Razor
Heather Slade
K19 Security Solutions Book One
Copyright © 2018 by Heather Slade
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN 10: 1-942200-39-0
ISBN 13: 978-1-942200-39-0
Also by Heather Slade
K19 SECURITY SOLUTIONS
Coming Soon!
Book Two: Gunner
BUTLER RANCH
Available Now!
Book One: Brodie
Book Two: Maddox
Book Three: Naughton
Book Four: Ainsley
Book Five: Mercer
Book Six: Kade
COWBOYS OF CRESTED BUTTE
Available Now!
Book One: Fall for Me
Book Two: Dance with Me
Book Three: Kiss Me Cowboy
Book Four: Stay with Me
Book Five: Win Me Over
Coming Soon!
Book Six: Sing to Me
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Heather Slade
Want more?
Gunner
Fall for Me
1
When Razor’s best friend sat him down and told him it was time they both grew up, he thought maybe that oughta be a wake-up call. And then, when he took it a step further and said he no longer wanted to be called “Paps,” like he had been for almost fifteen years, Razor decided that, maybe, it was time to check the mirror to see if he was getting as gray as his friend was.
Gunner “Paps” Godet had been Tabon “Razor” Sharp’s fellow Marine, sidekick, partner in crime, wingman, and confidant since they’d both arrived at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego for boot camp. It had been a fluke that Godet was even there. Given Gunner was an East Coast boy, he should’ve been sent to Parris Island in South Carolina. But his dad was a USMC O-8, also known as a two-star, who oversaw the base at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego. That meant Gunner had his pick.
Razor hadn’t cared either way, although everybody he served with later, told him how damned lucky he’d been to end up where he had.
“What the hell are you doin’ now?” Gunner asked.
Truth was, he was standing in front of a mirror, giving himself a pep talk. It wasn’t being a groomsman in their mutual friend’s wedding that worried him, or even that K19 Security Solutions—the company he and Gunner owned with two other partners—was morphing so quickly he hardly recognized it anymore. Instead, it was the woman his friend’s fiancée had paired him up with in the wedding party.
Avarie McNamara, who he should’ve forgotten months ago, wound up center stage in every fantasy he had when he needed to take the edge off. It didn’t help that the one and only time he’d met her in person, she was wearing the hottest damn bikini he’d ever seen.
She’d let him know, in no uncertain terms, that she was interested that day, but he hadn’t been able to take her up on it. He’d been on the clock, filling in as her friend’s bodyguard long before she knew she had one.
He’d known a lot about Ava prior to her coming on to him that day, but he hadn’t allowed himself to get to know her in the intimate way she was suggesting.
“It’s a damn tuxedo,” Gunner griped, interrupting his thoughts of the gorgeous woman he was about to see for the first time in over a year. “There’s one way to wear it. Nobody gives a shit what you look like, anyway. Let’s go.”
It wasn’t unusual for Gunner to be grouchy. Razor hadn’t really known him to be any other way. But in the last six months, it had gotten a lot worse.
He understood why, though. No one else had been under their watch for as long as “Barbie” Hess had been. When she went off her rocker, decided to make a deal with some really bad Russian dudes, and then threatened to kill one of their own, Gunner had been the one forced to take her down.
Razor rubbed his chest where it still hurt to think about. It had to be so much worse for his friend. It wasn’t just that Gunner was responsible for her death; Razor suspected that, at some point, Gunner had fallen in love with their former commander’s daughter. He’d never admit it, though, and Razor respected that.
“What is with you?” Gunner asked when they got in the car and Razor rolled his shoulders.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He realized that Gunner would be under the impression he was thinking about Barbie too, considering she had been the mother of the woman getting married today.
“Ava McNamara,” Razor admitted.
“Hot little number. Her twin too. How is she a problem?”
“I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Not like you,” Gunner muttered.
“You should’ve seen the bikini she had on, that day on Fire Island.”
He’d spent a total of twenty minutes with her, so for her to be on his mind at all was unusual.
But the fantasies? Shit. There were times they seemed so real he could swear he knew exactly how her nipples would harden under his touch, and how her wetness would coat his fingers when he sneaked them in her bikini bottom.
He could even remember how she’d smelled that day. At first it was of sand and sun and margaritas, but the longer they’d talked, the more the sweet scent of her arousal eclipsed everything else. That wasn’t something he had to imagine; that was a bona fide memory.
When Gunner pulled into the parking lot of San Ysidro Ranch just outside of Santa Barbara, Razor saw Penelope, another bridesmaid, walking along the pathway between two cottages.
