by Mia Moon
All For One
A Reverse Harem Romance
Mia Moon
Copyright © 2018 by Mia Moon
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Let’s stay in touch
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
WANTING HIM
Afterword
Let’s stay in touch
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Prologue
SAMANTHA
I wrapped a finger around my long, blonde hair. It was my first day as a junior at San Marcos High, and for the millionth time, I wished I was back in my old school in Florida.
Sighing, I walked slowly through the crowded hallways, weaving and bobbing around bodies, trying to avoid touching any of the other kids. San Marcos, Texas was a small town, and everyone knew each other. Except me. They didn’t know me, Samantha McClure, and from all indications of the first two hours, no one wanted to, either.
People didn’t seem friendly here. I thought Texas was supposed to be friendly.
It wasn’t that I was popular back home in Florida. I ran with a regular, if not slightly geeky crowd, but it was home. I’d fought and screamed and cried when my father told the family we were moving here because he’d gotten a job in nearby Austin. I’d even asked if I could stay behind in Florida with my best friend and her parents and spend the final two years of high school in Florida.
“I’m sixteen,” I shouted.
“Absolutely not,” Dad yelled back.
And so I was here in a town I didn’t like, at a high school I didn’t want to attend, and to top it off, I didn’t know where my locker was. I thought it was down this hall, but since there were no lockers here, apparently not. I stood to the side, near a door, and slipped my backpack off my shoulder, hoping my school map was still stuffed somewhere inside.
Just then the nearby door flew open, hitting me in the shoulder.
“OW! Crap,” I yelled, then, because I was always polite, “Sorry. I was in the way.”
A guy and girl about my age barreled out the door. The girl had long, blonde hair and was in a cheerleader uniform. She looked like the epitome of a cheerleader. The guy was tall, good-looking in a jock way, and broad-shouldered.
They both looked at me as if I had three heads and was picking all three of my noses.
“Watch the fuck out,” the blonde sneered.
“Every year we get new idiots in this school,” the guy said, sighing and pulling the blonde past me.
Tears stung my eyes. Normally I wouldn’t care if a couple of popular jocks were snarky to me, but I felt particularly defeated today. With a sigh, I extracted my school map.
Fortunately, I found my locker. Unfortunately, the jock guy’s locker was right next to mine. We were the only ones in that part of the hall, and I tried to ignore him as I placed a book inside.
“Oh, great, I’ve got the new idiot next to me,” the guy said, slamming his blue locker door. “Where’d you come from? Special needs school? You’re kinda cute for a slow girl, though. I like those tits, though.”
I gaped at him, wondering how someone could be so nasty to a total stranger. I was self-conscious about my breasts, which had only gotten bigger as I got older. As I was trying to think of a snappy comeback, I felt the presence of other people behind me.
“Fuck you, Brody. Lay off. Why do you have to be such an asshat to everyone?”
I turned, and there were three of the biggest guys I’d ever seen. They were bigger than my tormentor, had to be three inches taller and much more muscular.
And they were cute. No, not cute. That’s the word for boy band members. These guys were hot. Gorgeous. Mouthwatering.
I looked to them, then back at Brody the jerk.
“What, have one of you assholes claimed her?” Brody rolled his eyes. “Which one of you has dibs on Idiot Tits here?”
One of the three guys, the one with dark hair, dark eyebrows and a slightly menacing look, stepped forward. “If you ever say that to her again, I’ll kill you.”
Brody sneered at him.
“Didn’t you hear about what I did to that guy on the Martindale football team during the game? How I fucked him up for saying something about Coach’s wife? You so much look at her,” the guy pointed at me, “and I’ll make sure you can never put your tiny dick in your cheerleader girlfriend again.”
Glaring, muttering, Brody walked away.
I whirled back and gaped at the three guys, who were all grinning. My mouth hung open. No one had ever stuck up for me like that. Not even in my old high school during the occasional time a few guys had bullied my friends and me.
“Thank you,” I said, shaking. “I’m new here and I don’t know why that guy hates me and it’s been a really awful day so far.”
I stared at my red Converse. I shouldn’t have worn those with my skinny jeans and Star Wars T-shirt. Seeing all the other girls and their dresses here, I should’ve worn something more feminine.
“Hey.” The guy with the dark hair and dark eyes reached out to squeeze my shoulder. “We’ve all had bad days. And we’ve all been new here.”
I looked up at the three hot guys. I noticed they all looked like Abercrombie models in their low-slung jeans and perfectly weathered T-shirts. “Really?”
“Yeah. We all came to this school last year. It’s how we became friends, we were all new and people were dicks at first.”
I giggled.
