Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Clay was sitting at the bar in a dive in Bolivia eating his usual dinner. He always had been a meat and potatoes kind of guy, she thought, watching as a thin, attractive young woman approached him. Ah, the simple act of seduction. Well, it was always simple with Clay. She smirked from her cover at a corner booth swathed in darkness. Easy to watch, but not be seen, not that he'd recognize her with the new hair color and disguise.
As she watched the young woman flirt, she remembered the night she'd first met Clay.
She'd been stationed at Landstuhl Regional Medical in Germany. A combat medic without active combat to work through, she'd been assigned a "cushy" post at one of the most wanted overseas bases in the US military. She sat at a local bar, not unlike the one she and Clay were occupying presently, trying to drown her week with hard liquor and solitude.
Sitting there, drinking liquid fire, she found herself wishing to be back in the field. Fixing up soldiers who were actually getting harmed from enemy fire, or even from accidents on while on their post would be somehow more rewarding than this. Here she fixed more of the 'hold my beer and watch this' bullshit that she could have stayed in West Virginia and worked on.
Tapping the bar to get the tender's attention, she ordered another round. Usually she hated dark alcohol, but that night, all she wanted was to blur the week, months, and probably years she'd end up stuck here. She had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn't noticed him take the stool next to her. Didn't pay attention to his stare, or even realize that he was invading her personal space.
Pulling herself back to her current predicament, she watched as the young woman wooed Clay. She chuckled to herself as the girl won him over. As though he were hard to read, the man oozed sex. She rolled her eyes as they disappeared out the door and stood up. Tossing money on the table for the cold soda she'd nursed during her surveillance. She didn't have to follow them, she knew the hotel that Clay was staying at and she knew how the rest of the evening would go. She didn't have to witness it firsthand, she'd lived it, after all.
THREE YEARS EARLIER~GERMANY
Clay sat down next to the slight younger woman who was throwing back shots of Jack like she wanted to forget the world. If he'd thought she was attractive from the back, he wasn't fully prepared for the front. Her hair was longer than he'd expected for a combat medic, and officer at that. Captain Morgan Dean, highly trained surgeon and pretty damn hot if he had to describe her.
Long red tinted dark brown hair, green eyes (he'd seen her picture in her personnel file), five foot tall barefooted, and curvy in all the right places. And an ability to hold her liquor, if the repeated shots she was taking told the real tale. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she downed another, waiting for the tap to get the bartender's attention. It didn't come, but her turning in her stool to look up at him did.
"See something you like?" She asked, and he heard the barest hint of a southern accent. Her perfectly arched eyebrow rose and he found himself speechless for one of the first times in his life. "Cat got your tongue?" She chuckled and licked her bottom lip and his eyes were redirected to the plump red part of her that turned his thoughts to how she would taste.
He cleared his throat and closed his eyes. Shit, he was here to vet her for a place on his team, not fuck her. "Maybe," his voice came out huskier than he wanted, so he cleared his throat again and opened his eyes to see her watching him intently. "You Captain Dean?"
She leaned back and laughed, and he wanted to hear the sound again and again. "Great, I can't even go off base to have a drink without you assholes finding me." Sitting up straight and tapping the bar, she was given another shot. "What's the emergency now? Did one of the privates set himself on fire to win a bet?" She tossed her shot back and grimaced at the burn.
Clay shook his head, mesmerized by the way her hair whipped behind her, soft curls and flashing the red in the low light. "No emergency. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Clay," he held out his hand, but she just glanced at it and tapped the bar again. "I came to offer you a new post."
Morgan ignored his hand until he put it down on the bar. "A new post? I have at least another year here, trust me, I've checked." She downed another shot and glanced back at him. "What kind of pull do you think you have to offer me something else?"
He smirked, liking the fact that she knew her shit and didn't trust random men in bars, no matter how much she'd drank. "Special Ops, we need a medic and I prefer highly trained officers for my group." He took a drink from his own tumbler and waited. She said nothing, so he looked back at her. "I have more pull than you can imagine, Captain. I read your file, I think you'd be a great fit, but if you're not interested-"
She was thinking, he could almost feel the gears turning. "Special Ops?" She asked, calling the bartender over and asking for water. Clearly planning on sobering up, she waited until he placed it in front of her. "And I'd get away from this shithole?"
He laughed, knowing his dimples were showing and would normally charm the panties off of a normal woman. Morgan Dean wasn't a normal woman, not by a long shot. "Shithole? Hell, I thought this was considered paradise to everyone?"
She grimaced and took a long drink of her water. "It's filled with idiots who think it's such paradise that I fill my days pulling glass out of their asses because some other dickhead dared them to do something stupid." She sat her glass down and swiveled the stool to face his profile. "Your group, do they do stupid shit that requires babysitting and handholding?"
Clay turned so they were face to face. "Not on my watch." He promised, fingers crossed that he wasn't lying and the guys wouldn't decide that fucking around would be the new normal. "We're not irresponsible, especially in the field."
Morgan nodded, hopping down from her stool, she offered him her hand. He took it and was surprised by how firm her shake was. "Get me the information, let me have enough time to turn the duties over to my replacement, and I'll take it."
The dimples were back. "Sounds great, why don't I walk you back to your lodgings?" Licking his lips, he hoped he could convince her to let him at least sample the goods, even if it was only one time. He stood up and tossed enough money on the bar to cover his drink, her many drinks, and still left enough to make the bartender's night.
She shrugged, clearly not overwhelmed by his charm, and started out the door. When they cleared the bar, and were shadowed by a lack of lights, she turned to him and pushed him against the nearest building. Before Clay could process what was happening, her hands were fisted in his hair and she was dragging his head toward her.
"Tell me you weren't thinking about this since you sat down next to me," she dared, her whiskey hot breath fanning his lips. Before he could say anything, her lips crashed against his and his arms clutched around her and pulled her tight against his body. When her mouth opened under his, he slipped his tongue inside and moaned at the taste of her mingling with the shots she'd taken.
They'd barely made it back to her apartment. Hands were everywhere, and once the door closed behind them, their clothes were torn off. He'd pushed her against the door and one thrust was all it took to make them both scream. The entire night was a blur of sex and orgasms, and it felt like he'd found IT. The illusive thing that men and women searched for when they wanted a partner in life.
He'd been so confused when he woke up the next morning and found a letter on her pillow. She'd left, gone to tie up her life on post, and told him to leave instructions for where she would be meeting him and his team. Anyone reading it would think it was from someone who barely knew the reader. A letter from a new employee to a new boss, a letter that didn't reveal that they'd shared hours of pleasure. He had to wonder, was this what the other women he'd been with felt like when he left before they woke in the morning?