IT'S ALWAYS BEEN YOU by Jessica Scott (March 4, 2014;
Forever E-Book; $2.99)
She plays by the rules . . .
Captain Ben Teague is many things: a tough soldier, a loyal
friend, and a bona fide smart-ass. He doesn't have much tolerance for BS, which
is why he's mad as hell when a trusted colleague and mentor is brought up on
charges that can't possibly be true. He's even more frustrated with by-the-book
lawyer Major Olivia Hale. But there's something simmering beneath her icy
reserve-and Ben just can't resist turning up the heat . . .
. . . and he's determined to break them
The only thing riskier than mixing business with pleasure is
enjoying it . . . and Olivia can't resist locking horns-and lips-with Ben. He's
got more compassion in his little finger than any commander she's ever met, a
fact that makes him a better leader than he realizes. But when the case that brought
them together awakens demons from Olivia's past, she will have to choose
between following orders-or her heart . . .
About Jessica Scott:
USA Today bestselling author Jessica Scott is a career army
officer; mother of two daughters, three cats and three dogs; wife to a career
NCO and wrangler of all things stuffed and fluffy. She is a terrible cook and
even worse housekeeper, but she's a pretty good shot with her assigned weapon
and someone liked some of the stuff she wrote. Somehow, her children are pretty
well-adjusted and her husband still loves her, despite burned water and a messy
house.
She's written for the New York Times At War Blog, PBS Point
of View: Regarding War Blog, and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. She
deployed to Iraq in 2009 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn and has
served as a company commander at Fort Hood, Texas.
She's pursuing a PhD in Sociology in her spare time and most
recently, she's been featured as one ofEsquire Magazine's Americans of the Year
for 2012.
iTunes:
EXCERPT 1:
“You don’t like being in command,
do you, Ben?” she whispered. The air was thick between them, heavy with unsaid
things.
He shook his head. “It’s too much
responsibility for other people’s problems. I’m not qualified to judge someone
else’s screw ups,” he said.
He shifted so he could face her,
his body angled toward hers. A shadow partially concealed his face, casting it
in hard lines and a dozen shades of grey.
“You’re not supposed to be perfect
to be a leader,” she whispered. Her voice cracked, hung on the tension in her
neck from sitting a little too close.
Silence filled the space between
them. Heavy and warm and crackling with latent energy.
He licked his bottom lip, his gaze
locked with hers. “I don’t want to be either,” he said. His voice was a husky
whisper filled with need.
Her breath caught in her throat. A
hesitant movement. A breath closer. This was monumentally stupid. Infinitely
so.
And yet she parted her lips, her
entire body trembling in anticipation of the faintest touch of his. He was
there, just there. A breath separated them. Nothing more.
It was a hesitant kiss. A light,
teasing brush of his top lip against hers. Her breath mingled with his,
threading between them and urging her closer. She met his eyes, waiting.
Wanting. Needing more of this deeply sensual man who made her feel so many
writhing, hungry things.
It was forever before either of
them moved. Her breath was locked in her throat. Then she felt it. His palm
slid over her cheek, his fingers rough on her skin. Warmth penetrated her,
wound its way over the surface to slide beneath her skin and stroke something
long dormant to life.
Need. It was need that made her
lean toward him. Need that made her part her lips and trace his mouth with her
tongue. Need that made her nip his bottom lip and thread her fingers in the
short hair on the back of his neck.
Need that made her gasp in pleasure
as his tongue slid against hers, twining in that sensuous dance that brought
her blood to life. Heat pounded between her thighs, an aching, pulsing want
that scorched her like nothing she’d ever felt.
She gave herself over to the
sensation, to the pleasure of his touch. Knowing it was a mistake and far past
caring as her breath finally released, mixing with the heated strokes of his
tongue.
She eased back after a moment,
before she did something monumentally stupid, like crawling into his lap in
broad daylight.
“We really should talk about those
legal packets,” she said against his mouth.
His smile was unexpected. “Wow, you
are hell on a man’s ego,” he said.
The laugh caught her off guard and
she rested her forehead against his as she struggled to regain her composure.
Something opened against her heart, something unexpected and warm.
Something complicated.
For a brief moment, it was tempting
to throw caution to the curb, to nuzzle his mouth with hers, to absorb his
taste andwarmth.
And then reality kicked in.
“We really should head back. We’ve
got that meeting in two hours,” she said.
He smiled. “Always responsible and
focused.”
He brushed his thumb over her lip
as he said it. This was something nice.
Unexpected.
