by B. B. Hamel
And he got me pregnant. It was supposed to be just one night, but a broken condom changed all of our plans forever.
People treat him like a hero, but I think he’s a total prick. Gibson gets whatever he wants, and now suddenly he wants me.
But I have enough to deal with. I have to stop daydreaming about his hands between my thighs and concentrate on having this baby while still managing to graduate on time.
He wants to make a deal. If I promise to spend time with him, he’ll help me with my final biology research. That means an entire semester of studying Gibson’s body.
I’m not sure I can do this. One second I can’t stand to be around him, and the next I’m touching his ripped muscles and trying to suppress my excitement.
I’m terrified he’ll ruin everything if I let this become more than just work.
Click here to read it now on Amazon
Free with Kindle Unlimited!
Love badass alpha mobsters? Try Bastard’s Baby, another exciting installment in the Barone Crime Family series!
I had that bastard’s baby and now I need his help.
Vince Mori is my enemy. He’s an infamous Italian mobster, all ripped muscles and dangerous tattoos. He’s a cocky a**hole, and for just one night that was exactly what I was looking for. He was a wild ride, a way to rebel against my strict family.
And he doesn’t know that he’s the father of my baby.
I’m the daughter of one of the most feared Russian mob bosses in the city. When I give birth to my baby boy Alexei, my father wants to tear my child away from me.
I won’t let that happen. They may be my family, but I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my baby.
The Russians are at war with the Italians, but I know Vince is my only chance. When I run away from home and ask him for help, I’m risking my life to save my son.
Vince is everything I’m supposed to hate, but secretly can’t get enough of. He’s only interested in teasing me mercilessly with his dirty mouth and frustrating grin.
Now I’m trapped in the Italian mob’s mansion, living next door to my baby’s father. I need their protection, but the war is escalating faster every day.
If the cocky jerk Vince Mori can’t learn what it means to be a father, I might be totally screwed.
Click here to read it now on Amazon
Free with Kindle Unlimited!
One Night SEAL
1
Hartley
I wasn’t normally the type to try and drown my sorrows, but these were special circumstances.
The dive bar was loud and crowded. I had pulled into the parking lot of the small, backwoods building a half hour ago assuming that I could have a few quiet minutes to myself, but I was totally wrong. Apparently every redneck in the area wanted to get hammered at this bar and yell loudly about what gun they were currently trying to buy.
I sipped my gin and tonic and sighed to myself. I came to Knoxville months ago with the best of intentions, but, like everything else in my life so far, nothing seemed to work out right for me.
I had finally decided to pack it up and run. I was going back home, back across the state to my family’s farm. Maybe I’d be coming home in disgrace, but at least I’d be home.
I hated Knoxville. I hated everything it represented, from the center of town where I worked in a diner all day and all night to the tiny, run-down apartment where I spent whatever time I had to myself sleeping. I hated the people and, most of all, I hated my own stupid mistakes.
But it was going to be okay. I was going to run and let things shake out on their own. I had tried to fix things, tried my hardest, but it was way too late.
I glanced up from my drink for a moment, and that was the first time I spotted him.
He was sitting across the bar from me, nursing a whisky. I hadn’t seen him come in, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Handsome face, a hint of stubble on his perfect jaw, and these deep blue eyes that made me want to cross my legs. His arms were strong and defined, and I could only imagine what the rest of him looked like.
He didn’t seem like he belonged. Where everyone else was a hick or an asshole, he seemed quiet, subdued. His black button-down shirt was understated and practically boring compared to the camouflage and the flannel on everyone else.
I watched as he slowly caught my eye and a grin spread across his face. I would come to know that grin so damn well, and part of me would hate it. But in that moment, I felt a pulse of desire rush through me.
He didn’t look away. Most men did when you caught their eye, but not him. He just smirked at me and slowly nodded, catching me completely off guard.
Who did this guy think he was? I’d never seen a man with so much confidence before. I quickly looked away, not sure what to do.
That was when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t move, Hartley.”
Shit. I recognized that voice.
“What are you doing here, Guff?” I turned and saw him looming behind me, smiling his yellow-toothed grin.
“Came looking for you,” he said. “I heard you were leaving town.”
I frowned. I didn’t know how he could have known that, considering I hadn’t told anyone. Frankly, I didn’t really have any friends in Knoxville, which was a big reason why I was trying to get away. I missed my hometown in Dade County, yearned to see my family’s farm again.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, trying to play it off.
“Good,” Guff grunted. “Because you still owe my boss a lot of money.” I felt his hand squeeze hard on my shoulder.
“Get off me,” I said. Guff and the two goons standing with him only laughed.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “In fact, I think you’re going to come with me.”
“Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because you’re a fucking liar, Hartley. You think we didn’t see that bag in the back of your car?”
My heart started hammering in my chest, and I knew I was in a really bad situation. These men may have been greasy-looking rednecks, but they were dangerous, very dangerous.
