by Jessie Lane
Forever Yours.
Love,
Bobby
A small wet drop appeared on the paper from a tear that had fallen off my face and it smeared a portion of one of the sentences. This was instantly the best letter in the history of the world to me. It wasn’t poetry pretty like others might be. It wasn’t something epic like people read in tales of unrealistic love stories like Romeo and Juliet. No, this was just Bobby’s heart manifested in short, boxy little slashes that formed words in a letter so beautiful that I could read it and see the physical proof of his love and devotion to me. It was perfection.
I heard and felt him move in front of me. When I looked up from his letter to see what he was doing, the sight of what he was holding shocked me all over again. A black velvet box held open in his hand, where a diamond ring was barely visible in the last fading rays of the day.
“Marry me, Belle. You’re already my heart and soul, now be my wife.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer. He slipped the ring out of its box and onto my finger before bringing my left hand to his mouth and kissing the palm of it before placing it over his heart. “Yes?” he whispered.
With fresh tears sliding down my face, I reached up with my right hand and cupped his jaw. “Yes, Bobby.”
He released the breath I hadn’t realized he was holding. “Thank you, baby.”
“No, Ace, thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“For giving me my happily ever after.”
Epilogue
Belle
Two months later in Woodbridge, Virginia…
“You want to name our daughter WHAT?”
I bit my teeth into my bottom lip so I wouldn’t laugh at the look on my fiancé’s face. It was so sour you would have thought I’d shoved a lemon slice in there while he was talking or something. We were lying side by side in bed, so he was close enough to see my shoulders shake from my restrained laughter, and huffed in mock frustration. “Don’t get your boxers in a wad, Ace. What’s wrong with the idea of naming the baby after Teagan?”
“I don’t know, maybe because it doesn’t seem fair to her to name her after such a—”
I slapped a hand over his mouth. “Ah, ah, ah now. You promised to be nice about her from now on.”
He pulled my hand off his mouth and gave me a look like I’d sprouted an extra head. “Uh, yeah, but that was before that message she left on our answering machine. Did you honestly think I could keep that kind of promise after my son heard her call me the wart on the ass of all of humanity?”
I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh, but a snort slipped out anyways. When he cocked an eyebrow at the sound, I didn’t bother to try and hold back my laughter anymore.
“Find that funny, do you?”
Holding up my thumb and forefinger a half inch apart, I snickered. “Just a little.”
He growled. “I’ll show you funny, you little hussy.” Then he pounced on me, tickling my ribs before pinning me down on my back with his arms and legs. He’d left enough room in between our bodies so that he wouldn’t lie on the slightly protruding belly I was carrying around these days. “I know we’re not married yet, but you should still stand by your man, you know.”
Giving him a big grin, I promised, “I’ll always stand by you, Ace, but that doesn’t mean my best friend won’t be standing on my other side.”
Bobby snorted. Then, dropping his face until our foreheads touched, he murmured, “I’ll let you name our daughter after that harpy on one condition.”
“And what would that be?”
“That this isn’t our last baby.”
Gasping in surprise, I used my hands to push on Bobby’s shoulders until I could see his face again. Naturally, with Bobby’s size, I wouldn’t have been able to push him back unless he let me, but luckily I had a man who wouldn’t let me strain myself at all while I was carrying his child. Some days it came in handy like today and some days it drove me so crazy I wanted to bash his head in with a frying pan. “Just how many kids are you wanting me to pop out, Bobby Baker?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I was thinking we could have our own football tea—”
I didn’t let him finish the word before I had a pillow flying at his head, beating him with it repeatedly. “You are not using me as an incubator so that you can have a Baker football squad!” Dropping the pillow, I reached for my cell phone on the night stand.
His laughing voice asked, “Who are you calling?”
“Jaxon! I’m going to tell him that you’re delusional and shouldn’t go on any more missions until your head’s been straightened out.”
