Band of Bachelors: Alex, Book 2 Read online

  Alex

  Band of Bachelors

  Book 2

  Sharon Hamilton

  Books by Sharon Hamilton

  SEAL Brotherhood

  Accidental SEAL (Book 1)

  Fallen SEAL Legacy (Book 2)

  SEAL Under Covers (Book 3)

  SEAL The Deal (Book 4)

  Cruisin’ For A SEAL (Book 5)

  SEAL My Destiny (Book 6)

  SEAL Of My Heart (Book 7)

  Bad Boys of SEAL Team 3

  SEAL’s Promise (Book 1)

  SEAL My Home (Book 2)

  SEAL’s Code (Book 3)

  Band of Bachelors

  Lucas (Book 1)

  Alex (Book 2)

  True Blue SEALs

  True Navy Blue (prequel to Zak)

  Zak

  Novellas

  SEAL Encounter

  SEAL Endeavor

  True Navy Blue (prequel to Zak)

  Fredo’s Secret

  Nashville SEAL

  Golden Vampires of Tuscany

  Honeymoon Bite (Book 1)

  Mortal Bite (Book 2)

  The Guardians

  Heavenly Lover (Book 1)

  Underworld Lover (Book 2)

  Underworld Queen (Book 3)

  About the Book

  Adrenaline junkie and Navy SEAL Alex Kowicki is one of four bachelor SEALs trying to navigate his successful military career while achieving his goals as a first class connoisseur of beautiful women. He isn’t ready to jump back into anything but his free falls, HALO drops or his missions overseas. He trusts his buddies to fix him up with another blind date that won’t be as dangerous as his last ones.

  But Sydney Robinson has other plans. A beach volleyball player who can spike better than most men, and block with explosive speed to defend her side of the net, she executes a series of events to include stalking the handsome SEAL all the way to Sonoma County wine country, and delivering his carcass to her bed. Having achieved her first goal, she sets about to become a pro AVP player.

  When duty calls and Alex is pulled back to Iraq to complete a failed mission, neither expects to find that the real danger is lurking very much close to home. But this fight might cost one of them their lives.

  Begin Reading

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Series Overview

  Table of Contents

  Copyright © 2016 by Sharon Hamilton

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN: 978-0-9963748-1-1

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. In many cases, liberties and intentional inaccuracies have been taken with rank, description of duties, locations and aspects of the SEAL community.

  License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Author’s Note

  I always dedicate my SEAL Brotherhood books to the brave men and women who defend our shores and keep us safe. Without their sacrifice, and that of their families—because a warrior’s fight always includes his or her family—I wouldn’t have the freedom and opportunity to make a living writing these stories. They sometimes pay the ultimate price so we can debate, argue, go have coffee with friends, raise our children and see them have children of their own.

  One of my favorite tributes to warriors resides on many memorials, including one I saw honoring the fallen of WWII on an island in the Pacific:

  “When you go home

  Tell them of us, and say

  For your tomorrow,

  We gave our today.”

  These are my stories created out of my own imagination. Anything that is inaccurately portrayed is either my mistake, or done intentionally to disguise something I might have overheard over a beer or in the corner of one of the hangouts along the Coronado Strand.

  I support two main charities: Navy SEAL/UDT Museum in Ft. Pierce, Florida. Please learn about this wonderful museum, all run by active and former SEALs and their friends and families, and who rely on public support, not that of the U.S. Government.

  www.navysealmuseum.org

  I also support Wounded Warriors, who tirelessly bring together the warrior as well as the family members who are just learning to deal with their soldier’s condition and have nowhere to turn. It is a long path to becoming well, but I’ve seen first-hand what this organization does for its warriors and the families who love them. Please give what your heart tells you is right. If you cannot give, volunteer at one of the many service centers all over the United States. Get involved. Do something meaningful for someone who gave so much of themselves, to families who have paid the price for your freedom. You’ll find a family there unlike any other on the planet.

  www.woundedwarriorproject.org

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Books by Sharon Hamilton

  About the Book

  Copyright Page

  Author’s Note

  Trailer for Band of Bachelors: Alex

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  About the Author

  Series Overview

  Reviews

  Click here for an audio snippet for Band of Bachelors: Alex.

  Chapter 1

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  Alex Kowicki liked blind dates, in a fucked up kind of way, he thought to himself. It was an opinion shared by his housemates—other bachelor members of his SEAL Team. It was considered a sport, seeing who they could rig him up with and how he would escape.

  “Sort of self-preservation. If we don’t get you good and laid, we can’t play with you,” Jake told him yesterday. He was one of Alex’s roommates in the now-infamous bachelor pad overlooking the bay.

