Terms of Surrender

Twelve military heroes.

Twelve indomitable heroines.

One UNIFORMLY HOT! miniseries.

Don’t miss a story in Harlequin Blaze’s

12-book continuity series featuring irresistible soldiers from all branches of the armed forces.

Now serving—

those ready and able heroes in the U.S. Navy…

HIGHLY CHARGED!

by Joanne Rock

April 2011

HIGH STAKES SEDUCTION

by Lori Wilde

May 2011

TERMS OF SURRENDER

by Leslie Kelly

June 2011

Uniformly Hot!—

The Few. The Proud. The Sexy as Hell!

Dear Reader,

Don’t you just love a man in uniform?

There’s something so sexy about a strong, powerful guy whose clothes proclaim him to be a hero. Especially if his words and actions back it up.

I live in Maryland, not far from Annapolis, and there have been many spring days when I’ve seen that town filled to the brim with handsome young students from the Naval Academy, clad in their dress whites. Believe me, these “Middies” are a featured attraction.

I hope you enjoy Danny and Marissa’s story. Danny is my kind of hero—smart, sexy, charming, loyal. In this story, it was the heroine who had to prove to me that she was worthy of the hero, and I think she did.

While you’re reading, please be on the lookout for one of my favorite characters: Brionne, the heroine’s adorable cat. Brionne is actually based on a real-life furry friend who’s looking for a forever home (she really does play fetch!). If you’re an animal lover—like so many of the Blaze authors are—please check out blazeauthors.com to find out about our new Pet Project!

Best wishes and happy reading!

Leslie Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leslie Kelly has written dozens of books and novellas for Harlequin Blaze, Temptation and HQN. Known for her sparkling dialogue, fun characters and depth of emotion, her books have been honored with numerous awards, including the National Readers’ Choice Award, the RT Book Reviews Award, and three nominations for the highest award in romance, the RWA RITA®. Leslie resides in Maryland with her own romantic hero, Bruce, and their three daughters. Visit her online at www.lesliekelly.com.

To Brenda.

I can’t say it enough but I’ll just keep trying.

Thank you.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Prologue

Friday 5/6/11, 07:00 a.m.

www.mad-mari.com/2011/05/06/friday-contest

Happy Friday!

Those of you who are regulars here at Mad-Mari.com know I belong to the I-love-Fridays cult. Not just because it’s the end of the work week (except for me, the unemployed, but more on that later) but because it’s my favorite day here on the blog. Every Friday, I invite you to share tales of your bad dates from last weekend, and we all get to spend the day thinking how great it is that ours aren’t the only love lives that suck. Wahoo!

You know the drill, just leave a comment, describing how bad things were on your last date. Most entertaining story—decided solely by me, ’cause, I am master of this here e-universe—gets an autographed copy of my new book.

Now, a bit of good news for me, which might be bad news for you, depending on how much you like to hang out here on my blog. Tomorrow, I actually have a job interview. For a real job. In the real world. AK!

Okay, it’s not permanent—just a summer gig. But I can’t tell you how much I need it. To answer the question before you ask—no, my two books have not made me rich. Some men just don’t seem to get my humor, plus I have a lot of student loans to pay off. (And no, for the last time, I’m not telling you where I went to school, or what I studied. Trust me. It’s boring.)

I plan to spend the day getting prepped—touching up the résumé, brushing up on interview etiquette, plucking my eyebrows. (Ow!) So you all feel free to talk about those bad dates and I’ll check in later tonight, okay?

P.S. Thought for the day: Is it better to be unemployed and happy, or have a good-paying job you hate? Discuss!

Friday 5/6/11, 11:15 p.m.

www.mad-mari.com/2011/05/06/friday-contest

Comment #114

Promised I’d check in! I’m about to hit the hay but wanted to choose a winner from today’s sucky-date contest.

