Navy SEAL Romance: MC ROMANCE: Axel (Bad Boy Alpha Male Military Romance) (Military Suspense Protector Romance) (40 page)

*****

Gage

I was so drunk that I didn't even know his last hit had been a good one until I tasted the blood in my mouth. I grinned at him and spat the coppery liquid onto the parking lot pavement, squaring up for another round.

"You just don't quit," he snarled.

I just kept grinning, which must have really thrown him off because his next hit was sloppy as heck. I ducked it easily, slamming a fist into his gut with a force that I'm sure he didn't expect from the guy who had been drunk enough to hit on his girl.

Little did he know that I didn't have to be intoxicated at all to seduce another man's woman. If she was hot, she was fair game. Plus, she was free to make up her own mind about the damn thing; equality, and all that.

I was disappointed when my opponent keeled over and put a hand up in surrender; so was the crowd.

I spat again, and then pulled up my t-shirt to wipe my face on it. A girl in the crowd whistled, and I looked up at her; blonde, perky, and legs for days. It looked like that fight hadn't been a disappointment after all.

*****

"Matthews," Sergeant Buchanan said lowly. "That's the third fight you've gotten in this week."

"That's a new record," I remarked smugly.

After pulling me into his office at an unholy time in the morning, I suspected Buchanan was ready to blow a fuse. Having never seen him actually lose it, I was curious to see how that played out.

"Dang it, Matthews!"

Oh, I was very, very close.

Much to my dismay, he took a moment to compose himself. He put his face in his hands, and then ran his fingers through his close-cropped gray hair.

"Gage," he said.

Oh no — his tone was almost gentle now.

"I know that you've been through a lot recently."

"This isn't about that," I protested.

Buchanan looked up and fixed me with a grim smile. "Sure it isn't."

I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair. Better let the old man say what he pulled me in here to say.

"I want you to take some time off," he said.

That hadn't been what I was expecting.

"Time off?" I looked at him like he'd just told me that the force was taking up knitting as a training exercise. "I don't need any time off. I don't want any time off."

Buchanan sighed. "That's the problem, Gage. Most guys, after —" I shot him a glare before he could say the words. "Uh... going through what you went through, they take a little time. You hopped right back in with both feet."

"Because I'm a good soldier."

"Because you're too good a soldier."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"You're so good a soldier that you brought the fight with you all the way back to the U.S. of A, Gage," he said. "I need you to take some time and get some perspective. Maybe... talk to someone about what happened."

I bristled and straightened in my chair.

"I'm fine," I growled. "I just need to work."

He shook his head. "Not a request, Matthews."

He was going to order me to take a vacation? Had the old man gone soft? Still, a soldier to the bone, I wouldn't defy an order.

"Fine," I spat. "I'll go to Disneyland or something."

He looked at me flatly. "Whatever, Matthews, just take your vacation weeks for the year and get out of my hair."

I took that as my dismissal, and exited the room. He wanted me to take a vacation, and a vacation, I would take.

Once I was home, I hastily stuffed a bag full of clothes and tossed it in the saddlebag of my Harley. Next item on the to-do list was to find a little trouble.

With the engine rumbling beneath me, I peeled off against the setting sun.

Hayley

"Dang it, Herb," I cursed, snatching a dirty towel from the back bar. I began to clean up his spilled beer, as he leered at me.

"My bad, princess," he slurred. "Guess I got a little too excited."

I rolled my eyes and swiped the last bits of beer from the bar top. I threw the rag in one of the bins to go to the back, and began to pour the geezer another pint.

"Is there a discount for beers that I didn't get to drink?"

I snorted. "Herb, the only discount you'll be getting around here is the senior's discount from the Denny's next door."

I slammed the new beer down on the bar top and gave him a warning glare. "Spill this one and you'll be feeling like chopped liver — not eating it."

He laughed, which turned his face even more red. I wasn't sure how that was possible.

