortunately, in light of recent mortifying events, Julia had no desire to go home at the moment. When she’d told Garrett that she’d been “unavoidably detained” that had been a mild understatement.

  In truth, she’d been in jail.

  She, who’d never had so much as parking ticket, incarcerated.

  Renewed mortification stung her cheeks and she swallowed tightly. Julia still had a hard time making it process, still couldn’t believe that things had gone so terribly wrong. In an effort to revive another flatlined relationship, she’d gone to extreme measures.

  Or at least they had been for her.

  “Variety,” Warren had said, Julia remembered now, angered once again. He’d wearied of their “vanilla sex life” and longed for something a little more titillating, a request she’d heard from previous boyfriends, as well.

  When confronted with a problem, Julia was the type to address it head-on. If Warren’s complaint had been the first that she’d heard, then she merely would have chalked it up to it being simply his opinion, not the consensus. But as this was the third time she’d been accused of being too tight in the sack, Julia knew that, sadly, she was the problem.

  Gallingly, in the bad sex department, she was the common denominator.

  Since Warren had expressly asked for variety, Julia had researched a few scenarios and decided that role-playing wouldn’t put her too far out of her comfort zone. Knowing that Warren would be returning from a business trip late last night, she’d decided to surprise him. She’d applied makeup à la hooker, donned a long red wig and a sexy leather dress with a built-in push-up bra, then had driven over to Warren’s house for a night of chocolate sex in which she hoped she would finally reach climax. So far, just like his predecessors, Warren had managed to trip her trigger digitally…but never during sex. More proof that there was something wrong with her, Julia thought with a small despondent sigh.

  At any rate, she’d parked several houses farther down his block so that he wouldn’t see her car, then had hurriedly backtracked to his house.

  At this point, things had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

  She’d fumbled the keys into the bushes, then had scrambled around in the dark in a vain attempt to find them. Ten minutes later, wig askew and runs in her micro-fishnet hose, she’d given up and decided to resume her search in the morning. Locked out of the car, Julia had made the decision to try and break into Warren’s house.

  In retrospect, she shouldn’t have done this.

  A concerned neighbor had seen her skulking around the house, trying various doors and windows and had called the police. In short order, she’d found herself arrested for attempted breaking and entering and, while this could have been neatly avoided if Warren had returned home as scheduled, unfortunately he hadn’t. His flight had been delayed. Unwilling to share her humiliation with anyone else, she’d used her one phone call and left the embarrassing can-you-please-come-bail-me-out-of-jail? request on his cell.

  He had. He’d also broken up with her.

  Julia sighed. The fact that she hadn’t cried told her everything she needed to know about the state of her heart and the fact that he hadn’t owned it. Was she disappointed that another relationship had come to an end? Yes. That was more disheartening than anything else. It felt like a personal failure on her part and it was especially infuriating when she, the so-called relationship expert, couldn’t hold a man’s interest for more than nine months at a time.

  For whatever reason, nine months seemed to ring the death knell. The first three would pass in a romantic haze of new love, the next three would segue into a predictable sort of comfort, then by the ninth month, everything would have fallen apart.

  On the two-hour drive down here this morning, Julia had systematically reviewed her last three break-ups and come to the unhappy conclusion that her poor performance in the bedroom was the problem. Clearly she was doing something wrong. To her own credit, however, the same men who complained about her being uptight had never came away from her bed less than satisfied. She grimaced.

  That role had been exclusively hers.

  In fact, to be perfectly honest, if anyone had a right to complain it was her. She was the one who’d been cheated out of a sexually induced orgasm every single time.

  Julia released a small breath. Unfortunately she couldn’t deny the evidence and the evidence suggested that she was the one at fault. Given that, she’d come to the practical decision that some sexual instruction was in order. The minute she finished up this week-long workshop with Lieutenant Wicked, she fully intended to hook up with one of those guys she’d always avoided like the plague.

  Guys like him.

