Read Hell Bent for Free Online Page B

missions.  I’ve been in for twelve years now, and I’m not sure I want to re-up. I want a normal life again.”  He huffed a breath.  “If I sign again, it’d be for another six years, so I might as well just make it eight to get my twenty in and retire, if my body holds up that long.”
    “You’re not sick are you?” Cee Cee asked as worry shot through her.  “Did you get hurt? Is that why you’re on leave?” 
    “No, I didn’t get hurt and I’m not sick.” Keegan’s laugh rumbled under her palm.  “I just realized at thirty years old I’m not as young as I used to be.”  He ruffled her hair, then leaned down to drop a kiss on her mouth.  “And maybe it’s time I thought about settling down, getting into something else, a job that doesn’t wake me up at zero dark thirty to go to the ends of the earth for who knows how long.”
    Oh, God —he couldn’t be leading up to what she thought he was leading up to.  He couldn’t be…they both agreed to keep things light between them.  But maybe she was imagining things. 
    “Yeah, you’ve put a lot into the Navy.  Leaving before you can retire with full benefits would be a big decision for sure.”
    “You could make it easier for me,” he said, sliding his hand into her hair.
    Cee Cee knew right then it wasn’t her imagination.  Keegan was going there.
    She sat up, straddled his hips with her knees and took his face in her palms.  “Keegan, I like you so damned much.  I really, really like you.  You’re one of the best men I know.  You’re hot and funny and a damned good kisser, but I think we got it right when we decided to be friends.”
    “With benefits,” he added dryly.
    “I thought that’s why you were coming to see me,” Cee Cee admitted.
    “I thought so too, until I was halfway here and wondered what the hell I was doing riding to Texas to see a woman when there were plenty in Virginia.  When I got back from that last mission and heard you didn’t re-enlist, that you’d left, something clicked for me, Ceese.  I really have missed you.” 
    He shoved his hand into the back of her hair and pulled her mouth to him.  Cee Cee moaned when his lips brushed hers.  His tongue traced the seam of her lips and she opened them with a sigh, wilting into his sexy, comforting kiss.  His hand slid over her hip and sneaked under the hem of her shirt.  When his palm branded the skin at her waist and slid upward, Cee Cee put her hand over it and sat back.  Her chin dropped to her chest and she sighed. 
    What in the hell was wrong with her? 
    She and Keegan were hot as hell in bed and she’d missed him too.  But the fact that he was hinting he wanted more frankly scared the hell out of her.  Because as much as she liked him, she didn’t love him.  And every time she closed her eyes she saw that look on Cade’s face when he walked out of the range.
    “Who was that guy at the range with you?” Keegan asked, as if reading her mind. 
    That was another thing that scared her about him—Keegan always seemed tuned into her emotions so closely he almost knew what she was thinking.  But the man was perfect for her, they had so damned much fun together, so much in common. 
    Why in the hell couldn’t she love him?
    “Cade Winters,” she replied, not sure if she was answering his question or her own.
    “Operator?  Does he work for Deep Six too?” Keegan asked, his voice even, but a note of speculation there.
    “Yeah, he was in Delta.”  Cee Cee dragged her eyes from his.  “He’s one of my brother’s friends and was hired for a mission about the same time Slade hired me.  That mission is over and he’s still around, so I guess he works for us.”  Cee Cee didn’t know for sure, because nobody talked to her about anything that had to do with Deep Six business.  All she knew for sure was that he was on the agent roster that she kept up.
    “Is he your friend too?  Since you have his name tattooed on your ass, I