Kill Me Twice (A Zeke Edison Novel Book 1) by Joseph Flynn Read Free Book Online

fifty-nine. Reggie’s body-length goosebumps had a bluish hue. In a bow to social convention she’d worn her desert camouflage pattern undergarments as a bathing suit.
    Using the outstretched towel as a modesty shield, she shucked her scraps of clothing.
    She looked at Zeke and gave him a wink. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.”
    “That scar along your ribs on the right side is new. To me anyway.”
    He was familiar with the one where the tip of her left kneecap used to be.
    “You know what Churchill said?” Reggie asked.
    “A lot of things.”
    “He said, ‘Nothing in life is so exhilarating as being shot at without result.’ Well, if you even get nicked like I did, it just pisses you off.”
    Reggie sat on the sand of Zeke’s private beach, looking out at the water.
    Zeke sat next to her.
    “Take your shirt off and put your arm around me,” she said. “Warm me up.”
    He did as he was told. She snuggled into his embrace.
    “Damn, you’re warm. That’s what I like about you, you know. Your body heat.”
    “It’s pretty much that way with everyone. I’d bring a guy down in a game, he’d say, ‘My neck’s a little tight. Put a hand on it, will you?’”
    Reggie laughed. “Okay, you’ve got a sense of humor, too.”
    She leaned in and kissed him.
    “So what happened to the guy who shot you?” Zeke asked. “Something bad, I hope.”
    “I sent him to paradise with nothing but regrets. All those virgins and he gets his wienie shot off.”
    Zeke looked at her, trying to see if she was joking.
    “All true,” Reggie told him. “Well, maybe my shot wouldn’t have been fatal, even if it did hit him in the crotch, but the special ops guys with me took care of the rest.”
    Zeke shifted his position, sat behind Reggie with a leg on either side of her, wrapped her up in both arms.
    “Much better,” she said. “You know what I thought of when I was evacked out of there?”
    “What?”
    “How pissed I’d be if I didn’t get to see you again.”
    “That new scar looks like it came from more than a nick.”
    “It did.”
    “I’d have been pissed, too, if I didn’t get to see you again.”
    “No doubt about it, we were made for each other,” Reggie said. “Put a hand on my neck, will you?”
    “I want to kill bad guys,” Reggie told the army recruiting officer who’d come to the Northwestern campus. When the guy gave her a dubious look, she added “What?”
    They sat facing each other across a small table in a school ROTC facility.
    “I’ve never heard that from a woman before,” he said.
    “You know the female of the species is always deadlier, right?”
    “Not so much in the U.S. military.”
    “Then you’re not making the most of your human resources.”
    The recruiter looked over to the big guy sitting near the door.
    Without turning away from the recruiter, Reggie said, “He’s my boyfriend. He’s got two more years of college to go. I like ‘em young.”
    The big guy told the recruiter, “Get her signed up and ship her out of the country so she doesn’t do any damage over here.”
    Reggie said, “He’s kidding, but I do need my outlets and I’m patriotic, and we’re always fighting a war somewhere, aren’t we?”
    “You want to be a combat soldier, do I have that right?”
    “Special forces,” Reggie told him.
    “There are no women in special forces.”
    “Not yet, but the army is letting women train as Rangers. That’s special forces.”
    “Female personnel only train as Rangers; they don’t serve in that capacity.”
    “Yet,” Reggie said, “but it’s a slippery slope, right? And with Patti Grant in the White House we have a female commander-in-chief. She says do it, who’s going to tell her no?”
    “No one,” the recruiter admitted. “So you’re betting on the come?”
    “That and a lot of other things”
    “Okay, for the sake of discussion, tell me what you have to offer the army.
    “In two months, I’m going to graduate summa cum laude