Read Reckless Heat: A Hostile Operations Team Prequel for Free Online

pistol isn’t out of the realm of possibility, though that sure is a strange place to keep it.
    “Evie, you smell so good, look so good—what do you taste like?”
    “Jimmy, no—” I try to twist away from the lips headed my way, but I’m not sure I’m going to make it.
    And then Jimmy sails backward and I’m free. After trying so hard to jerk away from him, I have enough momentum to send me flying the other direction.
    Someone catches my hand, and then I collide with a body.
    “I got you. It’s okay.”
    I look up into Matt’s face, and my heart melts. Oh, I should be angry—I am angry—but he’s holding me close. Really holding me close.
    And it’s everything I want.
    His brows lower and he looks pissed. At me, at Jimmy, I have no idea. I brace for a fight with him, but all he does is tug me closer and tuck my head beneath his chin.
    When he starts swaying to the music, I catch Julie’s wide-eyed gaze. Her jaw has dropped open, and then she smiles and gives me a thumbs-up.
    That’s when I smell the whiskey. Matt is holding me, dancing with me in public, but he’s also been drinking. And that means he isn’t doing this with a clear mind.
    But oh, what the hell, I don’t much care. I’m dancing with Matt Girard. My body is plastered to his, his arms are around me, and his warmth flows into me.
    He smells good and he feels like heaven. My heaven. I close my eyes and squeeze him tight. He squeezes back.
    When I open my eyes again, Jeanine Jackson is standing on the edge of the floor, looking highly pissed off. I don’t care. Jimmy is dancing with Susan Palmer, clearly having moved on now that Matt intervened.
    The slow song doesn’t last long enough. When it’s over, Matt steps back and stares down at me. He looks like he’s thinking about something, thinking hard, but I don’t know what it can be.
    “You grew up,” he says.
    “So did you.”
    He’s frowning. Then he puts a hand in my hair and sifts his fingers through it, down to the ends. My scalp tingles with his touch.
    “I miss you.”
    “I’m right here.” My heart is in my throat as he continues to sift, sift, sift.
    “No, I miss who you were. Who we were. My best friend. My Evie.”
    Oh, that hurts. It shouldn’t, but it does. He misses us as kids. He misses the me who played in dirt and worshipped the ground he walked on, not the me I am now. I still worship the ground he walks on, but in a more realistic way.
    Or so I hope.
    “I’m not going to be that little girl ever again, Matt. We’re here now, and this is what we are. You don’t have to like it, but you can’t change it.”
    “I won’t be here to take care of you anymore. You have to be careful.”
    “How much have you had to drink?”
    He shrugs. “Some. Not enough.”
    I take his hand and lead him off the dance floor and over to a picnic table away from everyone. I make him sit down.
    “You can’t drive home this way. You have to sober up.”
    He catches my hand and presses it to his cheek. “Don’t fucking care.”
    “You need to care. I think if you get a DWI, that’s not going to go well with West Point.”
    Maybe it’ll be the answer to my prayers if he suddenly can’t go to West Point, but I don’t want him to get in trouble for it to happen. That would be wrong. And I love him too much to want him hurt.
    His gaze sharpens a little bit then. “No, you’re right. Can’t have that. Have to get away.”
    I sit beside him and slide my fingers along his cheek. He already put my hand there, so I feel like I can get away with it. He closes his eyes and groans.
    “Matt… what’s wrong? Why do you have to go away?”
    “You wouldn’t understand, Evie-girl.”
    “You can try me.”
    He squeezes his eyes tight, and then he opens them again and shakes his head. “No, cher .”
    No other excuse or explanation, just a flat-out no. I try not to let it bother me, but it does. This is the boy who cried on my shoulder when his mother died, and now he won’t