“But then we kicked ass on the football team and everyone loves us now,” another guy, a blonde, laughed. He was tan, and I wanted to stare at his biceps. The sound of his infectious chuckle made me grin. I couldn’t help it. “Thanks. I’m Samantha McClure. I came here from Florida. I’m a junior.”
I’m Rex,” the dark haired guy pointed at the other two. “We’re juniors too.”
“I’m Shaun,” the blonde said. I noticed that he had bright blue eyes, the color of the Gulf of Mexico back home. The kind of eyes girls go crazy for.
“I’m Taylor.” He had darker blonde hair and serious green eyes. He looked at me with a quiet empathy, wise beyond his teenage years.
“Let’s show her around school,’ said Shaun. “Where’s your next class?”
I knelt and opened my book bag, taking out my schedule. “It looks like biology.”
Taylor stood close to me and took a corner of the paper with his fingers. “Room 207,” he read aloud. “Mr. Nelson. I’m there, too. Let’s walk together.” He pointed down the hall.
“See y’all at lunch.” Shaun's grin was positively adorable.
I waved at Shaun and Rex, and grinned as I walked to class alongside Taylor.
“I like your T-shirt,” he whispered.
“Thanks. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me today.” I liked the way he smelled, like citrus and spice.
Little di
d I know that my saviors that day would become my best friends for the rest of high school.
Rex was the fiery one who wore his heart and emotions on his sleeve, his dark eyes flashing passionately. Shaun was the golden boy, filled with sweetness and sunshine. And Taylor, well, he was the most enigmatic of the trio, the brooding, silent bad boy.
I adored them all.
Chapter One
ten years later
SAMANTHA
The Lone Star Café was packed this morning, and I hadn’t had a moment even to sip my coffee, much less think about the exam in my art history class tonight.
I was operating on auto-pilot, going from filling coffee mugs to grabbing plate after plate of eggs to scooping up checks. This was the most lucrative part of my week, the breakfast shift. And it was probably a permanent gig since I’d chosen to major in art therapy. The idea that I’d be on my feet for the next several years left me feeling weary.
“Thanks, Sandy,” I said gratefully, scooping up a $5 tip on a cup of coffee from one of my regulars. The older woman with the cane smiled at me as she walked out. Even though it wasn’t the perfect job, I loved the people who came to the homey breakfast joint that was popular with the locals for greasy eggs and strong coffee.
“Sam, order up,” Adam, the cook behind the counter hollered.
I hustled to grab it.
“You okay?” said Adam, peering through the kitchen window with a knowing look.
I nodded twice and whisked the egg platter away from the window. The Lone Star employees were like family — I was the newest one, having been here six months, — and everyone knew I’d recently left my husband.
When I’d come into the café with a black eye one day, the staff immediately, and correctly, gathered that my husband had hit me. They’d met him a couple of times and they could see the mean written all over his face.
I’d made a shitty choice in marrying him, but I wasn’t intimidated by his violence. I left.
Adam’s parents owned a few properties and he’d called them, pulling strings to get me into a place without a security deposit. The other cooks helped me move my meager possessions, and the waitresses all came over for wine.
I was beyond grateful, even though it wasn’t the best neighborhood. Still, it was my own, and I’d been getting my bearings. Living life as a single woman, going to school, volunteering — and wondering if I’d ever find love again.
But I couldn’t think about those things because top priority was bringing an egg platter to table number twenty. “Here you go, sir,” I said, setting it in front of an older guy in full camouflage. It wasn’t unusual to serve military men in these parts, with the bases nearby. He thanked me, then looked up and over my shoulder.
“Ah, hey, he’s finally here. Hey, Rex, I was gonna eat without you.”
I turned to head back to the kitchen and stopped in my tracks, gasping.
“Rex Horton?” I cried out.
The tall, dark-haired guy with a sexy sprinkling of stubble on his jaw was equally surprised to see me. “Samantha?”
I wiped my hands on my white apron and wrapped my arms around him. “How long has it been… my God. Rex?”
“Too long, Sam. Too long.”
“When did you get back?” I murmured into his neck. He smelled like he always did, of Irish Spring soap and man.
Rex’s embrace was tight, and his skin under my nose was soft. I pulled away, because I was at work, after all.
“Two days ago. Went to see the family, and now I’m having breakfast with my sergeant here.” He pointed at the older man in the booth.
“When are you leaving? I’d love to get together.”
Rex’s eyes raked down my body, and for the first time in a long time, I felt a thrill. My nipples tightened against my bra and probably showed through my thin white shirt. I didn’t even want to look.
“I’m not leaving. I’m finished. Two tours is enough. Getting my discharge papers next week.”
Rex had been in the Marines since we’d graduated from high school. He’d been the first to leave. The Four Musketeers — what we’d named ourselves, me, Sean, Rex and Taylor — had been reduced to three that summer after high school.