One minute I was pretending to scroll through my contacts and the next, the phone was out of my hand.
His voice was neutral when he spoke, “I’ve already talked to Jaxon today, honey.”
The almost somber tone alarmed me. “And?”
“We leave in three days.” He was watching me intently for a reaction.
“Where are you going?”
“I can’t tell you.”
In a small voice, I asked, “Will you be following up about Laura?”
“Yes,” he said slowly.
That meant he was headed straight into danger, which I didn’t like, but this was his job, which he loved, and I loved him so I had to accept that. After having the baby, he’d already told me that he would support me if I wanted to go back to work for the ATF since I was on an extended leave of absence at the moment, which was probably what I’d do. So I couldn’t very well say I wasn’t willing to support his job when he was willing to support mine. At least I would have Seth here with me so I wouldn’t be totally alone. We could probably take a trip out to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum again in D.C. There was a good chance I had a future pilot in the family.
Not to mention that how Laura had died and what she’d suffered through before she’d died, haunted me nightly. The thought that other women were suffering as she had felt like a knife through the heart. Thankfully, the guys hadn’t found any more women in Rivera’s house in Mexico. Laura and I had been the only ones there at the moment. However, they had found signs that plenty of other women had been held there at some point in time. If the Ex Ops Team could help them, then I needed to support that as well.
“You’ll contact me when you can, right?”
“Absolutely, baby.”
“Okay, Ace. Do what you’ve got to do to shut those assholes down.”
Bending over to kiss me on the lips, he stayed there afterwards so that when he talked, our lips were still touching. “That’s my girl. Now, I’ll make you a deal. You can name this one Teagan if you’ll give me at least one more after her.”
Well, that was a hell of a lot better than a damn football team.
“Deal.”
“Good. Now come here and give me some love.”
He wasted no time in pulling down the top of my nightie to bare my breasts so that they were now accessible for his touch. Grasping one, he lowered his mouth to trace his tongue around the outside of my now overly sensitive nipple so that it puckered up hard as I moaned at the fierce pleasure of it. Sucking it deep into his mouth, he lashed his rough tongue over the peak until I was arched under him from the fiery sensation. His free hand lightly traced circles down my abdomen, adding another sensation in his assault. My hands skimmed over his cut, rock hard abs as he moved from one breast to the other. Shooting a pleasant burn all the way down to the heated core that was throbbing between my legs.
When I started begging for more, he moved down my tummy, to tease me below where I ached. My breath hitched as he circled my little nub, rubbing it so that the burning pressure built slowly. When he breached me with a finger, I gasped at the familiar intrusion. It never ceased to surprise me how good he felt when he touched my body. Adding a second finger, he started to pump a little faster as I spread my thighs further apart while pushing down on his fingers for a deeper feel. Bobby’s touch was heady, like alc
ohol shot straight into my brain, making everything fuzzy, warm, and oh, so good.
“I can’t wait any longer, babe. I want to feel you. Let me fill that sweet little body up.” In one smooth stroke he sheathed himself inside me. His flesh rubbing against mine—skin on skin—to create what felt like thousands of mini lightning bolts of pleasure shooting through my body. Apparently, we’d both missed out on the phenomenon of pregnancy sex the first time around, which was a travesty since it was way more intense than regular sex and I had a habit of barely lasting longer than an eight second rodeo star before having an orgasm that was so off the charts that I could swear I was floating in space.
I was already on the edge of that aforementioned spatially, fantastic orgasm. Bobby was pumping himself furiously in and out with my legs wrapped around his hips, locking my ankles low on his back. As I finally exploded with a scream that Bobby managed to muffle with a kiss, my toes curled and I damn near lost consciousness. My inner walls clamped down on him so hard that, mere seconds later, I felt his warm release filling me as he gave a guttural yell before collapsing to his side, turning me with him.
Our breaths were sawing in and out of our chests and Bobby had his arms locked around me like he would never let me go.
