We’re in our vacation home out in Montana because the countryside is beyond perfect this time of year. Big sky, big mountains, and bigger views. It’s a place to make me forget about everything except what matters: my wife, my kids, and spending time together as a family. We spend our mornings cooking over an open fire outside our sprawling lakehouse. Sure, we have all the facilities of a small hotel inside the mansion, but we still come outside every morning and start the fire. Makayla and the girls come outside wrapped in blankets and looking to snuggle through the morning chill.
We eat charred bacon and smooth eggs while the rising sun bounces off the ice-capped mountains in the distance and across the lake. We waste the daylight away in the lake, laughing and playing games or just relaxing and listening to the sounds of the breeze rustling through the grass and trees. At night we huddle together, whether it’s inside with a movie and a big blanket or outside around the fire, just talking and telling stories.
Out here I can almost forget what kind of life we’ve made for ourselves back in the real world. I can forget that Makayla and I draw more attention from the paparazzi than any other celebrity couple, and if we’re not careful, we end up surrounded by a swarm of flashbulbs and clicking lenses.
But I wouldn’t trade it away. Not a single part. I’ve made a life with Makayla I don’t deserve. I know that deep in my chest. I’d be lying if I said the war doesn’t still come back to me, or even some of the things I had to do to keep Makayla safe. When I find myself far from family and in quiet moments, the images do come back, but it’s getting better.
Makayla sits down beside me in the grass, propping Amelia up in my lap.
“She was asking for you,” says Makayla with a grin.
I smile down at Amelia, who is always ready to flash her three teeth at a moment’s notice.
“Hey there, you pretty little thing,” I say, tickling her chest and loving the giggles it produces.
Paisley tackle-hugs me from the side. “Am I a pretty lil’ thing, Daddy?”
“You’re a pretty little-bit-bigger little thing,” I say.
Paisley laughs. “Lil’ bit bigger--lil’...” she trails off and laughs more when she can’t manage to get the words out.
“Run to the cooler and grab some graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows, okay?” says Makayla.
Paisley nods, running off in a more-or-less straight line, only stopping a few times to swat at the lightning bugs that are just starting to come out.
Makayla leans her head into my shoulder and I pull her in closer, trying to keep Amelia from breaking free with my other hand.
“I love you,” Makayla says. “I love this.”
“I love you too,” I say. I plant a kiss on the top of her head and breathe in the smell of her shampoo. It smells like comfort to me now, like home and happiness all rolled into one, and I can’t get enough of it. “I think you had the rough end of the bargain when it came to the whole bringing kids into the world thing, but I wouldn’t change a thing if I went back.”
“Me either. Except I might have slapped you a little harder when I first saw you after all that time. I think I let you off too easy.”
I smirk, watching while Paisley comes stomping back to land beside us with the loot from the cooler.
“You don’t think you made me pay enough?” I ask. “What about all the hoops you made me jump through those first few days. Or that guy you showed up to the red carpet event with, what was his name?”
“Hunter, I think,” she says with a mischievous grin. “He was cute.”
“Don’t try to make me jealous,” I say. “You know what happens when I get jealous.”
“I do. That’s exactly why I’m trying to make you jealous,” she snaps back with a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows.
“What happens when daddy gets jealous?” asks Paisley with all the innocence of a two-year-old.
“He…” stammers Makayla, cheeks flushing. “He makes Mommy scream.”
“Because he’s mean to you?” asks Paisley.
I grin. “No. When daddy gets jealous, he gets extra nice.”
“Then why does mommy scream?”
Makayla shoots me an amused look when Paisley isn’t looking, obviously interested in what kind of answer I’m going to come up with.
“Because…” he says slowly, grabbing Paisley and lifting her over his head. “I give her ice cream! And we all scream for ice cream!”
“Ice cream!” shouts Paisley, giggling and pulling at my hands as I spin her overhead and take her toward the house.
Makayla
As much as I love spending time with Jesse and the girls, nothing quite beats the evenings we spend after they go to bed. Paisley and Amelia went down about half an hour ago and I can still hear the white noise from the baby monitor that sits beside us on the dock.
“I still can’t believe there are so many stars,” I say, leaning my head back into Jesse’s lap and looking up at the sky. “I guess living my whole life in cities made me think it was normal for the night sky to be some weird shade of green or orange with just a few specks of light.”
“Beautiful,” he says quietly, but he’s looking straight down at me with a half-cocked smile.
I bite my lip. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to seduce me.”
“You always were perceptive.”
“I don’t know,” I say playfully, making a show of stretching and yawning. “I’m pretty tired. I think I could just fall asleep right here on this comfy lap of yours.”
“Somehow I think I could keep you up. All fucking night,” he adds with a dark grin.
My breath catches. It doesn’t matter how many times he’s had me or how many times I’ve roamed his body with my hands. Jesse Slade can still take my breath away. He still makes my stomach flutter like we’re on our first date and holding hands for the very first time. He still has me waking up like a little girl on Christmas morning, so excited to start my day and spend time with him and the girls that I couldn’t sleep in if I tried.
