Tempted by the Soldier

Chapter Five


Lilly watched the odometer turn over another mile. Virginia seemed to be a never-ending state. A never-ending state filled with windy roads, nightmarish tunnels, and scarily spectacular views. She tensed and squeezed her eyes shut as Nate rounded a curve and the road dropped off into nothing on the passenger side. Beautiful? Yes. Terrifying for someone afraid of heights? Double yes.


Just a few more hours, and they’d be back on level ground where they belonged. She checked the map on her phone just to make sure. Yes. Flat land was where this girl belonged.

The fact that she’d desperately had to pee for at least thirty miles wasn’t helping matters. Her bladder screamed at her to open her stubborn mouth.

She peeked at the clock on the dash. Already past two. They’d left North Carolina and made the turn onto I-81 ages ago. How long did Nate plan to drive before stopping for a bathroom break? She’d watched the man consume two bottles of water and a full cup of coffee. Surely his body had needs.

She wiggled in her seat and peeked over at him. He’d been even more tense and on edge than usual since she’d shut down their little heart-to-heart. So they both had dead mothers. It wasn’t as if they needed to bond over it. She’d already experienced firsthand what happened when you opened up to Nate Jennings, and she didn’t intend to make the same mistake twice. Trusting him would be asking for heartache.

“I have to pee,” she finally said when her bladder reached the point of no return and she spotted an exit up ahead.

“You just went a couple of hours ago,” he said.

“What are you, the pee police?” she retorted. “I wasn’t aware you were keeping a chart of my bladder function. Are you tracking my fluid intake as well?”

His knuckles blanched white around the steering wheel and he blew out a frustrated breath, flipping on his blinker at the next exit. “This is why I travel alone,” he muttered.

She rolled her eyes. “Please. You travel alone because no one is desperate enough to sit in a confined space with your surly ass for an extended period of time.”

“Nobody but you, right, Princess?” He whipped into a truck stop before she could respond—or object—and threw the truck into park at a gas pump. He looked at her expectantly as she took in her surroundings.

“You have got to be kidding me.” She watched a trucker in a flannel lumberjack shirt walk past her window carrying a ginormous soda cup. This was not one of the usual neat and clean freeway rest stops. This was a grungy and oily off-brand service station attached to a questionable diner with yellowing windows that hadn’t been washed in decades, on a no-name exit in the middle of nowhere.

They hadn’t even opened the truck doors yet and the cab was already inundated with the disgusting aroma of diesel fumes and fryer grease. Crinkling her nose, she held a hand over her nose to block the stench. There was no telling what kinds of poor defenseless animals were being slaughtered and fried in that place. Visions of Deliverance danced through her mind.

Nate unbuckled his seat belt and raised a brow. “You said you needed to use the bathroom. I provided you one.”

“I said I wanted a bathroom, not a place where I have to wear a biohazard suit just to touch a door handle,” she said, eyes wide with horror.

He popped his door open and climbed out, stretching his arms above his head. A sliver of tanned, scarred skin peeked out where his shirt rode up, and she averted her gaze.

“You’ll survive,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides.

He slammed the door shut, and Lilly watched his perfect backside, encased in snug denim, waltz into the truck stop.

Damn that ass. No. Damn her and her weak willpower for being unable to stop salivating over it.

She whacked the visor back into place and groaned. She had to stop letting him get to her. She was allowing him to win. That wasn’t an option.

She hopped out onto the parking lot and hurried into the store, ignoring the leering looks from a couple of creeps she passed on the way. Sweet Jesus. If possible, the smell was even worse inside. She hurried to the counter and wanted to weep at the menu hanging from the ceiling. Frog legs. Double bacon cheeseburger. Shredded pork sliders. Her stomach rolled and she clutched her abdomen, trying not to envision Babe being fried up and served on a paper plate. She loved living in the South, but some things a vegetarian just never got used to.

“Can I help you, darlin’?”

She turned to the cashier, who had a gravelly smoker’s voice and a name tag that read DORIS. “Yes, where is your restroom, please?”

Doris dug for something under the counter and came back up holding a key…with a dingy, chipped, toilet seat attached to it with a chain.

“What is that?”

“The key.” Doris dropped the toilet seat–key combo onto the counter and sighed. “Bathroom’s outside, around the side of the building.”

Lilly stared at the toilet seat in disgust. “Can you take the toilet seat off?”

“It’s a safety measure,” Doris said evenly. “Take it or leave it.”

“Do I look like someone who would steal your disgusting bathroom key?”

The cashier shrugged, and Nate reached over Lilly’s shoulder, grabbing the key. “She’ll take it. Thanks.”

Lilly spun around, nearly colliding with his broad chest, and glared up at him. He dangled the key in front of her and scowled.

