by Tawny Weber
“Interesting.”
“Interesting, how?”
“Interesting that you’d say exactly what I knew you would,” he told her with a wicked smile.
“You knew I’d...”
“Sage, I know you inside out. Better than I know myself, really. Out on those maneuvers when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I finally realized the easiest way was to simply ask myself what you’d tell me to do.”
“And you came up with marriage?” she asked, joy and excitement starting to creep in to smother the freak-out.
“Nah. I figured you’d tell me to stay in the military. That it’s where I’m happiest, where I feel like I’m following my bliss. That’s the term you use, right?”
Her heart was dancing so fast it almost beat out of her chest. Laughing, then nodded.
“So, yeah. The part about staying in the military, that I got thinking like you,” he told her. And if the pained expression on his face was anything to go by, that hadn’t been an easy task. “The marriage part, though, that was all me.”
He stepped back, just enough that she missed the warmth of his body. His gaze locked on hers, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a box.
Sage’s heart tumbled somewhere into her tummy, her breath catching while her pulse raced. She folded her hands together to keep from grabbing. Him, or the box, she wasn’t sure which.
He looked so sure, so strong when he smiled and took her hand. His eyes were filled with so much love she almost melted right there and then.
“No games this time,” he said quietly, flicking open the small velvet box with his thumb and holding it up so she could see the ring inside.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh,” she murmured. “It’s so beautiful.”
Twisted bands of gold were encrusted with aquamarines, wrapping around a glittering diamond.
“I had it made for you,” he said, letting go of her hand to take out the ring before putting the box back in his pocket.
He took her again, lifting it to his lips and brushing a soft kiss over her knuckles.
“I love you, Sage. I want us to spend our lives together, to grow old together, to build a family together.” He took a deep breath, nudging the ring against her finger but not sliding it on. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said softly, her heart in that single word.
He slipped the ring on her finger, barely giving her time to stare at it before his mouth covered hers. Their kiss was gentle, sweet and filled with promise.
Slowly he pulled back and gave her smile.
“This is going to be great,” he said.
Sage wouldn’t have been surprised if a rainbow arched overhead, landing at their feet while doves circled and flowers sang. Happiness, bigger than anything she’d ever felt in her life, wrapped around her as tightly as Aiden’s arms.
“You’re staying in the military?”
“Yep. At least until I retire.”
“And you don’t care what I do for a career?”
“As long as you’re happy.”
“And you’re sure you want to get married?”
“I do.” He grinned. “See, I even have the words right.”
She’d thought she’d found bliss before? Clearly, she’d had no clue just how amazing bliss felt. Sage blinked fast to clear the tears from her eyes. She didn’t want anything in the way of seeing his face right now.
“Well, since you’ve got the right words, I guess I should make sure mine are right, too.” She swallowed, hard, then stepped up on tiptoe to brush her lips over his. “I do, too.”
“Monday.”
“What?”
“I told you, we’ve already done the engagement thing. I want to be married before I go back on duty and I only have a three-day pass.”
Sage burst into delighted laughter.
“I guess I’m not the impulsive one in this relationship any longer,” she realized, loving that.
“Maybe not.” He swept her into his arms, his mouth taking hers in a hot, wild kiss that made her toes curl. When he finally lifted his head, his grin told her that was just the beginning. “But I promise that for the rest of your life, you’ll be the happy one.”
“The rest of my life?” she breathed, filled with joy.
“The rest of our lives,” he promised.
And that, she realized joyfully, was bliss.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from NOTHING TO HIDE by Isabel Sharpe.
The Few. The Proud. The Sexy as Hell!
We hope you enjoyed reading A SEAL’s Kiss by USA TODAY bestselling author Tawny Weber. Be sure to also check out Tawny Weber’s first three sizzling SEAL books, A SEAL’s Seduction, A SEAL’s Surrender and A SEAL’s Salvation, available now in ebook format!
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1
“I STILL CAN’T believe I was fired. Everyone loved my work. They told me so every day. Well, okay, most days.” Allie McDonald paced from one end of her and Julie’s living room to the other, which took about four and a half steps. You had to love the wide-open spaces of Manhattan apartments. She could pace the kitchen standing still. “Clients loved my ideas, too. I heard a hundred times how their products or services really popped in the pieces I designed. And most of all, it makes no sense that they’d let me go and keep old whatshername, who everyone hated, even though she’s been there forever.”
“Yeah?” Her roommate sedately turned a page of Saveur magazine, her long legs tucked under her on their bright red couch. “Get over it.”