Touching our foreheads together, he asked, “Who loves you, Belle?”
“You do, Ace.”
“That’s right, sweet baby. Forever.”
Pressing my lips against his, I agreed, “Forever.”
Note From The Author:
Thank you for reading Secret Maneuvers! We hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it! If you did, please consider leaving a review at your favorite online retailers, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or review websites such as Goodreads. These are great ways to help spread the word about books to readers who have yet to discover them.
On the next few pages you will find a two chapter excerpt of our last book, Big Bad Bite. This is an adult paranormal romance about a woman with big secrets and the growly Alpha wolf who wants her. We hope you like it! Happy reading!
Playlist for Belle and Bobby
Ella Mae Bowen (Cover) – Holding Out For A Hero (Ex Ops Series Theme Song)
Carrie Underwood – Blown Away
Tim McGraw ft. Taylor Swift & Keith Urban – Highway Don’t Care
Lissie cover of Fleetwood Mac – Go Your Own Way
Gary Allen –Best I Ever Had
Lumineers – Stubborn Love
Lumineers – Ho Hey
Gary Allen – Every Storm
Taylor Swift – Sparks Fly (Belle & Bobby’s Song)
The Band Perry – All Your Life
Jason Aldean - She’s Country
Jason Aldean – Take A Little Ride
Jason Aldean & Kelly Clarkson – Don’t You Wanna Stay
Thompson Square – If I Didn’t Have You
Christina Perri – A Thousand Years
Big Bad Bite
Published January 28, 2013
Two Chapter Excerpt
Chapter One
Sweaty gym socks. That’s what the inside of the Wilmington Police Department’s SWAT van smells like which, in a word, is… nasty. Tamping down on the overwhelming urge to reach over and grab the offending socks, so that she can shove them down the owner’s mouth before giving him a stern warning to wash them, is downright hard. However, somehow Jenna O’Conner manages to keep herself in check because overpowering a two hundred plus gym jock when you’re a woman of only five feet four inches, who looks as if you might weigh a hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, would be hard to explain. So, sometimes it seriously sucks to be her.
Sitting on the steel bench seats that run the length of the black van with its bulletproof dark tinted windows, she does her best to ignore the eyes that are staring at her. Being the new girl on a testosterone overloaded team is more than awkward and being sandwiched in between two guys on her left, another guy on her right, and four sitting across from her makes it feel as if she’s drowning in caveman stupidity. It’s a pain in the ass, but she can’t complain because it comes with her dream job.
Jenna can deal with their basic Neanderthal urges of women being inferior, but she utterly hates being stared at. It’s annoying, and not to mention, rude. It makes her hand, that sits down to the right, twitchy to punch someone. Didn’t their moms teach them some manners? She can keep calm, though. They’re just curious to know if the new girl on the force can hang with the big bad asses they all think they are. Little do they know that this little woman can kick every single one of their mammoth muscled butts. That is part of her little secret, though.
Being a woman, who is also a dedicated cop, is sometimes hard. People tend to assume that you’re going to be the weak link in the chain. Not strong enough. Not fast enough. Too compassionate. None of that applies to Jenna, but these guys don’t know that, yet. Perhaps she can’t show them that she is capable of bench pressing a hell of a lot more than all of them combined, but she has no qualms about using some of her abilities to outrun them if the need arises. She also sure as hell isn’t known back in her old department for compassion. Heck, if she hadn’t been related to the Police Chief back home, then Jenna would have been arrested or fired for her behavior against a couple of drunk, abusive, backwoods bums.
None of that here, though. She has to keep her temper in check. Keep her secrets safe. Not to mention, she is not going to flush a Criminal Justice Bachelor’s degree, six months at the Police Academy, five years of busting-her-ass on-the-job experience and her life’s dream down the toilet. She has to prove to her family that she can live out from underneath their thumb without fucking it all up.
