“That would be wonderful. I’m anxious to start talking details with you, Jessica. But I won’t keep you too long. Mathew mentioned you were off for a vacation together after this. Where are you headed?”
“We’re headed for a tiny island in the Caribbean. No better way to recharge than some sun and sand.”
“Too hot for me,” Sophie said as she cleared her throat nervously. “But I’m sure a lovely couple like you two will have a wonderful time. Let’s toast to that.”
“And to new friends and opportunities,” Jessica said, raising her glass and warmly smiling at Mathew. He no longer wanted to remind her he was right, he just wanted to shout he loved her.
Chapter 31
Jessica’s toes were buried deep in the hot white sand. Sun-kissed skin drew in the warm rays as ice-cold bottle sweat cooled her leg. “Mrs. Kalling, can I bring you another drink?”
“Yes,” Jessica choked out sitting up quickly. “But I’m not Mrs. Kalling. Miss Thorne. We’re not married. We just started dating really, and then we were fighting for a while. So I’m not even really sure how long you’d say we’ve been dating.”
“Make hers a double,” Mathew interjected, nodding his gratitude to the beachside waitress who looked suddenly shell-shocked.
“Too much information?” Jessica asked, already knowing the answer. “She caught me off guard.”
“Because you don’t want to be Mrs. Kalling?” Mathew asked, raising a thick dark eyebrow at her challengingly.
The heat of the sun had nothing on the blazing embarrassment she was feeling now. “Are you asking me to be Mrs. Kalling?”
“Didn’t I just work my ass off to show you how well I understand you? Why would I go and blow that by doing something as stupid as proposing marriage? I think you’d run in the ocean and swim home.”
“You make me sound far more dramatic than I am,” Jessica argued. “But seriously don’t. That would be the worst.”
“Being married to me would be the worst?” Mathew asked, sitting up from his lounge chair, his tan muscles tightening as he rose. Her eyes were drawn to the chiseled ridges of his stomach.
“I’d enjoy the honeymoon,” she said through a bright smile, running her eyes over his red swimming trunks, settling on the spot she knew was growing with excitement.
“I promise not to propose to you,” he said as he dropped down on one knee. “At least not today.”
“You can carry me over the threshold of our suite.” She reached out a delicate hand, still decorated with an array of shiny cheap rings, and waited for him to take it prince style and escort her to their room.
“Too traditional,” he said with a scowl. “I think you are the type of woman who prefers caveman treatment.” He jumped to his feet and slung her over his shoulder with ease. Her ass was in his hands as he folded her body over his shoulder and jogged up the beach toward their room.
The laughter flowing from her was so effortless, made wild by his occasional tickle and pinch. Kicking open the door to their room, he charged in and flopped her onto the bed. The lush down mattress cradled her body, and she suddenly wished to stay there and never get up.
“Honeymoon time?” she asked, pulling seductively at the string that held her bikini top in place. Libby, who packed her bag for this trip, had picked the sexiest one in the drawer, and Jessica had to remember to thank her for it.
“Caveman time,” he said with a growl as he took a handful of her sandy wind-blown hair into his hand. Clamping his fist closed, he tugged, exposing the soft skin of her neck.
“I like it,” she purred as she wrapped her legs around his body and pulled him to her on the bed. “Primal.”
“You have no idea,” he rumbled and flipped her over in one fluid motion. “You are going to slip back into those red heels,” he instructed forcefully.
“Did cavewomen wear heels?” she asked, turning her head up to see if he liked her joke.
“Cavewomen did anything they were told,” he replied with a punishing slap to her ass that sent her tingling with pleasure. “Heels on. Bikini off. Ass up. Legs spread. No touching. I’ll do all the touching.”
His abbreviated, direct demands were driving her mad with desire as she hurried to put on her high heels, get out of the bikini, and into the position he’d ordered.
“Can you imagine what I’m going to do to you?” he asked as he took her shoulders into his hands and rubbed his firm shaft against her as a tease. “Are you ready to be mine?”
