Tackle (K19 Security Solutions)
Page 19
“You’re welcome,” she answered before walking over to the rocking chair. “You must be Sloane.”
“And you must be Tara. It’s so nice to meet you.”
Tara knelt down and put her hand on the chair’s arm. “I feel like I already know you. Knox talks about you endlessly.”
“Oh dear.”
“It’s all good. I promise.”
“Sloane, Tara is an artist,” said Halo, running his hand over the name on the crib. “She did this along with the rest you see.” Each piece of furniture, the rocker included, was adorned with flowers, vines, even birds.
“It’s so beautiful.” Sloane looked at me and smiled. “I take it you knew about all this?”
“After the third text asking my opinion, I relinquished all remaining decisions to your brother.”
“He does have really good taste.” I saw Sloane wink at Tara, who smiled too. “I told him he’d make someone an excellent husband someday. I’m so glad it’ll be you.”
Tara’s cheeks turned pink, and she looked up at Halo. “Me too.”
“Got a minute?” he asked me, motioning to the hallway.
“You’ll be okay?” I asked Sloane.
“I promise not to get out of the chair. Tara will be my witness.”
I followed Halo out and down the stairs.
“What’s up?”
“I checked in on Nick before you got here. She’s going to be fine. Whoever got to her, broke her arm in a couple of places, and that’s why she needed surgery.”
“Is there any more information about the hit on Caruso?”
“Negative, and I doubt there will be.”
“I warned her,” I said as much to myself as to him.
“About that.”
I raised my head. “What?”
“Evidently, she’s agreed to go back to California.”
“Who told you that?”
“Doc told me, but he heard it from Messick.”
I remembered seeing something pass between the two of them when he brought her to the house from the airport. “Her and Ranger, huh?”
Halo shrugged. “No idea, but it kinda sounded like it.”
“If so, he knows what he’s getting into. It’s none of my business anymore.”
When Halo and I walked back into what I now thought of as Baby Landry’s room, Tara was sitting cross-legged on the floor and both women were laughing so hard tears ran down their cheeks.
“I don’t think I want to know,” said Halo.
“What they’re laughing about? Me either.”
When she saw me, Sloane held out her hand.
“Need to go lie down?”
“I do. I’m sorry, Tara.”
“Don’t be. Goodness. All of my best friends are expecting, except for one. The point is, I’m around pregnant women all day, so I get it.”
“All day?”
“Tara has a gallery in the city. They spend a lot of time there,” said Halo.
“When you’re ready, I’d love to paint a mural on that wall.” Tara pointed to the one farthest from the front of the house. “I didn’t do it now because there will be fumes.”
“You’ve already done so much,” said Sloane, yawning when I lifted her into my arms.
“She really wants to do it, sis,” said Halo, putting his arm around Tara’s shoulders.
“Then, I’d really love it.”
“We’ll let ourselves out.” Halo walked over and kissed Sloane’s cheek. “Sorry about your face, dude.”
I caught Tara’s grimace, and so did he.
“I warned her.”
Tara shuddered. “I thought you were exaggerating.”
I eased Sloane onto the bed and pulled the blanket we kept at the end of it over her. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, but you can lie beside me.”
“Gladly.”
I kicked off my shoes and crawled in next to her. “How do you feel?”
“Happy.”
I’d expected tired, or even hungry. Happy caught me by surprise. “Me too.”
“Tackle, you don’t have to take the job with the State Department if you don’t want it.”
“They might not want me when they see the list of my demands.”
“What are they?”
“Let’s see. I only have to work when I want to. Unlimited paid time off. A million bucks a year plus bonuses.”
She swatted me.
“Ouch. You’re a brute just like your brother.”
“Be serious. Do you really have a list of demands?”
“I do, but it’s short.”
“What is it?”
“No travel and I work from home.”
She looked skeptical.
“Otherwise, it’s a no. I told you this at the hospital.”
“I know. I just want you to be happy.”
“As happy as you are?”
“Exactly.”
“All I need is you beside me to make that happen, Sloane.”
“How is she doing?” I asked my mom a few days later when she came downstairs and sat next to me at the dining room table.
“Fine. She and Carolina are looking at curtains for the baby’s room online.” My mom motioned to my computer. “Is this going to be your office?”
“No, I’m setting up something in the back bedroom so I’m closer to Sloane if she needs anything. The furniture should be here today.”
“You decided to take the job with State?”
“They agreed to everything I asked for, so I could hardly turn it down.”
“Ben mentioned something about you being the resident expert on the Middle East.”
I nodded. “As long as I never have to go back there.”
My mom rested her head in her hand and had a funny look on her face.
“What?”
“It’s so nice to see you so happy.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “It shows, huh?”
