Blue Forever (Men in Uniform)

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF NINA BRUHNS

Winner of the National Readers Choice Award and three-time overall winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense

WHITE HOT

“Such a fast-paced, exciting book that you cannot stop turning the pages . . . Nina Bruhns has a winner with
White Hot.
”

—
Fresh Fiction

“Unbelievably steamy. Each page turned was a moment lost in time for me. I could not get enough of the dark and smoldering hero, Clint . . .
White Hot
is simply amazing and I cannot wait to read the next novel Ms. Bruhns produces.”

—
Romance Junkies

“Ms. Bruhns is one of the top romantic-suspense authors out there. If smoking-hot sex wrapped up in a well-written, supersexy, Navy SEAL romance is what you want, this one is IT! Don’t miss it!”

—
Night Owl Reviews
(top pick, 5 stars)

RED HEAT

“Bruhns starts off her new series with sizzling suspense. Her characters are sexy and provocative, but that’s not all—they continue to grow on many levels with a story that takes you through page-turning action and suspense. The sexual tension is palpable and when Bruhns’s latest couple gets together, sparks fly.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“A great cast of characters and the heated sexual tension between the hero and heroine keep this romantic suspense story moving . . . A perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—
Fresh Fiction

“The action is fast paced and
Red Heat
is full of deception, secrets, and intrigue . . . will keep you guessing until the very last pages.”

—
Smexy Books

A KISS TO KILL

“A thrill ride of fast action and hot sex in the steamy Louisiana bayous, Nina Bruhns’s latest delivers it all!”

—CJ Lyons,
New York Times
bestselling author of the Angels of Mercy novels

“Rich with dialogue and filled with tight suspense, Bruhn’s latest holds true to the excellence readers have come to expect from this author.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“Greg and Gina are one of the hottest couples I’ve read lately . . . There’s not one thing I didn’t like about this book.”

—
The Good, The Bad and The Unread

IF LOOKS COULD CHILL

“This is a fast-paced action adventure with a steamy romance . . . A keeper.”

—
Night Owl Reviews

“Anything but chilly—the sexual action is as hot and steamy as the action in the field . . . If you like a thrill a minute, you will enjoy
If Looks Could Chill
. The gripping tale is well written and filled with intrigue and passion.”

—
Romance Reviews Today

“Suspense just got a whole lot hotter with Nina Bruhns’s dynamite romantic thriller. A hero to die for and a heroine to cheer for . . . An awesome, sexy story.”

—Allison Brennan,
New York Times
bestselling author of the Lucy Kincaid series

SHOOT TO THRILL

“[A] fast-paced thriller . . . Powerful chemistry.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“A wonderful, suspense-filled, nonstop action thriller. The chemistry between Kick and Rainie is explosive.”

—
Fallen Angel Reviews

“Sexy, suspenseful, and so gritty you’ll taste the desert sand. A thrill ride from start to finish!”

—Rebecca York,
USA Today
bestselling author of the 43 Light Street series

“A provocative, sexy thriller that will get your adrenaline pumping on all levels.”

—Tamar Myers, award-winning author of
The Girl Who Married an Eagle

“Intense pacing . . . powerful characters . . . searing emotions and explosive sexual tension! Once I started reading
Shoot to Thrill
, I couldn’t stop!”

—Debra Webb, bestselling author of the Faces of Evil series

Berkley Sensation titles by Nina Bruhns

SHOOT TO THRILL

IF LOOKS COULD CHILL

A KISS TO KILL

RED HEAT

WHITE HOT

BLUE FOREVER

BLUE FOREVER

NINA BRUHNS

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA)

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.

BLUE FOREVER

A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2013 by Nina Bruhns.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

BERKLEY SENSATION
^®
is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA).

The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA).

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA),

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-62504-0

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / September 2013

Cover art by Kris Keller.

Cover design by Annette Fiore Defex.

Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

1

A REMOTE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE,

HAINAN ISLAND, CHINA

MAY

It
would
be a woman.

Hell. Could his day get any worse?

U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence operator Major Kiptyn Llowell swallowed a growl of irritation as he regarded the trim figure descending from a white SUV sporting a familiar international hotel logo on its door. In a situation like this, Kip would much rather deal with a man. You could talk to a man. Reason logically with a man. No muss, no fuss. Women were just so damn . . . emotional. And unreasonable. Not to mention highly unpredictable.

This mission had already skidded so far outside the realm of predictable, Kip did not need a single other wild card spinning him off in yet another direction.

What he needed was to get his head examined.