He’s my everything. My rock. My husband. Even thinking it after nearly four years of marriage makes my heart swell.
Jesse moves out from under my head and makes me suck in a surprised laugh when he lifts me effortlessly, carrying me to the grass a few yards away. He lays me down and the soft grass tickles the bare skin of my shoulders and neck.
“Are you wet for me, my wife?” Jesse’s says as his lips skate across the sensitive skin of my neck, raising goose bumps in their wake. I tilt my head, giving him further access, loving how he always knows exactly where to flutter soft kisses and where to nip and suck my skin to drive my desire higher.
“Why don’t you find out?” I say with a teasing smile.
He quirks up one sculpted brow in a way that says he accepts my challenge.
Yay me.
Jesse slowly undresses me, running his hands over every inch of skin that he exposes to the chilly night air until I’m completely naked. The soft grass against my naked body brings me back to the first time we made love under the stars like this. Everything was a mess back then, our lives were in danger, our relationship was in disarray—it seemed like the only thing we had in store for us was more heartache.
I’m looking up at the same stars, but everything about this night is different. No one is out to kill us, Jesse is my husband, the father of my children, and we are happy. Totally, completely—blissfully—happy.
Jesse kisses me passionately, then trails a line of kisses down my body, pausing just above my mound. He looks up at me with desire burning bright in his eyes, he wants to taste me just as badly as I want him to. His tongue swipes through my folds and I moan in pleasure.
I bury my hands in his hair, holding onto him as if he could disappear if I were to let go. But with the way his mouth is devouring my pussy, maybe I should be more worried about him making me burst into a million pieces and not if he’s going to disappear. His tongue spears into my opening, fuc
king me with it like it’s his cock. The warm, wet feel of it is indescribable… I love it, but I want more. Need more.
“Jesse,” I gasp. “Please…”
He raises his head, looking up at me. His mouth shines with my juices and I want those sexy lips on mine. I want him to kiss me, deep and hard, I want to taste the way I taste on his tongue. I never thought I would want something so dirty. In fact, there was a time I would have thought it was disgusting, but with Jesse, I’ve found there are many, many things I enjoy that I would’ve never tried before him.
“Please what?” he says with his patented smirk. The one that says, I know what you are thinking, but I’m going to make you beg for it.
Good thing I’m not above begging. Before I can beg for his cock, he pushes two fingers inside me, crooking them in a come hither motion, but the slowness at which he moves them only ramps up my need without taking me to the place where I’ll find release. It’s delicious, but not what I want.
“More, I want more,” I beg.
His eyes never leave mine as his mouth lowers and his tongue snakes out, licking over my clit. My nipples pebble into stiff peaks and I shudder at the sensation, but it’s still not enough. From the mischievous look in his eyes, he knows it’s not enough. Bastard.
“Fuck me,” I moan… well, more like wail, but I’m getting desperate now. “Jesse, I need your cock. Please.”
I’m begging… With each swipe of his tongue, I chant out a hushed ‘please’ over and over until he rises above me, kneeing my thighs further apart, to make room for what’s to come.
I shiver in excitement when he runs his cock up and down my slit, for a maddening minute, all he does is move his tip from my entrance to my clit and back again, spreading my wetness, and I start to worry that he’s not done teasing me. Finally, after minutes, hours, days, he notches his cock at my opening and pushes himself in one thick inch at a time. His eyes are downcast, watching himself disappear into my body, I rise up on my elbows and follow his gaze, taking in the erotic sight. My pussy stretches impossibly to accommodate his thickness, but the part that drives me wild is when he pulls back and his cock is gleaming wet with proof of my excitement.
Jesse’s lips meet mine in a breathtakingly sweet kiss. I get caught up in his languorous thrusts and tender kisses that I’m taken by surprise when I find myself flat on my back, Jesse’s strong fingers entwined with mine as he pins my hands above my head. The spark of heat that flashes through his eyes is the only warning I get before he slams his cock inside me, setting a brutal pace. Each thrust is harder than the last until the lewd sounds of slapping skin and our moans of pleasure fill the silence of the night.
“I’m gunna…” I say as my climax barrels down on me.
“Yes, cum for me,” he growls. “Cum all over my cock.”
My back arches and I throw my head back as I scream Jesse’s name. His rhythm never falters. He keeps fucking me straight through one orgasm and into a second. Just when I don’t think I can take anymore, I feel him swell inside me and a rush of heat splashes over my walls.
Jesse collapses on top of me, barely catching himself before he crushes me with his strong body. He brushes and errant hair away from my face, then drops a tender kiss to my lips.
“I love you, Makayla.”
I couldn’t respond if I wanted to. All I can do is lay back, feeling like I might melt into the Earth and dissolve there into a puddle of happy, satisfied bliss.
We may have more money than most people would make in ten or even a hundred lifetimes. We may have houses all over the world. We have all of that, and I know with heart-stopping certainty that I’d throw it away in an instant if it meant I would never lose Jesse or my girls.
I’ve found a kind of happiness people are only supposed to be able to dream of.
