Free SEAL Under Covers (SEAL Brotherhood Series Book 3) by Sharon Hamilton Page B

Diego throw themselves at SEALs every day. He must be some kind of celibate priest.”
    Mia spit out her coke. “Excuse me while I barf.”
    Ricardo started giggling, sounding like a kid in the back yard who’d found a  sprinkler.
    The waitress brought a rag over and cast a critical eye at Mia, who appeared to be oblivious of the effect her outburst had on anyone else.
    “Armando had a girl he really liked in high school,” Mia started. “He was the goalkeeper the year we went to the soccer State Championships. He could kick the ball downfield, or pass and dribble and then run like hell, and he used to score, leaving the box open, he was so confident. He had some moves.”
    You’re telling me?
    “Ginger. I think her name was Ginger. Her dad was an Irish cop, and she had the red hair and a temper to go with it, just like her dad. God, Armando loved that girl, and she treated him like shit. I mean, she got with other guys on the side, and he was the last to know. Get my drift?”
    “I do.”
    “They broke up. He had to. She was making a fool of him. He sulked for weeks. And then, she was killed in a car accident, along with a couple of others. They’d been drinking. Armando began the dark period again.”
    “Again?”
    “You think Caesar and his guys are bad dudes? You should have seen the guys Armando used to hang out with when we first came here from Puerto Rico. Only difference, he wouldn’t let them touch me. I was eight or nine at the time.”
    “But he changed.”
    “He fell in love with soccer. It was like he was married to it.”
    “Bet your mom was pleased.”
    “Answer to prayer,” she said. “Mom prays about everything. Obsessed with it.”
    Gina wanted to ask more about Armando’s second “dark period,” after the death of the girl, but thought it wasn’t safe.
    “So Gina, your big friend Sam stopping by tonight?”
    Gina cringed at the thought. “I don’t trust him.”
    “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that, or do you still have some flame for him?”
    More like the fires of Hell. “Mia, we’re done. But he’s not a very good dude. I wish you wouldn’t get mixed up with him.” She recalled Sam and how much he loved bondage sex. She knew he had to work very hard to control his temper, keeping it within what she thought would be acceptable parameters befitting a cop, but under the right circumstances it could explode. Part of her had found it exciting. The other part wished she’d never met him. That was what she and Mia had in common. Both had hooked up with the wrong kind of guy
    “Who said anything about not liking bad dudes or getting mixed up? Just want some good times. Dancing. Make them spend money on me. I like that. I like to tease the shit out of them and then look for the next one before I drop this one for that one. The badder they are, the more fun for me.”
    Gina forced herself to laugh at Mia’s dangerous posture. Inside, she was sad for the beautiful woman sitting across from her and wondered how she could possibly be Armando’s sister. It didn’t fit. Armando was such a decent guy. He willingly protected his mother and his sister, and without complaint.
    “You got something you hate about good guys?” Gina asked.
    Mia looked away immediately. When she drilled back at Gina, her eyes were cold, black, and filled with malice. “There are no good guys.”
    And there it was. Mia had a dark period too, except, unlike her brother, she was still living it.
    Gina thought about it all afternoon and over the next couple of days. She was supposed to get cozy with what was left of Caesar’s old gang, the Scorpions. But both the girls would be safer with the Department guys running backup. Sam could give them intel on the gang’s illegal activities, so Gina could get snagged up in one to be able to testify to bring them down or make the arrests herself. Except that plan wasn’t safe at all for Gina because she knew Sam would have a hard time staying out of it.