Going All In

by Jess Dee

  “Just like that?” Was it that simple? Could everything that had seemed so complicated just a few days ago be this easily resolved?

  “Hey, if a short answer isn’t enough, I could bring out my trumpet and turn it into a grand announcement,” Jay said. “Otherwise, yep. Just like that.”

  “You too?” Julia asked Hunter, wanting to be one hundred percent sure.

  “I could use Jay’s trumpet if you’d like.”

  She smacked his arm. There was a brightness in Hunter’s voice that hadn’t been there for a while. A buoyancy in his step, a lightness to his stance, as though he no longer carried the weight of the world—or the burden of his father’s prejudices—on his shoulders.

  “But,” Hunter said, and Julia’s lungs seized, “if we’re going public, does this mean we can’t play anymore?”

  Julia considered her answer. “So long as what we have is real and committed, there’s no reason we can’t have fun with it. Heck, yeah, we can play.” Julia grinned at him. “In fact, I’m willing to lay a bet on this relationship. If you’re up to it, boys, I’m going all in.”

  “Whaddya say, Miles?” Jay asked. “You up to it?”

  Hunter groaned as his dick jerked. “Sure looks that way.”

  Julia grinned at him. So did Jay.

  “I’m in too,” Jay said, and crushed his mouth against Hunter’s. Minutes later Hunter took Julia’s lips in a scorching kiss.

  And then they went all in.

  About the Author

  To learn more about Jess Dee, please visit her website at: www.jessdee.com or her blog at: jessdee.wordpress.com. Or send an email to jess@jessdee.com.

  Sign up with the Heat Wave Yahoo! group to join in the fun with Jess and other authors and readers at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Heat_Wave_Readers.

  Look for these titles by Jess Dee

  Now Available:

  Ask Adam

  Photo Opportunity

  A Question of Trust

  Three’s Company

  A Question of Love

  Circle of Friends

  Only Tyler

  Steve’s Story

  A past with three, a future for two…

  A Question of Love

  © 2009 Jess Dee

  Sequel to A Question of Trust

  Gabe Carter and his best friend Connor’s passion for threesomes brought Tina Jenkins into Gabe’s bed—and into his heart. As a matter of honor, he gave up the woman he loved. Time passes, times change and old promises fall away, but Gabe is still in love with Tina. Now he’s going after his heart’s desire.

  Tina has her own opinion about Gabe’s sense of honor. His departure tore apart the most special of bonds and destroyed her relationship with Connor, leaving her brokenhearted. It took her a long time to pick up the pieces, a struggle she doesn’t wish to repeat. When Gabe shows up at her favorite coffee shop, she knows just where to tell him to stick his apology.

  Gabe isn’t so easily put off—and Tina can’t help but respond to his seduction. Picking up where they left off is tempting, but Gabe wants her all to himself. And Tina wants the whole package, which includes Connor.

  At the risk of crushing his hopes for the future, Gabe sets out to prove he’s more than enough man for her…

  Warning: If piping hot sex, ménage scenes, adult toys, anal play, short blonde heroines and stacked, muscular heroes are not your cup of tea, then don’t read this book. You won’t enjoy it.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for A Question of Love:

  “Shut up, Gabe.” She punched him again and then again, this time on his arm. “I’m busy being pissed off at you.”

  He tensed his biceps, accepting her blows without comment.

  Shit, wasn’t that just typical Gabe behavior? Everything went by without comment. Everything. Even his departure from her life. She hit him harder. Then harder again. “Damn you, Gabriel Carter,” she spluttered. “You left us. You left me. You walked away from the best thing that ever happened to me. You bastard.” The hand she’d been attacking with throbbed so she switched arms and pummeled him good. Rage came bubbling to the surface, lending strength to her strikes. “I loved you, goddamn it. You and Connor. You were my world. My happiness. And. You. Walked. Away. You destroyed us.”

