Coming Undone. Stephanie Tyler

her parents and headed to her office, taking the stairs two at a time.

      She pulled the fax confirmation out of the recycling bin where she’d tossed it earlier. She scanned for the number and read it out loud, number by number until…

      “I reversed the last two numbers and somehow I added a dash,” she said. Oh crap. And then she saw the initials underneath the confirmation. USN. “What the heck does USN stand for?”

      “I don’t know what it stands for, but I’m sure whoever gets it will just ignore it.”

      This certainly made finding a man a little less intense, but at least she’d signed Candy’s name as a joke and not her own. She hadn’t used a cover letter, either.

      Whoever got it wasn’t going to know it was her personal secret fantasy. “I hope so. And I’ll fax it to you again now, okay?” Carly snapped the cell phone shut and double- checked the fax number twice before pushing Send.

      “Carolyn, someone’s at the door,” her mother called up the stairs.

      “I’ve got it,” she called back. She crumpled up the confirmation paper and threw it back into the bin before heading down to the front door. She opened it without looking through the peephole.

      Camouflage greeted her. A brick wall of camouflage, leaning against her doorjamb with a very serious look on his very good-looking face.

      A face she had to look up to see, which, at her own height of five feet, ten inches, meant this man was much taller than that. He was well over six feet and filled out in all the right places.

      The army-green T-shirt fit more than fine across his broad chest and shoulders and showed off his sculpted biceps. His dark blond hair was sun-bleached in places, fell across his forehead casually. She was close enough to notice the flecks of gold in his hazel eyes, and a primitive thrill coiled in her belly.

      Maybe just thinking about the voodoo doll had worked, because this was more magic than she could’ve hoped for.

      “Can I help you?” she asked.

      “Yes, you can.” His voice was husky and unhurried as he leaned in toward her, his arm still resting on the doorjamb. “You want to explain why you’re sending pornographic faxes to a United States Navy SEAL team?”

       2

       HUNT HADN’T BEEN SURE what to expect from someone named Candy Valentine, but the woman who’d answered the door looked genuinely surprised, which was a good sign. It meant the letter had been faxed by mistake, that she wasn’t some kind of SEAL groupie or, worse, hadn’t been trying to hack the system. In truth, the teams got letters like this one all the time, by mail. But when it came through a secure fax line, it had to be investigated, and he’d been the lucky one pulling office duty at the Mayport Military Base when the fax rolled through the nearest printer.

      He was checking in regularly while on partial leave, and he’d never expected to find himself making the hour or so drive down the coast toward Daytona to investigate something like this.

       I want you to start by running your tongue slowly around my ear….

      Hooyah.

      “Who are you?” she asked, keeping her voice low and giving a quick look over her shoulder.

      She wasn’t home alone. Married, maybe?

      “Lieutenant Jonathan Huntington, United States Navy,” he announced, letting his gaze drop to her hand. No ring and no tan line. “Did you send this fax?” He held the papers up, page one on top so she could read it.

      She licked her bottom lip nervously, and then nodded.

      Damn, she was sexy.

       Let your hand drift down to my breasts….

      He’d needed a frozen-cold shower before venturing to find the author. A cursory check through records told him that the owner of the fax line was a woman. He was relieved, but now…

       Get down on your knees….

      If a fantasy was going to turn him on this much, he sure as hell wanted it to be from someone who looked like her.

      A beautiful woman. A woman with tousled blond curls and deep brown eyes and a lithe, athletic-looking body, showcased in a pair of shorts and a tank top.

       Spread my thighs….

      She had the longest legs he’d ever seen, tanned and slim and finely muscled, and if he wasn’t mistaken there was a shark tattoo on her left ankle.

       Make me lose control.

      You have been OUTCONUS for too long, Hunt—out of the country and out of the bedroom. This was a hell of a welcome home. It was time for some much needed R & R, and he wondered what this Candy Valentine was up to.

      A list of names had been faxed along with the fantasy, some of which read like a who’s who of Florida society. He’d grown up in the area, close enough to know the wealthy by name but not close enough for any of it to rub off on him. And there was an expensive, top-of-the-line Mercedes convertible in her driveway.

      Was it possible she was some kind of high-priced call girl?

      “This is an extremely serious offense.” He continued to play the hard ass, although now his curiosity was more than piqued. Especially because of the thin, healing scars running vertically along her right thigh and knee. “The military doesn’t look kindly on solicitations of this kind.”

       But this letter sure as hell does it for me.

      “It…this…wasn’t supposed to be,” she stuttered, and then she stopped and gained her composure. “I’m sorry about the mistake. This was supposed to go to a friend and I obviously faxed it to the wrong number. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

      “A male friend?”

      “Excuse me?”

      “You said it was supposed to go to a friend….”

      “Oh. No. It was for a female friend.” Her blush was visible through her tan, and she shifted from one bare foot to the other as she crossed her arms. “It’s not what you think.”

      “I’m thinking a lot of things right now,” he said.

      “I don’t see how the specifics are any of your business. I’ll take those back and you can be on your way.” She reached out for the papers but he pulled them away.

      “No can do. It’s official government property.”

      “What does the government want with something like that?”

      “It’s become part of our records. Any and all unauthorized documents that come through our fax lines have to be investigated and properly recorded.” That wasn’t exactly true. It was also up to his discretion as to whether or not to drop this matter, but watching her defend herself was turning him on almost as much as her words on paper had.

      “So there’s going to be a file somewhere in our federal government titled Carly’s Fantasy?” she demanded.

       Hell yes, only it’s going to be in my personal file.

      “I don’t know who Carly is,” he spoke with a formal tone. “This fax was sent by Candy Valentine.”

      Busted. Her mouth dropped for a second, but again, he gave her credit for her quick pick-up. “Carly’s my nickname,” she offered, and then looked angry at herself for giving him that information. The nickname fit her—she looked like a Carly. She looked really, really good, too, and he wondered if it would be against any and all regulations to ask her out on a date, right then and there.

      After he did his job and got this mess sorted out, of course. After he found out that she wasn’t a hooker.

      “I’d appreciate it if you could tell me how you got ahold of a secure fax number. And why