Suzanne Shythe, sister and best friend
Collapsing back onto the bench in awe, I trace each letter as the tears fall.
Ethan tells me in a gruff but gentle voice, “She’s with my dad. He left this world, trusting me with what mattered most to him. I trust him in their world with what matters most to you.”
Emotions choke me, and for a little while, I’m unable to get words out. All I can do is cry and trace my sister’s name, letting the pain of her loss move through me. It’s not as sharp as it was, but I can still feel it to the bottom of my soul.
In his own way, Ethan gave me my sister back, and for that, I can never repay him. It is the most beautiful, thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.
Bracing my forehead against Suzie’s name, I close my eyes, and a sense of peace warms me from the inside out. I told Ethan after we got back together about the hallucination I had of Suzie when Ricca had me. I explained how much it bothered me to have Suzie so close to my grasp then brutally taken away from me again, even if it was only a dream of sorts.
Having him remember that conversation and go out of his way to give me closure to something that might seem trivial to others means the world to me. In every little way that he can, Ethan has gone out of his way to prove he is all in with me this time around.
The wind blows, ruffling my hair a bit, and for a moment, it almost feels like it’s Suzie’s hand running through my curls. I feel her spirit surround me, and part of me never wants to leave. My sister is here with me, and I never want to let her go again. But living half a life as a broken shell of a person is not what she would want for me. My Suzie was vibrant and loved living life to its fullest. She would want me to do just that. And now that I have Ethan in my life, I want that for myself, too.
This bench, though, is a gorgeous gift from the man I love and gives me a place to sit and feel my sister’s arms around me once again. A place to come to celebrate my sister’s life rather than anguish over her death.
Looking up at the man I love, the man who gets me inside and out, I finally choke out a tearful whisper. “Thank you, Ethan. It’s so very perfect.”
He gives me a smile that reflects more than words will ever say. “Anything for you, Drill Sergeant.” Holding his hand out, he beckons for me to take it. “Come on, sugar. My mom is at the house, waiting to meet you.”
I can’t help that my eyes widen as I stare at Ethan like a deer caught in headlights. “You’re taking me to meet your mom?”
He nods. “Yeah. She lives here in Clarksville. She never wanted to leave my dad behind, so she stayed here after I went into the Army.” Grabbing my hand, he pulls me into him and runs a hand gently down the side of my face. “Wipe that scared look off your face, Drill Sergeant. It’s just my mom, and she’s gonna love you.”
Biting my bottom lip, I nervously fidget in his arms. “Are you sure? I haven’t had the best experience with parents. Case in point, my own parents never wanted much to do with me.”
Ethan snorts. “Your parents are assholes. Me, Evan, Mom, and the Regulators, we’re your family now. Fuck your DNA donors.”
I should be sad to be reminded that my parents were never, in fact, parents to me and Suzie, but that’s a fact of life I settled a long time ago. Instead, I’m amused at Ethan’s insistence of my new family. There are a few guys I’m pretty sure would rather duct tape me to a wall than talk to me. One of them is Ethan’s best friend.
“Does that make Coal the big brother I never wanted?”
He barks a laugh. “Yeah, I guess it does. Fair warning, though; don’t ever go in his room at the club. It’ll scar you for life.”
Shaking my head, I walk with him, hand in hand, through the graveyard. “No worries there. I don’t even wanna know. But you forgot somebody.”
Stopping, he turns to me and cocks his head. “Yeah? Who’d I forget?”
Without hesitation, I answer, “The Hellions. They’re my family, too, whether you like it or not.”
In my messed up life, I have found love and family in the most unlikely of places: inside not one but two different motorcycle clubs. Who would have ever thought such badass men could have the capacity to accept and love me?
Things aren’t always what they seem, though. Ethan and the Regulators have taught me that.
Ethan gives me a long, considering look then smirks as he pulls me in for a hug. “You’ve got me there, Drill Sergeant. Now we’ve gotta get a move on it. We take too long to get to Ma’s house and Evan is gonna eat all the damn apple pie.”
I laugh as he pulls me behind him at a fast pace. Apparently, his mom makes really good pie.
I glance back at my bench, and in the distance beyond it, I see a mirage of my sister dancing through the wildflowers, her arms raised above her head and her face turned to the rays of the sun with a bright smile on her face.
Maybe the vision is just my overactive imagination. Perhaps it is my inner most desires projected to life. But I think it is my sister telling me she is finally at peace.
About the Authors
Chelsea Camaron
USA Today Bestselling author Chelsea Camaron is a small town Carolina girl with a big imagination. She is a wife and mom chasing her dreams. She writes contemporary romance, erotic suspense, and psychological thrillers. She loves to write blue-collar men who have real problems with a fictional twist. From mechanics to bikers to oil riggers to smokejumpers, bar owners, and beyond, she loves a strong hero who works hard and plays harder.
