Who You Least Expect Read Online Free

end, but she was more turned on and exhilarated by a few hours of flirting with Cody than she’d ever been by sex with anyone else.
    She smiled again at the realization as she walked to her bedroom. Maybe he was on to something with this whole challenge thing.

Chapter Three
    Blakely sat at the table she’d spotted in the midst of the crowd that always seemed to be gathered at Love’s, grateful that she was able to get a spot.
    “You ready to order, ma’am?” the waitress asked. The woman had arrived so fast that Blakely hadn’t even had a chance to open the menu. Good thing she already knew what she wanted.
    “Yes. I’ll have a full stack. Thank you,” she responded.
    The woman nodded and rushed away in a frantic huff, and as Blakely watched her leave, she caught sight of a figure approaching her. He was full grown now, a man and not the boy she’d known, relied on, and then casually tossed aside, but she still recognized him instantly. She waited for that warm feeling of security that he’d always brought, but if it was there, she couldn’t feel it through the thick cloud of nerves that shrouded her.
    “I see Mr. Love is still as demanding as ever,” Mathias Poole said as he sat at the table.
    “Some things never change, I guess,” she said, glancing through the huge plate glass window before turning her gaze to her old friend.
    She immediately regretted doing so. He was older now, still breathtakingly handsome, but she didn’t pay attention to that. No, the betrayal in his eyes was all she saw, and a flush of well-deserved shame hit her hard.
    “Your hair is longer than regulation,” she said, grasping for the first thing she could and gesturing toward his shaggy, almost shoulder-length brown locks.
    “They cut me slack. You been keeping tabs on me, BB?”
    She looked back out the window, knowing she’d again been busted. First Cody and now Matt. Maybe flustering Blakely Bishop was a skill they taught in SEAL school. If it wasn’t, she seriously needed to step up her game. Turning her gaze back to him, she took him, the expression on his face so different than what she’d seen in the past. They hadn’t spoken to each other since before he’d joined the Navy, but no matter how callous she might have seemed, or been, she’d always kept track of him, seeking what information she could about where he was and praying for his safe return. No matter what she’d done, or had failed to do, she’d always cared.
    But habit kept her from speaking the truth, from telling him how sorry she was. Trying to maintain as much nonchalance as she possibly could, she shrugged. “It’s a small town. And besides,” she said, an idea coming to her, “you’re a friend of Joe’s, so Verna probably mentioned it.”
    Her eyes had drifted partially closed, but she opened them and hazarded another glance at Matt and was not remotely surprised by how unconvinced he looked.
    “Yeah, all perfectly reasonable, I suppose. Far more reasonable than the idea that you might have actually given a shit about me.
    The unsuppressed anger in his voice took her by surprise, and she again considered him. Like her, Matt had always valued his self-control and despised the lack of it in other people, something she suspected had nurtured their unlikely friendship, so the barely contained rage in his voice was a shock. But then again, she’d only known the boy he’d been, not the man he’d become, and however close they’d been as children, she couldn’t assume that what she’d known then was what he was now.
    She searched his face with her gaze, noting the differences. The smooth, unlined skin of youth had given way, and his face was now slightly weathered, the faintest hint of golden-brown stubble covering his cheeks. And his eyes had changed. They’d always been haunted, couldn’t have been anything else, not with his life, but they had even more edge now, shadowed by years and experience that hadn’t been there before.
    And if