Man of Honor (Battle Scars #3) - Diana Gardin Page 0,12

hold of me like they’ll never let go. Combine that with the way she looks right now, so free and wild, wild, wild.

I just wanna bottle this moment up and save it forever.

When she’s coming, I know it from the way her whole body trembles. Just as she flails in my arms I let loose a growl of possessiveness I don’t even know I’m feeling. Before I know it, I have her under me and I’m driving into her. She’s making little noises beneath me and I close my eyes as I come, letting out a shout. When I’m spent, I roll off of her and lay down beside her, breathing hard and heavy with exertion.

“That was…” I can’t find the words. I glance over at her and see her staring straight up at the ceiling. “You okay?”

Instead of answering, she rises off the bed and starts getting dressed.

“Hey,” I protest, sitting up. “You don’t have to go.”

She shakes her head, chocolate brown curls flying everywhere as she pulls on her jeans and then the sexy heels that stopped me in my tracks at the garage.

As she makes to leave the room, she turns back and tosses a good-bye over her shoulder. “Thanks. That was the best oil change I’ve ever had. You get an A for your service.”

Then she’s gone. Just like that, the girl I know I’ll see in my dreams for months to come disappears.

I’ll always remember her name though. I’m the one who ran her check card through the machine when I rang her up at the garage today. Mea Jones. I’ll probably never see her again.

For some reason, that thought almost brings me to the brink of devastation.

Shaking my head to clear the memory, I haul up off the couch and walk down the hallway to my bedroom. The bed is empty, but neatly made.

Mea’s gone. Again.

With a heavy sigh, I head off to the shower. I have to open the garage in a little over an hour.

“Boss man!”

Hoover Stone tosses out his usual greeting as he enters the garage through an open bay door. I lift my chin in greeting and he breezes past me to put down his stuff inside the shop. I’ve already opened the office, turning on the two customer service computers and starting the pot of coffee that’s free for customer use. My shop is on the small side, but it’s open and airy and modern, with red leather chairs and a black-and-white checkered floor. I have glass-top side tables scattered around with magazines. It’s a place where people can be comfortable kicking back while they wait for their car to be serviced. I even added free Wi-Fi last year.

The garage is big, with eight bays. I have four full-time mechanics working, but the way business is going I’ll probably have to hire one more by summer. I’m getting my station ready, organizing the tools I’ll need today, when Hoover returns along with Javier Sosa and Will Reeves.

Dare used to have one of the full-time mechanics positions here, too. I hired him when he first moved to town, knowing he’d need a place to work while he got his feet under him. Leaving the army is always an adjustment process, and helping guys out when they’re first discharged is a passion of mine. I’m proud to say that all the guys working in my shop, with the exception of Will, are veterans. Will was still just a kid when I hired him, a teenager with no one at home who gave a shit about him. He was into cars, which I discovered when I found him outside a restaurant one night trying to boost mine. Instead of another charge on his record, I gave him a job. He never looked sideways at a car again, and now, at twenty-three, he’s a damn good mechanic and my shop manager.

Now Dare’s gone, having found his calling as a security specialist for a big-time firm in Wilmington. Our friend Greta, who used to live with Dare’s fiancée Berkeley and Mea, just happens to be the daughter of the man who owns that security firm. The fact that my friends are slowly pairing off, settling down, starting their families…it’s not lost on me. I see it happening.

And yeah, maybe sometimes I wonder if it’ll ever happen for me.

The guys are all kidding around with each other as they walk to their own tool stations and start getting ready for the day. Will stops beside