“Oh, yes. Although, I sense something is bothering you.”
“There is.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
I leaned forward and rested my forearms on the table. “Sloane doesn’t want to talk about marriage until after Landry’s born.”
“I still can’t believe that’s the name the two of you chose. I absolutely love it. But back to your dilemma. Part of Sloane still believes you’re only with her because of the baby.”
“What about all this?” I waved my arm around the house that we’d made into our home.
“What is obvious to you may not be obvious to a young woman who not only hasn’t been in a real relationship before but is also dealing with pregnancy hormones.”
“What should I do?”
“Make her believe.”
“How?” I put my head in my hands. “I’m so bad at this shit.”
“First of all, don’t ever let her hear you refer to romance as shit. Next, win her over, my son.”
“How?” I repeated.
“No one knows Sloane the way you do. You’ll figure it out.”
37
Sloane
I knew something was up the minute Tackle came into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He walked over to the bed, sat beside me, and pulled a familiar-looking piece of silk out of his pocket. The heat emanating from him kept me silent as he covered my eyes.
He unfastened the buttons on the blouse I was wearing. I gasped when he pulled the cups of my bra down and took one of my nipples into his mouth.
“I need you naked, Sloane.”
I nodded but still didn’t speak even when I felt his hands on the waistband of my sweatpants. I lifted my bottom as he removed them along with my panties.
“Now this,” he said, unfastening my bra. When it was off and he put his hand on the back of my neck and kissed me, I whimpered with need.
“Tell me, Sloane, what are the rules when you’re naked?”
“Whatever you tell me to do, I do.”
“
Mmm, that’s right. What’s the other rule?”
I could barely speak with how badly I wanted him. “Tell the truth.”
“You remember. That makes me very happy.”
“Tackle, please.”
“Shh.”
When I reached out to touch him, he grabbed my hand and licked my palm.
“I’m going to ask you another question, Sloane. If you tell me the truth, you’ll get a reward.”
My body started to writhe. “Okay,” I whined.
“Do you believe the only reason I want to marry you is because of the baby?”
“Tackle—”
He pinched my nipple, and I almost came off the bed. “Answer, peanut. The truth please.”
I rested my head against the pillow. I knew why he was doing this. He wanted answers, and I wanted his hands, lips, tongue, and cock. He would win this game, and he knew it.
“Yes.”
“Another honest answer, do you know how hard that makes me?”
I felt his fingers between my legs, spreading my folds; I opened for him.
“I want you to know that I spoke with Dr. Phillips. Everything I’m going to do to your body today is perfectly safe. It will not harm you or the baby.”
When he pinched my clit, I cried out. When I felt his tongue soothe the hardened nub, I orgasmed. He didn’t stop, though. Instead, he brought me right back to the brink.
“Next question. Do you believe me when I tell you I love you?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Good girl.”
He moved, and the next thing I felt were his hands and lips on my breasts. I wove my fingers in his hair.
“Keep still, Sloane,” he said when I tried to angle the lower half of my body closer to him. “Next question. Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Oh, God, Tackle,” I moaned when I felt his fingers back between my legs.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I love you so much.”
“Enough to know that you want to spend the rest of your life with me?”
“Tackle…”
He moved away so no part of his body was touching mine. “Answer me, Sloane.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I love you enough to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“You’ve been very honest. That means the world to me.” His tongue was back on my clit in an instant, bringing me to yet another orgasm.
As my breathing slowed, I waited for his next question. Instead, I felt the shift of the bed when he stood. “Tackle?”
“I’m right here.” I heard the rustling of clothes and then his hands removed the silk covering my eyes. “With this, you have a choice,” he said, kneeling at the side of the bed.
He took my left hand in his and slid a ring on my finger. “Sloane, will you marry me?”
My eyes filled with tears, and I nodded.
“I need to hear the words.”
“I will marry you, Tackle.”
He stood, walked around the bed, and lay naked beside me. I turned my body toward his, and we kissed.
“I love you, Sloane.”
“I love you, Landry.”
He raised a brow.
“It is your name.”
He laughed. “As long as you love me, I don’t really care what you call me.”
There were many things I was tempted to say, but he’d just proposed and I’d accepted. I didn’t want to make a joke of something I’d dreamed about my entire life.
I leaned forward and kissed him as tears ran down my cheeks. He pulled back and looked into my eyes. “I want you to be my wife, Sloane. I want it so much, it hurts, and that’s the part I want you to know. I understand we need to wait, since you’re on bed rest, but know that if I could, I’d marry you today.”
“What about Thursday?”
“Thursday?”
“There’s a three-day waiting period to get the marriage license in Massachusetts.”
“Is that right?”
“I doubt the justice of the peace would be busy on a weekday.”