For more information on Chelsea Camaron:
www.authorchelseacamaron.com
Sign Up for Chelsea’s Newsletter
Follow on Facebook Page
Follow on Twitter
Add Chelsea to your circles on Google Plus
Follow on Pinterest
Follow on Goodreads
Or you can send Chelsea Camaron an email at:
[email protected]
Jessie Lane
Jessie Lane is a best-selling author of Paranormal and Contemporary Romance, as well as, Upper YA Paranormal Romance/Fantasy. She lives in Kentucky with her two little Rock Chicks in-the-making and her over protective alpha husband that she’s pretty sure is a latent grizzly bear shifter. She has a passionate love for reading and writing naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them.
For more information on Jessie Lane:
http://jessielanebooks.com/
Sign Up for Jessie’s Newsletter
Follow on Facebook Page
Follow on Twitter
Add Jessie to your circles on Google Plus
Follow on Pinterest
Follow on Goodreads
Or you can send Jessie Lane an email at:
[email protected]
Delta: Revenge
By
Cristin Harber
Copyright ©2016 Cristin Harber
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
A Tortured Hero with a Heart of Gold
Growing up on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Javier Almeida has only his older sister to protect him. When she’s sold to a human-trafficker, he vows to hunt down those responsible.
Years later, Titan Group’s Delta team finds him, tattooed and brawling, a vigilante protector with information they want. They take him in and train him, working him harder than a man should be driven, until he’s a soldier harboring an obsession. Ready for revenge, Javier ghosts his way across the globe, tracking the men who took his sister and working elite private security jobs.
Meets Sweet and Sassy
Jilted at the altar, Sophia Cole turns the reception into a one-woman party. She’s intent on devouring all the cake and champagne, so she can bask in the calories
she’s been avoiding. In the midst of the revelry, he walks in, the one man she can never ignore.
Javier is her older brother’s black ops teammate—an automatic Do Not Go There. But if there’s one thing better than fondant and a buzz to ease the wounds of a cheating fiancé, it might be a one-night stand with a South American military man.
Game Changer
Javier didn’t expect to see Sophia again. He never thought he would even want to see her again. He shouldn’t have touched her, but his mind won’t stay away from her.
Now, Sophia Cole is thousands of miles away from the safety of her parents’ lavish estate and working alongside him in hell. She’s a staffer at an Embassy, and he’s there to keep them alive. There are bombs and bullets and blood-hungry enemies.
And then she’s taken. Gone. Just like his sister. But so much worse.
Excerpt:
She had met Javier in passing a couple times and knew that he had a bit of a wild reputation. But that was not the guy in front of her, sitting on the edge of the bed, hanging his head and holding the phone as if he’d just received bad news.
“Are you okay?” She wiped the corner of her mouth, sure there were icing smudges. He looked broken and alone, and she wondered how long he’d been there, lost in thought as night drifted by.
But he laughed, transforming whatever hung over him with a flash of his gorgeous smile. “Wow. Yeah. I’m okay. How are you?”
“I hate that question.”
“Why?”
“Does anyone ever answer it truthfully?”
His dark eyes tightened with the hint of acknowledgement, but it was the cut jawline and olive skin that made her take notice. “Answer truthfully. What do you have to lose?”
The accent and the low pitch of his voice urged her to trust him as though he were genuinely interested in whether she was okay, even if he didn’t know her from Adam. Her head tilted toward the dresser where she’d placed her post-reception creature-comfort plan. “I’m gorging on enough cake for four people and ready to cut off my dress and drink a bottle of champagne by myself.”
He laughed and tilted his head toward his champagne bottle on the nightstand. “Feel you on the bubbly.”
She smiled, taking a step closer. “So, you’re about okay as I am.”
His smile wavered but came back. “You’re day is worse than mine.”
Her eyes bounced to his opened bottle. “Good bubbly?”
He nodded. “Not bad.”
“Good. Think I’ll join you.” Sophia grabbed the scissors and the bottle, sawing at the foil. She could go into a war zone and covertly try to change the world, yet she had no flipping idea how to open a bottle of champagne. Her mother would have died. Surely that had been taught in a cotillion class or something. Or maybe not.
“Hey, hey, stop.” Javier stood from his perch on the bed. “You’re going to slit your wrist or lose a finger.” In a few strides, he took the bottle and blade, shaking his head. “Have you ever seen someone open champagne with scissors?”
Well, no. “That’s not why I brought them with me.”
He pulled off the foil and popped the cork, giving her a look before handing her back the bottle. “Drink the whole thing, and you’ll have a hell of a hangover.”
She shrugged. “I’m operating without a plan. We’ll see how the night goes.”
“No plan, no problem?” That accent was intoxicating, far more so than the pricey alcohol. “Doesn’t work like that.” His thick arms crossed over his broad chest. His eyes were the deep color of coffee, and his hair was long enough she could have threaded her fingers into it, but not a strand was out of place. And the dress pants and a button-down shirt? Wow, the whole look fit in a way that made her delusional. “Are… you okay?”
“Um.” Shit. She was staring at the massive man, silently studying what proved God might’ve been a woman because to make a man that chiseled and perfect? Oh boy. Sophia was still staring. “Cake?”
He laughed quietly. “No, thanks.”
“You don’t eat cake?”
He gave a non-answer with a sight turn of his head.
“Then you should go.” She nodded, taking the scissors back from his hand. “I don’t trust people who won’t eat cake.”
