“You didn’t use a condom!”
“Nope.” He didn’t sound the least bit sorry about it, either.
“But I’m not on birth control,” I pointed out.
“Considering you were completely untouched before me, I can’t say that’s a surprise.”
“And I’m smack dab in the middle of my cycle. The most fertile time of the month!”
“There’s nothing to do about it now,” he calmly reminded me.
“But—”
“Except maybe to take you all over again once I’m sure you’re not too sore.”
“But—”
He interrupted my stammering with a swift kiss to my lips. Then he picked me up and carried me into the bathroom. “We can cuddle in bed after I’ve had you again. Since that can’t happen until you’ve had a soak to help with the soreness, the bath can’t wait.”
“I’m freaking out over here about maybe being pregnant, and you want me to take a bath so we can have sex again?”
“There’s nothing to freak out about, Carissa.”
“There is!” I insisted.
“You’re mine, and I love you,” he whispered against my lips, making me melt. “Just like I’ll love any children you give me.”
“I love you, too,” I sighed.
“I know, beautiful. That’s why everything’s going to be okay. Because we have each other.”
Epilogue
Vaughn
“You got him to fall asleep?” Carissa whispered from the doorway of the nursery.
I looked up from the peaceful face of our six-month-old baby boy and flashed her a smug grin, holding in my laughter at the sight of her surprised face.
“Yup,” I whispered back. “Daddy has the magic touch.”
“And then some,” she grumbled, running a hand over the slight bump of her belly.
I carefully rose from the chair where I’d rocked Zander to sleep and slowly crossed the room to place him in his crib. His adorable face scrunched up, and I held my breath as I waited to see if he was going to wake up crying. After a few seconds, his expression smoothed out and I covered him with the fuzzy blue blanket he’d grown to love.
I crept away from his crib, using all the stealth skills I could muster, and flipped on the monitor so we could hear him when he woke up from his nap in a couple hours. Then I followed my gorgeous wife out the door, shutting it softly behind me.
“You know what nap time means,” I murmured in her ear, tugging her towards our room.
“Yeah, it means my hubby is going to wear me out until I’m ready for a nap, too,” she laughed.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d managed to knock her up before I’d even gotten a ring on her finger. Three weeks after we first met, I took her for a month-long trip to Europe. We spent a couple weeks with her best friends, exchanging our marriage vows in London, before heading off to our honeymoon in Rome.
We didn’t leave our hotel room for the first three nights. Hell, we barely left the bed. By the fourth day, she wasn’t feeling well so I went easy on her and took her sight-seeing. It ended up with her puking her way through the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon before I dragged her to a clinic. The doctor spoke to Carissa in rapid-fire Italian, and I wasn’t able to follow along. I’d nearly had a heart attack when tears filled her eyes because I’d thought she was sick. But it turned out they were tears of joy because she was pregnant.
The happy news cut our trip short, and we headed home to Atlanta. With Carissa pregnant, I decided some changes were in order. Gaige and I got out of the murder-for-hire business. I had enough money that I didn’t need to work another day in my life, but I did help Brecken and his team with cases from time to time, while Gaige worked with them more frequently.
Being home meant more time with my family. With the arrival of Zander, we quickly learned to savor all the alone time we could get—most of which started with us in bed together.
“Thank you,” I whispered against her lips.
“For what?”
“For loving me with all your heart, body and soul.”
Curious about Brecken & Hadley’s story? An excerpt from Save Your Soul is next!
Save Your Soul
Body & Soul #2
Available Now!
Brecken Kane had been damn good at his job in the military. The experience served him well when he moved into the private sector. Brecken’s new security business is booming, and he’s settling into civilian life. Little does he know his newest client’s request to save his daughter will change everything.
Hadley Gresham knows she isn’t likely to make it out of the jungle alive. She’d distanced herself from her parents after she learned her dad made his money selling illegal arms. Kidnapped by his competitors, she knows there’s little chance he’ll be able to save her.
Luckily for Hadley, her father hires Brecken. He’d never leave an innocent woman behind, let alone the one he quickly comes to consider his. Brecken might be Hadley’s rescuer, but she's the one who saves his soul.
Warning: This book has an alpha hero who races to the rescue of the virgin heroine. If you like insta-love and hot sex in the steamy jungle, then this story is for you!
Prologue
Hadley
The day I’d discovered my dad was an illegal arms dealer was the worst in my life. Or so I’d thought, until six months later when I woke up to find myself on a cement floor with my arms tied behind my back. When I’d fallen asleep, I’d been safe and sound in my dorm room. I never thought I’d see the day when I regretted my decision to move into a single room instead of a double. If I’d still been in a double, my roommate would have been with me. Or if I’d somehow found a way to forgive my dad, I might have been home with him and my mom, sheltered behind the security of their estate.
After my time in this hellhole, I wasn’t sure if I hated my dad more than I had before I’d been kidnapped or less. I’d been beaten the first day, all so they could take pictures to send to him. I didn’t understand much of the Spanish they spoke, damn my decision to take French in high school, but their leader took great delight in informing me of the reason I’d been taken in the first place. My father had snubbed him, rejecting a lucrative deal, and I was to be the leverage they used to make him change his mind.
