Born Ready. Lori Wilde

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To the US Coast Guard.

      Thank you for keeping our borders safe.

       1

      Semper Paratus (Always Prepared)

       —Motto of The United States Coast Guard

      SIX MONTHS CHASTE.

      Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Scott Everly had gone six long months without sex, although in all honesty it felt more like six years.

      Unintended celibacy weighed heavily on his mind and body as he paddled his kayak through the mangrove channel, using vigorous physical exercise to sublimate his baser needs. He’d tried it all. Jogging, strength training, boxing, but in spite of his daily workouts, insomnia plagued him.

      Digging deep, he pushed himself harder, rowing full-out until his shoulder, back and chest muscles ached with just the right kind of sweetness.

      “Better than sex,” he lied to himself. “Who needs sex when you’ve got all this?”

      The early Monday-morning sun bathed warm rays, the color of Florida grapefruits, across the deep green, tree-shrouded landscape. It was good to be home again, even if it was only for three weeks. He was on leave, although the joke in the ranks was that a Coastie never went on vacation; they were born ready for action.

      While he loved his commission in D.C., he missed Key West and his family something fierce. He was a Conch through and through, but when it came down to it, as long as he was near water, Scott was a happy guy.

      As third generation Coast Guard, sea brine flowed through his veins, and he considered himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth to be doing a job he loved.

      Scott had come home for his younger sister’s wedding a week from this coming Saturday. How could it be that Megan was old enough to marry? It seemed like just yesterday that he was pulling her pigtails and putting bullfrogs down the back of her shirt.

      He breathed in the heated scent of summer—ripe mangos, tangy lime, earthy loam and murky tide pools. The air smelled rich, sticky and uniquely Key West. A fish jumped, tail slapping against the water, before sinking back below the wet depths. Overhead, blue-white clouds bunched in the waning darkness, voluptuous as a plump woman’s bottom. Scott had an urge to reach up and pinch the sky.

      Knock it off. He was daydreaming about goosing clouds? How pathetic was that?

      “Snap out of it,” he growled under his breath.

       It’s been too long, old buddy. Way too long.

      He was thirty years old, in the best shape of his life and he hadn’t had sex in six months, one week, three days and twenty-one hours. Not that he was counting or anything.

      His last relationship ended because his girlfriend had wanted him to leave the Coast Guard. Too dangerous, Amber had said. He’d already been injured twice. Why push his luck?

      He’d flat out told her no. She’d known who and what he was when they’d started dating. If she cared about him, she wouldn’t ask him to change.

      She said she couldn’t bear it if he ended up like this father, killed in the line of duty, and she refused to be like his mom. Widowed at forty.

      Hell, she might as well have asked him to quit breathing. He’d learned one thing from that relationship. His ideal mate had to accept him just as he was—military career and all. He was done bending himself into a pretzel to please a woman.

      Unless of course it was in bed.

      Grinning, he stuck his oar into the water, pushed aggressively against the current. A gator slipped from the banks into the channel right behind him, but Scott didn’t pay much attention. He was bent on getting sexual frustration out of his system before meeting an old friend for breakfast. Alligators were a fact of life in Florida and as long as you didn’t do anything stupid, they generally minded their own business.

       Six months.

      The longest dry spell he’d had since college. He was a charming guy and he knew it. He’d been graced with his father’s good looks and his mother’s outgoing personality. Usually he had no trouble coaxing a willing lady into his bed, but as much as he wanted sex, short, hot liaisons had oddly lost their appeal.

      What he couldn’t figure out was why. Maybe it was because his baby sister was getting married. Megan’s wedding made him realize he wasn’t getting any younger, but then again neither was he ready for commitment.

       So what do you want? Sex or a relationship?

      That was the quandary and explained his lengthy dry spell. Scott blew out his breath and rounded the bend.

      That’s when he saw her.

      Where