“I know, I know, you’re sick of me.” Allie stopped pacing and shoved her hands through her long hair. Her bangs were getting caught on her eyelashes. At least she could hack those off herself. The rest could just keep growing until she got another job. With luck she wouldn’t look like Rapunzel by then. “I’ve been whining about this for the past week.”
“Have you?” Julie turned another page, examining it with apparent fascination. “Honestly, I stopped listening after the first four or five hundred times.”
Allie cracked up. A native New Yorker through and through, Julie Turner talked tough but she’d walk through lava to help those she loved. They’d been roommates and fast friends at the Rhode Island School of Design—Allie with a full scholarship, Julie with a full tuition check from Mom and Dad—and had found this apartment through one of Julie’s parents’ friends. No matter what you needed or wanted in the city, the Turners knew someone or knew someone who knew someone.
It would be very easy to hate Julie if she wasn’t so wonderful. Beautiful, sophisticated, wealthy and smart, she led a charmed life. Men fell for her in droves. She could eat whatever she wanted and stay thin. Straight out of RISD, she’d landed a job at Vanity Fair...
Come to think of it, Julie was the type of woman Allie’s father had ditched his family for. Only Julie was human.
Allie wasn’t the type men lined up for. She had dull caramel-blond hair and girl-next-door features, scoured secondhand shops, made her own clothes and controlled her weight through relentless exercise and constant sacrifice. It took her nearly a year after graduating
to land her job as a graphic artist at Boynton Advertising. Five years later, having been promoted to assistant art director, the company hit hard times and—bang, thanks, bye—here she was, pounding the crowded New York City pavement again, worrying about rent again, though Julie had promised to cover her until Allie got back on her feet. Trust funds must be wonderful things. The closest Allie ever got to a trust fund was the jar in their old Brooklyn apartment into which her mother dropped quarters whenever Allie babysat her five brothers and managed not to kill any of them.
She flopped onto the couch next to Julie and let her head sink back on the cushion. “I feel like a failure.”
“You’re not a failure.”
“I didn’t say I was a failure, I said I felt like one.”
“Stop feeling like a failure.”
Allie clapped her hands. “Hey, that worked. Thanks!”
“Your problem is that you don’t have enough to do.”
“Because I have no job, because I was fired.”
Julie snorted. “You’re doing everything you’re supposed to be doing to find another one. But it’s not enough to fill your day, so you—”
“Get restless and cranky and then I whine at you.”
“Yuh-huh.” Julie put down her magazine. “Hey, you know I don’t mind. Whine away. God knows I would. Losing your job is serious stuff. As I’ve said over and over, if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. Besides giving you my job.”
“Aw! I was just about to ask for it.” Allie grinned at her. “You are doing more than enough just putting up with me. This is so not where I thought I’d be six years out of school.”
Julie lifted a perfect dark eyebrow. “My point is you need something to do, some project. Like design a line of clothing that will take London, Paris and Milan by storm. You’ll fill your time and your creative well.”
“My creative well.” Allie stared hopelessly at a triangular crack in the ceiling paint. She hadn’t designed anything substantive since she’d started working at Boynton. “Someone threw a plagued rat into it.”
“There’s my little optimist.”
Allie’s cell phone rang from her back pocket. She pulled it out. Maybe a job interview? Maybe London, Paris or Milan?
“It’s Erik.”
“Oooh, your favorite colleague and sexual predator.”
“Ex-colleague. Who finally did stop hitting on me.”
“Because you’re not there anymore.”
“Good point.” Allie answered the call. “Hey, Erik.”
“Alli-i-ie.” He yelled her name so loudly Allie yanked the phone from her ear. Julie rolled her eyes and went back to her magazine.
“Shhh, Erik. Jeez, you just made my head explode.”
“And that’s a problem because...”
“What’s going on? No!” She raised her hand dramatically. “Don’t tell me. Boynton wants me back. They’re begging, in fact.”
“They should be. They’re morons for letting you go.”
Even though Erik tended to say whatever people wanted to hear, she decided this time he was being absolutely sincere. “They certainly are.”
“So how are you doing?”
“Anxious. Frustrated. Bored.”
“Need a little excitement?”
“Uhh...why don’t you tell me what kind of excitement first, then I’ll tell you if I need it.” A lead on a job was the kind of excitement she needed. Erik trying to get into her pants was not.
Getting into female pants was what Erik did. If he could get women to pay him for sex, he’d be twice the billionaire he already was, due to family megabucks. Sometimes she thought the only reason he paid her so much attention was because he still hadn’t succeeded with her. Nor would he ever, which she’d told him in no uncertain terms, but to Erik that was so much blah-blah-blah.