Rachel from Boston wins an autographed copy of one of my books. Sorry to everyone else who entered, but I can’t even imagine what it was like to go on a date with a crazy dude whose opening line was, “I like to sneak into my mother’s room, steal her panties and dance around in them, like I’m Britney Spears.”

Uhh…eww.

Rachel, honey? Please tell me you didn’t let this guy know where you live. If you did, I hope you have a fresh supply of mace. And antibacterial soap. And a lock on your underwear drawer.

Hmm. What’s more disturbing about this story? A grown man’s mother having Britney Spears-ish panties, or her son wearing them?

Okay, gotta run. Please wish me luck on the job interview tomorrow. Can’t tell you more about it—as you know, I like to keep my Mad-Mari stuff on the down low, separate from my real world junk.

But trust me, this job? Well, let’s just say it involves me swimming in a huge sea of testosterone.

Here I go…diving in!

Mari

1

MARISSA MARSHALL LOVED clear, sunny spring days, and, so far, this early May one was reminding her why.

Having lived in Baltimore for five years, she was used to gray, smoggy skies during the cold, bleak winter, and hazy ones in the summer. Fall was nice, with changing leaves ranging from pale yellow to deep rust. But in spring, Maryland came alive.

There was so much color. Cherry blossoms and azaleas dotted the landscape with pink and red. Lush farmlands erupted in mixed tones of new, freshly turned earth. With the soft green waters of the Atlantic, and the warm yellow sun drenching the robin’s-egg-blue sky with life, the state was an artist’s palette.

Funny, though. Her favorite part of spring—the color she most enjoyed on a beautiful day like this—was no color at all.

It was white. Just white. A sea of it.

“Dazzling,” Marissa said. Though she’d been speaking to a woman behind the counter of the coffee shop where she’d stopped for a caffeine injection, she was looking out the window.

Students from the U.S. Naval Academy, wearing their immaculate uniforms, filled the streets of Annapolis. Though now coed, the USNA’s student body was primarily male. So on this lovely Saturday afternoon, the town appeared full to the brim of handsome young midshipmen—aka middies—in their dress whites, all celebrating making it through another tough year at the academy.

Women from all over the state flocked here on sunny spring days, just to have a good drool. Marissa among them.

“God, how can you survive this much hotness 24/7?”

The woman grunted. “They’re always broke. I don’t care how hot they are, I just wonder if they have cash in their pockets.”

Marissa would probably wonder less about the contents of their pockets and more about what was in the rest of their pants. Anyone who didn’t have something dangling in their own pants would. As would danglers with same-sex preferences.

The USNA might be renowned for its educational excellence, but a close second would have to be its military beefcake. Even Marissa, who had been single for so long she could call herself a sexual vegetarian, suddenly found herself craving a Manwich.

She knew better than to ever take a bite, though. Uniformed beefcake might taste good, but the thought of that uniform got stuck in her craw, choking her. She might like looking at them, but she had no use for military men. Not after having been sired by one. Her father was about as affectionate as a jellyfish.

Besides, lately, even men without uniforms had been few and far between. That, however, was her own fault. In her real life, she was an overeducated nerd who’d just completed a doctoral program from one of the most prestigious universities in the country—Johns Hopkins. So she intimidated most men.

In her secret life, she was persona non grata with the male half of civilization due to her snarky books: Why Do Men Suck? and Thanks, But I’ll Just Keep My Vibrator.

How strange that her blog, Mad-Mari.com, which she’d launched six years ago after a really bad date, had landed her here. What had started as an internet rant had grown into a website with tons of followers. Then came a book deal.

As Mad-Mari, she was sassy and irreverent while venting about the hell called dating and relationships. She’d railed against cheaters, chauvinists and misogynistic assholes. She’d met lots of those in academia, not to mention in the military world in which she’d been raised. Meanwhile, she’d also been writing her much more proper, respectable dissertation which touched on similar topics, just in a scholarly, scientific way.

In other words, no snark.

