Touched By Midas (SEALs Going Hot Book 4) (3 page)

As the tall barkeep returned to his station, Susan craned her neck to watch.

“You weren’t joking about ogling men tonight.” Angie picked up the pitcher and poured the beer beloved by the locals into the narrow glasses.

“I already have my guy. That tall drink of water behind the bar is plenty man for this kid.” She settled herself on the stool and tugged on the hem of her form-fitting dress. “Trust me, any flirting, gaping, or actions remotely related to checking out or picking up men is for your benefit, not mine.”

The half-full pitcher slipped from Angie’s fingers onto the table and landed with a sloshing
thud
. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve known you since you moved to Rota. From what I’ve seen, you’ve not been out on a date or had any type of sexual relations with a man in over ten months. Ten months!”

Angie glanced over both sides of her shoulders to see who might have overheard Susan’s boisterous blurt. “Think you can say that a little louder? I don’t think the little old Spanish ladies shopping down the street at the market heard you.”

Susan picked up her beer, then pointed it at Angie. “I don’t know why you keep turning down offers from men. I’m sure you have your reasons. But as a woman of science who understands the physiology of the human body, I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that not having pipe laid in your hoo-ha every once in a while can be extremely detrimental to your health.” She raised her glass as though to toast then drank.

“Hoo-ha? Thank you, Dr. Oz, for that scientific and insightful tidbit.” Angie lifted her drink and gulped. The beer, cold and refreshing after a long day of dealing with hormonal teenagers and dry history, soothed the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders.

“And just for the record,” she continued, refilling her glass, “it’s my choice not to have pipe laid in my hoo-ha. When I want some plumbing done, I am quite capable of finding a suitable plumber.”

“I have no doubt about that. Look at you.” Susan waved a finger around Angie’s face. “You’re gorgeous. You just seem to avoid anything to do with men or having fun in general. You’re only thirty-two years old, but you act like you’re a senior citizen. Are you gay?”

Angie choked on her drink. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes as the beer burned a path from her mouth to her nose and threatened to spray the table like a fire hose.

“No!” She coughed and then sucked in air.

The buxom redhead stood and whacked her on the back several times, providing absolutely no help whatsoever. Instead, pain radiated between her shoulder blades. For being such a girly-girl, Susan was amazingly strong.

“It’s okay if you are. I experimented in college, so I completely get it. But I prefer sausage over tacos, you know what I mean? If I didn’t, I would have hit on you ages ago. You’re totally my type.”

Thwack, thwack, thwack.

Unable to breathe or speak, Angie raised her splayed hand in the air to get her friend to stop. After a final jarring clout, Susan returned to her stool.

“Are you going to be okay? Your face looks like a tortured tomato.”

Nodding, Angie forced herself to relax and open her airways while swallowing her gulp of beer. The liquid felt like a solid brick sliding painfully down her throat.

Peering around to see if everyone in the bar now looked at her wasn’t necessary. Their stares bore into the center of her back.

So much for not drawing attention to yourself. Why not jump up and do a song and dance while you have everyone’s interest? Keep this up and someone’s bound to recognize you.

“You think we can discuss something other than laying pipes, hoo-has, and being gay? I’d like to enjoy my beer without spilling it over the table or spitting it up.” Angie swallowed another drink to push down the previous gulp.

“This is exactly what I’m talking about. What single woman in her thirties doesn’t talk about sex? I mean, seriously. I—”

Susan stopped mid-sentence, and her eyes grew as big and round as Petri dishes. Angie turned, following the direction of her friend’s stare. A groan, soft and drawn out, blew from her lips. Despite the compulsion to duck under the table, her butt remained firmly on the stool. Her shoulders, however, drooped with the weight of resignation.

Midas, the cocky SEAL who refused take no for an answer, was back in Rota and stood in the pub’s entrance only yards away with another man she’d seen before. The two blocked the only exit to the bar, making the possibility of escaping another uncomfortable confrontation with the SEAL next to hopeless.