All of that may not seem like much of an accomplishment to the other guys sitting in this van with her, but that’s because they don’t know her circumstances. Not that she would share those facts with them anyways. When they eventually find out how young Jenna is, they will inevitably shoot her dubious looks of disbelief. More than likely, they will begin to doubt that someone so young is really cut out for the job.
Her over protective family had home-schooled her in their exuberant efforts to keep her hidden and safe. So, sitting at home with nothing to do except study with her mom, she managed to obtain her high school diploma at the tender age of fifteen. After graduating, Jenna enrolled in an online University where she finished a four year degree in three, since her mother obviously didn’t trust Jenna to be out of her sight without doing something monumentally stupid to get herself ousted for what she was. So, at the age of eighteen, she had a high school diploma and a Bachelor’s degree.
When Jenna then told her mom that she wanted to be a cop like Uncle Rick, her mother had no problem shipping her off to the academy because that didn’t mean Jenna was out of her family’s sight for six whole months. No, her Uncle Rick had a friend at the academy that knew just enough to keep an eye on her, but not enough that he would be a danger to her.
Now at twenty-three, almost twenty-four, Jenna is the youngest member of this SWAT team with a whole lot of job experience, but almost no life experience.
Leaving the small town of River Bend for the bigger city of Wilmington, North Carolina had always been a goal of hers. It had only taken five years to prove to her Uncle Rick that she could handle what he considered to be big city problems, without outing herself to the populace.
When his friend, who happens to be the Captain of one of the Wilmington precincts, told him that he was interviewing for a new SWAT team officer, Uncle Rick threw her name in.
A month after a stringent application process and many, many tests, here she is sitting in the back of this van in black BDU’s with a bullet proof vest on. She has a standard issue duty weapon strapped to her waist, an assault rifle in her hands and a solid fifty pounds of equipment strapped to her body; just like the nine other officers in the vehicle. Black hair that falls just past the bottom of her shoulder blades is secured in a tight bun at the base of her neck and the lower part of her
face is covered with a black mask that only leaves her eyes visible. A helmet strapped onto the top of her head completes her uniform; she is clearly ready for action.
Heat is pumping along with excitement at the thought of going out on a suspect retrieval mission the first day on the new job. This is the kind of shit Jenna lives for. Most women want to bask in the luxuries of shopping, high heeled shoes, and days at the spa. That’s definitely not her. Sure, she has sexy clothes and shoes in her closet, but most of it was bought for undercover work. Instead of the usual womanly highs, Jenna gets off on the chase of a suspect. It’s the best high of all. If she gets to tackle the suspect to the ground and accidentally elbow them in the head, well, that’s just a bonus.
Silently running through the particulars of the suspect they are going after keeps her occupied so that she doesn’t get the urge to look any of the guys in the eyes. It isn’t that she’s afraid of any of them. Jenna could kick their ever lovin’ asses from here to China, but she doesn’t want to intimidate any of them, either. Yet. Most men aren’t used to having a woman stare them down. It unnerves them. Not to mention, gives them a bum rap with the other guys. So, she just stares off into space, in no direction in particular, while mentally going over the facts.
Suspect is a white male in his early thirties, approximately five-feet eleven; so he is seven inches taller than her. He weighs approximately one hundred and ninety pounds, sixty pounds more than her, but still not a problem; Blond hair, blue eyes; and wanted for the murder of a woman whose husband is still listed as missing. Suspect is supposed to be apprehended alive to be interrogated for information regarding the missing husband.
“Hey, O’Conner, you nervous, yet? Should we drop you off somewhere so you don’t piss in your pretty little pink panties?” Moron. Note to self–Trip jackass into a wall.
Oops. Did my foot get in your way?
Turning her head to look the idiot straight in the eyes she sneers, “I’m good, Dubinski, but maybe we should stop at the store and buy you some big boy diapers so that when you scare yourself shitless, it’ll be an easier mess to clean up.” The men surrounding them snicker as Dubinski gives her a grudgingly respectful look.
