PRIVATE: A Military Romance Novel (Military Men Book 2) by Leila Haven Read Free Book Online Page A

conversations I’d had with her in my head while waiting vanished into thin air.
    “Shh, not here.”
    She pulled me into her dorm room and closed the door. We were alone with only empty bunks to witness our conversation.
    “He was going to take away your promotion,” she started, as if everything should have been blatantly obvious. “I couldn’t let him do that. Not when we did the right thing by following that terrorist.”
    “It was my mistake. I should have been the one suffering the consequences.” My anger was rising, more for the situation than her actions. “You shouldn’t have said anything.”
    “You want to know what my punishment was?” Her arms crossed over her chest. The swell of her boobs was starkly apparent as I tried not to look in that vicinity.
    “Yes, I do. Then I will go to Atoll and tell him everything.”
    “He gave me an informal warning. It’s not even going to be recorded on my file. I got a slap on the wrist because it was my first mission. You were going to lose your promotion, and I knew Atoll would go easy on me. It wasn’t a difficult decision.”
    It took a moment for her words to sink in. She got off with nothing more than a stern talking to? Even so, it felt wrong that she was taking the blame. “You didn’t know that would happen. You could have been thrown out on your ass.”
    “It was a calculated risk.” We locked eyes for a few moments as I tried to hold onto the anger. She had a way of disarming me and I didn’t like it. I was her superior, she should have been afraid of me.
    “It’s still wrong,” I muttered.
    Kincaid took a step closer to me, making my heart kick up a beat and thud faster in my chest. “You’re a good soldier, you deserve to be a corporal. Demoting you now would have caused the whole team to lose out. Please just accept this and we never have to speak about it again. I can live with that, can you?”
    I didn’t like it.
    It wasn’t right.
    A lifetime of taking responsibility and doing the right thing made every inch of this stink. But, I had to admit, Kincaid was right. I would have lost my promotion and she got off as lightly as possible. We could go on without anything changing.
    I’d learned my lesson and I wouldn’t put Kincaid in the same position again. I vowed to myself that it wouldn’t happen again.
    Maybe we could get past this.
    As long as Kincaid kept my secret.
    My head started nodding while my brain made the final decision. “Okay, I can deal with that.”
    “Good. Now say thank you and leave. I need a shower and an early night’s sleep.”
    “Thank you,” I replied, the words weighing heavily on me. I still didn’t feel good about it, but her reasoning couldn’t be argued with.
    She nodded toward the door and I took the hint to make my hasty exit. I walked slowly, not sure I could settle down for the night yet. The turmoil inside me was still stirring up a whirlpool.
    I only got around the corner at the end of the corridor when I heard a female shriek. It was all I needed to start running in the opposite direction. A few of the female soldiers were emerging from their dorms, as confused and worried as I was.
    The shriek continued while I headed directly for it. Her cries were emanating from the female bathroom, a fact I realized too late as I charged inside.
    Kincaid was dripping wet, standing in the shower with the water running between us. She was pointing toward a massive spider watching her from the corner of the stall. “Get it out! Get it out!”
    For a moment I couldn’t move. The sight of Kincaid completely naked scrambled all my thoughts. She attempted to cover up her most intimate areas, but there was no way to cover up that banging body.
    “The spider! Get it!” she screamed. The assault to my eardrums jerked me back to reality. I grabbed her towel and threw it over the spider, bundling it up gently without crushing the poor creature.
    By the time I left the bathroom I had a guard of honor made up of