She took a deep breath, exhaled hard and finished the push-up. Reluctantly, he was impressed. Too bad she wasn’t cheating on the push-ups, or he could’ve yelled at her about that, too.

Watching out of the corner of his eye as her chest brushed the ground, he almost wanted to be that strip of gravel beneath her, getting caressed by those lush globes.

“Forty-three!” she grunted in triumph as she finished one more push-up. She collapsed on the ground, breathing hard, with about twenty seconds to go in the timed rotation.

Clearly, she knew forty-two was the minimum number of push-ups required of a BUD/S candidate in two minutes. Parked in a plank beside her to press home his point, he demanded, “You think you can make it in BUD/S if all you do is reach the minimums? You think just surviving is enough? SEALs don’t survive, Tate. They win. If you’re going make it through BUD/s you have to strive to win every single training evolution. Where’s your desire? Show me some goddamned guts!”

Clenching her teeth, she resumed doing push-ups, straining through a half dozen more before he called, “Time. Two minutes. Get off my road, Tate. Move, move, move!”

She crawled to her feet and stumbled off toward Trevor at the pull-up bars. Truth be told, he was stunned that she’d found the will to do more push-ups after she’d clearly exhausted herself. It was the sort of thing a SEAL might do—

No. No! Cancel that thought.

Grinder PT was not for the weak of heart even if a person had all the fitness in the world. The mental challenge of being surrounded by screaming instructors watching a person’s every move, and pushing for more no matter how much a soul did, was one of the more daunting training evolutions in the first few weeks of BUD/S.

He and the guys chewed on the girls for nearly an hour before Kettering called for everyone to get in the Jeeps. Two more of the open-topped vehicles had been delivered from Camp Lejeune overnight, and Grif swung into the back of one driven by Sam—a street racer in his free time—landing on the seat plastered from hip to knee against Sherri.

She was breathing hard, and beads of sweat made her skin glisten. An urge to lean over and lick the perspiration off her neck shocked him into staring down at his clenched hands, sandwiched tightly between his knees. The vehicles lurched into motion, and Sherri’s shoulder bumped against his.

He restrained a flinch. Dammit, if they were going to be swim buddies, he was going to put his hands all over her before this was said and done. He had to get used to touching her, or at least learn not to get a gigantic hard-on every time he did.