Tempted by the Soldier (A Falling for You Novel) (Entangled Brazen) (3 page)

“You’re my best man,” Jace said. “Which means making my bride happy is your responsibility as much as it is mine. This falls into your line of duty.”

Nate snorted. “That’s funny. I thought all I had to do was show up and look better than you in a tux. ”

“Joke all you want, but when I’m the one kissing the pretty girl in white, you might want to reevaluate who the more alluring brother is.”

“Right. It only took you, what, fifteen years to close that deal?” He smiled, picturing the irritated look scrunching up his little brother’s face. Despite all the ink on his skin and the cash in his bank account, Jace would always be a kid to Nate. The same kid he’d taught to throw a curveball. The same kid he used to find asleep on his bedroom floor in the middle of the night for months after their father died.

The same kid he’d left alone when he’d needed him the most…

Nate brushed off the memory, laden with guilt, when he heard Hayden’s voice in the background. Half Pint didn’t get upset too often, but by her tone, she sounded primed and pissed now. Something covered the phone, muffling their voices, and Nate rolled his eyes. He would have been annoyed by his brother’s pussy-whipped behavior if it hadn’t been like this ever since they were in middle school. Jace had been trailing after Hayden since they were kids. It wasn’t until last year that his brother had pulled his head out of his ass and realized he was in love with the girl he’d called his best friend since before puberty.

“What did you do to piss Hayden off this time?” Nate grabbed his well-worn duffel with the USMC logo and tossed it on the bed. “Leave the toilet seat up? Forget to use a coaster? Leave the throw pillows on the wrong side of the couch?”

Jace uncovered the phone and sighed. “She’s not pissed at me. She’s pissed at
you
.”

Nate halted his packing and raised a brow. “What the hell for?”

“Oh, nothing,” Jace said. “You were just supposed to pick up Lilly. Two hours ago.”

Chapter Three

When Lilly spotted Nate’s truck screeching into the parking lot, two hours late, a fresh wave of anger shattered her momentary relief. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she was wearing her favorite pair of knockoff
Louboutin
s she’d scored off eBay, she would have walked her ass home, torrential downpour or not. Some things in life you just didn’t risk, and Louboutins, imitation or not, topped that list.

She should have swallowed her pride and called Paige back to pick her up, but the truth was, she was humiliated. Sitting in a public café waiting on some arrogant, unreliable prick to save the day was something her mother would have done. Following in her mother’s footsteps went against everything Lilly had worked so hard to become. Everything she’d spent the past eleven years trying to escape. If she hadn’t exhausted every other option, no way would she have lowered herself to Nate’s level. But as much as she hated to admit it, Hayden was right. This wasn’t only the most logical option, it was her
only
option if she wanted to get to the wedding.

The door dinged and, clenching her jaw, Lilly looked up to find Nate brushing rain off his black leather jacket. Six foot three of Marine-made muscle filled the entry door, looking like the shiny new toy most mothers warned their daughters not to touch. And Lilly wasn’t the only one to notice. She ground her teeth in annoyance as half the women in the café stopped talking to stare. The only one who didn’t seem to notice was Nate.

The last time she’d seen him, his hair had been buzzed military-style, so close she could’ve traced the exact path of the long white scar on his scalp. But now his hair had grown just long enough to mask the evidence of the hell he’d survived overseas. His electric-blue eyes looked up, doing a quick scan over the room, only taking two seconds to find her.

At least the bastard had the decency to look guilty. Not that it helped the violent urge she had to pick up the nearest blunt object and pound him with it. He started across the crowded space, and Lilly’s grip nearly crushed the to-go cup that held her Frappuccino. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was taking his sweet time on purpose, or if his snail-like pace was just a product of her imagination and the five cups of coffee she’d consumed waiting on him.

At last he ambled up and braced his hands on the back of the chair across from her. “Hey. Need a ride, Princess?”

She tensed at the mention of the nickname he’d saddled her with the day they met. He’d taken one look at her polished exterior and assumed she was just some spoiled brat who’d never experienced a hard day’s work for fear of breaking a nail. If only he knew how far he was from the truth. She’d done everything from work as a professional pooper scooper in an animal shelter to sweeping floors in an auto body shop just to survive after her mother had died. Lilly was as far from a princess as you could get. Unless you counted Cinderella and her floor-scrubbing days…

“Well, look who finally decided to show up.” Lilly stood, smoothing her dress over her thighs. “Sergeant Unreliable is alive and kicking, after all. And here I was hoping you’d fallen down a well or something.”

