Surrendering To Her Sergeant Read Online Free Page B

awareness…connection. Every
breath tangled. Every touch a tiny fire. Every second a new
beginning. It was the core of what he craved from being a
Dominant—hell, what he was searching for in life —yet seemed his personal
Atlantis, a lost nirvana never to be realized.
    Until Ava.
    Fuck.
    He took a long gulp of his beer,
medicating his frustration. Summoning the memories back only
reconfirmed that everything he’d felt seven months ago was so damn
real. And damn it, those kinds of sensations weren’t possible
without return ammo. Like the way she’d lingered near him even
after he’d pulled her upright from his tackle. The way her eyes
danced like the rarest, darkest sapphires when she’d invited him
into the forest for those flowers. The way she’d followed him
through the trees then begged him to grip her harder when he pinned
her against one of them…
    None of it added up to the
way her radio had gone dark on him since. After Garrett and Sage’s
wedding had gone down in a blaze of disaster, including Zeke being
zapped with a neurotoxin and Rayna getting carried off by a
psychopath with a huge ax to grind, Ava stayed long enough to be
sure that Ray was officially out of harm’s way then headed straight
for the airport, telling everyone she’d been summoned back to
Hollywood by her whack-a-diva of a boss. He hadn’t bought the line
for a second. Said diva had only been in the third week of recovery
from an extensive nose and lip job. He doubted Bella Lanza was
conscious enough to dial the phone let alone capable of a text or
email. Ava had fled Seattle for another reason. In the following
weeks, the crickets that greeted his calls and texts were ample proof
of that reason.
    Would seeing her again explain
anything? Prove anything?
    At first, the hollow walls of his beer
bottle were the only response he got. But suddenly, something
replaced that fucking uselessness—something besides the anger, the
exasperation, the loss. Resolve. It started in the core of his
chest but spread out fast, making his extremities flex and his
spine straighten. Once it got to his mind, it met up with a new
friend: the Dom deep inside who now issued a surprising update. He
hadn’t given up on the goddess in the forest. He hadn’t
white-flagged it on a second of the desire in her eyes, the need in
her kiss, the urgency in her voice when she’d begged him to pin her
down harder. He hadn’t let go of the hope that she wanted more from
him…had more to give him in return.
    And he wasn’t giving up unless she
told him to. With her own lips. Standing face-to-face with
him.
    He grinned. Somehow he found that
harder to envision than their Hummer turning into a
Lamborghini.
    And once he had Ava in front of him
again, he’d get to the truth—even the naked version, if she forced
his hand—of why she’d decided to go AWOL on him after what they’d
shared in that Washington forest.
    “Serenity.” It was more a
command than a call, bolstered by his first real hope in seven
months. The bar mistress wheeled, cocking brows in a silent
you-did- not -just-summon me-like-that, but softened when he twirled a
finger toward the table and said, “Round two, please? The good shit
again. On me.”
    Franzen kicked up one side of his
mouth. “You know, Runway, when your morose silences lead to stuff
like this, I’m okay with it.”
    “Copy me in on that.” Zeke held his
fresh bottle high. “So what’re we toasting to, Archer?”
    Ethan turned to his battalion mates
and leader. His stare was as level as a sniper’s crosshairs. “What
else, man? To California.”
    “To California!” the other four men
bellowed.
    After they knocked bottles and took
deep drags from their drinks, Franz’s smile grew into a wicked
grin. “This should be an adventure. And I’m sure as hell not
missing it this time.”
    Ethan stepped away from their huddle
and paced back out toward the cars. The lights and music of the bar
faded a little. He looked up into the