She wanted to kick herself. Within minutes, the big galoot would be asking her out again. And once again, she would say no. Had she not let her guard down and allowed herself a night on the town, she could have avoided this extremely awkward situation. Instead, she sat trapped in a corner of O’Malley’s pub with her friend, who would like nothing better than to hook her up with an eligible man, including and especially a good-looking glory-hound military man.

Could there be anyone worse?

Chapter Three

With her hair cut so short, bowing her head and letting the long locks drape around her face simply wasn’t an option. As much as hiding from the SEAL grated against her nerves, doing so would give her a few minutes to collect her wits and formulate a plan to leave the bar unnoticed. If only the man could get it through his dense skull she had no interest in seeing him, going out with him or taking him to bed.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

The way her heart sped up and her pussy clenched during their many unexpected run-ins on base or in town provided evidence of the opposite. The mere presence of the roguish member from the Special Forces violently shook awake a sexual awareness she preferred stay in a perpetual coma.

As badly as her body wanted a night of down and dirty sex with a hot stranger, she mustn’t give in to the carnal compulsion. The days of carefree fucks in bathrooms, back stage, or any convenient place were a thing of the past. So too was indulging in the perverse pleasure of wiping the arrogant grins from the handsome faces of men wanting to sleep with a celebrity type. As much as she loved eating men for breakfast and picking her teeth with their untrustworthy bones after dinner, she’d left those bad habits the moment she freed herself from her parents’ off-kilter orbit.

True, the guys she’d destroyed used her for bragging rights or to get a chance at meeting her father, and stomping on them with her kitten heels felt immensely satisfying. But the hunger her cruel actions fed nearly consumed her not long ago. If she hadn’t left the limelight, who knows what sort of malicious person she might have become. She sure as hell wasn’t Mother Teresa yet, but she was making a genuine effort at improving how she behaved and lived her life.

She glanced at Midas and instantly hated herself. Her mouth watered just from taking in the sight of his high-and-tight ass.

Midas and his buddy strolled, confident and proud, into O’Malley’s. Both wore long sleeved shirts, jeans, and western boots, and each bore a look of mischievous scamps on their handsome faces. There the similarities between the two ended.

Midas, dark curls reaching boyishly below his ears and clean shaven, stood several inches shorter than the other man, whose shoulder-length blond hair matched his beard and mustache. Where the taller man’s build leaned toward long and slender, the well-defined muscles on Midas’ average sized frame made him appear thicker, more robust.

Either man would make for nice arm candy, as well as a tasty midnight snack after a long night of wining and dining. Any single woman hunting for one hundred percent pure American beefcake could stop her search when these two entered the room. Yet, for all the consternation Midas provoked within her body and mind, perhaps because of it, he was the one she found herself gravitating toward.

That she even thought of Midas in terms of desirability caused a warning knot of distress to tighten in her belly. She’d worked too hard creating and nurturing a normal life where people knew her only as that nice teacher lady. And the full-of-himself SEAL who probably thrived on adrenaline and being the center of everyone’s attention was a slippery slope waiting to escort her back down an enticing path of debauchery and man-eating. Didn’t all SEALs crave the world’s adoration?

The two men’s gazes swept the entire pub, whether for security reasons or looking for someone, she couldn’t be sure. When the SEAL’s attention cruised in her direction and he spotted her, his Mediterranean blues flashed, then darkened. One corner of his lips lifted and curled, producing a sultry smile meant to singe her panties.

She had to give the guy credit. He knew how to make a woman’s heart stop. The heated look he dished out promised passionate thrills he most likely could deliver. If she had the tiniest interest in sampling his sexual prowess, that all-knowing,
let me show you a thing or two
grin of his would have done her in.

Luckily, she’d seen that look a thousand plus times in the mirror. She owned the come hither smile. If she had a dollar for every time she’d used it to bag and eventually trample on her prey, she’d be as rich as her father.

“I think it’s time for me to hit the road. This place is getting a little too crowded for my taste.” Angie placed her empty glass beside the pitcher and pushed back from the table. Susan grabbed her hand as she prepared to stand.

“Stop. Right. There.”