It was going to be an interesting
legal briefing, that was for damn sure.
EXCERPT 2
Olivia looked away. The first
packet was heavy in her hand. “The quick summary is that you have five drinking
and driving, two assaults, three hot urinalysis tests and five soldiers caught
with other intoxicating substances.”
“Define ‘other intoxicating substances’?
What the hell does that mean?”
“Huffing, spice, bath salts.”
“Bath salts? What the hell are bath
salts?”
Olivia pulled out her phone and
pulled up a website explaining the drug. “They’re really new but we’re starting
to see more of them. They’re meant to be a synthetic drug that mimics cocaine
and ecstasy but they’re really bad stuff. Some of it is variants of plant
food.”
Ben reached for her phone and
angled it so he could see. His hand was big and rough against hers. Hot where
their skin met. If he noticed, he didn’t give any indication. “Plant food?”
Olivia tried to ignore how his hand
felt against hers. Because, oh yes, she’d noticed. Heat spread across her skin,
sliding up her forearm and tingling down her spine. “Soldiers will smoke anything
these days,” she said quietly.
“Why?”
“That’s a whole ’nother
discussion,” she said, easing her hand out of his. “The short version is that
intoxicating substances are prohibited by regulation and I advise you to do two
things with these kids: send a strong message that this behavior won’t be
tolerated but also enroll them into drug abuse counseling to send a message
that you’ll help those who want it.”
Ben studied the paperwork in front
of him. Tormented emotions flickered over his face and it was everything she
could do not to ask him what was on his mind. She didn’t have time or reason to
go crawling around Ben Teague’s head but that didn’t stop the want pulsing
warmly over her skin.
“I know this kid,” Ben said
quietly. “I served with him downrange last deployment but ever since he’s come
home, he’s been nothing but trouble to the old commander. Zittoro has three
previous drug charges,” he said.
“Private Zittoro is a different
case. I recommend you separate him from the military under a chapter nine, rehab
failure.”
She heard his quick intake of
breath. Saw the conflict flicker over his sharp features.
He cleared his throat roughly in
the awkward silence. “Zittoro… he’s got nowhere to go. He’s got a deadbeat dad
and his mom is… well, she’s not winning any parent of the year awards.” His
fist clenched on the table in front of her. “If I throw him out of the army,
what happens to him? He’s an addict.”
She flinched at the pain in his
words. Ben had only been a commander for a couple of hours but the strain was
already obvious in his voice.
“You can’t save everyone,” she
whispered. She waited until his eyes met hers.
“You know that, right?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
There was no comfort she could
offer. This was the burden of command: to balance the needs of the army over
the needs of the individual. A tightrope he had to walk alone.
All she could do was give him the
facts and her opinion. But in that moment, she had the sudden urge to save him
from this. “If you keep him, do you have the manpower to keep going to his room
and making sure he hasn’t overdosed every night? Do you trust him enough to
give him a weapon and believe he’ll do his job?”
Ben’s throat moved as he swallowed.
“Guess not,” he said quietly. He leaned back and it was as if a wall of glass
crystallized between them. “What other fun things do you have in there for me?”
Olivia wasn’t convinced by the
sudden shift in Ben’s mood but now wasn’t the time or the place for digging any
deeper. She reviewed the rest of the drug packets, watching him tense more with
each one. She stopped after the last driving under the influence.
“Why is this bothering you so
much?”
He offered a half-assed cocky
grimace that failed to mimic the smile he was going for. A pretty shitty
attempt to cover the darkness twisting beneath the surface. He took a deep
breath. “I’m a big boy. I’ll do what has to be done.”
“I didn’t imply that you wouldn’t.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not bothering you.”
He drummed his fingers on the
table. “Let’s finish this up. I’ve got to get down to my company and start
digging out from the mountain of crap that my predecessor left me.”
He brushed her off. The action was
as insignificant as a paper cut.
She leaned back and picked up the
next packet and wished it didn’t sting like it did. Then she made the mistake
of meeting his gaze. There was such a dark lack of hope in his eyes. A bleak
resignation to the things he was forced to confront. She almost reached for his
hand. It would have been a simple gesture of support. But he looked at her as
though a single touch might have shattered him.
He was not her problem. She didn’t
do damaged and introspective.
Because there were people counting
on her not to get distracted.
But looking at him now, she
wondered about the glimpse of the tired warrior she saw behind those tormented
brown eyes.
EXCERPT 3:
“Hey,” she said quietly.