“You know, Lil, when I think about fifteen hours of you busting my balls,” Nate said, “I gotta say, the well sounds tempting.”

Lilly took a deep breath and plastered on a fake smile. “You can rest easy, Nate. I have absolutely no interest in your balls. Just your truck.”

Ignoring the dangerous glint in his eyes, she turned and bent over at the waist to grab her suitcase, knowing exactly what he would see. She felt immensely gratified when she heard the choked sound behind her. Her lips twitched with a satisfied smile as she slowly stood, deliberately giving him a good look at the body he’d
never
have the pleasure of touching again. When she turned around, luggage in hand, his eyes blazed, still lingering on the hem of her dress.

“Enjoying the view?” She raised a brow.

He lifted his gaze unapologetically, and anger lined the hard edge of his clenched jaw. “The
view
is a little hard to miss in that dress, Princess. I wasn’t aware Kleenex had come out with a women’s fashion line.”

Lilly inhaled, silently counted to ten, and gave him a tight-lipped smile. “As much as I’ve missed your uncanny talent to insult me, I’d really like to get on the road, if it’s all the same to you. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can part ways and never see each other again.”

“For once we can actually agree on something,” he muttered.

She turned her back on him before she did something extreme. Like pour her Frappuccino over his head. He followed, reaching out to grab the handle of her suitcase. She tightened her grip, refusing to let go.

“Come on, Lil.” He held the door open for her as she struggled through to the parking lot, hands full. “I’m not a total dick. Let me take your bag.”

“First of all, yes, you are.” She stopped and turned to face him. “And second, the only way you’re getting my bag is if I shove it up—”

His hard chest collided with hers and her coffee cup exploded between them. She screamed and jumped back, allowing him to take the brunt of the Frappuccino eruption.

He looked up, eyes wide, and held his dripping hands out to his sides. “What the hell?”

“Seriously?” She shook her fingers, splattering him with more of the sticky-sweet excuse for coffee, and scowled at him. “Weren’t you in the army? Didn’t they teach you grunts to look
forward
when walking?”

Tension stiffened his big frame and a muscle in his jaw ticked. “Marines.”

“Yeah, well the
Marines
must have skipped the watching-where-you-walk chapter along with the lesson on punctuality. Or maybe you just bailed that day. You seem to be good at that.”

Anger flashed in his eyes like a storm warning. He took a slow step forward, and without thinking, she took a step back on the asphalt and into the rain, cringing when her heels landed in a puddle.
Damn it
. Less than ten minutes in his presence and already he had her tripping all over herself. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
She
was supposed to be teaching
him
a lesson. She needed to take control of this situation, and fast.

A few more steps and her back hit the side of a truck. His, thankfully. He stopped in front of her and stripped off his coffee-soaked shirt, tossing it in the bed of the truck without taking his eyes off her. She froze, the sight of his chiseled bare chest enough to make her brain short-circuit. What in God’s name was he doing, stripping in a parking lot? If Paige could see this, her panties would be melting all the way over on Fifth Avenue.

“W-what are you doing?” Who the hell did he think he was? Matthew McConaughey?

Nate braced his hands on the truck roof above her and leaned in, his jaw tight, his gaze intense. “Setting some ground rules.”

Heart racing, she tilted her head back to look up at the man towering over her, blinking away the light rain falling from the sky. This close, she could see every speck of gray in his cobalt eyes. His gaze darted down to her mouth and heat sparked low in her belly, igniting the need to give in to the white-hot connection burning between them. She didn’t know what she wanted more. To douse that connection with ice water and extinguish it forever, or keep it burning bright just to torture him for pretending it didn’t exist.

Being this close to him felt too familiar. Too intimate. Too…good. She swallowed, knowing she should tell him to back the hell off, but she couldn’t seem to find her voice through the tangle of emotions clogging her throat.

Her gaze dropped to the dog tags dangling on his chest and a flash of her gripping the chain as he dragged her in for a hot, wet kiss flashed across her mind. She wriggled against the truck, wanting, no,
needing
to put some space between them. His heat, his fresh-from-the-shower masculine scent, it was all over her, making her stomach tighten with want.

