And then he pulled out. It was so abrupt and so sudden I cried out. I reached for him, trying to drag him back. I wanted him inside me. I wanted to feel his desire.
“Charlotte, look at me,” he commanded.
I opened my eyes and found his.
“Are you ready?”
“Yesss,” I hissed, impatient. I already answered this question before.
He shook his head and leveled his body so it was brushing over mine and his penis was probing against my entrance, promising more pleasure.
“Are. You. Ready?”
“For what?” I cried, trying to push him into me. He pulled back, giving me a sly grin.
“For forever. Are you ready for forever?”
My eyes flew open. He was asking me to be his. Always. I didn’t even have to think the answer. I knew it. I felt it.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”
He growled and pounded into me, wrapping his arm around my waist and anchoring our bodies together as he shouted his release. The joy of feeling his seed spill inside me was like nothing I’d ever known.
When our bodies stopped shaking, he rolled, bringing me with him, draping my satiated body across his chest.
“Tucker?” I whispered.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you for not leaving.”
“I knew you’d come to your senses.”
I propped my chin on his chest. “How did you know?”
His grin was lopsided. “Because I’m irresistible.”
Well, I certainly couldn’t argue with that.
EPILOGUE
Tucker
Later that year…
Ocean waves lapped against the shoreline of Topsail Beach, North Carolina. I tipped the longneck back to my lips, expecting the cool rush of beer to tantalize my mouth.
The bottle was empty.
I looked up at the house towering over the sand and wondered where the hell Nathan was with our beer.
It was a beautiful summer day, breezy and not too hot. People roamed the shoreline looking for shells and tossing Frisbees for their dogs. Usually at this time of day, Nathan and I were behind our desks, working on cases.
The PI business was a success. Our contacts with the Marines and our professionalism to get the job done made us the go-to guys for just about every kind of investigative service that was needed.
Just yesterday we signed a big contract with the Corps for a deal that was going to keep us busy for years to come. All the money Charlotte negotiated was a nice bonus too.
It was why we decided to take the day off, to enjoy the spoils of our riches. Well, that and the fact that Honor and Nathan had a sweet beach house right on the sand.
Now that the deal was signed, Charlotte and I planned to build one right next to them. Thoughts of Charlie warmed my blood, and I got the familiar rush of happiness and craving I also felt when I thought of her. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. A fact Honor reminded me about every single day.
Not that I needed reminding.
A shadow fell across the sand and I smiled. “About damn time. Did you have to go to the store for the beer?” I said, looking up at Nathan.
“I asked Nathan to stay up at the house with Honor for a couple minutes,” Charlie said, holding the blowing hair back from her face.
Damn, she was gorgeous. Long, tan legs, tangled, golden hair, and eyes that were like a siren to my lost ship.
“Hey, darlin’,” I drawled, patting the sand beside me. “Did you have fun shopping with Honor?”
She cleared her throat. “Actually, we didn’t go shopping.”
There was something in her tone that put me on alert.
I turned so I could face her completely, parting my legs and sliding so she was in between them. “What’s going on?”
“I would have said something before. I just… I wanted to be sure.”
She was starting to scare me. She looked a little scared herself. “Charlie, you can tell me anything.” I tucked a strand of hair behind her hear.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, the words bursting between her lips and being carried away by the wind.
It took a moment to register, for me to understand.
“You’re pregnant?”
She glanced at me, a small smile playing on her lips. “We haven’t exactly been careful.”
Well, no, we hadn’t. I pretty much wanted her anytime, anywhere, and she never turned me down.
Her hand went protectively to her belly, the belly that now held my child. “Tucker?” she asked, her voice a little unsure.
I gave a shout of joy and scooped her up, letting her tight ass fill my lap. My hand slid over hers, and I grinned. “You’re giving me a baby.” I couldn’t keep the wonder out of my tone.
“Are you happy?” she asked. “I know it wasn’t planned.”
I grabbed her face and kissed the shit out of her until my chest screamed for air. “The best things in life are never planned.”
She laughed.
“I can’t think of anything I want more than my child growing inside you.”
She smiled. It was a smile that rivaled the glittering ocean beneath the sun.
“Are you happy?” I asked, leaning my forehead against hers.
“So happy.” Her eyes grew misty.
“Pregnancy hormones already?” I teased. “Guess I’m going to have to start carrying tissues in my pocket to dry your eyes.”
She giggled. “I’m actually twelve weeks already.”
I put my hand back against her belly once more. “You’re a stealthy little one, aren’t you, son?”
“Son?” she asked, lifting her brow.
“It’s a boy,” I said. I could feel it in my bones.
“I hope he’s just like his daddy,” she whispered.
I kissed her.
“Is it safe to come down?” A voice carried down from above.
I ripped my lips from the mother of my child and looked up to where Nathan and Honor were standing arm and arm, looking down at us.
“Get the cigars!” I yelled. “We’re having a baby!”
Nathan’s shout of joy filled the air.