The memory of that kiss made him
crave another taste of her. He’d thought she was fire and passion and so damned
determined before. Now he knew that quiet energy she directed toward work was
merely a hint of the passion concealed beneath that cool exterior.
It was a passion he wanted to feel
beneath his fingertips. That he wanted to slide against.
“Hey.” He swallowed, about to cross
a line from professional to… something else.
And damned if he wasn’t afraid to
cross that line. That kiss earlier was nothing compared to what she’d just
given him.
She’d lied for him today. Ben had
been about to make something up that would get his battalion commander off his
back and Olivia had stepped in with a smooth story that had deflected Gilliad’s
attention with no one the wiser.
She’d agreed not to tell the boss.
He hadn’t expected her to all-out lie for him. And now that she had? He didn’t
quite know how to broach the subject with her. Not at all.
She straightened and leaned against
her desk. The broken scale tray swayed as she bumped it with her hip. He
grasped at it for a distraction from his racing thoughts. “You know one of
these is broken?”
She nodded. “It’s supposed to be.”
He studied her quietly. “What like
broken justice?
Ben paused, studying the soft bun
at the nape of her neck. Her skin was exposed. Her neck was long and lean. He
had the sudden image in his head of dragging his tongue down that tender flesh.
Would she gasp? Would she tip her head and grant him access to more of her secret
places?
He cleared his throat roughly. “You
lied for me today.”
She stilled, guilt flashing over
her face. “Yeah, about that…”
“Thank you,” he said quickly.
She lifted one brow. “For lying?”
“For giving me the benefit of the
doubt. That doesn’t happen very often,” he said quietly.
“Really? But you’re such a
charmer.”
Ben shifted until he stood a little
too close. Until he could see her eyes darken the way they had in the car when
he’d given in to the temptation to kiss her. “Are you teasing me? Because if
you are, I think I need to make a note on my calendar that yes, you do
officially have a sense of humor.”
A smile crossed her lips. It took
everything he had not to slide his thumb over that soft skin. He wanted to see
her lips close over the tip. To feel her warm mouth encircle him and… Jesus, he
still had to go back to work.
“I do have a sense of humor. I just
don’t get to break it out very often because the only thing I see at work is
the seedy underbelly of the army. There’s not much humor in what I do.”
“Maybe you need to relax a little
more.” Ben shifted until he could nudge the door shut behind him. He didn’t
want anyone to see. Didn’t want to give anyone a hint of something that was
private and intimate and deeply compelling. Were they flirting? This felt like
flirting. And with this woman, he had absolutely no basis to say either way
what this really was.
“I don’t know what this ‘relax’ is
that you speak of,” she said.
He felt a long-forgotten twinge
deep in his belly. It was something so foreign, he’d forgotten it was something
he was capable of. In all his casual encounters, he’d forgotten what real
attraction felt like.
He swallowed the dryness in his
mouth. He didn’t know what to do with this realization that Olivia Hale was
someone he wanted to… someone he wanted. It was one thing to flirt with someone
at a bar, to take them home for a few hours of mindless sex.
This? This was something entirely
different.
Something more than wanting a few
hours of sheets sliding over skin, of warm bodies slipping together. This was
something darker. Something warmer.
Something infinitely more valuable.
“Maybe I’ll ply you with alcohol
tonight at Stable Call. We’ll see if we can’t get you to unwind a little bit.”
His voice was low, grating on his ears.
“Good luck with that. I only drink
socially. There will be no drunken pictures of me immortalized on the
Internet.” She stepped toward him then, closing the last distance between them.
She reached up and slid her hand over his cheek. Ben went very still as her
palm slid over his skin. Her palm was cool against his face. Gentle. It took
everything he had to let her slip out of reach again.
He captured her palm before she
could slip away. Held it there against his cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“For Zittoro.”
Her lips parted. He could feel the
slight huff of breath on his skin. “Thank you
for trusting me with the truth.” She slipped her fingers
from his, her eyes sparkling. “Just don’t make me come after you for that
packet.”
Ben caught her hand before he
thought about it. His hand closed over hers, her index finger captured in a
gentle loop between his thumb and forefinger.
He had the sudden wild idea to put her finger to his lips.
He pressed it gently to his mouth. Felt the pad of her finger on his bottom
lip. A single bolt of electricity snapped over his skin.
A simple touch. Nothing more.
They were at work. It was the
single stupidest thing he could have done.
He released her quickly, before
anyone could see. Before he could do something stupid like pull her close and
kiss her again. The want inside him was powerful. Raw and needy.
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