Wait…
want
? No. She did
not
want Nate Jennings.

What she wanted was to give him a swift kick in the family jewels to get him to back the hell off.

“Does this rule-setting require you to be shirtless?” she said in an unsteady voice.

“What’s the matter, Princess?” Nate smirked. “Afraid you can’t control yourself around me?”

“If you’re referring to my burning desire to physically harm you, then yes. That is something I’m concerned about.”

His gaze drifted over her dress, which was slowly but surely going nearly transparent from the rain. “First rule. No more smart-ass commentary. I was late. I apologize. I want to get to Vermont with my sanity intact. That’s not going to happen if I have to listen to you run your mouth for fifteen hours.”

She shrugged. “I make no promises.”

His nostrils flared and she could hear his hands ball into fists against the truck. “Fine. But know that every time that pretty little mouth pisses me off, I’m going to retaliate.”

She raised a brow. “I might actually feel threatened if I thought you’d keep your word,” she said. “But I think we both know how good you are at that.”

“I think I might be motivated enough to follow through this time.”

“Oh yeah? And what exactly do you plan to do?
Spank
me?”

His smirk curled. “As tempting as that sounds…” He leaned in close enough to share the air touching her lips. “I’ll do the one thing I know terrifies you the most.”

She lifted her chin a fraction, refusing to be intimidated. “And what is that?”

“I’ll kiss you.”

Her lips parted without permission and she sucked in a breath. “You wouldn’t.”

“Princess, I’d do just about anything to shut you up.” His voice lowered, the sound sending delicious vibrations down her spine. “If memory serves correctly, the last time I shut you up, you liked it.”

“I was faking it,” she snapped.

Fire lit behind his eyes and he pressed her into the side of the truck, his gaze raking over her suddenly trembling body. “Well, since you hated it so much, it should be decent motivation for you to keep quiet.”

Her pulse kicked up a notch as she tilted her head back to look him in the eye. This was the first time they’d been this close in a year. Hell, this was the first time they’d been alone without Hayden, Jace, or a bar full of people to create a buffer between them. She straightened her spine, refusing to let the arrogant bastard know how much he affected her.

His palm pressed into the truck door above her and he closed his eyes as if he were fighting for control.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Lil?” he whispered.

“Do what?”

“Take this ride. With me.”

He opened his eyes and the deep timbre of his voice sent a shock wave of unwanted heat through her. Anger burned right behind the desire, determined to snuff it out.

“Trust me, if I had another option, I’d take it,” she said.

“You remember what happened last time you got into my truck, don’t you?” he said. “Do you really want to risk that happening again?”

He dropped one hand to wipe a tiny smear of whipped cream from her collarbone that the rain hadn’t managed to wash away. Her body’s reaction to that simple touch was unreal. An ache bloomed between her thighs, and her nipples strained against the thin lace cups of her bra.

No
. Her body was
not
reacting this strongly because of him. If it was, what did that say about her? She could barely stand to hear his freaking name. She blamed it on her sexual drought. She hadn’t been with a man in a really long time. That was all. Her body was just starved for any kind of attention. By this point, a bum could probably have elicited this same reaction.

She swallowed the lie and sucked in a breath. “You know, I
don’t
remember that,” she said. “Must have been too underwhelming to leave an impression.”

His eyes narrowed and one of his fingers lifted a lock of her hair. “I don’t remember you complaining. If anything, I remember you
begging
for it.”

Her spine stiffened. With all the back-and-forth sniping between them over the past year, neither of them had ever mentioned that night. And now a year later, he was using it
against
her?

“You didn’t stick around long enough to hear the complaints,” she gritted out. “Maybe next time you decide to do a fuck-and-dash, you should leave a comment box next to your bed instead of a wad of cash. I have a feeling the feedback would be helpful to an inconsiderate tool like you.”

She gave his chest a firm shove, pushing him back a few steps, then pulled the truck door open, climbed in, and shut it in his face, before he could
retaliate
.

She rolled the window down a smidge. Just enough to get a good look at the dangerous glint in his eyes and the erection filling out his jeans.

“So. Are you going to stand out there all day, or are you going to get this rig on the road?” She flashed him a satisfied smile. “Clock’s ticking and Vermont’s waiting, Soldier Boy
.
”