They hadn’t really touched me since then, except to force drugs on me a couple times when they needed me to be docile for another photo. The drugs made me easier to control, and I hated how weak I felt afterwards. I couldn’t even be certain how many days had passed since I’d been taken. I thought it was thirteen days, but when they gave me the drugs it messed with my head. I might have missed a day or two. Either way, too much time had passed.
There was only one thing I knew for certain. I had no hope of being rescued. Not anymore. I’d been so certain my father would cave to their demands and give them the guns they wanted to save me. Even though I’d screamed hateful words at him the last time we’d spoken, I knew he loved me. He was my father. He would do whatever it took to get me back. Right?
Apparently not, because the days had passed without any sign from my captors that he’d yielded to their demands. Their treatment of me hadn’t improved in preparation to return me to my family, either. If anything, it had worsened. My meals, if you could call them that, were spaced further and further apart. It felt as though I’d become an afterthought, forgotten by my captors—and my family.
It was all I could to do to survive one day at a time. I was weak and virtually starving. My chances of getting out of this hellhole were slim to none, but I did my best to stay alert. If ever I found an opening, no matter how slight, I was going to take it. I might have been down, but I wasn’t out. Not yet. I still had some fight left in me. If nobody was coming for me, then I just needed to figure a way out by myself.
Chapter 1
Brecken
Two Days Later
The Nicaraguan jungle wasn’t a place I’d ever hoped to visit. It was hot as
hell, unfamiliar territory and buggy as shit. I felt the sweat dripping down my back as quickly as I was wiping it from my forehead. When I’d gotten the call from General Whitehall, asking me to meet with Raymond Gresham about the kidnapping of his daughter, I hadn’t wanted to say yes. The team and I had just returned home from a difficult case where we’d been too late to save our target. The oil executive had been killed one day prior to our rescue attempt, and I was pissed the fuck off at the needlessness of his death. If his employer had called us in as soon as they received the ransom demand, we would have arrived in time to save his life. Unfortunately, I didn’t deal in if onlys in my line of business. Just like I couldn’t afford to tell an Army General no when he personally asked me to accept a case, no matter how many questions I had about why he was reaching out to me for help.
When I’d glanced at the photo my client had shown me of his daughter, my hesitation ceased to exist. Only one thing mattered—saving Hadley from the men who’d taken her. The sight of her broad smile and bright green eyes staring up at me from her picture froze me in my tracks. Brown hair so dark it almost appeared black, flowed over her shoulders, stopping just above her tits. Her perky, luscious tits which looked huge on her tiny frame. I got a hard-on from seeing her picture while sitting across from her father and discussing her kidnapping. It was insane. I’d never had a reaction like this to a woman, let alone from a damn picture at a time like this.
It was almost as insane as the feeling of possessiveness which swamped me when Whit whistled softly under his breath while glancing at her picture. We’d been together since boot camp, and I’d been lucky when he decided not to re-up at the same time as me. It meant I was able to open my security firm with Whit at my side, just like I’d started my military career. At his sign of male appreciation, I wanted nothing more than to demonstrate exactly what I’d do if he ever laid a hand on her.
“Back the fuck off,” I hissed at him, sending his eyebrows into his hairline before he moved to the wall and leaned against it. I was sure to hear about this later, but I didn’t give a fuck. She was mine, but first I needed to get her out of this mess. It had taken me two days to track down her captors and determine where they were most likely holding her. Whit had only mentioned Hadley’s looks once, and that was to warn Devon about my reaction to her photo. I was acting out of character, but none of my team called me out on it. They followed my orders and trusted I wouldn’t let my fascination with Hadley pull us into a situation we couldn’t handle.
Glancing down at my GPS, I confirmed I was less than half a mile from the camp where my intel said she was being held. I’d walked several miles through the jungle since I’d parted from my team, dodging trees and obstacles in my path at a brisk pace. Our recon had indicated that an approach by a lone operator had the best odds of success. In and out with the girl, undetected, that was the plan. With their perimeter security, adding another body upped the chances of exposure. Sera had followed the same route as I’d taken but waited a mile outside the camp. I wanted her close in case Hadley needed the comfort of another woman. It was the smart play, but the need for it made me want to rush into the camp and kill every motherfucker in there.
Devon stayed in town, guarding our transport, while Whit had set up a makeshift clinic. A red haze had clouded my vision at the thought of Hadley needing medical attention, but I’d forced it out of my head and focused on what needed to be done. I couldn’t afford to focus on what might have happened to the sexy but sweet girl from the photo, not when her life depended on me keeping a level head. Getting her out of there was going to be tricky enough, but the walk back with Hadley was likely to be worse. She’d been taken in the middle of the night more than two weeks ago. My fists clenched at the thought of what her condition might be when I found her, knowing damn well it wasn’t likely to be good. At least I carried appropriate clothing and boots for her in my pack, based on the sizes her mother had provided. If that wasn’t good enough, the bottom line was I’d carry her the whole way if that’s what it took to get her out of here.
