Major Attraction

by Julie Miller

  Am I painting a clear picture? Stud is as stud does.

  Have your fling. But don’t count on a Marine.

  I know some of you are out there thinking that with hundreds of thousands of men serving in all the branches of the military, that that studly playboy image must be the exception rather than the rule.

  Don’t you believe it!

  Now you know I’m one to back up what I say with solid evidence—four years of graduate school taught me that. So I accepted my editor’s challenge. Yes, I’ll grant that there are a few dedicated family men in the armed forces. But I’ll bet I can find a greater number of men in uniform who play on their hero status to a) pick up women, b) seduce women and c) leave a trail of women in their wake.

  There’s a fifty-dollar bet riding on this, readers.

  So watch for upcoming columns as I explore the perks, perils and pitfalls of loving a military man. If you’re looking for a longtime lover, forget that hunky soldier.

  You’ll have better luck in the produce aisle.

  “There.” J.C. typed her signature sign-off into her laptop and e-mailed the introductory column to her editor. She leaned back into the overstuffed pillows of her eggplant-colored chaise lounge and sighed with satisfaction. “There’s the ‘cyn’-ful style. That should stir up a few readers and sell a few papers.”

  The springtime sunlight was beginning to lose its afternoon heat as it filtered through the eyelet curtains at her windows. But J.C. had already warmed up to the idea of “infiltrating the military,” as Lee had suggested. She loved a challenge. Loved how it made her mind come alive, loved the energy it ignited inside her.

  Her plan was simple. There were several nightspots, right here in the Washington, D.C. area, that she knew were frequented by soldiers and sailors from all branches of the service on their off-duty hours. She would find herself a comfortable seat at the bar, order a lemon-lime soda, and wait for the boys to hit on her. She would ask a few questions, flirt a little, let them buy her as many nonalcoholic drinks as they wanted, and listen to their weak pickup lines. If one of them did actually come up with something clever or meaningful to say, she would take her research to the next level.

  She’d done enough dating studies to know how to weed out sincere interest from a line geared toward a romp in bed. She would make a few observations and record some informal statistics to use in her column. She would even let a few of them get to first base, just so she could evaluate them fairly in the physical prowess department.

  Of course, none of it would mean anything personal to her, despite Lee’s not-so-subtle hints that she needed to spice up her real love life to match Dr. Cyn’s standards. This was all in the name of research. Of promoting her column. Of winning that bet.

  Thoughts of getting back a little of what her father had taken from her never even crossed her mind.

  “You go, girl,” she laughed at herself. If she could save one woman from the heartache and humiliation her mother had endured, then Lee’s ridiculous challenge to get involved with a military man would be worth it.

  But her anticipation of the challenge at hand wavered on a lonesome sigh.

  She longed for a sparring partner to debate the risky goals of her investigation—and to break the silence of her tiny A-list apartment overlooking the Potomac River. Success had landed her a prime location and a big picture window, but there was still no one to answer back besides the giant stuffed polar bear sitting in the corner, and he wasn’t talking. Tucking her laptop and notepad into her attaché she set them on the floor, rose and crossed to the window. She pushed aside the curtain and stared into the sunset’s silvery glint off the Potomac. The bustle of crowded sight-seeing boats and sleek racing skulls on the water seemed to mock her carefully cultivated independence.

  J.C. let the curtain close and headed toward the bathroom to shower before her night on the town. Her bare feet made no sound as she padded across the carpeted floor. Her apartment suddenly felt uncomfortably quiet and embarrassingly empty, despite the eclectic collection of treasures she’d filled it with.

  Her mother had suggested she might try filling her life with people instead of things. But things didn’t leave. Things didn’t run out on you.

  Things didn’t fill the loneliness. And though technically she’d slept with a heating pad during the coldest part of the D.C. winter, things didn’t warm her bed at night.

  Expert knowledge didn’t warm her bed, either. Not like a man could.

  And her bed had been cold for a lot of nights.

  Very cold.

  Maybe she’d let one of her military guinea pigs get a little further than first base.