Thankfully, she’d published the books under a pseudonym. Very few people realized that the infamous man-bashing internet star, Mad-Mari, was really Marissa Marshall, PhD, whose dissertation had been excerpted in a highly respected psychology journal and in a military magazine. And she intended to keep it that way.

The barista set a cup on the counter. “Honestly, I’ve never been tempted to trade in my granny panties for something with cougar stripes—they’re practically babies.”

They might be babies next to the fiftyish server, but not to Marissa. The oldest cadets were twenty-three or so, not that far from her twenty-nine. But in terms of life experience, they were a different generation. From age fourteen, Marissa had been thrust into adulthood, nearly raising her own younger siblings.

There hadn’t been much choice after their mother left.

While studying to earn her doctorate in psychology, she’d spent a lot of time trying to understand that. If pressed, she’d probably have to admit that trying to understand what drove people like her parents to do the things they did was one reason she’d settled on psychology from the day she’d started college.

Oh, she got why the marriage had failed—her father was one of those chauvinistic misogynists she wrote about, cold and aloof. Not to mention a cheat, seeming to have a new affair on every base. But she couldn’t grasp how a mother could decide to pay him back by having an affair of her own, then leave her kids, keeping in touch only with an occasional call or card. Some things, she suspected, she would never understand, no matter how many degrees she earned or how many letters came after her name.

“You have a good day. Try not to trip and fall into a pile of hot boys now, ya hear?” said the woman behind the counter.

Not impossible, given her three-inch heels. “Thanks.”

Stepping outside, she instinctively closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. She lived near the Inner Harbor, but the air didn’t smell nearly as potent. Downtown Baltimore lacked this fragrant mixture of saltwater, sweat and male.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a deep voice said.

Her eyes flying open, she saw a twentyish guy, dressed all in white. Marissa had stepped right into his path. “My fault.”

Then something sunk in. He’d called her ma’am.

“Ma’am?” she mumbled. The professor under whom Marissa had interned was a ma’am. Her elderly neighbor, whose apartment always smelled like pickled beets, she was a ma’am. But Marissa?

When, by God, did I become a ma’am?

“Today, that’s a good thing,” she told herself. Today, she wanted to convey seriousness, maturity. Ma’am-ness. Today she was not Mad-Mari, she was Dr. Marissa Marshall. Even if she didn’t yet know who that was, other than a name on a résumé.

It was time to find out. Some people said going to school for so long and making a living by writing sassy words in the comfort of her own living room had been her means of escaping the reality of adulthood. Well, her best friend said it. And maybe her favorite college professor had, too. Maybe she had been putting off the inevitable. Maybe the newly degreed shrink in her head was right in suspecting she’d been so sick of being forced to be an adult when she was a teenager that she’d needed to drop all responsibilities and focus only on herself during her twenties.

But that was over. She was ready for whatever came next, ready for part two of her life. Her blog and her books had been fun. They’d been stress relievers during her all-men-suck period (hence the title of her book). But she was a professional now. Time to put away the snark and move forward.

That’s why her hair was pulled back in a severe bun. That’s why she’d dressed in a simple blouse and a borrowed skirt—her own clothes being far too Mad-Mari-ish for Marissa Marshall. That’s why she wore painful black pumps, more appropriate for a funeral in January than an appointment at the USNA in May. That’s why she had actually contorted herself into a pair of pantyhose for the first time in several years.

Because today, she would be meeting with a Deputy to the Commandant of the Midshipmen, to convince him to hire her to give some guest lectures on campus. She needed the work. She needed the professional credit. And frankly, she needed the money.

Her royalties on her first book had been eaten up by tuition—Johns Hopkins was in no way cheap. The advance on her second book had been keeping her fed, but it was almost gone. There should be more coming in, but, in publishing, money flowed with the speed of sap off an elm. Whatever else she earned she would use to hang out her counseling shingle. For now, though, she couldn’t afford insurance, much less office space.

