Page 1 of Fire for Effect

Prologue

Kai “Griff” Griffith

Five years ago

Fayetteville, North Carolina

“You’re a fucking Psycho on that bike,” I slurred, pushing a hand against her front door, leaning on it as the world spun around me, gravity trying to pull me down.

“When you call for a ride, and a place to crash,” The Psycho said with a laugh. “You don’t get to bitch about the delivery.”

I leaned over her, my face hovering over her shoulder as she twisted the key in the lock. She was the perfect height for me to plant a kiss on her temple. My mouth salivated at the thought.

Shit, I was drunk.

Not as drunk as I was pretending to be, but definitely not okay to drive.

She pushed the door open, and I crashed through it, falling onto the bare floor of her entryway. She stepped inside, straddling me, one foot on each side as she closed the door, and I got a nice bottoms-up view of her perfect, round ass.

There was an upside to this…

I was in my twenties, getting a divorce after my wife fucked my best friend. A soldier’s nightmare—and so typical. I was a god damn punch line.

My family wanted me to reconcile with Kristin. The team wanted me to forgive my teammate, Greg Veder, henceforth to be known as VD, short for Venereal Disease, for his rot-riddled dick… the fucking man whore.

But at least I still had my Psycho little Taz Guerro. Did I call her because she was the only person I could stand to be around? Yes. And if anyone was going to brighten my mood, it was her.

“When someone drunk calls you for a ride, do you think that maybe a car would have been better?” I had to sit behind her on the crotch rocket, hanging on like a backpack as she wove through the busy streets of this military town. Even in my state, or maybe because of it, the pucker factor was damn high.

It was also the first time I had touched her and really felt her. For years, we had sparred, trained, and fought together. We’d huddled together in the cold, and I had even seen her get dressed in my peripheral vision. But I had never looked at her the way a straight man looks at a beautiful woman. I had never let myself… marriage was a choice. A choice that was, in my case, one sided.

But on that bike, I had felt her in my arms. Firm. Warm. It took everything to keep my drunk hands from rising up from her waist to those ribs, and those pretty, pretty breasts.

“I hate driving cars.” She smirked down at me, as she switched her feet so that I was looking up her front. How – how – how had I gone this long without noticing how nice her tits were? Perfect little handfuls. “And you needed some wind therapy.”

I grabbed her leg and brought her down, hoping to take her to the ground. But after downing a half bottle of Jack, I was in a bit of a disadvantage.

She laughed, ninja rolling out of my grasp and popping back up on her feet like an action hero.

“Coulda fucking killed us both,” I whined. Then held my breath as she dropped her helmet on a hook and pried off her black, leather jacket.

Were her shoulders always that wide, and her waist that narrow? Was her ass in those tight jeans always that fucking round? Yes. Yes, they were. I knew that because I had spent three years making sure that I did not notice those things about Trinity “Taz” Guerro.

My ring finger was a chastity belt, preventing me from seeing the beauty that I worked beside every day. When my wife accused me of sleeping with local women in various assignments or snooped about parties she had “heard” team guys got up to when they deployed, there had been nothing to tell. I was a boring asshole, who went to bed early, got up, PTed, went to work, and went back to my bunk.

But now I could see my teammate with new eyes… and I couldn’t stop staring.

We were friends. Just teammates. Friends. Friends. Friends!

The word rattled around in my head until it sounded like an insult.

“I’ve got some catching up to do.” She walked languidly toward the fridge. “You smell like a brewery.”

I scrambled to my feet to join her as she messily dropped her jacket on the back of the couch. I came up behind her, picked it up, and placed it on a coat rack that was covered in backpacks, PT belts, and everything except for coats. The cute little slob…

The sight of her backlit by the refrigerator gave me another pause. Not just because of how it emphasized every curve but because the contents were just so typically Taz that it made me laugh.

“Christ, did you steal this fridge from the frat house?” It was nothing but liquor, beer, and take out containers. “Hell yeah! A Belgian White!”

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