His Taste of Temptation: In the Line of Duty, Book 3 Read Free

Jonah off.”
    Jonah ran his hands through his short, cropped hair and looked at his watch. “Shit, I’m running late. I’ll grab my gear.” He cast his brother a glance. “Mind if I take a quick shower at your place before we go?”
    Brad nodded and Madison stepped to the side to let her roommate push past her. With all the commotion and the brain fog from her cold, she’d forgotten that it was the first of the month and Jonah was leaving on a job this morning.
    After finishing their tour in Afghanistan, both Jonah and Brad had decided to expound on their military experience and returned home to do contract bomb hunting here on American soil, defusing munitions that had been left over from former training camps during the wars. Today was Jonah’s day to leave on a convoy, heading north for the next month to search for and defuse old bombs. Which, of course, accounted for why his brother had shown up at her place so early. He was here to drive Jonah to the departure site some twenty miles outside of town.
    Contracting out as explosive experts was their main line of work, but when they weren’t away they could be found at the old abandoned base training service dogs with their fellow comrades. With Brad’s love of restoring things, he could also be found helping out in their friend’s motorcycle shop, or working on the old Victorian house left to him by his ailing grandfather.
    Brad tossed his gear back into his toolbox, then stood, his body crowding hers in the confided space.
    When he coughed again, she said, “Brad you don’t have to do this. You’re not feeling well.”
    “Neither are you, which is why I need to get this done right away. You won’t get a plumber in here for hours, and I don’t want you without water for that long.”
    Her heart tightened at his thoughtfulness but before she could respond, she heard Sophie’s voice at the foot of the stairs. “Hey, Madison, what’s going on?”
    “Come on up and see for yourself,” Madison called out. She stepped into the hall to meet her friend, and when Sophie took one look at her hair, she crinkled her nose.
    “Did you get in a fight with the egg beater?”
    Great, just what she needed, her friend drawing attention to her frazzled hair. As if a red, stuffed-up nose and watery eyes weren’t bad enough. Madison pulled an elastic band off her wrist and tied back her long, wet curls. “Broken pipe.”
    “Again?” Sophie groaned when she reached the landing.
    “Yeah, because it was never fixed right in the first place,” Brad’s deep voice rumbled from within the bathroom.
    Sophie stepped past Madison, and her eyes lit up when she spotted Brad. “Hey, Brad,” she said in the same flirtatious tone she always used around the Crosby brothers. Her gaze rolled over him and Madison worked to smother a spark of jealousy she knew better than to feel. “I didn’t realize you were back.”
    “Been back for a while now.”
    Surprised to hear that, Madison’s head came back with a start. She hadn’t seen Brad around for weeks and just assumed he was hanging out in Tallulah, Louisiana, after his friend’s wedding. No doubt he’d found himself a nice, hot bridesmaid to occupy himself with.
    Come to think of it, Brad had been coming around her place less and less and it made her wonder if the brothers had had a fight, although Jonah hadn’t mentioned anything about it.
    “So, how was the wedding?” Sophie asked.
    His grin was wry, highly sardonic. “Let’s just say it’s good to be home.” The look on his face combined with his dark tone let them both know how he felt about love and marriage. Unlike his brother, who loved to play the field and had no desire to change his lifestyle, Brad hadn’t always hated the idea of settling down. In fact, he’d been engaged once himself. But it had turned out badly when he’d come back from his tour early to find his girl in bed with another guy—or at least that’s what Madison had heard. He’d changed