  All in the name of research, of course.

  GROUCHO’S PUB wouldn’t have been Ethan’s first choice of places to pick out a potential fake fiancée. He wasn’t sure if the quirky name of the place referred to the relics of movie memorabilia nailed to the walls, or to the grumpy old fart serving drinks behind the polished walnut-and-white-tile bar.

  The place didn’t even boast the small, intimate feel of the pubs he’d frequented when he’d been stationed in Great Britain and Berlin. It was a huge, cavernous warehouse of a place with a mile of booths on two levels, a dinky dance floor and a D.J. whose music was too loud to talk and too fast to make it worth the effort of asking a girl to dance.

  But the first two bars Travis had taken him to hadn’t been any better. If he just wanted to get laid for the night, fine. He’d had one solid offer and two more women who’d been willing to consider it as long as Travis was included in the deal.

  But any mention of the words commitment or courtship had earned him a handful of huh’s and one definite no.

  “I tell you, bro, you’re too serious to pull this thing off.” Travis’s ribbing had turned into sage-sounding advice. He raised two fingers to order a second round of beers and nodded to the group of chatty, energetic women who just walked through the door.

  Ethan studiously ignored making direct eye contact with any of the new candidates. “You don’t think I should take my future career seriously?”

  “You know that’s not what I mean. The closest thing to a come-on line I’ve heard out of you all night is, ‘Yeah, you can sit.”’ He talked as if Ethan was some kind of dating dinosaur. “What is that about? You’ve never once commented on anyone’s hair or eyes or smile or bod—or whatever it is that turns you on. There is something about women that turns you on, right?”

  The bottles of beer arrived with a splash and a scowl. “Five bucks, sirs,” the bartender grumbled.

  Ethan pulled out a five-dollar bill before Travis could so he could get rid of the testy bartender and show his brother what a real scowl looked like. “I’m not looking for sex. I’m looking for a suitable fiancée. I need more than a pair of boobs and a vacant-eyed gush about touching my hair to see if it’s as stiff as it looks.” He quoted one short-lived conversation from earlier in the evening, then picked up his beer and took a long drink, chilling the frustration that burned in his throat. He set down the bottle, ready to move on to a new topic. “And why the hell did he just call us sirs?”

  Travis shook his head and savored his first swallow. “Probably because you even sit at attention. I swear to God if you yelled ‘ten-hut’ right now, half the customers in this joint would fall into line.” He reached over and tugged loose the top button of Ethan’s pale yellow polo shirt. “Now relax and try to look as if you’re at least willing to have fun. And smile, for Pete’s sake. If you didn’t look so damn mad at the world, those three babes who just came in might have come over.”

  Ethan hadn’t really considered an evening trolling for make-believe mates as fun. It was a mission. An unpleasant one, but one he was determined to complete successfully.

  Mentally gearing up for another foray into Travis’s world of easy, willing women, Ethan began a routine reconnaissance of the establishment and its patrons. He ticked off his list as he surveyed the place. Too young. Too blond. Too loud. Too dr
unk. Not one genteel, sophisticated, colonel’s wife candidate anywhere.

  The only thing that Groucho’s did have going for it was the leanly curved brunette holding court at the opposite end of the bar. Her blue eyes, dark and intense as cobalt, sparkled with an intelligence that gave Ethan the impression she knew things that no one else even had a clue about. Her hair was cut short and sexy, falling in a touchable disorder around her face, with all the careless wisps and spiky bangs seeming to point straight to her mouth.

  And that mouth—wow. Ethan hadn’t ever really considered what it was he liked best about women. When he had looked just for the pure pleasure of looking, he’d always seen the whole package. Not just the size of the breasts. Or the length of the legs. Or the roundness of the hips. But right now, judging by the response stirring behind the zipper of his jeans, he was very definitely a mouth man.

  Covered in a slick shine of copper color, her lips were full, but not fake. And they were tilted with just enough invitation that Ethan found himself licking the rim of his own lips, tasting more than the tang of beer there. In his lustful imagination, the taste of her kiss was much more potent. They’d give, just like a ripe peach, teasing him with their softness, surrendering their strength to his.