She snatched it out of his hand and scowled right back. “I was handling it.”

“You were being a prissy brat,” he reprimanded her. “Haven’t you ever been in a truck stop?”

She stepped out of the line of people who were starting to stare at them. “No.”

He followed her out the door into the misting rain. “How is that possible?”

“I’ve never traveled,” she said. “Didn’t do a lot of family road trips when I was a kid.”

She rounded the corner of the dilapidated building and groaned when she spotted the bathroom. Was he really going to follow her all the way to the door? She turned on him and he stopped, a curious expression on his face.

“You’re telling me you’ve never been out of the state of North Carolina before?” he asked. “Not even once?”

“Not even once, Soldier Boy.”

He slammed his hand against the door to keep her from shutting it, and his nostrils flared.

“Isn’t there anything else you could call me other than that stupid, f*cking nickname?”

She reached up and patted his cheek when he scowled. “Oh, honey. You really don’t want to hear the other names I have for you.”

She removed his hand, then slammed the bathroom door in his face and turned to catalog the tiny room. Questionable-looking toilet, broken mirror, out-of-order condom machine, and an empty paper towel holder. Dear God. It was even worse than she’d expected. She inspected the menagerie of phone numbers and perverse messages scrawled across the walls and an idea began to form.

If Nate wanted to play dirty, she was game. This was war, after all. She dug a pen out of her purse and scrawled Nate’s number across the wall under her carefully composed ad.

BURLY TRUCKERS LOOKING FOR A FINE PIECE OF MAN MEAT AND A GOOD TIME CALL NATE.

Satisfied with her handiwork, she conducted the rest of her business and escaped the bathroom as quickly as possible. She went back inside the diner and tossed the key onto the counter.

“See? The toilet seat worked,” Doris drawled. “You didn’t steal it.”

“It was tempting,” Lilly deadpanned. “Thanks.”

She hurried back to the truck and climbed into the euphoric scent of sun-warmed leather and Nate. He raised a brow, watching her slather her hands with antibacterial gel from her purse, then took a bite of the hot dog dripping ketchup all over his hand. He pulled away from the gas pumps one-handed, and found a parking spot that overlooked the freeway to finish his meal.


“You hungry?” he asked.

She cringed at the smell of the mystery meat on a bun. “I can’t eat that.”

He set a paper bag in her lap and took another bite. “Which is why I got you that.”

She dug through the bag and pulled out a plastic fruit cup, a packaged salad, and a bottle of water. She looked up at him, surprised. “How did you know I was a vegetarian?”

“Jace’s Super Bowl party last year,” he said.

She blinked. “You remember that?”

He uncapped his bottle of water. “You brought your own hummus dip and called the pigs in a blanket barbaric. Kind of hard to forget.”

She managed a smile and popped open her salad, which looked surprisingly fresh for coming out of a place where you could purchase gasoline and a Duck Dynasty T-shirt with your meal. “You’re obviously a meat man.”

“Yes. I eat meat. I’ve even been known to dream about a good steak. Are you disgusted?”

“No. Not disgusted,” she admitted. “I know my culinary preference is not for everyone.”

“And why is it for you?”

She thought back to her childhood and the countless hurt and homeless animals she and her brother had carted home. How many times had a little ball of fur been the only comfort they’d had in their screwed-up world of dysfunctional love? That was the thing with animals. Their love was pure and unconditional.

Unfortunately, some of the humans in her life still didn’t have that one figured out quite yet. She poked at her salad. Make that most of the humans in her life.

She avoided Nate’s probing gaze. “I’ve always loved animals. I just can’t bring myself to eat something with a face, even if it is the logical thing to do,” she admitted, giving her full attention to the cherry tomato she’d speared with her fork. Tomatoes were far easier than memories. “My brother, Sawyer, and I used to adopt all the strays in the neighborhood. Dogs, cats, raccoons. We even brought a skunk home one time, thinking if we gave it a bath it wouldn’t stink so badly.”

Nate choked on his drink, but he was grinning. “Why in God’s name would you do that?”

She shrugged. “Poor thing looked so lonely sitting on the side of the road all by himself.” Her lips tugged up at the memory. “I had a hard time talking Sawyer into that one, but by that time we were nine, and I had him all figured out. All I had to do was cry, and he’d knock down walls to makes the tears stop. It also helped that we were twins. We usually stuck together. If one of us got into trouble, the other usually wasn’t far behind.”

Nate regarded her, a dozen indecipherable emotions warring on his face. In the end, amusement won out. “So what happened next? I can’t imagine this story has a boring ending.”

She laughed, thinking Sawyer would not find this story half as funny as she did. She could picture the pissed-off scowl on his face even now as he’d walked out of that emergency room. “Well, as soon as we got it into the tub and turned on the water, it bit Sawyer and sprayed us both. He had to get rabies shots, and we both had to take baths in every concoction known to man. It took weeks to get that smell out of our house.”

