CHAPTER 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 blow-hards 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 high-tail 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 flat-lined 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 make-up a-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 further 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 up-tight 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 Lt. 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 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.
“Hungry or not, we’re supposed to get acquainted. We’re going to be working together, after all.”
There was that, Julia knew. Still, the idea of spending any time alone with him made her nervous. Possibly because she didn’t trust herself not to take advantage of him. The idea drew a smile. Her take advantage of him? No doubt that thought would put a smile on his provokingly-handsome face, Julia thought, wondering about his sudden desire to make nice. She mentally harrumphed.
He certainly hadn’t been interested in being nice to her a few minutes ago. Hell, he hadn’t so much as looked at her until she’d sat down next to him, and even then his first look hadn’t been at her face, which would have been respectful--instead she’d caught him checking out her leg.
Gratifying, she had to admit.
She’d felt the weight of that hot stare as though he’d touched her. Felt it sizzle a path up her leg, over her breast and then ultimately settle on her face. At that point she’d been so mesmerized over his she hadn’t had the presence of mind to gauge his reaction to hers, but Julia knew most men found her passably attractive.
Her nose was too big--had been the bane of her existence for as long as she could remember--but the idea of changing it had always been out of the question. She’d grown too used to seeing it in the middle of her face to muck around with things. Imperfections added character, in her opinion, and so long as her nose functioned properly she’d leave it alone.
Truthfully, she suspected it bothered her mother more than it did herself. Her mother had petitioned for rhinoplasty many times over the years, always calling it “that unfortunate nose.” She’d even gone so far as to make Julia an appointment with her own personal plastic surgeon, but Julia had refused to go.
Having become the Plastic Surgery Queen, her mother’s face had been stretched and Botoxed until she looked more like a wax figure than a person. Her most recent procedure had been a hand lift. Julia’s lips quirked. Why not? she thought. Everything else had been lifted, tucked, plucked and tattooed to perfection.
As an adult it was easy to see that her mother’s self-worth was hopelessly entangled with her beauty, but as a child, then an insecure teenager, being under constant scrutiny and criticism hadn’t been easy. She’d once overheard her parent’s arguing about it.
“We’ve got to do something about that nose, Frank,” her mother had said, disgusted. “It’s horrid.”
“It’s not horrid, Joan,” came her father’s long- suffering reply. “Our daughter is beautiful. Leave her alone. You’re going to give her a complex.”
Too late, Julia had thought.
“But don’t you think if--“
“Enough!” her father had finally snapped. “She’s not you, dammit. She doesn’t have to be perfect. Just leave her alone.”
She hadn’t of course, but knowing that her father thought she was beautiful had warmed her heart and instantly perked up her flagging self-esteem. It had been equally validating and liberating and, while her mother’s criticism could usually find a mark, after that moment, it hadn’t hurt as much as before. She’d been inoculated, for lack of a better explanation.
Julia accepted her key and listened while the clerk told her where to find her lodgings. Rather than staying there, she’d been booked into a nearby duplex. “It has a kitchen and a nice front porch,” the clerk told her. “You’ll like it.”
Julia smiled her thanks and turned to go.
“And, of course former Lt. Colonel McCann will be your neighbor.”
She paused, her grin frozen. “How nice,” Julia murmured. Actually, it was the polar opposite of nice. A helpless cloak of doom settled around her shoulders and she briefly entertained asking for a room here instead.
On the smug scale, Guy’s smile would have registered an easy ten. “Isn’t it, though?”
Geez Lord, he was infuriating, Julia thought, wondering why she also found that completely irresistible. No doubt the trip to the slammer last night had damaged her psyche. Something had happened to her, otherwise she wouldn’t be torn between the pressing urge to slap him or kiss him. Actually, slapping him, then kissing him, then slapping him again vastly appealed to her. The idea drew a smile.
“What time would you like to get together for dinner?” Guy asked, accepting his own key.
Julia rolled her eyes. “Never-thirty.”
He looked away, seemingly torn between laughing and throttling her. “Six it is, then.”
“But--“
He flashed another cocky grin at her, but this one held a bit of an edge which, to her eternal stupidity, she found secretly thrilling. “I’ll knock.”
Six, Julia thought, releasing a resigned breath. Her date with doom.
And yet she looked forward to it. How screwed up was that?