So hearing from her former professor that the USNA was interested in talking to her about doing a few guest lectures for summer students had been a lifeline tossed when she’d been trying to decide between her cell phone and her cable-TV bills. The phone was important. But she wasn’t sure she could give up her Starz Channel dates with the hot gladiators on Spartacus.

“Okay, gotta nail this,” she said as she got into her car.

Reaching for her notebook, she read over the details for the interview. “King George Street to Gate 1,” she mumbled. “First meeting at two, check in with security an hour before.”

Oh, God. How had she forgotten that? She’d been so focused on preparing for the interview, she’d neglected the details!

“You idiot,” she howled, eyeing the clock. Five ’til one.

Thrusting the key in the ignition, she prayed the car—which had been giving her trouble—would start easily. Fortunately, it groaned only once, then fired up.

Using a lead foot on the gas pedal, she got to the academy in a few minutes. Spying the correct building and the Employees Only lot in front, she weighed her options. The lot was almost empty, so she wouldn’t be taking anybody’s spot. Plus, if she had her way, she would be an employee this summer.

Decision made. Parking quickly, she exited the car, pausing to retuck her blouse and smooth her skirt. The pantyhose were beyond annoying, and she took a second to try to twist them into position. Which just tugged her panties into the wrong position.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she whispered, feeling the elastic panty line riding way too high on one cheek. Her too-tight skirt probably magnified the thing like a microscope did an amoeba.

Marissa did the wedgie-dance, wishing she wore thongs—it felt like she was wearing one, anyway. Better yet, she should have scraped up the money for new clothes that fit better. But the interview had come up suddenly and a borrowed skirt in her size had sounded fine, until she’d put it on this morning. It seemed the months of writing at home had added to her waistline, not to mention her hips and butt. The long pencil skirt fit like a casing on a sausage. And the sausage was trying to escape.

She tried tugging, keeping her backside toward the interior of the car so nobody would be able to see from the windows fronting the lot. But it didn’t help much. Her inner Dr. Marshall told her to just forget it and hope nobody noticed the obnoxious panty lines. But, damn, she did not want some military man eyeing her tush any more than necessary in the tight skirt.

Then…disaster. She tugged too hard, and felt the whispery sensation of a run sliding down the length of one leg. She looked down to see a thick, ugly line appear at her knee and keep right on going until it disappeared into her shoe. “Shit!”

Panty lines were one thing. A huge freaking run down her shin? Was she just destined to not get this job?

Do something!

There was only one choice. Knowing she might not have a chance to hit a ladies’ room inside, she bent back into the car, perching on the edge of the driver’s seat, her feet out on the blacktop. She cast one more look around, still seeing nobody.

Pulling the door close to her legs, she wriggled the hose off, contorting herself into a ladle shape to tug them out from under the long, slim skirt.

She took the panties, too.

Commando might be more of a Mad-Mari thing, but panty lines would be even more obnoxious without the hose to smooth things out. The skirt was long; she didn’t worry about flashing anyone.

She wadded up the ball of satin and nylon, stuffed it into the glove box, and stepped back out onto the blacktop seconds later. Runless. Wedgieless. Not to mention pantyless.

“That’s probably not a good idea.”

She yelped. Shocked by the intrusion of a deep voice, Marissa swung around, her heart thudding in her chest and her face going up in flames.

Outside the nearest building—a huge one with roll-up doors—stood a man. He watched her, a slight smile on his face. He hadn’t been there a few minutes ago when she’d pulled up, and she had to wonder when he’d appeared, and how much he’d seen.

You were hidden by the door, dummy. No way could he see you, especially below the waist.

Except, of course, her feet had been sticking out. And they’d been encircled by nylon and black satin for a couple of seconds. Oh, and there was the fact that she’d been fiddling with her underwear before clambering back into the car.

