Hot SEALs: Reclaiming the SEAL (Kindle Worlds) (Lost and Found Series Book 11) Read Online Free Page A

she had known they were coming home but she was too uncomfortable to be there to meet them. “It just got to be too hard. After we broke up, I knew I needed to walk away completely. For all of our sakes.”
    He shook his head slightly. “I’m not so sure anymore.”
    Julie drew her head back, surprised. “What do you mean?”
    Shrugging, he crumpled the empty bottle in his hands. “Looking back it just seems like we wasted a lot of everything—time, companionship, fun, love.”
    His eyes flickered at the last word and he looked away. “We missed you, Julie. You were our best friend, here.”
    “I missed you guys, too,” she whispered, “but I had to leave. You know that, right?”
    Gabe shrugged his muscular shoulders and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I guess.”
    She could tell by the way he said it though that he didn’t really think so.
    Julie had gone over the incident that had been the trigger in her head so many times trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong, but she couldn’t pinpoint any one thing. Yes, she’d greeted them when they’d come in, weary and dirty, and had showered attention on the both of them. If she had advance notification exactly when they were coming in, she tried to have dinner ready and the beer iced. Gabe and Butter had been the best of friends. Literally, they did everything together. She’d grown affectionate with them both, though her relationship with Gabe had intensified. She’d known going into the relationship that Butter was, and would be, a very big part of it.
    One night after a return, they’d partied and talked and shared a meal. Butter had consumed too many beers to drive home, so he’d crashed on the couch, just like he always did. At some point during the night Julie had gotten up to go get a drink of water. When warm hands had glided around her stomach to cup her breasts, she’d thought that Gabe had gotten up with her, affectionate after their welcome-home lovemaking. She’d turned in his arms to kiss her lover, but he’d tasted wrong. Only then had she realized that it was Butter that held her in his strong arms, not Gabe.
    As Murphy’s Law demanded, Gabe had flipped on the kitchen light switch just then, catching them pulling out of a kiss.
    Julie had jerked out of Butter’s arms, but she’d seen the betrayal in Gabe’s eyes.
    Butter had laughed. “Oh, dude, you caught us. Sorry about that.”
    With cavalier disregard, he’d patted Gabe on the back and gone back out to crash on the couch.
    Julie could still remember shaking her head, trying to stutter out what had happened. “We didn’t, he just came up behind me and…”
    “I don’t want to hear it,” Gabe had growled, stalking for the bedroom. Julie had followed him but he hadn’t wanted to listen to her. “I didn’t do anything,” she’d cried.
    He had stopped and turned to face her. “But you would have if I hadn’t turned on that light.”
    “No, I wouldn’t have! I figured out it wasn’t you and I tried to stop it.”
    But the shock and pain of seeing his best friend kissing his lover had closed his heart. He’d gotten dressed and slammed out of the apartment.
    Julie sat on the bed, shaken at what had gone down. Eventually, even though it was going on three in the morning, she’d gathered up her things in her bag and left.
    But then it had gotten worse. Butter had met her at her apartment a few days later. Julie had paused on the walkway, unsure if she even wanted to talk to him.
    “Hey,” he’d said, looking remorseful.
    “Hey.”
    “I fucked up, didn’t I? I don’t remember much of that night but I remember waking up and seeing you standing in the kitchen. Things got jumbled in my head and for a second I just thought you were mine, like I’d been dreaming of for so long.”
    Wait, what had he said? Before she could have him back up in his thinking he’d moved on. “Then when you didn’t pull away immediately, I thought you were okay with me