I owed money to the Dixie Mafia, and they were coming to collect. At least, my family owed them money. Back when the housing market collapsed and the economy went to hell, my father took a loan from the Dixie Mafia out of desperation. Now, years later, they wanted that money back.
I’d come to Knoxville to try to work something out with them. I worked my ass off day and night, giving them every cent I made, but it wasn’t even close to enough. I tried everything I could think of, but they weren’t interested.
There was nothing I could do. I was going to run back home in shame and pray that my father could figure something out. It killed me to imagine the mafia getting a hold of our farm or, even worse, the bank bulldozing the whole thing.
Looking up at Guff’s dark eyes, at his long stringy hair and the sick smile on his face, I knew coming to Knoxville had been a serious mistake. I was so stupid and naïve to think that I could really fix any of this. My family thought I was just out here staying with a friend. They had no clue what I was up to.
“Come on,” Guff said, yanking my arm. I stumbled to my feet. “Let’s go for a fucking walk.”
“Get off me,” I said, terrified. I looked around but nobody seemed to care. Most of the men simply looked away, too ashamed to even make eye contact with me.
Guff and his boys, they were known here. Everyone knew the Dixie Mafia in Knoxville. They practically ran the town, and if you wanted to survive you had to make good with them. Nobody crossed the mafia and survived, not for long at least.
As I was learning. They dragged me across the room and out into the parking lot, pushing me toward my car.
I stumbled and tripped over a rock, tumbling down to the ground. The men laughed as Guff roughly pulled me to my feet.
“Open the car,” he ordered. I listened and unlocked the driver’s side door.
One of the goons tore open the door and grabbed my bag
. He ripped through it, throwing the contents around. He looked at Guff and shook his head.
“Where’s our money, Hartley?” he asked. “Where’s our fucking money?”
“You know I don’t have it,” I said. “I gave you everything I could.”
“That’s not how this works,” Guff said, and shoved me against the car. “Your people took lots of money from us, and you showed up asking how you could pay us back. We gave you some options, but you didn’t like ’em. Now you want to leave?”
I clenched my jaw and looked away. Their idea of paying them back involved me whoring myself out to their customers. They wanted me to sell myself into sex slavery in exchange for my family’s debt, and I just couldn’t do it. I’d tried to think of something else, tried to make enough money to show that I meant to make good, but they weren’t reasonable men.
“I had no choice,” I said. “You really expected me to do that?”
“Hell yeah, girl,” he said. “I expect you to suck every fucking cock in this state if you want to get out of debt.”
“Screw you, Guff,” I said, surprising myself. I didn’t know where I was finding this anger, but it was there, deep inside me.
The men all laughed. “All right then, Hartley,” he said. “You can screw me, all right.” He reared his hand back and then punched me in the face.
I would have fallen if I weren’t held up by the car. Pain flashed through my face, blinding me, shocking me with its intensity.
“I’ll let you screw me right here,” Guff said, cackling like a madman. “Boys, go make sure nobody bothers us.”
Guff grabbed me and spun me around. I had the sense to try to fight him off, but he was too strong.
“Go ahead,” he whispered in my ear. “Struggle.”
I couldn’t believe this. I couldn’t believe this was going to happen, in the middle of the day, in the parking lot. I was so close to getting out, so close to running.
I should never have come to Knoxville.
2
Travis
I hadn’t been home in a long damn time.
Knoxville hadn’t changed much since I last left it over five years ago. Same assholes ran the place, same economically depressed industries, same old shit. I wasn’t sure what the fuck was drawing me back, except to visit my brother.
Maybe I needed a little nostalgia. For the past five years I’d been a member of an elite Navy SEAL team tasked with hunting down and killing international terrorists. Our biggest adversary, a group based out of Pakistan called The Network, had attempted to blow up a nuclear power plant in Michigan. Fortunately, though, the team’s old SEAL captain and I had managed to foil the plot, averting a serious disaster.
But since then, the captain had decided to retire from active SEAL duty, and the whole team had been put on temporary standby until a new captain could be selected. That meant my ass was stuck in a semi-permanent shore leave, and I was already getting fucking bored.
There were only so many women I could fuck before they all seemed the same. I’d been hanging around Chicago, hitting whatever spot struck my fancy, taking women home almost every night. I never had a fucking problem getting a girl to warm my bed each night if that was what I wanted.
But that got tiring soon enough. And so I found myself driving across the country just to get a glimpse of my old hometown.
I didn’t have family in Knoxville, not anymore. I came from an old southern family, farmers and fighters and drinkers and thieves. My parents were dead and my extended family had all gotten out of town, probably for the best. Knoxville wasn’t exactly welcoming to the Rock clan anymore.
These days, Knoxville was run by the Dixie Mafia. That was fine with me, though those guys tended to be dramatic assholes. I knew them back in my younger days, back when I was just a dumb and reckless asshole teenager doing whatever I could to make a buck. I wasn’t interested in getting involved with them. All I wanted was to do a little trip down memory lane and to finally visit my older brother after all this time.
