Matt (Red, Hot, & Blue) by Cat Johnson

Chapter One
    Matt Coleman had the best state-of-the-art computer and the fastest Internet connection available to mankind. He should. Computers were his life—and that was the problem.
    None of that speed and technology made time pass any faster while he tapped his bare foot on the carpet in his living room. He waited for what felt like an eternity during the long seconds it took the browser to load the page.
    When his brand spanking new Matchmakers Unlimited profile loaded, he let out a long, slow whistle. Fifty-four views of his page and more than a dozen email responses and he’d only signed up for the account yesterday.
    That number had to prove single women were out there and they were interested in him. It was nice to have confirmation. The way his life had been going, he’d begun to wonder.
    Heart racing over the potential buffet of eligible females who wanted him, Matt opened the first email. He leaned closer to the screen just as his doorbell rang.
    Crap. What shitty timing. Matt considered pretending he wasn’t home, but his vehicle was in the driveway and his table lamp was on. Uninvited or not, whoever was here would know he was inside. With an annoyed huff, he took one last glance at the message he longed to read and headed for the door.
    Even if Matt hadn’t been a card-carrying member of Mensa, he could have guessed who stood on the other side of the door’s frosted glass window. He didn’t have to be a genius to know it was his teammate Bull Ford. The height and bulk of the darkened shadow was a dead giveaway.
    Matt swung open the door wide.
    “Bull. Hey. Come on in.” As he spoke, Matt turned and headed back to the computer and the lure of his inbox. He spent enough time with the guys on his team in life, death and other intimate situations that he didn’t need to stand on ceremony with any of them. Bull could show himself in.
    “Hey, what’s up?” Bull closed the door behind him and followed Matt into the living room.
    “Not much. What’s up with you?” Sparing Bull the briefest of glances, Matt sat in the rolling chair and wheeled closer to the computer on the table.
    “My girl is working tonight so I thought I’d stop by.” Bull eased his massive frame down onto the sofa.
    “At least you have a girl.” Matt let out a snort. “If you think you’re getting any sympathy from me that you’re alone for one night because Marly has to work, you’re nuts.”
    Matt was alone every damn night when the team wasn’t on a mission or he didn’t go hang out at the bar. Which is why he’d turned to his last resort—an online dating site. God help him, desperate times called for desperate measures.
    He’d signed up, but there was no way Matt could ever let the guys on the team know what he’d done. They’d tease him to no end. But if he didn’t want Bull to know what he’d done, Matt would have to wait to read the messages sitting in his inbox and taunting him like the aroma of a sizzling steak to a starving man.
    Resigned that he’d have to wait until later, he turned toward Bull. “So what are your plans for the night?”
    “Besides this? I got none.” The size of the sigh Bull let out was as big as Matt would expect from the hulking man, though Bull was generally a happy guy.
    “What’s wrong? You don’t seem your usual happy-go-lucky self.” Matt figured a man who got to have sex on a regular basis, the way he was sure Bull had with Marly, had nothing to be depressed about.
    “This light duty is killing me.”
    Ah, and there it was. They all went through it—withdrawal. It happened to the best of the men on the team when, for one reason or another, doctors or the command kept them from what they loved best—the mission.
    “Did they say when you’ll be allowed back?”
    “They said soon.” An unhappy scowl settled on Bull’s face.
    A man like Bull would need a definite, precise date to keep his sanity. Waiting was so much easier when there was an end goal to work toward.