Finding Ashlyn

FINDING ASHLYN SEAL Team Hawaii, Book 6 SUSAN STOKER CONTENTS Blurb Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Epilogue Also by Susan Stoker About the Author They think they're in a no-strings-attached relationship...until danger reveals the truth. Friends with benefits. That’s all Ashlyn wanted with Slate. They were certainly combustible in the bedroom, and that was sufficient…wasn’t it? Yes, definitely. He was too bossy. Too protective. She didn’t want someone hovering, wanting to know her every move and telling her she was too reckless. But then again, knowing someone cared enough to worry about her felt kind of nice. Not to mention the more she was around Slate, and the more she learned about him, the harder it was to ignore her feelings. Duncan “Slate” Stone had never been with a woman like Ashlyn. She was impulsive, spontaneous, argumentative, and way too nonchalant about her safety. She drove him completely crazy…and he couldn’t stay away from her. The sex was out-of-this-world amazing, but just being near her, even if they did nothing but talk, made him just as happy. Clearly their laid-back arrangement worked. No need to rock the boat…right? When she unexpectedly finds herself in the middle of a deadly situation, Ashlyn realizes that having an overprotective boyfriend isn’t such a bad thing. And Slate discovers his feelings for Ashlyn are anything but casual. But both those discoveries could be too little, too late. ** Finding Ashlyn is the 6th book in the SEAL Team Hawaii Series. Each book is a stand-alone, with no cliffhanger endings. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2023 by Susan Stoker No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Edited by Kelli Collins Cover Design by AURA Design Group Manufactured in the United States CHAPTER ONE “I like your apartment,” Slate said after Ashlyn had shown him around. She was giddy with nerves. He’d never been to her place before, even though they’d known each other for over a year. “Thanks. It’s not super fancy, but I like it,” Ashlyn said. She’d met Slate when Lexie had started dating Midas. At first, she hadn’t liked him all that much, but the more time she spent hanging out with him and his team, the more he grew on her. He had a tendency to think bad guys were waiting around every corner to pop out and attack not only her, but all of her friends as well…which she couldn’t blame him for, since a lot of bad shit had gone down with Monica, Lexie, Kenna, Carly, and Elodie. But unlike those ladies, Ashlyn’s current boss or her ex-boyfriend weren’t going to be an issue. She’d moved to Hawaii because of a guy, yes, but Franklin had turned out to be a lazy mooch. She couldn’t see him summoning the energy to bother her for any reason. As for work, Food For All was a dream job. She met a ton of interesting people and wasn’t tied to an office from eight to five every day. And she loved the people she worked with. Lexie was amazing, of course, and Elodie was a genius when it came to creating dishes from the donated food. While Ashlyn might’ve developed a small crush on Slate over the last year or so, she also never really expected anything to happen between them. She wasn’t the kind of woman that tall, gorgeous, badass Navy SEALs looked twice at. She wasn’t hideous, but she also wasn’t anything special, in her opinion. Her best feature was her long, straight, sleek brown hair. Her eyes were a more boring shade of brown…her face didn’t really boast any standout features. She was tall at five-ten, but continually struggled to take off the extra fifteen to twenty pounds she carried on her frame. Long, curvy legs, not much ass, a little too much extra padding around her waist… In short, she wasn’t hideous, but she also wasn’t the kind of woman people turned around to watch as she walked by. And beyond her ordinary looks, Slate frequently seemed to be annoyed by her. Despite that, a short while ago, when he’d brought her home from one of the many barbeques his SEAL team had thrown, he’d shocked the shit out of Ashlyn by asking her out. She’d immediately said yes, of course, but with the caveat that she didn’t want anything serious. Slate had agreed…so she’d invited him up to her place to test out their new friends-with-benefits arrangement. Ashlyn hadn’t been nervous when she’d invited him up, but now, standing in her small apartment with Slate, she suddenly wasn’t so sure. She’d just given him the two-cent tour, which included showing him the extra bedroom she used for doing step aerobics, and which held a hodge-podge of stuff that didn’t fit anywhere else in the apartment; the master bedroom; the small half bath in the hallway; the functional kitchen; the laundry room, which was more like a closet; and now they were standing in her surprisingly spacious living