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table meant more to him than anything. She was right about one thing—they needed to understand what had happened, and put it behind them.
    A waiter returned. Sean ordered without looking at the menu. He knew everything available, down to the last radish. Celeste took her time ordering, and he allowed the memories to surface for the first time in years.
    The three of them had worked together for several years. They were a team, and he and Celeste had been lovers for a good portion of their time together. He hadn’t known Drew was in love with her, until that fateful day in the godforsaken desert when they’d been captured. They’d separated them, he and Drew were taken to a room in a bombed out hotel, and left there to wait and wonder what had become of Celeste. She wasn’t military, but she’d been well trained by the CIA, and as the team’s translator, knew enough languages to understand what her captors planned for her. He and Drew had been out of their minds with worry, and that’s when Drew told him how deep his feelings were for Celeste.
    Drew was Navy through and through, and being Army himself, they’d been like oil and water when they’d first been assigned together at the DIA. Then Celeste had joined them, and the two men found a new focus for their competitive natures. Sean had won the battle, and he’d never given any consideration to what that had cost Drew, until that day. With nothing left to lose, Drew had told him.
    When their capture was imminent, they’d tried to make Celeste look as masculine as they could, but no man on the planet would mistake her for a man. When the bastards had separated them, he thought he would go insane. Drew had saved him, talking about Celeste as if she had only stepped out to get a gallon of milk at the corner store. The conversation had distracted him from the horrors he knew could befall her, and his impotence at not being able to save her.
    When they brought Celeste in, and he had to watch her strip in front of all those leering desert rats with their automatic weapons, it had been Drew who held him back. Alive and humiliated was better than honorable and dead. Dead, he couldn’t do anything to help any of them. Drew. The fucking Navy SEAL saved all their lives that day. Drew had managed to keep a cool head, and because he had, they’d all lived long enough to be rescued. It still grated that he owed his life to a water baby.
    Shit . Celeste was right. It was time to let it go. Drew was his best friend, his business partner, and he owed the man his life, pure and simple. Had he issued the highhanded order to Celeste, thinking she would choose Drew and in some way that would be payback for their lives? Or had he simply wanted to get Drew out of the bedroom, one way or the other?
    He downed the rest of the wine in his glass and refilled it while Celeste questioned the waiter about preparation methods and seasonings.
     Celeste had run. She’d resigned and disappeared without a word to either of them. Not that they couldn’t have found her. What did she call them? Spooks? They had resources, but neither one of them had been confident enough of her feelings to go after her.
    He studied her across the table. She was still the stunning beauty she was back then. Her green eyes sparkled with life as she bantered with the waiter. His cock throbbed with the need to be inside her again. No woman had ever made him feel the way she did. None had ever submitted to him the way she did. She was so strong in her professional life, but in the bedroom, she was his in a way few could understand.
    The collar gleamed in the glow of the artificial candlelight. Platinum. He’d bought it with the bonus money they’d received for a job well done. Never mind they’d almost been killed, and had to be rescued by the fucking Marines. Before their capture, they’d completed their mission, and for that, they were amply compensated. He’d carried the collar with him ever since. Not that he