As I neared the target, I slowed my pace and searched for a place to wait until I found the perfect opening. Kneeling down, I lowered myself to my belly in the underbrush. The darkness of the jungle hid my location as I bided my time. Hadley was depending on me, even though she didn’t know it, and I wasn’t about to let her down. I’d gained a reputation for following through on my missions, and my determination to succeed this time was at an all-time high. I might not have officially met the girl yet, but I was already thinking of her as mine—to rescue, to protect and to keep.
I ran through the plan in my head, weighing all the factors before moving on to plan B, and then C and even D. I was known for being precise in my planning and setting up solid backup plans, but even my team had been surprised by how anal I’d been while preparing for this one. I’d tried to prepare for anything, but I’d experienced enough missions going sideways during my years in the Army to know there was no such thing as a foolproof plan. If this mission went FUBAR, I needed to know I had enough available options to keep Hadley safe.
I waited until it was a little past midnight and pitch black outside. The camp was silent, with the exception of several guards whose rotation I’d memorized a couple hours ago. The building where Hadley was most likely being kept was the center of the guards’ pattern. Nobody had come or gone during the time I’d been watching. I took this as a good sign because it most likely meant that she was alone in there. As soon as the tallest guard rounded the far corner after passing it, I moved swiftly and silently towards the side closest to me. Pulling my E-tool from my pack, I carefully removed two bottom boards, giving me just enough room to squeeze through the opening.
I entered quietly, unsure of what I was going to find in the room, and pulled the boards back into place behind me. Hugging the wall, I held still for a moment and searched the dark room for any sign of Hadley. Going clockwise from the left, my heart was practically in my throat by the time I got to my two o’clock and found a mattress on the floor with a petite body huddled under a thin blanket. She was turned away from me, but I’d recognize that dark hair anywhere. Thank fuck! Our intel had been right and I’d found her.
“Hadley,” I whispered, dropping to my knees at her side and giving her shoulder a brief touch.
She jerked, rolling away and gasping when her head turned and she caught sight of me. I put my hand over her mouth, silencing her scream. “My name is Brecken Kane. Your father sent me.” Her eyes widened, tears leaking from the corners as hope warred with doubt in her gaze. I offered her the only reassurance I could and hoped like hell she’d understand what her father had told me to say. It was for damn sure the silliest code word I’ve ever used on a mission, but he’d been insistent it was the only thing which would convince her he’d sent me to get her out of here. “Fluffy.”
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I’m Yours, Baby
A Yeah, Baby Novella
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Guy Rule: Don’t knock a girl up and disappear for a year.
Weston Davis was a jaded CIA operative who didn’t believe in love at first sight—until the moment he laid eyes on Aspen Kennedy and knew she was meant to be his. With an undercover operation only days away, the timing was horrible. But he didn’t let it get in the way of spending an explosive weekend with her before he has to leave.
Aspen believed Weston when he told her he’d be back. Twelve months, a positive pregnancy test, and countless emails later, she’s given up hope on ever hearing from him again. She’s left alone to raise their baby, a treasured gift from the man who’d stolen her heart and smashed it to pieces.
When Weston comes storming back into her life, he has a new mission: claim his family, find the person who’d almost caused him
to lose them, and make them pay.
Warning: If you’re in the mood for a quick & dirty read with an alpha male who’s determined to make up for lost time, this novella is for you!
Prologue
Aspen
“You shouldn’t have to do this alone,” Macy hissed.
“I have you.” My answer was terse because talking about my baby daddy was at the bottom of my list of things I wanted to do. Especially while I was trying to breathe through my contractions the way I’d been taught during the Lamaze classes Macy had attended with me.
“If I ever see that man again, I’m going to kick him in the nuts so hard he’ll never be able to father another child.”
A startled laugh burst out of my mouth at the image that popped into my head of my best friend going after the man who’d gotten me pregnant. Macy was pocket-sized at five-foot-two and a hundred pounds when soaking wet. In addition to being a full foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than her, Weston Davis had a dangerous air about him. The coiled way he held himself, and his awareness of everything going on around him, gave Weston a dangerous air that was only enhanced by the ink covering so much of his body.
It was part of what drew me to him in the first place, along with the sizzling heat in his green eyes when he’d looked at me, and the way a lock of his dark brown hair seemed to think it belonged on his forehead. Spending the weekend with a man I’d only just met was completely out of character for me, but I’d found Weston impossible to resist. From the moment he’d claimed the empty chair next to me at the nightclub Macy had talked me into going to, I’d known I was his. As crazy as it sounded, it had been love at first sight for me.
I thought it had been the same for him. I didn’t doubt he was mine right back, not even when he told me he had to take an extended trip overseas for work and his ability to stay in touch would be iffy. He’d given me an email address to use and warned me there would be a delay in his replies. I hadn’t asked too many questions, afraid to hear the answers, because the kind of business that would make a tatted up bad boy stay out of touch for so long couldn’t possibly have been good.
Sell Your Soul (Body & Soul Book 3) Page 7