The clipped, commanding tone in Susan’s voice could have come from a four-star admiral. Little wonder students behaved perfectly in her class. A teacher with a voice like hers would make even hardened criminals in prison think twice before disobeying one of her orders.

“I brought you here to meet guys, and honey, the men of the century just tra-la-la’d through the door. Until they’ve bought us a round and dropped their best pick up lines for you to consider, your hiney is staying glued to that stool.”

Angie, the rock-and-roll wild child who had once prided herself for failing to comply with or conform to rules, authority figures or convention, regarded her friend in stunned silence and then sat as told.

“Good.” Susan released the grip crushing Angie’s fingers. “Paste a happy look on that pretty face and act like you’re having a good time. We’re just two women on the town without a care in the world.”

Her friend tossed a lock of red hair over her shoulder and laughed. “Angie! You are so right,” Susan said in a voice loud enough for anyone in the bar to hear while looking directly at the SEALs. “They are sexy. Very sexy.”

“I’m going to hurt you after this,” Angie hissed through the unmoving lips of her forced smile. “I don’t know how or when, but I highly recommend you sleep with one eye open.”

Susan laughed again and flitted her manicured fingers by her cheek. “Stop it. You’re making me blush.”

“Make that both eyes.”

She didn’t need to turn from her troublemaking friend to confirm the men had walked through the bar and now stood at the table. The sudden absence of boot heels clopping on marble tile and the influx of mouthwatering cologne signaled their arrival.

“Good evening, ladies. I’m Stewart and this is my brotha from another motha, Michael. We’re thirsty Texans looking for decent beer and lovely women to share it with. Y’all mind if we join you?”

The masculine voice, made thick and melodic from his lazy Southern accent, was unfamiliar. The man she had yet to meet must have delivered the corny pickup line.

“Ladies.”

Her insides twisted while a pubescent flutter of excitement tickled her belly. The second voice, a strange mixture of Southern drawl and Spanish, belonged to Midas.

Though her body reacted like a hormonal teenager, her mind, clearly more suited to handle the situation, took control. Angie angled her chin over her shoulder and feigned a look of complete indifference. Before she had a chance to put the two in their place and send them on their way, Susan piped up.

“We would love a little company this evening. I’ll ask my boyfriend behind the bar to pour us another pitcher while Angie, my single friend here, keeps you company. I’ll be right back.”

With that, the redheaded ball of mayhem slid off her stool and pranced to the bar.

“There’s a woman with some cayenne in her blood. Should have known from the red hair.” Stewart folded his long limbs on the seat across the table.

An uncomfortable feeling, like a dozen hairy-legged tarantulas crawling down her back and arms, stole over her skin. Midas continued to stand at her side. An odd, expectant expression covered his face.

Angie slowly shifted and crossed her arms over the ledge of the small wood table. “Yes?”

“Mind if I sit in your spot?” he finally asked.

She could feel her eyebrows rise and her eyes widen in disbelief. “Are you asking me to move to another stool?”

The SEAL with dark hair and bedroom eyes didn’t waver. “I don’t like to have my back to the door when I’m in a public place. It’s bad luck. Ask Wild Bill Hickok.”

She glanced around the cozy pub, taking in the unexceptional people sitting around the bar. Chances were good the majority of the small crowd were shorebound sailors and American civil servants from the base. “You’re kidding me.”

“I only wish he was.” Resignation tinted Stewart’s twangy voice.

“You realize we aren’t in the old West, right? I’m fairly sure no one is going to come charging through O’Malley’s door and shoot up the joint.”

“Are you fairly sure or absolutely sure?” Midas asked in a relaxed manner so amiable he could have been chatting with a long lost friend. “The answer can be the difference between life and death.”

“So it’s okay if something happens to me because I chose to let you have my stool and sit with my back to the door?” she asked, incredulous.

“Let’s just say,” he stepped aside as to make room for her to move, “if something does go down, I’m better capable of handling the situation.”

The SEAL might be right, but that didn’t stop indignation from heating her temper. Rather than attempt to argue with the man, which would only draw more unwanted attention, she used a completely different strategy.