“I’ve always been yours,” she said with a lusty slithering promise. “I was yours before you ever touched me. And I’ll be yours tonight.”
He drove inside her, so uncharacteristically fast that she gasped from the pressure. “Mathew,” she cried out but he didn’t stop, and she didn’t want him to. He was claiming her, in the most ancient and deep way a man could. One hand clamped to her shoulder the other reached for and found her sweet pleasure spot, rubbing it frantically with the beat of his thrusts. As if he were running a race, winning a contest where she was the prize, he charged forward with a wild pace.
Jessica knew him now. She could feel the way his body grew toward climax, and she understood he was close. “Come, Mathew,” she demanded. “I’m yours tonight.”
Mathew pulled out of her suddenly, leaving an ache from her body to be filled again. He flipped her to her back, crawled onto the bed, his desire for her still showing intensely in his eyes. “Not tonight,” he said, dropping his body over hers. “It’s not just tonight. You’re mine forever.” Mathew entered her again but with ease now.
“Yes,” she beamed, her hand on his cheek as his face closed in on hers. “I’m yours forever.”
Her words pushed him down the ramp toward combusting faster than any filthy phrase she might have come up with. Jessica’s agreement that he owned her heart forever made his body break like a dam under pressure. It blew apart with pleasure, and she followed just a second behind.
When Mathew fell limp by her side, panting and winded, Jessica crawled against his large warm body and sunk into him.
“I’m not afraid,” she whispered as his arms closed around her. “Who could be afraid with a man like you? I’m just sorry I made you work so hard to convince me.”
“I’d rather be dead tired, completely exhausted, and beat down from the work it takes to have you, then well rested and without you,” Mathew promised as he pushed the hair out of her eyes and kissed her forehead, still squeezing her tightly. “And don’t think I’m foolish enough to believe the work is done. I have the stamina, Jessica. If you need to be shown every day you’re loved and you have nothing to fear, I’ll take that job.”
“You did say you love a challenge,” she remembered, thinking back on their time together in the last months. “But can you honestly say you’re not worried? Can you handle a woman like me?”
“I think I just did,” he snickered with another firm slap to her bare ass that sent her yelping then laughing.
“I’m being serious,” Jessica protested as she gathered her composure and tossed him a stern look. “What happens when I get spooked, when I get mad and irrational, and you try to give me answers using pesky things like logic and such? How do we survive that?”
“I’m going to go with the strategy that as long as you’re fighting with me, it means you have something to fight for. I won’t even worry until you get quiet.”
“With the infrequency of that, we might be all right. Quiet for me is never a good sign.” Jessica rolled her eyes but knew he was right. “I broke all my rules to be with you.”
“And you made me wear matching pajamas and eat takeout in the bed of a pickup truck. Everyone had to sacrifice.”
“You loved the pajamas,” she said, shooting up and showing how insulted she was.
“If you only knew how much I loved them,” he sighed, rubbing a warm hand up her bare back and guiding her back down to his chest. “How much I loved all the little moments that brought us right here.”
> Her smile could have lit the room and her heart swelled with the idea that what she hoped to accomplish had happened. She’d managed to show Mathew that life could be made up of all the simple things.
“If you run again Jessica,” he said gently as he cupped her chin and drew her eyes up to his. “I promise to chase you. I won’t stop.”
“Chase me no matter what,” she begged. “Even if I’m right here, never stop chasing me. I always want to feel you wanting me. I never want that to stop.”
“You’re mine forever,” he reminded her as he brushed a kiss across her lips. “I found what I want, and I get what I want.”
“Forever,” she whispered, slipping her hand into his. “Chase me forever.”
The End
Crazy Nights
Crazy Nights
Emmitt Kalling isn’t satisfied unless he’s smashing something. It can be a punching bag at the gym or some jerk’s face at the bar. He’s not picky. Since arriving home from his last deployment, he’s itching for some action. But he only finds the same problems he faced before he enlisted.