  A dormant desire awakened inside him, speeding his blood with a determined pulse through his veins, making his lips tingle with the need for action. To taste. To take. He could imagine the sensuous curve of those lips pressed elsewhere, and shifted his position on the barstool to give his imagination room to expand.

  If she’d been alone, Ethan would have considered her his best bet for fiancée material. Hell, he would have considered her enough temptation to break his vow of self-imposed celibacy. Not that he would engage in a relationship that was only about sex. Not after the Bethany debacle. But he would consider it. He would go back to his apartment and consider that blue-eyed brunette’s lush lips all night long.

  But she wasn’t alone. Ethan buzzed his throbbing lips with a reality-check sigh and wrapped them around his beer bottle again for another cold drink. His fantasies had to take a back seat to his career goals. He’d seen at least three different men sitting on the stool beside her.

  Kissing her was not an option. Not for show in front of General Craddock. Not for real to assuage his own lusty urges.

  The third man who’d joined her, black-haired and sporting the distinct eagle, earth and anchor logo of the Corps on his tattooed bicep, got up from his stool, shaking his head at the woman he was leaving behind. With his back turned toward him, Ethan couldn’t make out the words he was saying, but he could read the upturned contempt of her eyes that indicated he was challenging something she’d said.

  A vague sense of potential danger kindled in Ethan’s veins, igniting something far different than his libido. It was probably all those years of training to stop a threat before it started that had him interpreting the other man’s jerky movements as signs of a brewing temper.

  But it wasn’t his business. If Miss Temptation wanted to play games, let her. There was a bouncer at the door to step in in case she got herself into trouble.

  Yet when the man slipped his arm around her shoulders and she stiffened in the moment before he forced her chin up, Ethan’s protective radar blazed into full, territorial alert. He was kissing her! That jackass was kissing those lips that had sparked the first sexual hunger Ethan had felt in months. He would bet a round of beers for the whole house that the jerk didn’t appreciate the sensuous artistry of her slightly crooked mouth the way he did.

  And obviously she hadn’t wanted that kiss. Ethan’s social skills might be rusty, but when a woman had to brace herself before a man touched her…

  His feet were on the floor ready to move when the kiss ended abruptly and she pushed the man away. Ethan froze. She was smiling. Not a full-blown, take me I’m yours smile, but a smug sort of Mona Lisa smile. Crazy.

  With one last remark that couldn’t be overheard, the man moved away and joined a buddy of his at one of the pool tables. Ethan’s hand fisted around his beer bottle, but he held his ground. The woman watched the discarded suitor until his focus shifted to the game at hand. Only then did her posture relax. Her mouth twisted into a grimace and she looked away. Intriguing.

  As her eyes swept past Ethan, she hesitated. They sat too far away to talk, but for several charged moments, their gazes locked. Her pupils dilated, turning her eyes to twin pools of midnight blue. Something secret and hot passed between them, loaded with questions, begging for answers. He’d been unabashedly staring, with the motive of defending her. But now that protective rush of testosterone became something much more basic as it thickened like hot honey through his blood.

  Ethan lost himself in the unguarded depths of those haunting eyes. On some level, he must have imagined losing himself inside her because, rationality aside, he had the most amazing hard-on of his adult life. And he hadn’t done a damn thing beyond look at the woman and fantasize about kissing her.

  “Yo, Major.” It took a thump on his shoulder for Ethan to finally realize that Travis had been talking to him.

  For a brief second, Ethan tore his gaze from his blue-eyed fantasy and concisely communicated that his little brother’s interruption was unwelcome. But by the time he glanced to the opposite end of the bar once more, the spell had been broken.

  The woman’s eyes were lighter in color and shuttered now. She spared him a graceful nod of her head, then flipped open a page in the notebook that sat on the bar in front of her, effectively tuning him out and turning down an unspoken opportunity to get acquainted. She jotted something down, closed the notebook, then scanned the bar, looking almost everywhere else except at Ethan. Weird.