Charlie laughed. She was absolutely glowing. “I love you so much.”
“Not as much as I love you,” I replied. I was getting damn good at saying pretty words.
“This life is so much better than the one I mapped out for myself,” she said, resting her head against my shoulder.
I couldn’t help but wrap my hand around her belly again. “Stick with me, babe. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.”
And it was.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This is the portion of the book where I dazzle you with my sparkling personality and witty wit. Okay, I doubt I have ever dazzled anyone with anything other than a flashlight. But seriously, usually in these here acknowledgments I don’t go on for half an hour, listing the same people I always list, because ain’t nobody got time for that.
Instead, I like to talk about what I was doing while I was in the process of writing this book.
Tricks was supposed to be out in January. Well, that was my plan… and you know what they say about the best laid plans.
No seriously, what do they say about that?
Anyway, I was pretty mentally drained from writing the first five books of the series in such a short amount of time, and then the holidays happened. And life happened.
Long story short, I got busy and I fell behind.
So when the calendar rolled over to 2014 and my kids went back to school, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I gotta tell you it was a struggle at first. I felt like I was walking through knee-high sludge (You ever see that bad B-rated movie from like forever ago called The Blob? That’s what it felt like I was walking through. The Blob).
I worried that Tucker and Charlotte would suck. I worried that no one would like them. I worried I would torpedo my career with a craptastic book.
But then Tucker s
tarted talking to me. He started talking about his junk a whole lot. At first I was scandalized! I thought about changing all his colorful terms for his male anatomy because I was afraid people would be offended (and I was mildly embarrassed), but then I changed my mind. Besides the fact I found Tucker utterly amusing, I felt like changing everything he said to fit into a box I thought people would deem appropriate was wrong. He was saying those words in my head so why I shouldn’t I write them? I always want to be as true to the characters as I can be.
So that being said, I hope you enjoy Tucker too. He is most definitely the most horny guy I’ve written to date. Ha-ha-ha-ha.
Charlotte was a little different than I imagined as well and I often worried people would lose respect for her because she sleeps with Tucker so quickly. I worried people would hate her for sleeping with Max’s brother. But again, I went with the story the characters were whispering and hoped people would understand. But the more I wrote, the more I realized Charlotte was just human… She was like a lot of people in this world. On a certain path, doing what she thinks she has to be doing, and completely ignoring her innermost feelings and desires. I actually respect Charlotte a lot and I hope everyone sees at least some of what I tried to do with her character.
Tricks didn’t really turn out the way I thought it would. I can’t really tell you what I thought it would be… but it wasn’t how it ended up. But I truly think it’s better.
I really hope you all enjoy this one. It was such a pleasure to write. And I gotta give a big shout out to Tucker for helping bring my mojo back.
Like he says, he really is irresistible.
Before I close, I would like to acknowledge my family who didn’t complain at all when I went into the cave and didn’t come out for long periods of time. I’d also like to thank Percy Jackson for entertaining my children through his movies. Over and over again.
My daughter, Kaydence, wanted me to write in here that I am a candy stealer and I have a tendency to hide candy so they can’t find it and I get it all to myself.
Hey, in my defense, if I don’t hide it, I don’t get any. A mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.
Also, to my editor at Gathering Leaves, Cassie McCown, thanks once again for always being there to clean up my mistakes. I couldn’t do this without you. To Regina Wamba, who has some seriously HOT models that she lets me use on my covers, creating a total drool-worthy moment when you see my covers. To Sharon Kay, for formatting my stuff with such dedication and persistence. I consider myself lucky to have such a great team behind me. I truly couldn’t do this without them.
And props to all you readers. You make what I do worth it. Thank you for helping me spread the word about my books and thank you for reading.
See you next book!
Turn the page for a sneak peek of,
TATTOO,
the next Take It Off novel,
coming March 2014!
Sneak Peek of TATTOO
By Cambria Hebert
Taylor
“This is 9-1-1. Please state your emergency.”
The voice on the other end of the line was calm and cool, no indication at all that whoever they were would be bothered by the panic that surely waited on the other end of line.
On my end of the line.
But I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. I was scared, I was shaking… and I was afraid they would hear me.
“9-1-1, please state your emergency, the voice said again.”
If I just sat here, if I just put the phone down where no one would see, could I be traced? Would the operator know to send help to this address? I was using my cell phone. Could a cell phone be traced like that?
My stomach churned because I honestly didn’t know.
How stupid could I be? How could I have never taken the time to learn this? How could I be crouching here, under my counter, with sweat dampening my silk shirt and prayer whispering from my lips?
“I said down on the floor, now!” an angry voice demanded.
The cries and screams of people behind me echoed through my head. The sound bounced around in my brain, refusing to fade away and threatening to take away what little bit of grip I had on my sanity.
I couldn’t just sit here.
I couldn’t just watch my life flash before my eyes. I couldn’t just let this happen.
I had to do something.
“I’m at Shaw Trust on Sunderland Avenue,” I whispered. “There is a bank robbery in progress.”