Evie Pike has been exiled from her budding acting career with few future prospects. On a journey to find her purpose, she discovers her path is only paved with disappointment and the coffee she keeps spilling on her bosses. Feeling painfully unqualified for almost everything, she realizes a chance to hop a plane with Emmitt is like a ripcord on a parachute; she’d better pull it before it’s too late.
She’s desperate to connect. He’s a master at no strings attached. Their attraction is magnetic, but their opinions are polarizing. Will their sizzling chemistry be enough?
Chapter 1
Emmitt Kalling bounced a quarter off the bar into an empty shot glass, welcoming the familiar sound as it popped in and clanked around until it finally fell flat at the bottom. Flat at the bottom, exactly where he always seemed to end up. But that was where he felt most comfortable. He sought it out. There was no risk of falling too far when you were already as low as it gets.
A couple months in Texas and he’d already managed to find the shittiest bar with crooked stools and watered-down drinks. The dimmed lights and clouds of smoke gave anonymity. The static through the speakers drowned out the chatter and complaints from the other drunks. It was flawed in the most perfect way, terrible, but reliably so.
In the military he’d honed plenty of useful skills, but what no one ever told Emmitt was how much waiting around he’d have to do. He was an expert at passing time in unpleasant places. He still laughed now when he thought back to who he had been before he enlisted. Everything had seemed crystal clear. Divided perfectly into buckets of right and wrong. But a handful of deployments later had changed him and his views. Up was down, black was white, and people were just objects standing in his path as he tried to get to the next distraction. His options for diversions were limitless, considering the wealth his family had and the trust fund he’d been given. That meant he could drink until the voices in his head stopped buzzing. Work out until his muscles quaked with exhaustion. And distract himself with a string of women who he could easily dodge the following day. If he lived his life fast enough, nothing, not even his haunted memories, could catch him.
While there were nightmares, there were no regrets in his life. That was by design. A credo he lived by. If you did something, it’s because at the time you believed it was the best thing for you. You thought it over. You chose it. Just because you got older and wiser didn’t mean you had the luxury of complaining about your fuck-ups. Own them. He’d given that speech to many people who had the misfortune of taking the bar stool next to him. But none of them stayed long. People didn’t want that level of truth, and it was all Emmitt was capable of delivering.
“Another?” the set of boobs pretending to be a decent bartender asked as she pulled the shot glass away, fished out the quarter, and threw it in her tip jar.
“Nope,” Emmitt replied gruffly as he pushed his broken bar stool back and tossed a few more dollars down for boobs the bartender to pick up. It wouldn’t be long before someone announced last call and the lights came on and the whole goddamn world would be too bright to face. He’d leave now. Another of his lessons to live by, get out before shit got real.
“Have a good—” someone called out behind him but the words got cut short by the slamming of the bar door as he walked out into the street.
The ringing of his phone jolted him for a moment; sudden sounds always put him in a heightened state of readiness. A gift the military had given him. Shot nerves.
As he glanced at his blurry phone screen he made out the number was blocked. To most people it would mean they’d send the call straight to voicemail. But in Emmitt’s line of business, security of any and all sorts, he knew a blocked number could mean a job. A tip. A lead.
“Emmitt Kalling,” he answered brashly, never wanting to sound too welcoming. He was selective in which projects he took on. Money meant nothing to him. He had plenty of it at his fingertips. The job had to have some kind of adrenaline-fueled rush in it or he wasn’t interested.
“Hello Emmitt. My name is Dax Marshall. I know it’s late but the guy who gave me your number said you keep odd hours. He thought I’d be better off calling you now than during the day.”
“Who gave you my number?” Emmitt asked, not recognizing the name of the caller. Though in truth he was drunk enough to have probably met the guy yesterday and not remembered.
“Listen, I’m in need of your services, are you available or not?” Dax inquired coolly, sounding ready to hang up if the answer was no.