  Travis’s breath rasped against Ethan’s ear in an amused whisper. “Are you gonna go for it?”

  Ethan bristled at the challenge. She was older than most of the coed types he’d met tonight. She had the looks. But no way would that eccentric flirt make a suitable impression on the top brass. “What do you suppose she’s writing over there?”

  Travis settled back onto his seat and shrugged. “Phone numbers? Maybe she’s a modern woman and wants to call the man instead of waiting for him to call her.”

  “That’s an awful lot of phone numbers.”

  “She’s got nice hooters. Not very big. But perky in all the right places. And her eyes are about as blue as—”

  Ethan slowly turned and glared him into silence. “Do I want to have this conversation with you?”

  “Defensive, huh?” Travis let the attack slide off his back. “So, we finally found your type. Cheeky brunette. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to go over and ask her to be yours for the next two weeks?”

  Technically she wasn’t a true brunette. As she shifted to pack her pen and notepad inside a large tote, the lights from the mirror behind the bar caught in her hair, revealing subtle auburn highlights. But that was hardly the point of Travis’s comments. Ethan shook his head. “She looks the part—classy, smart.” Sexy. “But she’s a little too free with her affection for my taste.”

  “Isn’t that the type of woman you want for a two-week relationship?”

  Ethan watched her get up, drape her bag over her shoulder and head for the exit. She was average in height, but there was a leanness about her long legs and narrow waist that made her seem taller. There was also an earthy sway to her backside that had Ethan’s hormones firing up again. Of all the women he’d seen tonight, she was the only one whose effect on him had lasted beyond his initial observations.

  He checked his watch. Zero-fifteen hours. After midnight by civilian standards. By dinner tonight, he needed an escort with an engagement ring on her finger to take to the Cherry Blossom Ball. He was out of options.

  Ethan faced the dare that lurked in Travis’s expression. “Damn, I hate when you’re right.” Ethan stood and tossed a couple of bills onto the bar for a tip. “I’d better suck it up and go introduce myself.”

  “Bett
er move fast,” Travis warned him. “She just went out the door.”

  “I’m moving.” Ethan straightened the tuck of his shirt at the waistband of his jeans and smoothed his palm over the top of his hair. Hell. He was more nervous than he’d been when he’d asked Amy Bartlett to the senior prom.

  “Hey, if you’re not back here in fifteen minutes—” Travis slapped him on the back, taking on the tone of experience “—I’ll expect you to call me in the morning to fill me in on how it went. Not too early, though. I intend to see some action myself.”

  “Shit.” But it wasn’t Travis’s teasing that hardened his nerves into something closer to anger.

  The tattooed man who’d kissed Ethan’s soon-to-be-asked-fake-fiancée-for-two-weeks had nudged his buddy at the pool table, and now they were both hurrying out the door. They turned the same way the woman had gone.

  Ethan’s suspicions revved into gear, his instinct to detect danger canceling out any trepidation he felt at asking this woman a huge favor. His long strides quickly ate up the distance to the exit. With his shoulders thrown back, his senses on keen alert, he shoved open the door and trailed the men outside. Beyond them, he spotted the woman in the parking lot, strolling across the pavement at a confident pace, oblivious to the danger that pursued her.

  Cajoling each other, the two men quickened their steps to a slow jog and headed straight for her. Ethan’s hands fisted at his sides. He was unarmed and out of uniform. But he was still a Marine. It was his duty to protect.

  And whether it came down to his rank or his clear-thinking or his big, badass self, the blue-eyed brunette was going to be safe.

  And she was going to be his.

  J.C. ADDED THICKHEADED to her list of all the undesirable qualities to be found in a military man.

  The Marine who’d kissed her in the bar had destroyed the last of her patience. He couldn’t seem to quite grasp the concepts of no. You’re not my type. Thank you, but I’m not interested.

  As if that gorillaesque, wet tongue thing he’d done with his mouth would change her mind about his Neanderthal charm!