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“I’m a little intimidated by you being a soldier.”
Tynisha Hain ignored her date, the title a very loose interpretation. The dumb dumb kept swerving his front wheel near hers, thinking this game of chicken was cute.
“The Army has soldiers. I’m a Marine,” she explained for the second time. Not for the first time she wondered how much time she would serve if she dropkicked him in his hard ass head.
Her fiancé, Truxton had been a soldier. One of the best if she had anything to say about it. Oh, but Mr. Jacobs wasn’t hers anymore. From the beginning, he’d been curious about the girl next door, in awe of the female Marine, but never intimidated.
“Used to be a Marine,” Oliver corrected. His perfect teeth gleamed like giant white life preservers in the April sunshine. Too bad, she wanted to kick him in the nuts—till they spread smoother than softened butter. Some of her online dates could qualify as a-holes, but this pompous pretty boy puckered too tight for her tastes.
“Once a Marine, always a Marine,” she said without a hint of inflection in her voice.
Most people didn’t get female warriors. Protectors, cops, first responders, war fighters, were supposed to be men. A woman with the same basic instinct to defend had to camouflage her need to help others with teaching licenses, nursing degrees, and certificates of social work. Fuck that, and Oliver—on his Tiffany blue bike.
He gave a nervous laugh. “Well, that doesn’t quite make sense. I mean I was once a child, but now I’m all man.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
She shrugged, not really caring what he thought of her. His presence served a purpose. They were approaching The Double Decker. This was the closest she could get to Truxton without begging him to give her another chance. Having Mr. Colgate™ by her side, made her feel these twice-monthly beach cruiser rides were less pathetic.
“Are you expecting me to debate with you?”
“No, of course not.”
Tire swerve number four. Hoping to outpace him, she pedaled faster, the scar tissue to her left leg pulling tight, like a rubber band choking the Sunday paper overstuffed with coupons. The boardwalk could be tricky with the beach babes, skateboarders, and surfer types loitering the same path.
“I’m just trying to understand. If you got put out of the Marine Corps, why do you believe you have the right to call yourself a Marine?”
A few years ago, there had been a meme with a Tweety-like bird singing, I’m about to whip somebody’s ass. Maybe, she’d forward her date the video.
“Oliver, I’m only gonna say this once. Don’t ever tell me I got put out of the Marine Corps. You don’t know shit about me or the military, that’s obvious.”
“You didn’t retire,” Oliver whispered, as if to prove his point. Snarky bastard.
Ty gritted her teeth... this fucking online dating. Why did she listen to her friends?
Date more. Get out of the house.
Amanda “Mandy” Murphy, Fiona Cooper, Lucy Layne, Siah Ali, and Deja Cummings were the only things good to come from her brief contact with higher education and Sinclair State University.
“I was discharged following honorable service. Don’t try to school me on shit you know nothing about,” she rasped.
Aside from hanging with her girls, college life had been excessively underwhelming. At eighteen, she’d wanted to get a little apartment overlooking the water, because Truxton loved the sound of waves crashing onto the shore, and make a home for them.
That was not an option.
Though she hated to admit it, enrolling in the historically black university in northern Maryland after high school had been a placeholder. What she wanted—plain and simple—was to marry the boy next door, be a good wife, and maybe have a couple kids.
Truxton had joined the Army six years earlier. His career had taken off, so his visits home were less frequent. Months apart stretched into years, a promise ring on her left hand, and anxious parents in every direction. Her brothers, Drake and Grear, had the Corps, and her parents had expected her to have a plan.
Discipline and decisiveness ruled in the Hain household. After all, her father had given thirty years to the red and blue, and she, like the rest of the family, had to be focused at all times.
Drilled into her head was the fact that there were losers and winners, in life, in families.
Indecision led to ambiguity. Poor planning led to poorer execution. Just six months into her freshman year, Ty dropped out and joined the Corps. Screw-up should be stamped on her high school transcript, her freshman year of college, and... her military service record. She’d failed her way through life.
