Page 4 of Honk if You Love Real Men (Tempting SEALs 1)

Jesse continued hammering while he watched the other man walk away, fighting for balance on the torn-up earth. Frank “Sweet Tea” Williams was a middle-aged former football player from Alabama, a strapping man gone doughy at the middle, whose easy manner gave the impression that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. What mattered to Jesse was that Tea had a big heart and a stalwart disposition. He stood up for what was right. They’d covered each other’s back since the first days on the job, when their foreman had tried to bully Tea into taking the blame for a cracked water main.

The hierarchy on the road crew was not much different from what he’d faced in prison. Jesse had learned early on to keep his mouth shut until he ran smack into trouble and push came to shove. Then he shoved back with all his might. That had always been enough to maintain his survival.

But he’d been out for nearly eight months now and mere survival was losing its appeal. He wanted more.

Not a woman in a red convertible, he said to himself, stealing another look toward the road. A chunk of concrete gave way and he automatically pulled back,

flicking off the jackhammer’s switch. That way lay danger. His parole officer had drilled it into his cranium: Keep your cool, do your job, stay out of trouble.

Pussy was always trouble, one way or another.

Especially when it came packaged as a woman who radiated a certain spirited sexiness from fifty paces. Kindness was there too, somehow evident in the shape of her face or the sincerity of her smile, regardless of the flashy car and pounding music.

Jesse shook his head. Hard, sharp women knew the score. Crazy chicks he brushed off like lint. It was the nice ones he had to watch out for. They had a way of getting under a man’s skin. Turning his head. Making him lose balance.

Leave this one alone, like all the rest. He heaved the hammer to one side, leaning it against a pile of rubble, then shook the stinging sweat from his eyes. The vehicles in the eastbound lane were being waved on at last.

On the other side of the barrier, the convertible was stalled. The woman’s head bent low over the wheel as she cranked the ignition. Other drivers hit their horns. The ponytail bobbed. As the honking escalated, her slender brown arm rose in the air, flashing a sassy hand gesture.

Jesse laughed, but he didn’t move. The car trouble ploy wasn’t even original.

Tea lumbered past with two water bottles in his hands, sloshing the contents as he climbed the slope to the stalled car. Jesse heard the deep graveled voice. “Gotcha some engine trouble? Can I help you, ma’am?”

He missed her response, but within two seconds Tea was waving to Jesse, then hunching behind the bumper to push the car out of the way.

“Shit,” Jesse said as he took off up the steep slope. Leave it to Sweet Tea to volunteer both of them to play Sir Galahad.

“Put her in neutral, ma’am.” Tea grunted at Jesse’s arrival. “We got to roll her over a few feet.”

Jesse barely glanced at the driver, although he felt her eyes on him as he moved to the rear of the car. The vehicle resisted for an instant, then rolled smoothly over the small stretch of pavement that remained between the traffic lane and the barrels that marked the construction zone.

“Please don’t scrape the car,” she said, becoming anxious as the nose of the convertible tipped a cone.

“Turn the wheel a little to the left,” Jesse directed. “We have to get your rear end clear of traffic.” Hell, yeah.

A wary “Eeeep” whistled between her teeth, but she complied. The car coasted to a stop, the right side within inches of the barricade. Jesse and Tea stayed close as the delayed vehicles streamed by.

“Let’s pop the hood,” Tea said when the flow of traffic had switched to the other lane.

Jesse looked into the pit. The foreman had stepped up to a vantage point to watch them, one meaty hand wrapped around the frame of the earth mover. Jesse lifted a fist in acknowledgment, flashing his fingers. Five minutes. “Uh, Tea. We need to get back to work.”

“We can spare five minutes.” Tea smiled at the woman behind the wheel.

She did the grateful eyelash flutter of the helpless female. “I don’t know what’s wrong. The car is kept in tip-top condition.”

“Lemme take a look.”

“Thank you.” She reached for the lever and Tea disappeared behind the hood.

Jesse couldn’t keep his eyes off her any longer. “I’m Drum and that’s Tea.”

Her face tipped up. Her mouth pursed expectantly as if she had to savor her words before she spoke them. From his vantage point, she was all eyes and lips and honey-colored skin. Bare shoulders and arms, more than a hint of rounded cleavage in a plunging neckline, and firm naked thighs revealed by an excessively—and successfully—short skirt. Even her kneecaps were provocative.

Her mouth opened. Lips so pink and ripe, they seemed almost obscene, if only because of the thoughts they put in Jesse’s head of what he could do with them.

Tea’s head poked around the side of the hood. “That’s no way to introduce yourself to a lady.” He nodded at her. “I’m Frank Williams, ma’am, and he’s Jesse Drummond.”

The blow-job lips curved into a smile. “Estrella,” she said. “Pleased to meet you, Frank.” Her eyes widened at Jesse. They were dark blue, liquid as the pond at his grandpa’s farm, where he’d once skinny-dipped at midnight, never again so easy and free. “You too . . . Jesse.”

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