He knew. He had to know. She’d been busted like a kindergartener raiding the candy jar. Worse—picking her…seat.

Brazen it out.

Her chin went up and she pretended not to hear him. When she took a step away from the vehicle, he called out, “Uh, miss, seriously, you might want to rethink that.”

Grr. She’d already rethought it, especially with the hint of coolness in the spring air creeping up her thighs. And higher.

“That could get you into some trouble,” the man added.

Gritting her teeth, she said, “Oh, were you talking to me?”

The man, who wore faded mechanic’s coveralls, approached her, wiping his greasy hands on a towel. His expression was impassive, a friendly smile not indicating what he was thinking.

That was okay, Mari had enough thoughts for both of them.

She gawked, making a mental note with every step he took.

Step: Tall.

Step: Strong, with broad shoulders and thick arms straining against the faded fabric of his clothes.

Step: Lean-hipped and slim-waisted.

Step: Long, powerful legs that ate up the pavement.

Step: Great smile, broadening as he drew closer…and oh, a dimple in one cheek!

Step, step, step: Sexy, confident, gorgeous.

How incredibly embarrassing that he could be coming over to tell her he’d seen London and France when she’d done her front-seat striptease. Though, not as bad as it would be if he told her he’d seen the Netherlands.

She told herself to cool it. Maybe he just wanted to say hi. Or he could be coming over to tell her he’d heard the roughness of her car’s engine. Given the way he was dressed, and that he’d come out of a building that was obviously some kind of repair shop, she’d pegged him for a mechanic.

Maybe he needed to know the time. Or to tell her the whole place had been evacuated for a fire drill.

Say anything except I know you’re not wearing any panties.

Not only because it would be embarrassing if he confirmed he’d seen her, but because it was such a sleazy, slimy come-on. And she didn’t want to think this stranger—this very sexy man—had a sleazy bone in his body. That would probably break her long-single, brittle heart completely. Guys this handsome simply shouldn’t be allowed to be scumbags.

Reaching her, the man studied her from behind his sunglasses, which were necessitated by the bright sunshine that painted the tips of his light brown hair gold. She couldn’t help wondering what color his eyes were. Warm chocolate? Jade green? Something dazzling, she imagined. Because only a perfect set of eyes belonged in that face, with its high cheekbones, strong jutting jaw and broad, sensual mouth.

Masculine. That was the only word to describe him.

“Afternoon,” he said pleasantly, as if they’d just been introduced at a social event, as if he wasn’t standing there, thinking about her being pantyless.

Maybe he’s not.

Yeah. Right.

“Hello,” she mumbled.

He pushed the sunglasses up onto the top of his head with the tip of his finger. Oh, my. Not brown, not gold…something in-between. Like fine, clear amber. Absolutely beautiful.

“Wow,” she whispered.

He heard. Because now those eyes were twinkling. Definitely twinkling. She’d heard the expression, but always figured it for an exaggeration. It wasn’t. This guy had you-can-trust-me-I’m-adorable written on his very eyeballs.

“You look a little lost,” he said, that deep voice friendly, matching the twinkle and his small smile.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Are you sure? Maybe I can help. I know my way around.”

A quick glance at the stitching on his chest revealed the name of a popular auto-repair chain: Midas. They must make a lot of house calls to the academy if he was so familiar with it.

Funny that he worked for a company with a name that suited him so well, given those gold highlights in his hair. She only wondered if his big, powerful hands had the golden touch. And what lucky woman was on the receiving end of it.

One thing was sure, he was nothing like the men she usually associated with. There wasn’t a professor-ish feature on him. Probably in his early-to-mid-thirties, he was all man, not boyish, despite the twinkle and the dimples. He was rugged, not a smoothly put-together package like a slick high-rise, but a naturally spectacular formation like…the Grand Canyon.

Okay, that was a little overdone, but still, the guy was robbing her of coherent thought. She could only look at him for another long moment, pretending to consider his offer.