  Four years, and who would have thought she still had so much emotion left in her? So much bloody anger and despair. Yes, he may have come back six months later, but by then it was already too late. She’d met Grant and tried to move on with her life.

  “I destroyed me too,” Gabe whispered.

  “Shut up,” she snapped. “You don’t get to have a say now. You don’t get to tell me how you felt. You’re four years too bloody late for that.”

  She raised her arm to strike him again, but before her hand found its target, he acted. In less time than it took to blink, Tina hung suspended in space, her legs dangling uselessly below her. Gabe had her caught between his body and the wall. His chest pressed into hers, flattening her breasts against his pecs, against a barrier of super hard male flesh. His thigh was wedged between her legs, holding her up, pushing against her groin, making even the slightest move an exquisite form of torture. And his mouth was inches, centimeters, from hers. So close the rasping heat of his breath warmed her lips, tickled her nose and sent a blast of half-crazed lust careening down her spine.

  “You were my world, T. But you were Connor’s first. I didn’t have a choice.” He thrust his thigh up, and she battled against him.

  Oh, holy hell. She needed to stop struggling. The sensations smashing through her and lighting up her core had her writhing with need. Either she had to quit struggling—or she needed to go to war with him. All-out war, which would have only one result. An orgasm. And a damn hard one if her current state of desire was anything to go by.

  “We all have choices,” she bit back and then added for good measure, “Sometimes we just make the wrong ones.”

  “You think I don’t know how bad my decision was?” Gabe’s voice was hoarse, the look in his eyes tortured. “You think I didn’t spend the last three and a half years in hell wondering how you were? If you were married? Happy?” He ground his thigh against her pussy, and she bit back a whimper. “You think this is what I want? My leg here? Fuck, T, I want my whole body between your legs. I want…” He closed his eyes and groaned. “I want to be inside you. So goddamned deep inside you I lose myself. I want…need to feel your warm pussy wrapped around me, pulling me in deeper and deeper…”

  Tina gulped, because now that he’d voiced it out loud, she wanted the very same thing. She had a maddening compulsion to tear off her clothes and his, draw him down to the floor and envelop his hard length with her pussy.

  He dropped his head, resting his forehead against hers, taking in great gulps of air. She sucked in the air he exhaled, greedy for anything of his to become a part of her.

  His voice was erotic as sin as he panted out, “Need to…make love…to you.”

  She dissolved. Any reluctance that might have prevented her from responding dissipated in his words, in his raw desire for her. Her eyelids drooped, her lips parted, and she raised her chin to meet his mouth in the inevitability of a kiss. More than her next breath, she wanted his mouth on hers.

  Which made the resounding thud beside her left ear all the more shocking.

  Gabe pounded the wall with his fist. Once, twice and a third time. With a strangled moan he dropped his thigh and drew away from Tina. He did not release her until her feet touched the ground.

  With legs as useless as rubber, she slid weightlessly down the wall, her knees caving beneath her, and came to rest in a shapeless lump on the carpeted floor.

  Gabe prowled her lounge, a veritable giant amongst her furniture. He drew to a halt against the wall opposite her, hit it once and then dropped to the floor as well.

  For endless moments he stared at her, his eyes hooded, his mouth drawn. The sound of heavy breathing echoed in her ears. His? Hers? She had no idea. Her heart slam
med into her ribs, her lungs seeking oxygen in the airless room.

  “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I…shouldn’t have done that.”

  She waited until she was sure she could string a sentence together. “I…shouldn’t have hit you.” Yet even with the acknowledgement her hand still curled into a fist, the dull ache in her knuckles nothing compared to the need to lash out at him again.

  He stared at her fist and raised an eyebrow. The look on his face might have been skeptical—if longing and naked desire hadn’t shadowed his eyes. “But you’re not sorry you did.”

  She forced her fingers to straighten. “You hurt me, Gabe.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “I wanted to…hurt you back.”