If Ava was wearing the same dress Penelope was, those fantasies he’d been having would soon get a hell of a lot hotter.
The small amount of pale green fabric she wore was shorter than most bridesmaids’ dresses he’d seen, with a halter top that left little to the imagination. Ava and her sister, Aine, were far more endowed than this girl. He couldn’t even imagine how good the dress would look on them.
Gunner laughed. “You’re in for it.”
He knew it, but then there was always a chance that reality-Ava wouldn’t be half as hot as he remembered her being.
Plus, he knew her type. She was a spoiled little rich girl, looking for someone to take care of her the way Daddy did. He’d known plenty of girls like her. They hadn’t thought much of him until they found out he was a partner in a very successful security and intelligence business.
Then there was the other type. They’d take one look at the body he worked so hard to keep strong and fit, decide he didn’t have much of a brain, and treat him like a boy toy. He didn’t complain, though. It worked to his advantage when they were looking for someone to rock the shit out of their world but didn’t expect to be acknowledged by the next day’s light.
There was always a chance that’s how it would go with Ava later. Wasn’t bridesmaid/groomsman sex a thi
ng? Maybe after the wedding, she’d invite him into one of these cottages he guessed went for at least a grand a night, and he could pound her sweet body out of his system.
—:—
Ava looked in the mirror for what felt like the thousandth time and touched up her lipstick. She felt more nervous than the bride looked.
Quinn and Mercer, the groom, were one of those couples who everyone knew were meant to be. Ava had known it from the first time she’d introduced him to her and the rest of their group of friends.
There was absolutely no question, even then, that Mercer loved her. You could see it all over his face, in the way he touched Quinn and smiled at her. Admittedly, Ava had been jealous at the time, particularly since, not long before, she’d found out her first love was getting married.
She and Dash had been broken up for over two years, but at the time, Ava would’ve much rather been the one to announce she was marrying first.
She shook herself and rolled her shoulders. Dashiell Finnegan was one person she should not be thinking about today. Not only had she discovered he was a scumbag criminal, the last time she’d seen him, he’d threatened her within an inch of her life if she told anyone what she’d discovered.
Within a few days, he’d been arrested after the authorities received an anonymous tip. Ava didn’t doubt for a minute that he believed she was the one who’d called it in. She wasn’t, but she had been contacted by the prosecution, whom she’d told what she knew. Unfortunately, that meant she was going to have to testify if his case went to trial.
That wasn’t what was worrying her now, though.
“Are you okay?” Aine asked.
“Me? I’m fine. Why?”
When Aine smiled and rolled her eyes, Ava took her arm and pulled her away from the others.
“Do I seem nervous?” she asked.
“Probably not to anyone else.”
Aine was the only one who knew the extent of the crush Ava had on Tabon Sharp.
Describing who he was to anyone outside of their group was way too complicated. When they’d first met him, he had been introduced as Quinn’s boss at the non-profit she’d interned for the previous summer.
Later, they found out that wasn’t the case at all. It turned out that, unbeknownst to Quinn, Tabon was her temporary bodyguard and was filling in for Mercer, who had secretly been her “protector” for years.
When Aine first told her all of this, Ava’s first reaction had been that it was a joke.
“Sounds like the plot of a romance novel. Although, I have to admit I’m not surprised he wasn’t her boss. I thought he seemed too young to be,” she’d said when her twin convinced her she wasn’t kidding.
“Here’s the other thing,” Aine had said. “He and Mercer own a private security firm, called K19 something-or-other, with a couple of other guys. And, get this, I guess no one calls him Tabon; his ‘code name’ is Razor.”
As if the man hadn’t been hot enough before. His nickname, or whatever it was, elevated him to rock-star status in her fantasies.
The first time they met, she and her four best friends were staying at Penelope’s dad’s place, on Fire Island, and had just come off the beach to get a drink at one of the local bars. Quinn recognized him first and went to say hello. When she rejoined them, Ava made a beeline in the direction of the man who had to have been the hottest looking guy on the island that weekend.
The board shorts he wore were red, almost the same color as her bikini, and his plain white v-neck shirt looked like it might be a size too small. Through the thin cotton fabric, she could see the hard outline of his rock-solid chest in detail, and the tribal tattoo that started on his left pec and continued down his chiseled arm, almost to his elbow.
He smirked when her eyes finally met his, and he offered to buy her a drink. “I like what I see too,” he said while looking her up and down like she’d done to him.
When his gaze lingered on her bikini top, Ava had felt her nipples harden as her body instinctively leaned into him. When he looked up and smiled, Ava thought she’d melt into his arms.
