Bound for Keeps (Men of Honor) (24 page)

Then slurp, lift, swallow. The shot was gone.

Tim and his partner were kissing with potent intent, oblivious now, caught up in each other as Vertigo Dreams took to the stage. Their music had been the soundtrack behind every step in the tentative, then torrid young relationship between Kyle and Nate. For a moment, they both stilled. Fingers interlaced. Gazes fixed. Sure, the band had aged. Glam was a little less shiny, a little more weary. Kyle didn’t care, and it didn’t seem like Nate did either. Simultaneously, they squeezed each other’s hands as the first song began.

Something more unfathomable than desire punched Kyle in the chest. Old years. Old hurts and desires and hopes.

Maybe Nate felt it too because he grabbed Kyle’s collar and pulled. It was either stumble or follow, so Kyle found his feet and yanked his jeans back into place. He hooked his discarded shirt and two more shots, slurping both for himself.

It was obvious Nate didn’t know where they were going. He simply led. Searching. Hunting for something. Kyle grinned, knowing exactly what his lover sought. He could only imagine how hard Nate was, how ready he was to satisfy this aching want, ready to indulge the best of what they’d been.

Club patrons clapped and shouted like mad. Kyle grasped Nate’s powerful wrist where he still held fast to the collar.

“This way.”

Again, that suspicious brow appeared. “Where?”

Kyle petted up and down the taut tendons of Nate’s bare forearm. Soft, golden hair added a vulnerable counterpoint to their lust, but it was no less powerful. “Trust me.”

With a curt nod, some of the tension eased from Nate’s features. “Make it good, college boy.”

As long as no one asks and they don’t tell…

Conduct Unbecoming

© 2012 L.A. Witt

First class petty officer Eric Randall is less than thrilled about taking orders to Okinawa. Three long, lonely years on a crappy island that’s thousands of miles from his daughter? Oh. Yeah. Sign him up. But as long as he’s stuck here, he might as well make the best of it, so he discreetly checks out the local gay scene.

Shane nearly drops his drink when the gorgeous, cocky-looking guy strolls into Palace Habu. He buys him a drink, and before long, they’re making out in a booth. Eric is a straight-to-the-point kind of guy and doesn’t want to play games. Since Eric’s idea of not playing games is getting the hell out of there and going back to one of their apartments, Shane is more than happy to go along with it.

What starts as a scorching-hot one-night stand leaves both of them wanting more…until Eric finds out Shane doesn’t
just
outrank him, he’s an officer. DADT may be repealed, but an officer getting involved with an enlisted man falls under conduct unbecoming.

Still, they can’t resist their mutual desire. There’s no reason anyone has to find out. But secrets have a way of outing themselves.

Warning: Contains two military boys who keep forgetting they’re not supposed to be together. Probably because they never have their uniforms on for any length of time…

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Conduct Unbecoming:

I couldn’t say if it was Shane’s breath warming my skin, his hand over my erection or the blatant acknowledgment this night wasn’t ending until we fucked, but as soon as he suggested leaving, I damn near came. The hot guys were
never
aggressive enough for my taste, but Shane was both sexy and brazen. And for tonight? Mine.

I kissed him harder. He gripped my hair tighter and pulled me closer. This wasn’t like me. Not even close. I could be almost businesslike in my pursuit of a one-night stand. Buy a drink, exchange some small talk, flirt enough to test the water, then get the fuck out of there. That all went to hell right about the time I found out what Shane’s kiss tasted like, and I couldn’t let him go even while my mind tried to tell me the only way I’d get him naked was if I pried myself off him long enough to get the fuck out of here. Just…just one more kiss. One more minute. Maybe two.

It must have been at least ten minutes before we finally pulled ourselves apart enough to make an effort to leave the club. Maybe longer than that. The ice had melted in my neglected drink, but for all I knew, that was just from being in such close proximity to the two of us.

Panting just as much as I was, he asked, “Ready to get out of here?”

“Definitely.”

We stayed at the booth for a couple more minutes, catching our breath and calming down so we could walk out of here without being too obvious about where we were going or why. My drink was appallingly watered down, thanks to the melted ice, but I didn’t care. At least it was cool. Sort of.

We’d already paid our tabs, so we shouldered our way through the crowd and the fog to the exit. We stepped out of the club into the hallway that would take us to the stairwell. Before we reached the stairs, Shane stopped and pulled out his phone.

“I’ll get us a cab,” he said and speed-dialed a number that presumably connected to a taxi company. He spoke to the person on the other end in impressively fluent Japanese, and a moment later hung up and slid his phone into his back pocket. “Ready?”

“Very.”

We started down the stairs, but another thought crossed my mind: if we got into a cab on Gate Two Street, someone might see us. It was way too visible out there.

“Wait.” I touched his arm. He stopped and looked back at me, eyebrows up. I gestured down the stairs past us. “We, um… Isn’t Gate Two Street a little out in the open for us to leave together?”

He smiled. “Don’t worry about it. We’re not going out that way.”

I hesitated. “Which way are we going?”

“There are tons of back roads and alleys through here. No one will see us.” He put a hand on the railing and pushed himself up to kiss me lightly. “Trust me. I’ve done this before, and I don’t want to be seen any more than you do.”

