A Prince Among Men

A Red Hot & Blue Novel

“Cat has managed to even make a war zone sexy”~Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews

Sergeant Ryan Pettit has a secret life as a military blogger recording online a deployment where every day feels exactly the same—until a female reporter shows up at their all-male firebase.

His orders are clear—protect her, but make her life so miserable she high tails it back to London—but the last thing he wants is to watch her leave in a cloud of Afghanistan dust.

One-click the complete series

RHB Collection in KU

Excerpt:

Ryan opened the door to his sleeping hut. It had grown a bit more crowded within the tiny space since Wally had moved in with him and Hawk after the collapse of his living quarters. Privacy was an even rarer commodity now, so Ryan was not at all surprised to find at least one of his roomies in residence when he stepped into the dimly lit hut.

“Hey, Hawk.”

His squad leader nodded in his direction, not even looking up from the papers in his hand. “Hey, Pettit. How was the patrol? Any action?”

“Nah. It was as quiet out there as Afghanistan during the poppy harvest,” Ryan joked.

As he stripped off his weapons, Ryan watched Hawk crack a small smile and nod at the truth of what he’d just voiced.

“Anything exciting happen here?” Ryan fully expected the answer to be a no given the game he’d seen. If something had happened, the guys wouldn’t be out there spiking the volleyball.

READ MORE

“Yes, unfortunately.” Finally, his staff sergeant looked up from the paperwork in his hand. “We had a mail call.”

With a flick of his wrist, Hawk sent an envelope flying in Ryan’s direction.

While he wondered why mail call was an unfortunate event in Hawk’s opinion, Ryan grabbed the sailing envelope in mid-air and glanced quickly down at the return address. It was from his pseudo-girlfriend back at the garrison in Germany.

He’d read that later. He’d share his hut and his stuff, but Gretchen was the one thing Ryan was definitely not going to share with his roomies.

Ryan turned his attention back to Hawk’s inexplicably unhappy face. “Yeah, I thought I heard Lou’s chopper coming in with the mail while I was out on patrol.”

Lou’s sporadic mail deliveries from Bagram were usually cause for excitement, so why was Hawk frowning? Ryan debated whether he should risk asking.

“Oh yeah, you heard Lou’s bird, all right. Take a look at what Emily sent me.”

A magazine came flying in Ryan’s direction, and he had to use both hands to catch it and not rip the glossy color pages. Ryan turned it right side up and frowned at the cover.

It appeared innocent enough. Nothing for Hawk to look so pissed about.

“Open it to the place she marked.” Hawk didn’t seem any happier as he watched Ryan flip through the pages.

Though he tried not to, Ryan started laughing the moment he found the page in question. It was one of the Army recruiting ads that Hawk had recently been photographed for, much to the unwilling model’s embarrassment.

This one was a full-page advertisement for the US Army. Hawk’s head was nearly life sized and in living color to boot.

The opportunity to tease his roomie was too good to pass up. “I don’t know what your problem is, Hawk. You’re a natural. In fact, you look very sexy.”

Holding the page up to face toward Hawk, Ryan waggled his eyebrows, his smile so wide his face would start to hurt soon if he didn’t control himself.

“Yeah, yeah. Get it all out of your system now, Pettit, because I don’t want to hear a word about it again after this.”

With a final chuckle, Ryan took one last look, shut the magazine and handed it back to his leader. “Are you going to show it to Wally?” Ryan pushed Hawk’s patience one step farther, just for fun.

“No.”

He watched Hawk shove the magazine under his bedding. Normal men hid their contraband porn under the mattress. Hawk hid his modeling photos. It was the most amusement Ryan’d had in all his time here.

COLLAPSE
Reviews:Slick Reads on Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews wrote:

“Cat has managed to even make a war zone sexy”
Rated 5 Stars "A True Gem"

Clare O’Beara on Fresh Fiction wrote:

“a great read”

Chrissy Dionne on Romance Junkies wrote:

“I took each and every one of these soldiers into my heart…a beautiful addition to Ms. Johnson’s already successful RED, HOT, & BLUE storylines”

Terri on Night Owl Reviews wrote:

“sexy, romantic scenes and even a few with a bit of humor”