His dark brown eyes, almost black like his spiky hair, danced in amusement and crinkled at the corners when he smiled broadly.
If he’d snapped his fingers then, Ava would’ve done anything he commanded her to. He exuded a deep, underlying power that made a lot more sense when she found out he owned a security company than it did when she’d thought he was the chief operating officer of a Manhattan-based non-profit that worked to preserve historic buildings.
“Stop thinking about him,” Aine whispered. “Your cheeks are flushed and, um…you might want to wear these.” Her twin handed her a set of nipple covers.
“I already am,” Ava whispered back.
“Then double-up because they aren’t hiding a thing.”
Could she help it if Tabon Sharp set every nerve ending in her body on fire? It wasn’t just that her nipples hardened whenever she thought about him, the rest of her body responded with equal fervor. If she didn’t get her hands on that man tonight, she might combust.
—:—
“You ready?” asked Gunner.
“No,” said Razor, ready to take his second cold shower of the morning. Ava McNamara was close—soon she’d be close enough to touch—and he had no control over his body’s reaction to knowing that.
If he didn’t get himself into her tight little body tonight, he’d be able to pound nails with the raging hard-on he got every time her image crept into his brain.
2
He and Gunner walked up to Cottage Twenty, where the groom said to meet him.
“Good afternoon, Tabon,” said Kade, father of the bride, one of his K19 partners, and known to them as “Doc.”
“Just because Gunner has decided he no longer wants to go by the name we’ve been calling him for almost fifteen years, doesn’t mean I’m ready to do the same.”
He actually preferred Razor. Tabon was his dad. His grandfather too. In fact, he was the fifth namesake of the original Tabon Sharp. When he was a kid, his dad referred to him as Five.
Razor sounded edgy—even dangerous—and that was the kind of life he led.
Before he and his three partners formed K19, he’d been one of the most lethal operatives in the NCS—the CIA’s National Clandestine Service. His kill count was almost as high as his captures, not that he was proud of it.
The only thing about it that made him stand up tall and proud was that word on the street was not to fuck with Razor Sharp.
“It’s about that time, I guess,” said Doc.
Razor watched as the groom, Mercer, approached his future father-in-law.
“Before you say anything,” Doc began. “I chose you. Never forget that. My plan was for you to protect my daughter, not fall in love and marry her, but since you did, I couldn’t be more elated. I know you’ll make her very happy, and hope she does the same for you.”
“Thanks,” Mercer said, clearly emotional about Doc’s words. “I love her so much.”
“I know,” Doc said before turning and walking out the door.
“My brothers better get here soon,” murmured Mercer right before the door opened and two men who looked like clones of him walked in.
“This is Owen. Owen, this is Paps—sorry, Gunner, and Razor. And this is my youngest brother, Hudson.”
The four exchanged handshakes.
“You’re the reason we couldn’t have a bachelor party,” Razor said to Hudson, who had flown in from Europe late last night.
“No, he’s the reason.” Hudson pointed at Mercer.
The groom had told them, a week ago, that he didn’t want any kind of bachelor party, and the bride had requested her friends not plan anything either.
Razor pulled the wedding bands that Mercer had given him last night out of his pocket and handed them to Owen, the best man.
“These are your responsibility now,” he said. While Razor was usually the one who tried to lighten the moment with a joke, the f
act that Mercer had asked him to keep them until Owen arrived, meant something. He was honored, even though it was a little thing.
“Ready?” Gunner asked Mercer.
“Pretty sure he was born ready,” said Razor.
“I love her so much,” Mercer said again.
Razor put his hand on his shoulder. “Hey, buddy, time to come out of the prenuptial trance. You’re actually gonna have to say something other than that soon.”
Gunner made sure everyone exited the cottage in the right order. Razor didn’t really understand all this wedding shit, but evidently, other than the best man, the bride determined the order of the groomsmen. Didn’t seem like a big deal to him until she’d called him aside a couple of days ago.
“I’ve put you with Ava,” she’d whispered. “You know, in the wedding.”
“Uh…okay,” he’d answered.
“Aine is my maid of honor, so I wanted Ava to be next to her, since they’re twins.”
Razor had nodded, still not quite understanding what she meant. He’d been to weddings, but never realized the order people walked in was planned.
“Does that mean I get to dance with her?”
She’d laughed like she thought he was kidding, but he hadn’t been. She had no idea how much he lusted after Avarie McNamara.
—:—
Aine was fussing with the bride’s veil while one of the other bridesmaids was handling the sapphire blue earrings Quinn’s father had given to her last night.
Razor (K19 Security Solutions) Page 1