“Sam! Order up!”
“Crap, Rex, I have to go. Can we… can I…”
“Yeah. We need to get together.” Rex flashed a grin at me, and I wondered how it was possible that he’d gotten even more muscular. Underneath that grin, though, he was tired, and I wondered what he’d seen in Afghanistan. I’d seen his mother a while back, and she told me that he’d been traveling for years, some sort of special ops thing.
I scrawled my number on my order pad, then tore it off and handed it to him. Our fingers touched, and our eyes met. It was like old times, the spark between us. The spark we’d never acted upon.
Maybe now we would.
Chapter Two
REX
I couldn’t focus on breakfast with the sergeant because I kept looking for Samantha. She seemed to be everywhere, taking orders and bringing food. She was fast and efficient, and she was the sexiest thing I’d seen in years.
God, her ass in those shorts. And those legs. I hadn’t forgotten how her legs were long and tan, but seeing them in person, in those khaki shorts gave me a boner right there. I shifted in my seat and pretended to be extra interested in Sarge’s retelling of his grandkid’s birthday.
Samantha McClure. I’d had a crush on her since the first day I’d seen her in high school. She’d been a sexy tomboy, with big tits, a Star Wars T-shirt and gorgeous curly blonde hair.
And I’d been all set to ask her out when I realized that my two best friends, Taylor and Shaun, also liked her.
“Shit,” Shaun had said, later that day after we’d walked her home from school. “I was going to ask her to the movies.”
“I was thinking already about asking her to prom,” Taylor said.
“I’m not asking her to do anything if you guys like her too.” I’d given the other two a warning glance. They’d both shaken their heads. We weren’t douchebag jocks that lived by the bros-before-hos creed. We valued our friendship, didn’t want to screw it up, and respected girls.
And so Sam had become one of the guys. I’d almost been able to overlook her beauty when we all told dirty jokes, rode around in Taylor’s truck, drank beer in the woods.
Later that night, as I sat in my high school bedroom in my mom’s house, I stared at the piece of paper with Samantha’s number. Now that ten years had gone by and we are all grown up, I wasn’t sure I could overlook her beauty.
Maybe I didn’t need to, I thought as I dialed. My mom said she’d heard that Samantha had been briefly married — and was now divorced. I wondered what her story was. We’d all lost touch over the years, with me in the Marines, Sean in Africa as a photojournalist and Taylor in Los Angeles in business school.
“Rex,” she said in that seductive, low voice of hers.
“How ‘bout I pick you up and we grab a beer?”
“Sounds good to me.” She paused. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
Something about the tone in her voice made my dick twitch. “That’s for sure.”
She gave me her address, and I promised to get her in an hour and a half. To say I was nervous over those ninety minutes was an understatement. I showered, put on jeans and a T-shirt, decided the black T-shirt was too old, then put on the grey shirt with the word “Marines” on the front.
When I pulled up to the address she gave me, I frowned. It was a small cottage, a little rundown. Not the kind of place I’d figured Samantha would live in. Seeing a broken down car across the street, I also had some doubts about the neighborhood.
I knocked on her door. I didn’t groan when she opened it, but wanted to. Christ, she looked incredible. Gorgeous. After years being around Marines in the desert, she was a feminine oasis that sent my testosterone level sky-high.
Her hair was longer than in high school, and not up in a bun
like it had been earlier in the day at the restaurant. Tonight it was loose and curly, a perfect shade of honeyed blonde. She wore a tight black tank top and even tighter jeans, and little sandals that showed off her perfectly polished red toes.
“C’mon in,” she said with a big grin, standing aside and allowing me to enter.
Her cottage was homey comfortable, with girly touches of flowers and plants. I took a big inhale.
“Did you bake cookies?”
“No, that’s the candle,” she pointed. “It’s supposed to smell like a birthday cake.”
I shoved my hands in my jeans, trying not to stare at her breasts. When we’d hung out in high school, she’d mostly worn baggy t-shirts. I’d suspected she wanted to hide her body and while I’d fantasized about it hard back then, I never saw them on display like this.
I jerked a thumb at the door. “So, wanna hit up the Icehouse? I hear that place is pretty good.”
For some reason, Samantha’s smile faded and her eyes darkened.
“Or we could go to Three Sons Brewing?” I offered quickly.
I watched her swallow. Something was different about her, and I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what.
“Maybe we shouldn’t drink and drive. Want to catch up here? I bought some beer.” She gestured toward the small, clean kitchen decorated in a shade of pale yellow.
On one hand, I wanted to show her off because she looked so incredibly hot. I hadn’t been back to San Marco in years, and god knows who I’d run into. Then again, she looked so hopeful after asking me to stay and have a beer, I didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Sure, that sounds perfect.”