  “We live vicariously through you and all your sexcapades,” Thomas added. The SEAL explosives expert was halfway in and out of his own house. The divorce was not quite final so there was survivor guilt and make-up sex all over the place. The men were taking bets which way it would turn out.

  Alex was amped with more than his usual dose of excitement today. He was almost manic. The timing for this was good—too good. He would be leaving early Sunday morning to drive up to Sonoma County with Lucas and several others to help Nick and Devon with the winery. But there was discussion amongst the group about pe
rhaps purchasing some land and doing an all-SEAL winery too.

  This was going to be his usual Friday night blind date, which meant he could woo the little lady all night—and all day Saturday if she was spectacular. And if not, well, he could get out of Dodge and wouldn’t be back for over a week. It also saved the hassle he knew girls went through waiting for a callback from him. If he was leaving, there was no expectation of a return call. The pressure was off!

  He was full of expectation, as if his life was about to change forever.

  They didn’t tell him anything about her, except for the fact that she was tall. Really, really tall. They always said that with a smile when describing her to him, so he was prepared for a lady maybe six feet in height. He loved tall, long-legged girls who liked to wear those Jesus sandals that laced nearly up to their Holy of Holies. He was praying for the chance, just once, to be able to untie one of those types of sandals and have the tiny leather shoelace be so close to her crotch the backs of his hands would be singed from the proximate distance to her heat. An easy couple of millimeters to go, and he’d hit pay dirt. The angels would sing.

  Alex was getting hard just thinking about it. When he woke up this morning with a boner, it interfered with his early skydive. Jumping out of an airplane would take the edge off his nerves, he thought, but he wasn’t that lucky and nearly did a three-point landing like a tripod on the moon.

  Her name was Sydney, they’d told him yesterday. He immediately asked them if she was a virgin, because that was always a game-stopper.

  “Hell no,” Jake had said. “You think I’d put a virgin babe in your hands, you asshole?”

  “Gee, thought we were buds. What about my feelings?” he’d feigned a whine to one of the bachelor SEALs he cohabited with. The other SEAL wives and girlfriends used the term “domicile” in quotes. It was more a crash pad. Raunchy posters of darkly-greased women in torn T-shirts and thong panties adorned their apartment walls, conjuring up visions of writhing around on an auto body shop floor. Several days’ worth of cereal bowls and coffee mugs waited until the number of their cousins in the cabinet diminished to zero before being allowed a proper bath in detergent, meanwhile hosting a variety of life forms with white or dark green fuzzy outlines. The smell of sweat was always present, like the elixir of life it was. It was the way they measured the worth of everything: the more sweat, the better it was for all concerned.

  “Your hurt feelings? You’ll heal, Alex. And if you don’t, who the fuck cares?”

  Well, true enough.

  The fact that this blind date made Alex super excited didn’t bode well for the encounter. Usually when they seemed too good to be true, they were. Disaster could be looming right around the corner. He didn’t doubt he would let himself go all double-SEAL on her, make it difficult for her to walk afterwards, which was the kind of fun he was, quite frankly, hoping for. He chalked up his reservations to age. Still, at nearly thirty, he was one of the old guys on the Team. Old in terms of tours as well as marriages. Only one of those marriages counted legally, but that one was bad enough.

  He wasn’t about to do what his friend Lucas had done—gotten himself tied up with a hottie before the divorce papers were signed. It would have been way smarter, not to mention way less of a negative adventure on Lucas’s kids and everyone else on the Team, if he could have parted with Connie before he started round two. Alex had been smart enough not to make that mistake at least. But it had been said before, some SEALs feared being alone. Alex knew Lucas was one of those. He wondered if he might be the same.

  Alex had gotten seriously in lust with Brandy, the buxom waitress at the Pink Bunny bar in Coronado, who gave head he was ashamed to admit he loved better than sex. So he and Ryan had married their ladies in a double wedding ceremony presided over by Elvis one evening in Vegas. He barely remembered that night, each SEAL drawing energy off the other in what could only be seen as a mercy mission to the Love Boat of Eternal Bliss. Oddly enough, that was the name of the chapel: Eternal Bliss. He’d told Ryan it sounded more like a funeral parlor. In a way, it was.

  His marriage lasted three months, but his boners hadn’t stopped every time he thought about Brandy. Her attractive smile was not her best feature and was often overlooked by the SEALs Alex hung around with. She also lacked domestic ability, except in the bedroom.

  Brandy didn’t get pregnant like Ryan’s wife did, yet Alex knew he was the lucky one. Not that he would have minded being permanently connected to Brandy no matter what she wound up doing with her life. He loved kids and knew one day he’d make one hell of a father. He wasn’t littering the globe with children like Jake had done. But having a couple little Alex urchins, well, it was something he’d like to do. Not now, of course.

  Women think this way.

  He was one of those guys who would love the kids and put up with the wife.