After another moment’s hesitation, I nodded. “All right, let’s go.”

At the bottom of the stairwell, we stepped out into the muggy evening air. Instead of turning right to go back to Gate Two Street, we went left. The alley narrowed and zigzagged between oddly shaped buildings.

“I guess before we get in the cab,” he said as we walked, his voice low even though the alley was pretty much a ghost town. “We should figure out where we’re going.”

I glanced at him in the low light. “Well, your place or mine?”

“I’m only a few clicks from here,” he said. “Maybe ten or fifteen minutes by cab.”

“I live out by Awase and White Beach,” I said. “Which is…” I hesitated. “Um, well, I guess you’d know better than I would. I’m still learning the area, but, twenty or thirty minutes, maybe?”

He smiled. “My place, then. If that’s all right with you?”

“Fine by me.”

My heart beat faster. We both walked a little faster. Christ, we couldn’t get to his place fast enough. Some of the shadowy corners in this alley were starting to look really tempting, and to hell with the consequences if someone caught us. Tempting. Very tempting.

As we walked, I struggled to keep my feet under me and not steal too many glances at him. I’d hoped to find someone for a night, but he was more than I’d bargained for. Thank God I’d had the bar to casually lean on earlier when the bartender had pointed out the guy who’d bought my drink, because Shane was fucking gorgeous. His hard, angular features made my mouth water, the cockiness in his posture screamed the kind of confident boldness that melted me in bed, and his piercing green eyes weakened my knees. Good thing he’d bought me a drink, because my mouth went dry the instant I looked his direction.

So I’d taken a drink just to moisten my tongue and started toward him. Then, of course, another jackass had stepped in between us. The room was just crowded enough, I couldn’t body-swerve him as easily as I would have liked, and he was insistent as all hell in spite of my polite attempts to exit the conversation. Well, at least until I told him I was a power top with a couple of “questionable” fetishes. Bullshit, of course, but he quickly lost interest, got the fuck out of my way and left me to introduce myself to the gorgeous man who now walked beside me down an alley to meet a taxi.

Okinawa was more than welcome to be a complete shit-hole as long as there were men here like Shane. It had been several minutes since we’d kissed, and my lips still tingled. He was what my ex would have called a Goldilocks kisser: not too forceful, not too timid, but
just
right. Was he ever. I was used to men who either kissed so gently they tickled my mouth, or those who almost bruised my lips. Shane was bold and assertive without overdoing it, and he didn’t balk at my own boldness or assertiveness.

God, I
had
to find out what he was like in bed.

Soon, Randall. Soon.

The alley bent once more and spilled out onto a mostly deserted street. Pale streetlights illuminated immaculate flower planters and signs above nail salons, travel agencies, and shops I couldn’t identify, thanks to metal doors that had been rolled down over their windows. There were a few cars parked here and there, but otherwise, the place was empty. By day, it was probably as alive with activity as Gate Two Street was after dark. Not now, though.

“There’s our ride.” Shane nodded down the street, and two headlights approached. On top of the car was a glowing yellow dome with something written in kanji, and when the taxi stopped beside us with a muffled squeak of aging brakes, the green-and-white sign on the door read
Taxi—On-Base Allowed
.

That gave me pause. With the number of people having affairs and fucking around, base housing was a rumor mill if there ever was one. Two men coming home late in the evening could go unnoticed, or it could be very, very noticed. Not good.

When Shane opened the car door and gestured for me to get in, I hesitated.

“You do live off base, right?”

He shot me a toothy grin. “You think I’m crazy enough to bring a guy home in base housing?”

I chuckled. “Just checking.”

Our eyes met again. We exchanged grins; then I got into the cab ahead of him. He slid in beside me and said something to the driver in Japanese. The driver responded in the same language, and the car lurched into motion.

For the entire ride, Shane and I didn’t look at each other. I didn’t look at him, anyway, and I was sure the hairs on my neck would have stood on end if he so much as glanced in my direction. Whether he looked my way or not, the only way I was staying anywhere close to sane was to stare intently through the windshield. There’d be plenty of time to look at each other when we made it to his place.

Bound for Keeps

SE Jakes

They can’t deny the attraction…or the danger…

Men of Honor, Book 5

Since losing their beloved third to cancer, Keith Masters and Johnny Lou Reed haven’t thought about filling the void in their lives with anyone else. Until a stormy Christmas Eve, when a half-frozen, newly discharged Army Ranger shows up on their doorstep—with no memory of who he is or how he got there.

The former Marine in Keith is suspicious that he can’t turn up any information about Shane anywhere, not even an address. Direct questioning will have to wait until they’ve gotten the boy well.

Shane knows it’s only a matter of time before Keith and Reed figure out his past. And when they learn the depth and the darkness of the secrets he holds, he could get them all killed.

In the heat of the dark winter nights, the three men discover a passion that heals the gaping wounds in their hearts. And Shane wonders, despite the danger hot on his heels, how he will ever bear to leave…

Warning: Contains secrets, undercover operations and three hot, alpha military men who can set a cold winter night on fire.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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Bound for Keeps

Copyright © 2013 by SE Jakes

ISBN: 978-1-61921-378-4

Edited by Jennifer Miller

Cover by Angela Waters

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: February 2013

www.samhainpublishing.com