Tackle smiled. “Unlikely.”
“You’d probably want to call just to make sure.”
“You’ve thought about this?”
“No, Tackle, I’ve dreamed about this—my whole life.”
Epilogue
Tackle
On the twentieth day of August, Landry Carolina Alice Sorenson made her debut. Sloane and I decided we didn’t want anyone in the delivery room with us other than the doctors and nurses, much to both our mothers’ dismay.
Three hours after her water broke, Sloane grasped my hand with hers as we watched our baby girl take her first breaths.
I cried unashamedly when the doctor placed Landry on Sloane’s chest, and she looked first at her mother and then at me.
“She looks like you,” said Sloane.
I shook my head. “She looks like you, and she’s perfect.”
A little less than two years later, Landry’s baby brother joined our family. Sloane told me that since she’d chosen the name for our precocious and precious little girl, she wanted me to choose the name for our boy.
He was two weeks old when I came to Sloane with the name I’d finally decided on. It hadn’t been hard to come up with, only the order was.
“Bodhi Nils Benjamin Sorenson.”
“I love it,” said Sloane, kissing our baby boy’s head, Landry’s cheek, and then my lips.
Want more?
How about a free book?
Sign up for my newsletter and receive a free book!
CLICK HERE!
______________
Keep reading for a sneak peek
at the next book in the
K19 Security Solutions Series,
Onyx
Onyx
I couldn’t remember the last time I spent Thanksgiving with my entire family. With five brothers and three sisters, all of whom were married with kids, my parents’ place, while large enough to raise us all in, was still a madhouse.
Fortunately, it was warm enough today in Paso Robles, located just inland on the Central Coast of California, that we could spend the day outdoors.
“What can I get you?” my sister Erlinda asked, coming over to where I sat chatting with my oldest brother, Carlos. “Would you like another glass of wine?”
I looked at my half-full glass. “I’m good.”
When she walked away, Carlos cleared his throat. “Ahem.”
“You can get your own,” Erlinda said over her shoulder.
I watched the kids—none of whom I recognized—as they ran around the large lawn on the side of the house. When we were their age, there didn’t seem to be much time for playing. Even on holidays, there was work to do in the vineyards that sat on our parents’ property but were leased by my cousins, the Avilas, for their Los Caballeros Winery.
“How was the harvest this year?” I asked Carlos, more to be polite than because I cared. I’d never had any interest in growing grapes or making wine.
From the time I was a small boy, all I’d wanted to do was become a pilot. I followed a path from the Navy’s ROTC program, into college, active duty, Officer Candidate School, and finally into pilot training. Along with flying F/A-18 Hornets, I cross-trained in intelligence.
That’s what led me to go work for K19 Security Solutions, a firm founded by four of the CIA’s best operatives and agents. Hell, they were the world’s best.
It was my job with K19 that took me to South America that fateful day when my life irrevocably changed. I’d come as close to dying as any man ever had when I was shot at point-blank range while flying an aircraft that subsequently crashed.
Sure, everyone said it was a miracle I was alive, but I wasn’t, not fully. I’d lost two parts of myself the minute the shot was fired.
First, my career as a pilot came to an end. The injuries I suffered would never heal enough for me to fl
y again.
Second, the organ responsible for pumping blood throughout my body had turned black as coal when Corazón—the woman whose very code name meant heart—fired the gun intending to kill me.
In the split second when I realized what was about to happen, my eyes met hers and I said what I thought would be my last words, “I love you, Corazón.”
She’d laughed and pulled the trigger anyway.
That was one year ago today, and in that time, I’d spent a month in a coma and four months learning to walk again. Learning to love again was something I’d never be able to do. I didn’t want to.
“Montano?” I heard my mother call my name.
“Someone actually expects you to get off your ass?” Carlos muttered, but I knew he was joking. He’d been there, along with my closest friend, Monk, through weeks of agonizing rehab when I was forced to work my body harder than I ever had.
“There’s someone here to see you,” she added.
I rounded the corner of the yard to the front of the house and gripped the front porch’s railing when I saw the ghost that stood before me. “Corazón?”
Download today!
Onyx
About the Author
Dear Readers,
Thank you so much for your support—want to know more? Check out my website!
Please signup for my newsletter so we can stay in touch. Click here to sign up now.
Thanks so much,
Heather
Also by Heather Slade
BUTLER RANCH
Prequel: Kade’s Worth
Book One: Brodie
Book Two: Maddox
Book Three: Naughton
Book Four: Mercer
Book Five: Kade
Butler Ranch Boxed Set: Books 1-5 with Bonus Book: Ainsley
K19 SECURITY SOLUTIONS
Book One: Razor
Book Two: Gunner
Book Three: Mistletoe
Book Four: Mantis