Tag Team

Excerpt From: Tag Team

They would be home tonight. Peter, Mike and their unit had been gone for three months. Lilly had no idea where their Special Forces unit had been or what they’d been doing, but she’d thought about them both a lot since they’d left.

She’d met Mike and his buddy, Peter, at the gym and they’d gone out for meals a few times after class. Lilly worked part time as an aerobics instructor. She’d been a dancer in her younger days and needed the exercise to keep off those extra pounds that seemed to want to creep onto her petite frame given the least opportunity.

Mike and Peter didn’t look like they needed any help staying fit. They were in peak physical form. Every woman in the gym had done a double take when they’d walked in the door. Both were just over six feet tall and both had super broad shoulders. Mike was a little stockier than Peter, but both had the honed muscles of superior athletes.

They were the new martial arts instructors. Both black belts. Both highly skilled in different forms of hand to hand combat. And both had taken up teaching at the gym as a sideline to their first love—their military careers.

The female gym owner had known they wouldn’t be around on a steady basis, depending on their deployments, but they were so good for business, she’d take them any way she could get them.

They came as a set, though they switched off teaching duties. Only rarely did they conduct a class together, and then only for advanced students.

Both men had asked Lilly out and she’d gone on a casual date with each before they’d had to leave. She’d kissed them both goodbye, not knowing if she’d ever see them again. They’d said it was a training operation, but in these troubled times, she knew things could change at any moment.

Then, last night, she’d received an email from Peter that had both surprised and delighted her. They were on their way home and would be arriving at the nearby base sometime this afternoon. He had invited her to a celebration of sorts being given in their unit’s honour at a nearby watering hole.

Lilly checked her reflection one more time in the darkened glass of the doorway before entering the pub. It was a middle of the road sort of place—not quite a dive, but far from expensive—comfortably middle class. Warm air greeted her as she stepped inside. It was noisy too, but she had no problem identifying the group she was here to meet. Every one of those soldiers was huge, solid and carried themselves as if they knew where they were going and what they were doing at all times. There was no hesitancy in any one of them.

Lilly had seen some of the guys around the gym from time to time when they came to either take, or assist with, martial arts classes. Some had also taken the opportunity to lift weights, much to the delight of the female clientele. Even Lilly had noticed when Mike pumped iron, the sweat dripping down his muscular chest, making her want to trace its path with her tongue.

A muscular arm snaked around her waist, making her jump. She was guided around until she faced a devastatingly handsome and familiar face.

“Peter!” She flattened her palms on his chest as she recognised him.

“It’s good you see you, Lil.” He swooped down and kissed her the way she’d been dreaming about for three long months. Even longer, if she counted the months she’d watched him and Mike prowl around the gym. She’d lusted after them both for almost half a year, come to think of it.

Peter’s kiss melted her bones and she would’ve slumped to a puddle at his feet if his big hands hadn’t been at her waist, steadying her. Peter let her up for air, only to twirl her once more in his arms. Just that easily, she was passed from one strong embrace to another. She looked up to find Mike’s rugged face grinning hungrily down at her.