The funny thing was, Allie liked him. Really liked him. She respected that he worked hard at a day job like the rest of the poor rats in the race. And she suspected that underneath all the BS and swagger there was an insecure mess of a guy with a really good heart. She even managed to feel a little sorry for him. Which meant she was nice to him, which, unfortunately, meant he thought he still had a chance. Men were pretty slow about stuff like that.
“This is the chance of a lifetime, Allie.”
“Uh-huh.”
“How’d you like to spend a week in the Adirondacks on Lake George? Or two weeks?”
“Your family’s summer house?” She’d heard about the place and had seen a few pictures—beautiful house, beautiful lake. The temptation was immediate, even as she was formulating her no-thank-you speech. Leave hot, smelly New York in July for a luxury oasis? For a wonderfully cool, breezy, relaxing week...or two? It would be impractical, irresponsible, and serve as needless encouragement for the Great Horned Predator, but who wouldn’t be tempted?
“Yes, our cottage in the woods.”
Allie snorted. If that enormous place was a cottage, she was the queen of planet earth. “So, Erik, we’re talking a week up there, just the two of us?”
Julie shook her head emphatically no.
“Oh. Well... Wait, I haven’t gotten to the best part.”
“I’m listening.” She was a little afraid of the best part.
“My grandmother and great-grandmother were total fashionistas and they never threw anything away. The attic is full of their clothes. In mint condition.”
Allie came to full attention. Antique clothes. Her passion. “Really.”
“Here’s the best part. Mom wants to get rid of them before we sell the house.”
“You’re selling that place?”
“Yeah.” His voice thickened. “Since Mom and Dad moved to Germany they can’t get back here often enough to make it worthwhile. I’ve been after my brother to buy it with me, but so far no good. I’d buy it myself, but it’s too much for one person to keep up. And they’re right, the house deserves to be used and lived in.”
“Erik, that’s terrible.” She knew how much he loved the place.
“It is. But back to the clothes. There are at least four trunks. You’ll get first rights to everything.”
“I’ll— Everything?” Allie stood there, blinking at Julie’s curious stare. Erik’s grandmother and great-grandmother would mean clothes from the 1920s and ’40s. This could be an amazing collection. It could be fashion nirvana. “Wow. That sounds incredible. But, Erik...it’ll just be you and me up there?”
Julie waggled her finger urgently, no, no, no.
“Allie, Allie, Allie. You still don’t trust me?”
“Nuh-uh,” she said pleasantly, her heart still pounding at the thought of all those clothes. Would she sell her body for this chance?
Umm...not quite.
“I’m not going to try anything. I swear.” He was trying very hard to sound sincere. Or maybe he was sincere. It was frustratingly hard to tell with Erik. “I figured you’d want first shot at the clothes. Plus, you being in a tough spot and all, I thought the break would be nice, too.”
“I don’t know...”
Julie drew her finger across her neck. Cut!
“Yeah, so, anyway.” Erik cleared his throat. “It won’t be just me there.”
Allie narrowed her eyes. “Now you’re telling me this?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
She waited. Nothing. “So...who else will be there?”
Julie frowned skeptically.
“My brother, Jonas. And his girlfriend.”<
br />
Hmm. Allie narrowed her eyes, ignoring the jump in her pulse at the mention of his brother, the hottest man in the Northeast if not the universe. “Are you making this up?”
“No, I’m not making this up. What makes you think I’m making this up?”
“The way you never hesitate to make things up.”
“I’ll prove it to you. I’ll have Jonas email you saying he’s going. That okay?”
“I’m not even sure I’m going.”
“How could you not go? A whole attic full of clothes, Allie, yours for the taking. Gowns and hats and shoes and I don’t know, they probably even kept underwear. How can you pass this up?”
She didn’t think she could. Not only would the break do her good, but somewhere in this treasure trove of history, there might be the seeds of a new business or career. All her life she’d been obsessed with clothes of the past, watched old movies obsessively, worshipped Edith Head, who’d costumed the greatest stars from the golden age of cinema—the 1920s to the 1960s. When Allie was a little girl, she’d designed outfits for her dolls on her mom’s old sewing machine, and started designing her own clothes in high school.
Reality hit her when she graduated from college. She needed a stable, well-paying career, because unlike Erik, she couldn’t count on her family for support or inheritance. Three of her five brothers had gone to community colleges to learn trades, but Allie had wanted more from the minute she was old enough to understand the difference between the haves and have-nots. Which, not coincidentally, was when her father had met La Richesse Bitchesse and left them to live on the Upper East Side. He’d moved into a fabulous full-floor condo with his new wife and her two snotty kids, while his real family had moved to Kensington in Brooklyn. All seven of them had crammed into a three-bedroom apartment located in a borderline neighborhood at best. Mom had started drinking in earnest then.