Nate shook his head, laughing out loud with her. “Your brother sounds like he loves you a lot.”

“I think it took him a while to remember just how much, after getting seventeen rabies shots because of me.”

“What about your parents?” Nate asked.

Clearly, the man was unaware of the dangerous waters he was treading in.

When she didn’t respond, he said, “I can’t even imagine the forms of punishment my mom would have come up with for a stunt like that. Hell, she made Jace and me mow every lawn in the neighborhood for a month just for busting a window with a baseball.”

Lilly swallowed the sudden lump in her throat, wondering what it would have been like to have a parent who cared about you that much. Her heart hurt so badly in that moment she wished she could cut it out. Life would be so much easier without the pain such a small but vital organ caused.

“My mother wasn’t around much.” She pressed her lips together, instantly wishing she hadn’t said it. She didn’t want to let Nate in, and yet she felt even in what had started out as an innocent conversation, he was unintentionally worming his way under her skin.

“Are you okay?” He touched her hand across the seat and heat sizzled over her skin where his fingers made contact, causing her breath to catch.

She nodded and pulled away. “I’m fine. Sorry. Just…ignore me.”

He refused to look away no matter how hard she willed him to; the intensity in his eyes was hot enough to burn her. “Not possible.”

“You haven’t had a problem ignoring me for the past year,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her mouth shut and looked away from the pissed-off man behind the wheel. For a moment, she thought he might actually drop the subject, but instead he leaned across the seat to invade her space with his heat and his smell and…oh, God.

“I wasn’t ignoring you to hurt you, Lilly,” he said, his voice low and gruff. “You didn’t…you don’t want me in your life. Trust me. I did you a favor by walking away when I did. I’m not a good guy. I’m not the guy you need.”

She swallowed, remembering what Nate had tasted like the last time they’d kissed. Lemons and mint. Even a year later the taste of him lingered on her tongue.

He held her gaze and inhaled sharply. His fingers brushed her hand resting next to her thigh. A jolt passed through her at that one tender touch of skin on skin. That, and the heated look in his eyes, made her want to run like hell.

Or maybe meet him halfway and crush her lips against his…

Would he still taste the same?

His phone buzzed, breaking the spell, and he leaned back to grab it. His brow furrowed as he read the text message. “Who the hell is Earl and why is he responding to my offer on the bathroom wall of the Flying Pig Truck Stop?”

It took a second for the implication to sink in.

Oh. Shit.

He glanced up at her, and she nearly choked on the tomato she’d just popped into her mouth. He narrowed his eyes and held up the phone. “Really?”

She whipped on her most innocent expression. “What?”

He clenched his jaw, dropped his phone back into the cupholder, and pushed open his door. Oh, God. She’d pushed him too far. Damn that horny trucker! She thought there’d be at least a day before someone responded. Long enough for her to be laughing far away from him and his retaliation. He pinned her with a don’t-even-think-about-running-Princess look through the windshield as he rounded the front of the truck, and apprehension had her cringing back into her seat. She considered locking her door, but he jerked it open before she got the chance.

“W-what are you doing?” she asked.

He grabbed her knees, and in one smooth move, turned her so that he was wedged between her legs. “Retaliating.”

“Wait a min—”

He kissed her, muffling the rest of her sentence…and oh, God, she was in trouble.

The kiss started hard and punishing, almost as if he were tying to keep himself detached, but it wasn’t long before the heat caught up with them both. Her lips parted of their own accord, and the taste of him flooded her mouth. He didn’t taste the same. He tasted…better. Addictive.


A surge of lust drowned out all rational thinking and she found herself kissing him back, flicking her tongue to meet his. He groaned and cupped her jaw, tilting her head, deepening the kiss. His body leaned into hers as if drawn in by magnets. She felt her body respond, arching, searching for contact.

A small, irritating part of her mind whispered that this was the part where she should push him away. Tell him to go screw himself. But what was supposed to be a retaliation was escalating into something hot and uncontrollable, like wildfire burning out of control. When he pulled her bottom lip between his teeth, she whimpered and grabbed on to his shoulders to keep from melting into him.

That seemed to snap him out of it. He broke all contact, breathing hard, looking like he was fighting for control as much as she was.

Oh my God.

What had she just done? How the hell had she let herself get that caught up in the moment? With him?

She reached up and touched her swollen lips, too shocked to find any words. His gaze dropped back to her mouth and he shook his head once, as if forcing himself out of a daze. He cursed under his breath and raked his fingers through his damp hair, then made his way back around to the driver’s side, where he climbed in and slammed the door shut. He started the ignition without looking at her.

“For the record. Every text I get after this, I’m giving them your f*cking number.”