  The last date had been with a personal trainer and martial arts expert. But she’d neglected to tell him she frequented the bondage bars in San Diego and was into women as much as she was men, especially women who liked to get tied up. He should have known better when she actually dug the posters and promised him she’d give him some of her personal collection to enhance his room. She didn’t have room for them at her own place.

  Alex’s sister was a nun, which he took as a sign God was watching out for his mother after all the crap he’d put her through growing up. But that still left one unresolved score to settle: there were no grandkids. Talk about not caring who he married! She just wanted grandkids around, and heck, she’d even raise them if he’d let her.

  “Don’t have to fall in love. Just find someone who will raise your spawn, and I’ll do all the rest.”

  Good old Mom. She’d even picked up on Alex’s language, much to the horror of Joanne, his sister. Alex nicknamed his sister Joan after the famous one. And, of all things, Joan was a pacifist. Only good thing about that was there was little chance any of his Team buds would ever get their hands on her. One less woman to defend, and that was indeed a very good thing.

  Alex showered and began to shave, then considered going with the stubble for the bad boy look he liked. His dark features against his naturally pale skin made him resemble a vampire or evil dark angel of the underworld, he thought. He could look like a choirboy one minute, and the next, he swore his eyes glowed red, judging from the reaction he occasionally got.

  When he arrived at the Rusty Scupper for fortification before meeting Sydney, he expected some of his SEAL buddies to have brought their wives or girlfriends too. But no, as Alex sauntered in and took his seat amongst the clean-shaven group, he picked up he was to be the evening’s entertainment.

  Whistles filled the room. Jake started with the evening’s insults and smack talk. “Look at you all duded out. You look like a college kid.”

  “Alex, you going for a job interview or something?” joked Thomas.

  “A funeral. It’s gotta be a funeral,” Carter added.

  “Shut the fuck up.” Alex studied the small group in front of him. “Hey, I thought this was to be a coed, group thing,” he scowled at Jake, Thomas, Jones, and Carter.

  “Still could be, if you want,” Carter quipped. Alex narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the African-American SEAL’s offhand behavior and the way he sought out grins from the other bachelor Team members.

  After the chuckles died down, Alex barked like he was giving his LPO’s orders. “So I want to see a show of hands who’s met her.”

  Only Jake raised his hand. “But only from afar.”

  Alex grabbed his chin at the perfect angle, cracking his neck so loud that one of the patrons at the bar whipped around on his stool. Though Alex’s neck felt better, his spine was stiff, his butt cheeks were tight, and the backs of his thighs locked up. He had to take a pee.

  “Jake, you keep her company if she arrives early while I go pee, will ya?” He wanted to sound casual, but knew he failed when the little conference guffawed behind him.

  The bathroom
was plastered with Polaroid pictures of vehicles and brothers-in-arms, some with faces cut out. One had been varnished into the wall because the picture had been stolen so many times. There was the meek-looking Saddam Hussein in handcuffs and orange jump suit, his hair going in all directions like a homeless man’s. It had been taken soon after being captured and before his execution. It existed so no one got it wrong what this place was, who frequented it, or who the real heroes were. Alex wondered how many other men gave this picture the three-finger salute every time they pulled their dick out to pee like he was doing now.

  Returning to the table of SEALs from Team 3, he took up a seat next to Jake.

  “So tell me about her.”

  “We were coming in from a swim and found her on the beach,” said Jake.

  “You and who?”

  “None of these guys. They’d give you way more than I’m going to if they’d met her, trust me,” Jake said, pointing at the other faces at the table. “I was with Coop, Kyle, Danny and Zak. Not an official swim. Working with Zak, you know?”

  They didn’t laugh this time. Everyone was pulling for Zak, who had lost an eye from an assassin’s ricocheted round and was working hard to make a place back on Team 3. Alex had been injured in the same attack, but his were only scars. Zak had lost much more. Again, Alex was feeling lucky.

  “So what’s wrong with her?” Alex inquired.

  Jake leaned back and gave him the Cheshire Cat grin of the century, showing off his pearly whites, his blue eyes sparkling in the low light. When Jake slapped Alex on the back, he nearly dropped his beer.

  “Not a damned thing, my man. Not a fuckin’ damned thing.”

  Alex was hard all of a sudden. Last weekend had become a long time ago for his usually nightly booty worship exercise. He looked from Carter to Jones, then around to Thomas and back at Jake. “You’re full of shit.”

  The whoops and hollers began in earnest. Alex let their voices fade as he tended to the burgeoning in his pants. He talked to himself like an older brother. Don’t get your hopes up. Remember, one man’s babe is another man’s nightmare. You’re leaving the day after tomorrow to go up to Sonoma County, and you’ll never see this girl again for the rest of your life.