Marginal success had been good enough until her she let herself get blown up. Three family members in the Armed Forces, and not one of them had been wounded. Ty glanced over at Oliver. These crappy N2U dates and stalking the man she loved was a just reward for messing up her life. Truxton deserved better.
Oliver maneuvered the front wheel again, this time almost clipping her tire.
“Stop it, please.” She failed to keep the frustration out of her voice.
It was one thing for her to play the damsel in distress, but why did he act like he needed a service dog to peddle his bike in a straight line? Ty didn’t need this asshole who steered a bike like a drunken chimpanzee in stilettos to tell her she wasn’t a Marine. The disappointment in her father’s eyes along with the scars running the length of her left leg proved it.
“So,” he drawled, “what’s your favorite color?”
Color me bored, she thought. Or, maybe orange is the new black ™. Again, one of Truxton’s favorite pastimes.
“Black,” she said.
“Oh, come on,” he said exasperated. “No one likes black. Be creative,” he chided.
“That’s offensive. Did you notice I’m a black woman?”
Oliver looked at her, mischief sparkling in his green eyes. “So, you want to go back to my place... maybe watch some Netflix and chill?”
She quirked a brow. “You into role play?”
“Yeah,” he swerved closer, eager to hear her next words.
“How about a live demonstration of How To Get Away with Murder? ™ You’re the victim.”
How had her life come to this? Nothing like the fighter the Marines had trained her to be. An insurgent’s grenade had temporarily stolen the strength in her left leg. The skin bore permanent scars where the shrapnel had pierced her flesh. Serious damage had been done to her psyche, the fearless girl replaced by a woman with more fears and nightmares than she could control on her own.
That’s why she walked away from Truxton.
Thankfully, her therapist had helped her gain some perspective. She’d survived while some returned home draped in the nation’s flag. She could redirect her life, face her fears. Own up to what she’d done to herself, her relationship.
Ty made an instant decision.
She was through with online dating. Deja’s N2U algorithm could kiss her ass. And Mandy, the gourmet gossip could rag on Ty’s love life until Hell sold ice cream because she was through with computer-generated matchmaking. No way could she tolerate a mama’s-boy-basement-dweller expecting to insult her out of her panties after a thirty-minute bike ride.
She was just about to call it quits when the hair at her nape stood on end. Swiveling her head, she glanced into the window at Double Decker.
Oh damn, Truxton stood there looking back at her.
That square jaw, hard as granite rippled, and so did the blue waters in his eyes. At once, her nipples tingled with awareness, a slow hum started in her pussy. Even after all these years, the mountain of toned muscle and bronzed skin that was Truxton threatened her control. Damn, she wanted to fuck him. Right. Fucking. Now.
Too clean cut for a beach bum, too casual for a man of millions, yet his persona radiated controlled power. His blue-collared button-down, white shorts, and boat shoes suited the laid-back man he portrayed to the public eye. American-made good looks, sun-streaked brown hair, and the high trim soldier haircut had her mouth watering and her belly quivering. Somehow he managed to look formidable, but not intimidating. Ty lived for these stolen moments, these glimpses of the life that she could’ve had with the man she loved.
“Truxton,” she whispered.
All of a sudden, Oliver’s damn front wheel slammed into hers. Her bike lurched before jerking her off course.
“Oh my gosh, somebody help her,” Oliver shrieked, the whoosh of his tire wheels picking up speed. He was leaving!
“Ain’t you about a bit–“
The two things she saw before hitting the ground was Oliver hightailing it in the other direction. The other, a determined Truxton with a big dick imprint bearing down on her location.
Damn, her bad leg hurt, but who gave a fuck.
Seconds later, her body made contact with a second immovable object. This one had her muscles relinquishing their tension.
“Oh,” she sighed. Then a familiar scent one of warm earth under soft musk, swept through Tynisha.
Truxton. He held her safe and secure against his hard chest.
Though Tynisha had hoped to glimpse Truxton today, she had no contingency plan for actually sharing the same space with his raw sexuality. Damn she was down and out... in more ways that one.