Send me
, he’d told Colonel Jackson when a navy rep had come looking for a Marine Special Operations Intelligence Battalion operator they could borrow for a quick solo mission. Kip and his MSOIB team had been on a jungle recon exercise in the Philippines, relatively close by. The navy needed someone immediately. Naturally, he’d volunteered.

Because when had he
ever
thought things through before acting? Never. Hell, no. Flirting with disaster was his specialty. Living on the edge was the thing that had taken him so fast and so far in his career. It was also what had driven him so fast and so far from home, family, and the life he’d once expected to lead.

“Practical” and “predictable”? Not in his vocabulary. Which was one reason he loved his job. The Corps kept him grounded and provided a semblance of structure in his life, while his work in intelligence gave free rein to his wild side.

He eased his weight off his bad leg and shifted his rucksack into a less conspicuous position under his grungy, oversized, cotton peasant jacket. The pack held his camera and what remained of his equipment, the rest damaged from a bad landing when he parachuted onto the island night before last.

Jetting out a breath, he surveyed the woman getting out of the SUV as she dusted off her clothes with quick, efficient movements. Well, at least there was little doubt as to her nationality. She had the look of a typical U.S. government geek. Sensible gray suit skirt hitting sensibly at the knee, paired with a sensible white blouse. Practical leather shoulder bag. Practical flats. Chestnut hair in a practical ponytail. Jesus, even her height was sensibly practical—not too tall, not too short.

State Department foreign service officer, maybe? He could usually spot an FSO a mile away, thanks to his blessedly short stint as an embassy guard. He shuddered inwardly.

Whatever. Ms. Sensible was his ticket out of this goatfuck of a day. Assuming he could talk his way into that SUV when it left this flyspeck of a Chinese village in the back of beyond.

Not that he’d give her any choice in the matter. Women might be emotional and unreliable, but, notwithstanding his penchant for doing the opposite of what was expected—and despite what his father thought—Kip sure as hell was
not
emotional or unreliable.

The last time he’d acted from emotion was when he’d stormed out of his father’s house eighteen years ago and joined the Marine Corps. Since then, not once had Kiptyn Llowell III delivered anything less than what was asked of him . . . one way or another. He’d never failed to complete a mission.

He had no intention of starting now.

Even though his cover was blown, his leg hurting like hell, and his equipment useless, he had every intention of seeing this mission through.

He’d do whatever it took to get to the rendezvous point at the appointed time tomorrow to pick up a replacement camera and the other things the guys in his unit were delivering. Which meant getting himself a ride down the mountain from Ms. Practical.

No problem. She didn’t look that tough. A wink and a smile and she’d be putty in his hands. Women loved to be needed.

He wandered over and leaned against the rough trunk of a tamarind tree near the SUV, resting his leg and watching the woman from under the obscuring shadow of his billed cap. She was discussing something with the Chinese driver as her traveling companion climbed from the vehicle. The other woman was an aging hippie type wearing loose, colorful clothing, and gesturing expansively with her hands when Ms. Sensible joined her. The pair turned and walked toward the nearby open-air market, chatting amiably.

Kip surmised Ms. Sensible must be there in some official capacity—a trade liaison, a translator, maybe a cultural advisor to the other woman, who was clearly the party interested in the marketplace offerings. This village specialized in the highly sought-after traditional textiles and weavings of Hainan Island’s native Li people. No doubt the artsy-fartsy woman was a gallery buyer or some such thing. Which would explain why they’d made the arduous drive to this remote mountain village rather than parking themselves on one of the many idyllic beaches that rimmed this tropical South Seas island paradise.

Still, the two Americans were the one bright spot in this fucked-up day. If the SUV hadn’t shown up, he might have had to do something a lot more dangerous to get down to the coast. Small favors.

The women disappeared among the tall, primitive stalls festooned with a fluttering rainbow of handwoven textiles. Despite the village being so out of the way, in addition to his two targets there was a decent crowd of people browsing the marketplace. All Asian.

Kip didn’t dare approach a single one. His Chinese language skills sucked. And the last thing he wanted was to be ratted out to the security police by some overeager Chinese national who’d seen his photo on the morning news. The photo had been accompanied by a dire warning splashed across it in big red characters:

Beware! American spy!

At least that’s what he figured it had said.

He bristled. He was
not
a spy.

Okay, fine. At the moment, technically, he was.

His mission was to do a sneak-and-peek at Yulin Naval Submarine Base down on the coast near Sanya, where the Chinese were about to deep-water test a newly designed, ultra-long-distance autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle that was as small as a torpedo and cheap to build. If the tests were successful, the new Chinese AUV would be mass-produced and let loose on the coastlines of America to spy on military and shipping installations with impunity.