“I eat cake, Sophia. I just… you obviously came up here to have some quiet, so I’ll go and let you have that.”
“You were up here first.”
His curious eyes narrowed. “But it’s your house.”
“Is it?” Sophia twirled, taking in a room she might not have been in before. All these rooms resembled the glossy photographs in Southern Living. They were beautiful but, in her opinion, lacked personalization. “Guess it is.” She stopped her slow spin and tugged at the dress that was still making her miserable. “You know what?”
An amused eyebrow rose. “Hm?”
Even his questioning noises oozed sensuality. It made her mind wander. If a simple question sounded like that, what would happen if he said it closer, quietly? Against her ear? Between her legs—wait, what? She snapped her head back, aware of the sexy, slippery slope she could go down and how her nipples seemed to have perked and jumped to attention already. She licked her lip, forgot anything about him being close or between anywhere, and focused back on their conversation.
“There’s—” Her voice cracked. “A very small contingent of people who’ve genuinely asked me if I’m okay. Colin probably being the most direct and most interested.”
Javier stood silently. His dark eyelashes fluttered. Maybe he was deciding how best to escape. Who cared if she’d just bared her soul to essentially a stranger? It was true that people’s reactions to her crisis said a lot about them—which she already knew—but she realized it was also telling how quickly she’d become interested in another man. Not that she was interested in Javier, just that it was possible to hear an accent and stare at the living definition of sex appeal and forget about one’s ex-fiancé. So. Very. Possible.
“Colin’s a good guy,” Javier offered.
“The best,” she agreed, her heart pattering a beat faster as he stepped, enacting his escape plan. Her chest panged for a nanosecond before she ignored the absurd reaction to his abandonment. But Javier’s next step came closer to Sophia, as though he waffled, not stalking directly toward to freedom.
As though maybe he felt what she felt: a seriously questionable, very uncertain desire to inch together. She felt an unexplainable spark that might’ve been more interesting than champagne and cake, the kind that could make heat bloom in her chest when it hadn’t flickered in a very long time.
“Oh boy.” But that couldn’t have been loud enough for him to hear, and she suddenly didn’t want him to leave. He’d quieted the buzz that she hadn’t realized had been ringing in her ears. Everything was quiet. Except her heart, which pounded in her lace-covered chest more than it had in years.
“So, are you?” he asked, scratching her with a tone that hit in all the right spots.
“Am I? What? Um…?” Her mind spun fast, trying to remember anything that might be conversationally appropriate.
His quiet laugh made her smile. “Are you okay, Sophia?”
Sophia. Her name rolling off his tongue made shivers roll down her spine. She liked her name, but the way he said it made one word come alive. “I am right now.”
Their eyes locked. There were sparks; it wasn’t just her. The idea was absurd. This had to be some psychological coping mechanism, but every nerve in her body had awakened and tingled for her to touch him.
So… simple. Just a touch. Her palms on his cheeks. The pads of her fingers sweeping down his neck if she leaned in, and their lips—
“Good.” Javier nodded, breaking their connection.
Her cheeks heated, and where electricity had shot down her spine, now it was a one-sided sexual awareness. She’d had quite the day. Sophia pushed her shoulders back and tossed the scissors onto the bed, and Javier
handed her the bottle of champagne.
She took it and the cake then sat on the edge of the elaborately covered queen-sized bed. Setting the plate down, she took a sip straight from the bottle, and the bubbles tickled her tongue and her nose, making her squeak out a laugh. “I’m gangster, right?”
“Total.”
His chuckle and smile made her take another sip again because she couldn’t quite look at him without broadcasting how attractive he was. Javier reached onto the bed, where he had abandoned his suit jacket.
She couldn’t help it; she offered again. “No cake? You’re sure?”
He returned the stare, eyes raking over her in a not-so-benign manner. It did amazing things for her insides. Wow. If she was going to marry someone, she should at least have felt a tenth of the excitement that Javier caused with a single smoldering look.
“Yeah. I’ll take a bite.” His large strides ate the space between them, giving her a show of just how powerful his thighs were. Before she could fathom cutting a piece off for him, he joined her on the edge of the bed, confidently picked up her fork, and took a man-sized bite.
Holy mother of snack shares—he used her fork. Who did that? Gah. That was a far cry from, basically, their first in-depth conversation.
He nodded his appreciation. “Good stuff.”
Javier speared another piece, and before she knew how to process his movements, the cake was pressed to her lips, and she ate the decidedly smaller bite. Which was just as good as the first tastes, but he had fed it to her, so it was infinitely better.
Nerves and nutso thoughts rambled in her head, and fortunately, she managed to mumble her thanks. Her insides were scattered, her mind numb. Had hottie Javier just fed her cake? Why yes, he had. Along with his accent replaying in her head, she could pretty much check off every fantasy she’d ever had. And he was still next to her. Still.
Holy shit, she needed that bubbly. Pronto.
They both reached for their matching bottles. Apparently, Javier needed his bubbly too. That made her smile, which made him smile. What a smile. What an amazingly dangerous smile…
Hammer (Regulators MC Book 2) Page 21