Page 13 of The Commander
But I haven’t. I should have done a lot of things I haven’t when it comes to Quinn Parker. Like not fucking falling in love with her.
One minute I’m the party guy, dating a ton of women, and the next Lieutenant Parker is saluting me in formation as one of the newbies in my platoon. I will never forget stopping in front of her and staring deeply into her bright blue eyes. My dick reacted, and I couldn’t move.
There was an invisible chain that locked our souls together. That’s the only way I can describe it. She was mine from that moment...except I’m the only one who seems to have gotten the goddamn memo.
Cold water poured over my dating life, and while I occasionally slept with other women, it was Quinn Parker I saw...and craved. I’m not proud of it, and God knows I tried to change it. More than once. Many times.
For me and for her.
The problem is, Quinn is a stunningly beautiful woman, and there wasn’t a man on the base—well, except the Colonel, her father—who didn’t want to bang her.
While I wanted to kill them all.
An Army buddy I was having a beer with one night asked how I could handle seeing her hot ass run up and down the PT track.
Lifting my bottle, I’d just shrugged and taken a sip. “I’m immune.”
“Bullshit.”
“I get enough hot ass. Parker is just another soldier who needs to perform. Her ass doesn’t concern me.”
Such a fucking lie.
I’d dreamed about spreading those supple cheeks and licking her pussy while on my knees behind her. Hearing her moan. Stroking my cock as I shoved a finger inside her tight cunt.
“Come on, you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed her.” My buddy laughed.
I dropped the bottle on the bar a little hard. “I’m not blind; of course I have. Quinn is good at what she does, and it’s my job to make sure she’s equipped, just like any GI, to fight for our country and stay alive while doing it.”
“Quinn?” He lifted a brow.
Shit.
“Oh, fuck off. It’s just a damn name. I’m not boning her; nor am I fantasizing about it, but go right ahead.”
But I’ll fucking kill you if you touch a single hair on her head.
He wasn’t the only senior officer to notice Quinn Parker over the years. I saw them watching her when she lifted her arms to tighten her ponytail, or as she bent over to re-tie her boot laces or simply walked past on the way to the gym in her shorts.
She knew it, too.
Not that she flaunted it. Quite the opposite. She hated the attention and tried to fit in with the boys. Her shorts weren’t tight as fuck, leaving nothing to the imagination. They were Army regulation khaki and yet still that tight peach drew men’s eyes.
Including mine.
When I should’ve been dating more seriously and settling down with the right girl, instead I was craving Quinn Parker.
When I struggled through another Christmas with the old man, just the two of us, as he drank bottle after bottle and complained about everyone at work and the neighborhood, I should’ve reminded myself if I didn’t get my act together I’d end up alone like him.
When I turned thirty-three and began questioning why I was still serving, I never truly acknowledged that she was part of my decision to discharge. But she was. The uniform was like a ten-foot wall between us, while other women lined up to spend a night with me.
Why did I want Quinn Parker so badly? I’ve asked myself a thousand times, and I still don’t know the answer.
The only answer I do have is that it didn’t fucking matter in the end.
She rejected me.
Christ, I knew she was too young, under pressure from her peers to prove herself despite the fact that women had been in the military for years and that her father was the Colonel. But I also knew she had feelings for me. For three fucking years we had navigated our attraction and feelings, and she still walked away.