Unless the navy could design countermeasures to stop them.

Which was where Kip came in.

A prototype AUV was being delivered to Yulin day after tomorrow from a factory on the mainland, and the U.S. Navy wanted photos of it. Detailed photos.

Photos, Kip could do.

A childhood hobby he’d honed to an art over the years, photography was his
other
specialty. What the best Force Recon sniper could do with a rifle, Kip could do with a camera lens.

But for that he needed a lens that wasn’t cracked to bits.

Which brought him back to Ms. Practical.

He smiled.

Her, he could also do.

Adjusting his peasant jacket, he scanned the marketplace for her practical brown ponytail and limped after her.

He decided to separate his target from her companion and talk to her on her own. Ms. Artsy-fartsy might be one of those conscientious objector types who opposed espionage on principle. But if it was as he suspected, and Ms. Sensible was attached to the U.S. consulate in any kind of official capacity, she’d have an obligation to help a citizen in need of aid. Especially when he told her it was a matter of U.S. national security. Which it was. Aside from the whole threat of being tortured and hanged as a spy thing. Which he’d just as soon skip.

Doing his best to shrink his six-foot-three frame down to blend in with the shorter tourists around him—the newscast would surely have mentioned his height—he slowly picked his way toward his target until he was standing a few yards away from her at the end of a large stall. Her friend had quickly become absorbed in examining the textiles on display, and the stall’s owner was smiling and chattering nonstop in Chinese as she spread out more and more weavings for them to look at.

Ms. Practical was translating. Good. Language skills could come in handy.

He waited patiently, hanging back until the proprietress hurried off to fetch the ubiquitous offering of tea, over which they would start price negotiations.

He stepped in close. Ms. Practical glanced up at him, startled, and started to say something in Chinese.

He cut her off in a low voice. “I’m American. I need your help.”

She did a double take, her gaze darting up to his in surprise. Her eyes were large and blue. And startlingly pretty.

Hello
. He did his own double take.

Suddenly her blues widened in recognition. “You! Oh, my— You’re that—” She swallowed the offending word and glanced around furtively before turning back to him. “Major Llowell, I presume?” she whispered.

It was his turn to be mildly surprised. “How did you know?”

Her brows flickered. Those cornflower blues tracked down his body, then up again. “You really think that outfit is a disguise?”

He stared back at her in chagrin. Of all the— “It’s what was available,” he said a shade defensively. “Got a better idea?”

Her gaze glided across the breadth of his chest, lingering for a brief moment on his pecs. “Nope.” She turned aside and cleared her throat.

For a second his jaw slackened. Wait. Was she
cruising
him?

An unexpected rush of physical awareness flooded through his body. He took another look at her. A thorough look. And his earlier opinion of all practical and sensible resolved into something quite different.

Yeah, she was wearing the typical drab uniform of a federal bureaucrat, but the skirt actually hugged her shapely hips nicely, and her white blouse was soft and clung to a really outstanding set of—

“What do you want?” she asked, jerking him out of his reassessment.

“Pearl buttons,” he blurted.

She blinked. “What?”

He slammed his eyes shut for an instant, then opened them and smiled. “Sorry. What were you asking?”

“You said you needed help?”

Right
. Damn.
Get a grip, Llowell
. He forced his focus back where it belonged. “I’d like a ride,” he said.

She shot him a frown.

“Down to Sanya, on the coast,” he clarified with an inner wince. Had his voice betrayed his inappropriate thoughts?

Christ
.

“You do realize,” she said quietly, “there are at least three military checkpoints between here and Sanya?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.” They could be dealt with.

She didn’t look particularly happy, but she didn’t tell him to take a hike, either. She indicated his rucksack. “Anything in there I should know about?”

“No.”

Which was true. Just a dented camera and useless telephoto lens. And a few other assorted odds and ends she shouldn’t know about. For her own good. In case he was caught.

She nodded, and he had the distinct feeling he wasn’t fooling her for a nanosecond.

Of course, the only really incriminating thing—the photos he’d been sent to take—were not in his possession yet. The Chinese would have nothing to hold him on but suspicion.

The real danger would come later
.

Provided he made the rendezvous tomorrow.

“So. Can I get a ride?” He plastered on his most winsome smile.

She pushed out a breath, and shot him a sardonic look. “What the hay,” she said at length. “I’ve always wanted to see the inside of a Chinese prison.”