As I lay with my bare body against the Earth, staring up at the waning moon and the swathe of stars scattered across the sky, all I can do is smile, because I know I’m perfectly, truly happy, and so long as Jesse is at my side, I always will be.
Bonus Content
Thank you so much for reading The Bodyguard! As my way of saying thank you, I’ve included a copy of two of my best-selling novels, Single Dad’s Virgin (#10 Amazon bestseller) and Punished (#40 Amazon bestseller). I hope you’ll enjoy them just as much!
xx
Penelope
24
Single Dad’s Virgin
My billionaire boss needs me to do something absolutely crazy.
He wants me to pretend we’re engaged.
But I can’t say no, or he’ll lose his daughter and I’ll lose my job.
Fine then. I’ll wear his stupid ring. I’ll be the perfect fiancée for one month.
There’s only one problem. I don’t want to stop pretending.
Prologue
“You knew it would end up like this,” he says, tracing a path between my bare breasts with his finger. Goosebumps form in the wake of his touch, rippling across my skin.
I never thought I would be here. Not with him. Not in a moment like this. Things like Liam King don’t happen to girls like me.
I could lose myself in the green of his eyes, like a forest lit by the sun. I could trace the perfect line of his jaw for days. But he’s not mine. Not really, at least. Why is that so hard to remember?
“Maybe you knew,” I say, laughing my insecurities away and into the crook of his neck
He kisses me softly beneath my ear, smirking. “You can’t lie to me, sweetheart. You wanted it to be like this. Admit it.”
I roll away from him, giggling as he tries to pull me back. “I won’t,” I laugh.
He pins me down, bare skin against bare skin, eyes boring into mine. There’s a fire in his gaze more real than the sheets beneath me or the room around us.
He’s not really your fiancé, Aubrey. It’s not real. Don’t turn it into more than it is. You’ll only end up hurt.
The smile on my face fades, but he kisses me, not noticing. I let myself melt away in his embrace, pushing down the doubts, fears, and even the hope. Those are all problems for tomorrow. Right now, I’m just going to enjoy this. Whatever it is.
25
Liam
It feels good to be back home after a month out of the country. Some people buy houses on the cheap and flip them for a profit, but that’s small time shit, as far as I’m concerned. I flip businesses, corporations, fortune 500 companies--the sky's the limit. I buy them out, gut them, and then streamline the infrastructure, reorganize the customer experience, and increase productivity. I can make a powerhouse out of a flop, and I’ve been doing it for fifteen years. It has made me billions, sure, but that’s not what I’m after. It never has been.
Doing what I do is a fucking addiction, and it’s the only thing in the world powerful enough to get me to leave my daughter for weeks at a time. I spend many nights laying awake, wondering how I can say I love her more than anything and not feel like a fraud, because I know as soon as the next conquest presents itself, I’ll jump on it. My actions might contradict my words, but there it is… I love my daughter more than anything, but even that’s not enough to squelch my addiction to success.
I tell myself this was my last trip. This time I’ll stop and stay home for good, that I’ll work on fixing the damage the divorce caused. I’ll spend more time with Sophie and my mom. I’ll be a new man.
I scoff as I toss my bag into the back of the car I had sent to the private airport. New year, same promises. At least the irony isn’t lost on me. I’m the best in the world at fixing failing businesses, and yet I still haven’t fixed my failing home life.
I just hope the new live-in caretaker I hired this time is better than the last few have been. Firing the live-in caretaker has also become something of a ritual when I come back from business deals. Part of it is seeing that my daughter, Sophie, hates their guts. Another part is whatever list of complaints my mother has compiled about them. Maybe the biggest part is just wanting to get rid of t
he reminder that I left again. It lets me pretend for a few weeks or months that I’m a good father and son, one that would never put anything before his family.
I wanted my daughter to have something close to a normal life after the divorce, so I moved us to the suburbs of Jacksonville, Florida. She goes to a regular elementary school and has normal friends. When I divorced Julianne five years ago, she refused to be involved in Sophie’s life, with the exception that she decided to have her house built only about twenty minutes away from ours.
I stop at Toby’s on my way home. It’s a little family owned grocery store just a few miles from my house. I want to grab ingredients to cook Sophie’s favorite dinner when I get home--fried salmon patties with macaroni and cheese. It’s still before noon, and there’s hardly anyone in the store at this hour. I’m reaching for the last box of macaroni and cheese when my hand brushes against a woman’s smooth skin. I look up, not realizing someone was in the same aisle.
“S-sorry,” the woman stutters.
She has light brown hair and the eyes to match. She has thick lashes that frame the most perfect, innocent doe-like eyes I’ve ever seen. If that wasn’t enough, there’s a hint of something mischievous and sexual behind them, like she could be the proper little preacher’s daughter in the open and a devil between the sheets. Breathtaking. I’ve heard the word and read it in books before. I’ve always thought it was just something someone thought up because it sounded good. But the breath literally slips from my lungs at the sight of her. It’s not because she’s the most textbook beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, either. It’s because she carries so much passion in those big, light brown eyes. So much, in fact, that I feel like I know her from one glance.
The Bodyguard: A Navy SEAL Romance Page 17
