Read Online Between Duty and Desire by Leanne Banks - Free Book Online

asked.
    “Okay, but you’ll have to coach me,” she said.
    Brock talked her through the salt and the shot and watched her face after she tossed back the tequila. “Ewww. That’s gross!” She coughed.
    “Suck the lime,” he told her, lifting her hand.
    She obeyed and her lips puckered and eyes watered. She coughed again. He gently thumped her on her back.
    “That’s disgusting. Why would anyone drink more than one of those?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
    After viewing several more pages of photographs of Rob, however, she took another shot when Brock did. She shared memory after memory with Brock. Some were funny, some were bittersweet, but they all made him ache because she obviously missed him so much. It hit him again that Callie hadn’t just lost a lover or husband—she’d lost her life partner. And nothing, and no one, would ever be able to totally replace everything Rob had been to her.
    The knowledge tore at him and he felt his own eyes burn when she turned the page to show Rob in his uniform, fresh out of boot camp.
    Callie scrubbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands and took another shot. “I think I’m starting to feel the effect of the tequila now. I should probably eat something,” she said. “Cake. I’ll eat the cake.”
    “I’m not sure that’s really gonna help,” he said, amused, despite the fact that she’d been weeping like a child just moments before.
    “Better than nothing,” she said and took a couple of bites.
    He watched her and got distracted by the little bit of frosting on her cheek. He rubbed it off with his finger then licked it.
    Her gaze locked with his in fascination. “After this cake, I bet that tequila will taste more bitter than ever.”
    “You bet right,” he said with a grin.
    She sighed and took another bite of cake. “Well, I can say that I did something adventurous on Rob’s birthday by trying tequila.”
    “Hear, hear,” he said, pouring himself another shot. “And you can feel good that you didn’t do anything too bad, like body slammers.”
    She swallowed over her bite of cake. “What’s a body slammer?”
    “Nothing you want to do,” he told her. A dozen forbidden images flew through his mind of places on her body he would like to taste.
    She leaned toward him with her hand on his thigh. She probably didn’t even realize she was touching him, he thought. “Tell me what a body slammer is,” she demanded.
    Her eyes were sexy, smoky and her voice had a husky tinge that rattled his nerve endings. “It’s when you put salt on another person’s body, lick it off, drink the shot of tequila and follow it up with the lime.” His brain ran down the road to temptation again.
    She blinked. “Now let me get this straight. You pour salt on someone else’s body and lick it off. Doesn’t it just fall off?”
    “You have to do it fast.”
    She was quiet for a long moment. “I can honestly say I’ve never had a body slammer.”
    Brock felt a punch of arousal along with an uh-oh sensation. She had that same look on her face she’d worn when he’d danced with her. That one little dance had nearly killed him. He would swallow his tongue before he offered her a body slammer.
    She bit her lip and eyed the tequila then her gaze slid over him again. She’d had enough alcohol tolower her inhibitions, which could be a damn dangerous state for him. Her expectancy was so palpable, it twisted between them like a coiled wire. “I really don’t know when I’m going to have this opportunity again,” she said and licked her lips. “And I can trust you. If I don’t choose anything obscene, would you let me body slam you?”

Six
    Marine Lingo Translation
Devil Dog: a name for Marines that signifies
the dogged determination of Marines.

    A nd I can trust you…would you let me body slam you?
    Brock swallowed every swear word he’d ever heard along with a few he made up. She could trust him? She damn well shouldn’t trust him. He felt like the biggest,