Which was how I ended up at Mack’s Roadhouse. It was a little backwoods place on the edge of town where all the damn rednecks ended up. I sat my ass down at one end of the bar, ordered a whisky, and took in the feel of good old Knoxville.
It felt crowded and loud. That was pretty much how I remembered it, but maybe my memory was skewed a bit toward the positive. Mack’s was really just a rundown plywood box with a hole in the back to shit and piss in, plus a bunch of bootleg liquor lining the shelves.
I sipped my whisky, ignoring the loud idiots all around me. I was one of these guys, back in the day, back before the Navy kicked my ass into shape. I was just a dumb fucking hick kid back then, and all I dreamed about was one day owning some farm land.
Instead, I ended up enlisting and wound up becoming a Navy SEAL. That kicked my ass into shape, and I never looked back. I went overseas, fought the good fight, saved the damn world.
That was all I wanted to do in this life: travel the world, fighting the bastards who hurt innocent people. I felt most alive when I was out in the trenches, sleeping in ditches, my life in danger.
And I was fucking good at it. You didn’t become a SEAL if you were some soft piece of shit. I was one hard motherfucker, and I lived for that. I didn’t take any shit from anybody, because I was a man trained to kill and always win.
I knocked back my first whisky and ordered a second. I decided to nurse this one, not wanting to get too fucked up before the night really got going. If I remembered correctly, Mack’s got pretty fucking wild after the sun went down, and I was in the mood for some good southern pussy.
I looked up from my drink and saw her for the first time. Blond curly hair, big green eyes, thick red lips. She looked surprised to see me, probably not used to seeing a real man mixed in with all these fucking scum.
And shit was she fucking sexy. Her full breasts were showing out the top of her sundress. I gave her a nice smirk, keeping eye contact, and slowly nodded at her.
The girl turned red and looked away. I wanted to laugh. I couldn’t believe a girl like her got shy at a man giving her a nod, but there it was. She was skittish, the pretty fucking thing.
Just then, these three guys came wading through the crowd. The one in the front, this string-bean looking fuck with disgusting hair and yellow teeth, put his hand on the girl’s shoulder. She went from looking embarrassed and surprised to terrified as soon as she turned toward him.
I couldn’t hear their voices, but based on the way everyone around them responded, the conversation wasn’t good. The man grabbed the girl by the arm and he yanked her out of her seat, practically dragging her along.
Now, I wasn’t looking for trouble. I wasn’t really in the mood for a fight, or at least not this early in the day. I liked to be a little drunker before I started in on beating some assholes down. But I was raised to respect a woman, and I never turned my back when I saw shit go down like that.
All the other assholes in the bar, they pretended like it wasn’t happening. I couldn’t fucking believe it, but it didn’t shock me. These dickheads were all talk, a bunch of fucking cowards when it came right down to it.
I knocked my drink back and motioned for another. The barman filled up my glass and I knocked another back. “Who are those boys?” I asked him before he walked away. “The ones with the girl.”
The barman frowned. “Ain’t nobody you want to know, friend. Best just keep out of it.”
I nodded. “Okay then. Thanks.”
The assholes dragged the girl out of the bar and nobody said a word. The door shut behind them and everyone went back to laughing and talking like nothing had happened.
I sighed and stood up slowly. I checked the knife in my pocket and then headed slowly toward the front door. My heart was beating slowly in my chest, and I took a deep breath.
I really wasn’t looking for shit, but apparently shit had a way of finding me.
I pushed open the door and stepped out. Standing there was
one of the goons with his arms crossed. He was short and stocky with a bald head and some shitty, racist tattoos on his neck.
“Turn around,” he grunted. “Private fucking party out here.”
I heard the girl struggling out in the parking lot. She wasn’t quite screaming, but I could tell she was angry and in pain.
“Sounds like someone needs help,” I said to the guy.
“I don’t hear a thing,” he said, stepping toward me. “Go back inside.” He lifted his shirt and showed me a pistol.
I laughed. “Seriously?”
He went to draw, but I moved faster. I grabbed the wrist he was drawing with and shoved it down. He stumbled forward, so I smashed my forehead into the dumb fuck’s nose.
Blood poured from his wound as I twisted our bodies and threw him to the ground. He hit the concrete hard. I pulled his wrist out from his pants, leaving the gun behind, and cracked him in the face with my free fist.
The guy was out cold. I made a face and pulled the gun from his body, just to be on the safe side.
A second later, his buddy came around the corner. “What the fuck?” he called out, pulling his piece.
“Don’t,” I said, already pointing my gun at his face. “You pull that gun and I’ll kill you.”
He paused, hesitating. I stood and walked over to him. “Turn around,” I said.
He put his hands up and listened. I grinned and put the gun against his back. I took his weapon from his waistband and threw it away into the woods.
“Walk,” I ordered.
We moved together across the parking lot. There, pressing the girl against the car, was their greasy fucking leader. He had the girl turned around and was working on getting her panties down.