  Desperate? Insane? Yes on both counts, but she was tired of always coming up short—literally—and the only way she could logically imagine remedying the situation was by learning from an expert. That’s why aspiring artists studied the masters, she told herself, why students learned from their professors.

  And as galling as it was to admit it, she needed a player—a guy who was only interested in a brief encounter punctuated with lots of hot sex. A serial sex artist, someone who specialized in catch and release.

  An image of Guy McCann leapt instantly to mind, making her fingers tighten around the steering wheel and her breath thin in her lungs.

  No doubt he’d do nicely, she thought, then immediately tamped down that line of thinking. Aside from the fact that she was here in a business capacity—representing her father, no less—Julia had the sneaking suspicion that Guy McCann would be hard to…manage.

  Her gaze darted to her rearview mirror once more. Designer shades covered his eyes and he drove with one hand on the wheel, the other slung carelessly across the back of the seat. Windows open, the breeze ruffled his black locks adding more irreverent charisma to his already considerable charm.

  No doubt about it, Julia thought as a hot tingle pinged her sex, he had the wow factor in spades.

  And every other trump card, as well.

  Julia paused consideringly. No, she decided.

  No.

  It was out of the question. Aside from deciding to instantly dislike him on a personal level, if Julia had learned one thing in the course of her career it was how to spot a guy with issues.

  And from the guarded look she’d glimpsed in those admittedly beautiful eyes, to the uncompromising set of his shoulders, it was clear that Guy McCann’s issues had issues. Furthermore, though she’d been being a smart-ass—albeit an insightful one—when she’d pointed out that Garrett had put a guy he didn’t trust in charge of a trust-building course, she seriously had to wonder about that. She didn’t know what Garrett’s game was, but clearly there was more at work here than what she realized.

  At any rate, though her first instinct was to help—to jump right in and “meddle” as her father had always said—she didn’t want any part of it. She’d come to Fort Benning to do a job—to pay back an old debt—and she would do that to the best of her ability. Colonel Garrett had saved her father’s life. The least she could do was remain a professional and complete the favor he’d asked of her.

  As for Guy McCann…he’d successfully paddled his own canoe for thirty-odd years. He could certainly manage without what she instinctively knew he’d deem as interference.

  Five minutes later, Julia angled her car into a space near Olson Hall, grabbed her purse and made for the sidewalk. Though it was early
spring, she could feel the promise of heat and humidity in the air and the smell of fresh-cut grass tickled her nose. Spring was her favorite season, when bugs were at a minimum and everything became new again. There was something about the symbolism of rebirth associated with the season that really appealed to her. For whatever reason, she longed for her own rebirth. Her skin felt too tight for her body and there was a sense of urgency—of desperation—that hovered around her shoulders like a shadow she couldn’t shake.

  And speaking of shadows… She felt Guy McCann fall in behind her, his tall frame looming over her. Her stomach did an odd little flutter and the palms of her hands tingled, forcing her to set her jaw against the unfamiliar sensation.

  “Are we racing?” he drawled, his smooth voice laced with humor.

  “No,” Julia replied tightly.

  He hummed under his breath, hurried forward when she reached the door so that he could open it for her. “I wondered. You kept picking up speed.”

  “That’s because I was trying to get away from you.”

  He feigned a wince. “Ouch.”

  Julia shot him a look over her shoulder as she entered the air-conditioned lobby. “Oh, please.” She’d bet a bayonet couldn’t puncture that ego.

  “There’s no point in trying to avoid me,” Guy told her, seemingly unoffended. “Have you forgotten about dinner?”

  As if. “I suspect I won’t be hungry.”

  Julia presented her ID to the clerk and waited to be checked into a room, determinedly looking at anything but him.

  Unfortunately that didn’t prevent her from feeling him. It was as though he emanated a magnetic charge, flooding the air with his very presence and for whatever reason, she seemed particularly susceptible to it. She’d never been so…aware of another person.