I went down the bar, seeing to the other two patrons seated at it. They were a young couple, and by the looks of their clothes, I presumed they had wound up in the wrong place. Still, I was friendly and polite to them. I was fine with judging the book by its cover, as long as you didn't act on that judgment until you'd read a few pages.

There weren't many other people around that night. Being that it was a Tuesday, that didn’t surprise me much. Still, it would have been nice to have a couple more customers to help the time pass.

I liked being a bartender; I liked the stories. Working in a biker bar had its perks, and one of them was that I got to see people coming from all over the country — sometimes even from Canada. And, they all had a tale to tell.

Some stories like the one about Herb’s cat that he had told me at least eight times weren’t worth hearing. Others were. I made a game for myself, trying to guess when a new person walked through the door whether their story would be worth it or not. I only needed one look to know, for certain, that the man walking through my doors had a helluva tale.

He was about six feet tall with tattoos all over his muscled arms. He wore a plain black t-shirt and jeans, and had close cropped brown hair that told me he was a military guy. Good. We didn't get many of them around here.

He sidled up to the bar with a sour expression on his face and dropped down onto one of the wooden stools. I mentally congratulated him on not picking the broken one; also another game I liked to play.

"What can I get you?" I asked.

He stared at me with eyes like an ocean storm. Finally, when he was finished asserting his dominance, he said, "Molson."

So, he wanted to have a conversation in sentences of only one word? Fine with me. I'd cracked tougher nuts.

"Bottle or draught?"

"Draught."

I poured him a pint and slid it across the bar top. He wasn't looking at me anymore — his attention now focused on the hockey game on the TV screen behind my head. I'd give the beer some time to do its work, but I'd be back for his story — if for no other reason than that the man was walking sex.

Gage

I drove down the coast for about an hour, letting the wind do its magic. Nothing cleared my mind better than the breeze in my face and my bike between my legs — not even sex.

There was a biker bar on the outskirts of some town that I didn't bother remembering the name of. I pulled in there because I was done driving. I had gone far enough that I could say I'd actually gone somewhere, but was close enough that I didn't have to actually go anywhere. My plan was to spend the next couple of weeks sleeping, womanizing, and drinking... in no particular order.

Sergeant wanted me to have a vacation? This was my Disneyland.

The bar was decorated with biker memorabilia, and had pictures on the walls of various club meetings that had taken place there. There were tables scattered around the floor, but I went straight to the bar. I liked to be close to the action. Not that I was going to be talking to anybody — but; at least, if someone was being an idiot, I might get to punch someone.

I was surprised to see that the bartender was this pretty little blonde thing. Her skin was sun kissed, but otherwise, untouched. No tattoos; odd thing for a biker bar. As she approached me, I watched her body jiggle in her tight jeans and t-shirt. Good. I liked a girl with curves.

I ordered a beer, and I could tell she was frustrated with how clipped my sentences were. The girl showed everything on her face. I wondered how she could possibly survive in a place like this with a handicap like that.

I decided I would find out.

"What the heck is a girl like you doing working in a bar like this?" I asked.

Surprise crossed her face. I could tell she tried to keep it down, but it was there for all to see.

"What kind of girl do you think I am, exactly?" Surprise had turned to irritation. She was a fun one to watch.

I gestured over her body. "You look like you'd be better off working in a beauty parlor or something like that."

She rolled her green eyes, running the cloth over the bar top. "I'm going to take that as a compliment."

"It wasn't one."

She chuckled. "You're going to make lots of friends around here," she observed. "I can't wait to see someone knock your lights out."

I took a swig of my beer and grinned. "That's cold, barkeep."

"If you wanted different, you should have gone somewhere else." She shot me a cheeky grin. "Like a beauty parlor or something like that."

Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to judge. Clearly she wasn't completely out of her depth.

"Where are you coming from?" she asked.

"North."

"And where are you headed?"

"South."

She rolled her eyes again, and propped a hand on her hip. I followed the movement with my eyes appreciatively.

