Sherri rolled on her side to stare at the petite woman. “You don’t seriously have a crush on Axel, do you? Or is Jojo the lucky guy?”

Lily answered indignantly, “I don’t chase after men. And certainly not the ones I work with.”

She made an excellent point, of course. It was a lousy idea to date coworkers and doubly fraught with problems in a military hierarchy. Still, Sherri couldn’t help but enjoy the overall eye-candy factor.

Sherri laughed ruefully. “Well, at least now we know how they’re going to get rid of us. They’re going to flaunt their hot bodies and distract us until we can’t function.”

Anna sighed blissfully. “What a way to go.”

Lily looked vaguely scandalized and began stripping off her boots and socks.

Sherri followed suit, commenting, “What do you want to bet they haul us over to the gym after supper just to make the point that they’re bigger and badder than we are?”

The other women groaned.

Frankly, she could stop exercising for today and not be sorry. Her legs were tired, and she would be sore tomorrow after the back-to-back runs today. But she had a sneaking suspicion the pain was just getting started.

What had she gotten herself into? Throwing down against a SEAL platoon was far from the smartest thing she’d ever done.

But it wasn’t as if she could turn down a challenge. Her family used to joke that Competitive was her middle name. What could be more challenging than becoming the one thing no woman on earth had ever managed to be?

Still. Maybe she’d bitten off more than she could chew this time.

Bah. Her mantra had always been No risk, no reward. And the corollary to that theory was Never quit.

She suspected her mantra was going to be put to the test out here. Big time. But she’d be twice damned before she let Griffin Caldwell get the best of her.

* * *

Sure enough, sunset found them sweating in the gym, pumping out push-ups, pull-ups, burpees, and whatever other forms of torture the guys could cook up. At least she was able to take some satisfaction from Griffin’s poorly disguised surprise as she demonstrated upper-body strength most men would envy.

Kenny, Sam, and Jojo kept up a running commentary of double entendres that cracked the three guys up and might have annoyed Sherri had she not fully expected to be harassed for being a woman. She noted that Trevor stood back from the ribbing, preferring to ignore it all. Classy guy.

Jojo called, “Pump it out. Faster. Faster!”

Sam added, “Deeper, ladies. Deeper.” That was in response to four-count lunges, a form of torture Sherri had never encountered before.

Jojo commented, “Man, I love wet T-shirts.”

“Are we making you wet, yet?” Kenny teased the women.