“Are you inside the bank, ma’am?” the dispatcher asked. I could hear her fingers flying over some keyboard and I prayed that meant she was sending help.
“Yes,” I whispered, clutching the phone.
One of the robbers was yelling at Brandy, one of my fellow tellers, to open the safe, and she was crying loudly.
“How many intruders are in the bank?”
I wasn’t sure. They charged inside in a flurry of furious movement and I ducked low, hiding myself behind my counter. “Too many,” I breathed.
“I’m dispatching several units to the scene, ma’am,” the operator informed me.
My stomach twisted painfully as the man continued to shout at Brandy. He was threatening her now and it seemed to make her more hysterical. Anger burned up through my esophagus. Anger at the robbers, anger at the woman on the other end of the phone. How could she be so calm? Did she not hear the commotion going on in the background? Did she not know that our lives were in danger?
A shot rang out and Brandy screamed. I peeked out to see plaster from the ceiling rain down over Brandy’s head. She threw her arms up around her for protection, and the man with the gun—the man who shot into the ceiling—grabbed her by the back of her head and slammed her into the safe. “Open it!” he roared.
“Ma’am, were those shots fired?” the operator asked.
“Yes,” I hissed, my voice shaky. “Please hurry.”
I could hear the people from the lobby sobbing and my thoughts went immediately to the man just on the other side of my counter. I didn’t know him, but the thought of him being hurt made my stomach hurt even more.
“What the hell is this?” someone snarled above me, and I quivered.
The phone was snatched away from my ear and I whimpered as a man in tattered jeans with a wide chest and a very lethal-looking gun in his hand snarled at me. He pressed the phone to his ear and I could hear the voice of the operator asking me if I was all right.
Yeah, now she was concerned.
With a loud roar, he threw the phone down onto the shiny tile floor and it broke apart, shattering instantly. The sound of scattering pieces was nearly as loud as the gunshot just moments before.
“We gotta snitch!” he yelled, reaching down. I pressed myself against the back of the counter until I felt the wood dig into the bones in my back. I slapped his hands away, but really it was useless. He outweighed me by at least fifty pounds. And he had a gun. My greatest weapon at the moment was my fingernails.
His hands were rough as he grabbed my wrist, twisting the flesh covering the bone and wrenching me out of the hiding spot. I cried out as he jerked my arm around my back, pulling so forcefully that it felt as if my shoulder was dislocated from its socket.
I didn’t have time to really assess if it was or not because he jammed the barrel of the gun into my throat. I could feel my hammering pulse thump rapidly against the cold, hard metal of the weapon.
“You call the police, bitch?” he whispered in my ear. Little dots of spit sprayed the side of my head from his putrid mouth.
I didn’t say anything because my answer would only make things worse.
The heavy footfalls of someone approaching from behind made me even more nervous, and I whispered another prayer in the back of my mind. We spun, and I was sandwiched between the guy threatening me with a gun and another thief staring at me with angry, dark eyes.
“You called the cops?” he said, like it was hard to believe.
“Last time I checked, robbing a b
ank and holding a gun on a person was a crime,” I said, knowing I shouldn’t, but not being able to keep the words in. I was scared, but I was also very angry.
He smacked me across the face. Hard.
His palm literally slammed into the side of my face, making my entire head fly sideways and right into the gun at my neck. The hard steel was unforgiving and it jammed into my flesh, making me cry out.
That was going to leave a mark.
“Hey,” said a rough voice from off to the side. “I thought you were here for the money and not to hit women.”
Part of me wanted to thank the man behind my counter for trying to defend me; the other part of me was horrified he would be punished.
Just as I feared, the man who slapped me leveled his gun at him. What was his name again? I tried to remember what it said on his ID when he showed it to me to make a withdrawal, but it was hard to think when half your face was stinging fiercely and the other half was being threatened with a bullet.
This was the worst day in the history of bad days.
“Hey! We came here for the cash!” another man behind us yelled.
I was shoved roughly forward. “Open the safe.”
I wasn’t going to open that safe.
I glanced at Brandy, who was huddled against the wall, crying. She didn’t appear to be physically harmed and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I said open it!” He yanked the gun away from my neck, but I couldn’t enjoy the safety because he slapped his large, sweaty palm in between my shoulder blades and thrust me forward so forcefully that I slammed into the metal door of the safe and bounced back, falling onto my ass on the floor.
A thud echoed behind me as I was pulled to my feet. He placed the gun between my shoulder blades, holding it there and directing me until I was standing right in front of the large keypad that opens the safe.
“I don’t know the combination,” I lied.
“Then you better hope you’re physic because you got exactly ten seconds to open that vault before I shoot you.”
Well, if that wasn’t motivation, I don’t know what was.
On shaking knees, I stepped forward, pressing a number on the pad. Then I pressed a couple more. When I hit the release button, nothing happened. But I didn’t expect it to. I just wanted it to look like I was trying to open it. I wasn’t opening it.
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