  Another nod. “That’s okay.” He slumped against the wall and let his arms drop to his sides. “I won’t respond this time. I swear.” He kept his gaze level with hers. “Come at me. Hurt me as much as you need to.”

  Instinct made her hands curl into fists again, but this time, Tina restrained herself. If she went at him now she’d last maybe three seconds before her blows turned to caresses. Instead of inflicting pain she’d draw relief from touching his skin. If she so much as tapped a finger to his flesh now, she’d be naked and begging for more before Gabe had time to register what had—or hadn’t—hit him.

  She bit back a frustrated cry. “I just want…” Her voice trailed off. “I want… I need…” She shook her head, unable to put words to her thoughts.

  “What is it, T? Tell me. Anything you want. Anything. It’s yours.”

  The voice of an angel, a husband who loved her—she had it all…until a tragedy took it away.

  Songbird

  © 2009 Maya Banks

  A Linger Story

  They called her their Songbird, but she was never theirs. Not in the way she wanted.

  The Donovan brothers meant everything to Emily, but rejected by Greer and Taggert, she turned to Sean, the youngest. He married her for love, and she loved him, but she also loved his older brothers.

  Her singing launched her to stardom. She had it all. The voice of an angel, a husband who loved her, and the adoration of millions. Until a tragedy took it all away.

  Taggert and Greer grieve for their younger brother, but they’re also grieving the loss of Emmy, their songbird. They take her back to Montana, determined to help her heal and show her once and for all they want her. They’re also on a mission to help her find her voice again. Under the protective shield of their love, she begins to blossom… until an old threat resurfaces.

  Now the Donovans face a fight for what they once threw away. Only by winning it—and her love—will their songbird fly again.

  Warning: Explicit sex, ménage a trois, multiple partners, a committed polyamorous relationship, adult language and sweet loving.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Songbird:

  The gentle strains of a guitar woke Emily from her sleep. She blinked fuzzily, wondering if it was just part of a dream. It was still dark outside, but a quick glance at the clock told her dawn wasn’t far off.

  A haunting melody, so simple and beautiful, floated over her ears. Her chin trembled. It was the first song she’d recorded—a song she’d written long ago when she and the Donovan brothers had spent a spring afternoon in the rain. Mountain Rain.

  She closed her eyes and let the chords take her back to the nights spent round a campfire, Sean playing the guitar while she sang. Taggert and Greer sat by the fire, their long legs stretched out, their brims pulled low over their foreheads and their worn boots reflecting the flicker of the flames.

  Drawn to the music, she eased out of bed and walked into the hallway to stand at the top of the stairs. Clad in only her flannel PJs, she followed the sound of the guitar down to the living room and realized it was coming from the front porch.

  Her legs shook, and she had to steady herself by reaching down to grasp the arm of the couch. Who was playing? And moreover, her song?

  The words to the song floated through her mind, and she was reminded of earlier, happier days. Carefree.

  She opened the front door and stepped into the chilly morning air. The music stopped, and she found herself staring at Taggert, his hand frozen over the strings as he stared back at her.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” Taggert said.

  “I didn’t know you played.”

  He glanced down at the guitar, and it was then she realized it was Sean’s.

  “I don’t play well. Been fiddling with it for the last year.”

  “It sounded beautiful,” she said in a low voice.

  He looked back up at her, his gaze roving over her face until she could feel it caressing her cheek.

  “Will you sing if I play?”

  Her hand flew to her throat and she shook her head forcefully. “No. I c-can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?” he persisted. “Emmy, it’s been a year. Yours is the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard in my life. You have a talent that astounds me, and you’re wasting it.”

  She shook her head again, unable to voice her terror, to admit her guilt, that it was because of the voice he loved so much that Sean was dead. She hated it. She couldn’t even think about singing without her throat closing in on her.

  She sank down onto one of the rockers. “Play for me,” she begged.

  His fingers stuttered over the strings for a moment, clumsy at first, and then he strummed the first chords of Montana Memories, a song she’d written specifically for the Donovan brothers. Did he know? Had he guessed?

