Free Pushed to the Edge (SEAL Team 14) by Loren Mathis Page A

her. 
    Damn .  Her skin looked so soft, and those
full, pillowy lips of hers were completely made for sin. 
    “Yeah, one twin sister,” Olivia replied, finally
glancing over at him.  He took a long sip of his drink, shifting his head in
the process so he could get a better look at her.   
    “Wow, twins.  I bet y’all had a lot of fun growing
up together.  Playing tricks on people and whatnot,” Will said with a smile on
his face.  He turned his head a few degrees to look behind them and he could
see that “Michelle” had returned to her group of friends, and was brooding in
the corner. 
    “Yeah, I guess.  I don’t know.  I’m very different
from my sister.  Well, I mean our interests, personality, and such.  We’ve
never really had very much in common.”  Olivia’s tongue darted out to dampen
her lips, and Will’s chest tightened in response.
     “How about you?  Do you have any brothers or
sisters?” Olivia asked, turning the question back around on him. 
    “Yeah, I have one older brother, Jack.”
    “Nice.  Are the two of you very close?”
    Will smiled and locked eyes with her.  “Yeah, we
get along well.  He’s actually one of my best friends.  We’re both in the
military.  So my mom still worries a lot over that.”  He reached out his left
hand to pick up his drink, and took another swallow of the chilled whiskey.  Looking
again in Olivia’s direction, he saw that she was staring at him. 
    “Yeah, I can imagine that having both of her sons
in the military would cause her to worry at times.”
    Will nodded in response.  Another awkward silence
ensued before Olivia spoke up again.  “So why do they call you Prince?”
    “What?”  Will replied loudly.  The techno dance
music had returned to a loud, eardrum destroying level.
    “Why do they call you Prince?”  Olivia practically
yelled as Will scooted over to his left and claimed the seat nearest to Olivia
that Joshua had vacated.  To the casual observer, it would appear that he had
moved closer to Olivia so that he could hear her better.  That was part of the
reason, for sure.  But truth be told, Will just wanted to be next to her. 
    “Oh, it’s just a nickname.”
    “Yeah, sure I know that.  But I meant where did it
come from?”
    “It started when I first tried out for the SEAL
teams.  During “Hell Week” one of the SEAL instructors started calling me that
when he found out that my last name is Castle.  You know, who lives in
castles?  Also, my first name is Will . . . so Prince William.  Get it?”
    Will’s breath caught as Olivia suddenly gave him
one of her genuine, thousand-megawatt smiles that lit up the whole room. 
    He had only known her for a few weeks now, but he
was used to being on the receiving end of her frowns or strained smiles. 
However, this smile was definitely genuine—and it was magnificent . 
    “So picture this, I’m rounding out the middle of
the pack during the running phase right before we were to start the boat
push-ups—”
    “Wait . . . boat pushups?” she asked, scrunching
up her nose, a frown forming creases across her perfect forehead.  She had a thoroughly
confused expression to her face.   
    “So boat pushups were just one of the exercises
that we had to do during BUD/s SEAL training.”
    “You had to lift up boats?”
    “Yeah.  It was a real treat,” he said, winking at
her.  “So anyway, I’m in the middle of a group of SEAL candidates, running at
what I thought was balls out, along the shoreline, and in the cold surf of the
Pacific.  But as fast as I think I’m going, there’s another candidate that soon
races ahead of me.  In no time, I lose my spot, and I’m near the very back of
the pack.  And you know, I had always considered myself a good runner.  I ran
track in high school.  But at that point, I’m exhausted.  My heart is racing, I
can barely think straight.  And what thoughts I do have are just about
how wonderful it would be