“Depends,” Emmitt replied as he strode down the dark street toward his dive of a motel room. He might just be the only rich bastard who’d rather stay in a grungy dank place with a lumpy bed and a dirty carpet than the luxury suites his brother Mathew always frequented. “Is it worth my time? I’m not in the mood to play babysitter to someone. If you’re looking for a personal bodyguard, it’s a no.”
“Luckily I was already warned how personable you are so I won’t hold it against you. Apparently your skills are worth it. I can’t promise the job will be exciting, but it pays well. The Barringtons take care of their employees.”
“The Barringtons?” Emmitt asked, remembering his brother’s interest in the family. Though he only half listened when Mathew droned on about business, he was certain the name Barrington had popped up and with some sort of complaint about not being able to get a meeting with them. “Asher Barrington?” Emmitt probed.
“You know Asher?” Dax asked tentatively.
“I know the name. But that’s enough; you’ve piqued my interest. What’s the job?” Emmitt kicked at a few stones as he stumbled closer to the motel.
“Lance Barrington is actually in need of your services. He’s had an odd
visitor, a breach really, at his office recently, and it’s sparked some concern.”
“What line of business are we talking? Oil? Something with Middle Eastern ties? I’ve got plenty of experience with—”
Dax cut him off. “He’s an architect.”
“Not a notoriously dangerous field,” Emmitt chuckled. “What kind of unwelcomed guest did you say he had? Was she selling cookies because if that’s the case, get a few boxes of thin mints and send her on her way. Crisis averted.”
Dax ignored the joke and moved on. “Lance keeps his hands clean. I don’t know him to have any enemies. With that said, a woman pretending to be his temporary secretary came in and left a strange business card. All black with white lettering. Just a phone number. She seemed to be talking in code or something. I didn’t get the full story but it was enough to raise some flags.”
Emmitt had a pretty good idea who the woman might be. There weren’t many big players in that area and knowing it was a woman really narrowed it down. But it was the trademark card that told him what he needed to know. “I’m in. Text me the address, and I’ll fly in and meet Lance tomorrow. We can talk money and details then. If that card belongs to
who I think it does, your guy might not be the dull architect with clean hands like you thought. This woman doesn’t bother with boring people.”
“The last thing the Barringtons need is excitement. They make plenty of their own. You can touch base with Lance tomorrow and hopefully put this to bed quickly.”
“And Asher?” Emmitt asked, knowing his brother would not care about any interactions with Lance, the architect, but would be thoroughly invested in hearing about face time with Asher.
“What about him?” Dax cut back, starting to sound annoyed.
“He’s got a reputation that leads me to believe I’d want to meet him. Set that up for me,” Emmitt asserted confidently.
Dax laughed loudly. “If you actually knew his reputation you’d understand that is never going to happen. If Asher has a need to see you, he will. Otherwise consider yourself nonessential because you won’t cross paths. Anyone who chases him usually ends up tired and empty-handed.”
“He’ll see me,” Emmitt replied conceitedly. “I have a habit of becoming sought after.” Like the arrogant bullheaded guy he was, Emmitt hung up the phone abruptly and tucked it into his pocket. He turned toward the bar, considering a few more drinks to celebrate leaving Texas and heading back home to Boston. Instead he dragged himself back in the direction of the dark motel and started planning his attack on the mini bar.
He hadn’t wanted to come to Texas in the first place. Mathew had bailed on him back in Boston by leaving suddenly to chase after James West and partner with him on his family’s oil business. Although Mathew promised he wouldn’t be there long, something had come up. A woman. Mathew had fallen in love. She suddenly needed protection, and that was Emmitt’s Achilles heel. It took him down every time. Mathew called, asking for help, and Emmitt delivered. But that job was done. His brother and Jessica were all good now. Better than good. They were inseparable and happy, and it made Emmitt want to toss them both off a bridge. Not a high bridge. Not something where the fall would kill them but something just big enough to ruin their perfect little day. He smiled at the image.
The Barrington Billionaires Collection 1 Page 37