  She wrapped herself in the beauty of the music, allowing it to give her comfort when nothing else had. When the last note died and the skies began to lighten in preparation for sunrise, she sought his gaze and asked the question burning a hole in her mind.

  “Why?”

  His brow furrowed. “Why what?”

  “Why did you come after me? Why did you bring me back here? Why…do you and Greer act as though I mean something to you…more than being your brother’s widow?”

  He sucked in his breath and carefully laid the guitar aside. His hands wiped along the tops of his legs and then gripped the area just above his knees. He looked…nervous. That puzzled her. Taggert was brash, temperamental, outspoken, opinionated, but she’d never seen him nervous.

  “We made a mistake,” he said in a raw voice. “One that’s cost us a lot. One we’ll regret making the rest of our lives.”

  “We?”

  “Greer and I, but he’s not here, so I can only speak for me. I made a mistake, Emmy. I pushed you away. I was surprised, even a little appalled that you claimed to love all of us, that you wanted to be with us. I was angry—jealous—and so I sent you away.”

  She stared at him in shock. Had he changed his mind? Now? After four years?

  “Don’t you see, Emmy? If I hadn’t sent you away, you could have been with us. You would have never turned to Sean the way you did and the two of you wouldn’t have left here. You would have been happy and wouldn’t have spent so much time avoiding us. You and Sean would have stayed here and not in a hotel in town, and you damn sure wouldn’t have been walking back to the hotel from the café the night Sean was killed.”

  Oh God, it hurt. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to deny that he was at fault, but she couldn’t find the words. Her mind screamed no, no, no in a never-ending litany, but instead of saying it, she got up and walked back into the house, leaving Taggert calling after her.

  She walked past the living room, through the kitchen to the back door with no destination in mind. She let herself out, shivering when her bare feet made contact with the cold ground.

  She went in the opposite direction of the stables, through the gate and down the worn pathway to the pond. The water looked dark and forbidding in the faint light, and she hurried on until she topped the slight rise beyond.

  She came to a stumbling halt by the large oak tree that sheltered the headstones beneath. Some of them old, dating back a
hundred years, and one much newer.

  It wasn’t necessary for the sun to shed its light over the engraving. She knew it by heart. Sean Donovan, beloved brother and husband.

  Pain. Unrelenting pain. A tiny crack formed in the thick ice protecting her. Spreading rapidly, splintering in all directions. Unstoppable.

  Panic swelled in her chest. A garbled noise caught in her throat. She couldn’t breathe and oh God, it hurt. She needed help. She was going to explode. Something was terribly wrong. She was losing control and felt her insides straining against unbearable pressure.

  She tried to take a breath and then another. Her eyes flooded with tears and sobs piled up deep inside her chest. The agony was unbearable. She was going to break. Maybe she was having a heart attack. How could it hurt so much?

  A horrible noise echoed across the hillside, startling her, and then shockingly, she realized the sound came from her, from the very bowels of hell.

  Another followed, and she fell to her knees as finally, she shattered.

  Tough…or tender? If she plays her cards right, she won’t have to choose.

  Unbridled

  © 2009 Delilah Devlin

  Lone Star Lovers, Book 1

  Dani Standifer arrives home at her West Texas family ranch a day early, ready to pick up where she left off with Rowe Ayers, her high school sweetheart. However, when she opens the door to their line-shack trysting place, it’s clear she waited a day too long. Rowe’s with someone else—another man.

  And not just any other man—Justin Cruz, the bad boy with whom she shared one wild encounter, years ago.

  Justin’s waited a long time for this moment. He knows his reputation, but since he seduced Rowe, he’s been a one-man cowboy—waiting for Dani to return and become the delicious fulfillment of his and Rowe’s needs. If she’s up to the challenge.

  To her own surprise, Dani finds she’s more than ready to have both men in her life—as soon as she and Rowe teach Justin a lesson or two about love.