"Let me know if you need anything else," she said. Then, she walked down the bar to serve her other customers.

An old man from a few seats down slid down into the seat next to me.

"Hayley's something, isn't she?"

I turned and glared at him. When had it been broadcasted that I was looking for friends?

I decided that rather than starting an argument with a drunken old man, I'd just ignore him instead. I turned back to the TV and drank down my beer. Every once and a while though, I'd sneak a peek at Hayley's delicious figure.

Hayley

The mysterious military guy stayed until closing. He drank quite a bit, but seemed more or less unaffected by the libations. I thought that the booze might loosen up his tongue a little, but all it did was make him moodier. By the end of the night, he was giving off such a "don't mess with me" vibe that even Herb knew better than to try and approach him.

While I had failed in my quest, and lost a good story, that wasn't the only reason I hoped he would come back. It wasn't like I was going to act on any of the delightful little fantasies I had going on in my head — men were too much trouble — but they sure were fun to think about.

When we were closing up, Tamsy, our Tuesday waitress, asked me if I'd be the one to tell him to leave. He had all but ignored my last call announcement, and apparently, anytime she approached him, he shot her a withering glare.

I often compared Tamsy to the lion from the Wizard of Oz. Tattooed to the nines, dyed black hair, and eyeliner that probably took more than one pencil to apply, she looked every bit as rough as the rest of the bar, until you saw her reacting to a spider or an unruly customer. Somehow, I was always the one who got called over to fix the situation. Spiders were easy. You just got a napkin and brought them outside (they're good for the environment, okay?). Jerks like our new friend; however, were slightly more of a challenge.

"Time to go, bud," I said.

He was staring down at the beer in his hand. I'd turned off the TV fifteen minutes ago, so he'd have to find some other form of entertainment. Apparently, the carbonation of his beer was even better than sports highlights.

He glanced up at me with a hard look in his eyes, and for a moment — I hate to admit —it actually got to me. He was a man who showed nothing on his face, but every once in a while, you'd see a bit in his eyes. At this point, I almost wished I hadn't. I wanted to go hide in the back with Tamsy and just let him do his thing until he decided to clear out.

But, I wasn't Tamsy. I was the person in charge of spider removal.

"The longer you stay here, the longer it takes for me to get into bed," I said lowly. "And I love my bed."

He grinned then, though the rage in his eyes didn't abate. It was an unnerving combo. "How about we kill two birds with one stone then?" he purred. "Let's just get into bed together."

I couldn't help it. With his strong jaw and searing eyes, my body responded to his offer in a way that I wasn't proud of. My brain was yelling at me to smack him, but other parts of me wanted to lay hands on him in a different way. I took the middle route. "How about you get the heck out of my bar right now or I toss you out myself?"

To his benefit, he didn't sneer about how he'd like to see my try or make some snarky comment relating to my femininity. I think he'd actually had enough.

Wordlessly, he rose from his stool, chugged back the rest of his beer, and sauntered out the door. I tried not to look shocked, but I'd never been particularly good at hiding my emotions.

Gage

The motel across the street from the bar, unsurprisingly, had rooms available. The guy at the front counter had a 70’s pornstache and a serious case of B.O., but he assured me that the rooms were clean and the water was drinkable. When a motel room comes with a caveat like that, you know it must be good.

I headed up to my room and pushed open the door. When I flicked on the lights, I had to wonder if the rooms had at one point been used to film 70’s porn. Maybe that guy had had some sort of epiphany on set and decided that he'd rather run a run-down motel than have sex on film.

Maybe it was just a regular motel and I needed to get some sleep.

I stripped off, turned off the light, and slid under the sheets.

Most people were fussy about the places they laid their heads. A room like this wouldn't rank high on anybody's list of top-sleeping destinations, but I'd been worse. When you're in a tent in the desert, trying to fall asleep when you know that you could be bombed or shot at any minute, a room like this seems like paradise. The only thing that would get me here were some bugs and, as always, myself.