by Box Set
Red light.
Second attempt, be smooth, Leah.
Green light. The lock mechanism whirred to life, releasing the handle, and she opened her door as the guy from downstairs stepped into the hallway.
She made eye contact with him.
No smile.
She stepped into her room and stashed her backpack in the closet as the door swung closed behind her—but the lock didn’t engage. With a glance over her shoulder, she reached to push the door the rest of the way shut, and met unexpected resistance instead. The door pushed against her, or rather, someone pushed the door inward, and she wasn’t strong enough to push it shut. And then the toe of a boot—big, black, heavy-soled—jammed in the doorway.
She whirled to the side, hoping for at least some element of surprise.
The guy pushed into the room and she grabbed his arm, prepared to twist him around. But he was ready for her and used her force against her, continuing the turn until she was in the circle of his arms and pressed face-first against the wall.
“I saw you in that pink t-shirt and I knew I just needed to have you,” he said in her ear, his voice familiar even as he grubbed it up. “Should have taken the chance then.”
Three months earlier in a bar off-base, if he’d done this then, he’d have been a stranger. Now he was just pretending, and oh, how she loved him for it. She smiled against the wall and pushed off with both hands, shoving her back into his broad, muscled chest. He grappled for her and she twisted out of reach, making him chase her to the bed. But her advantage didn’t last long, and she quickly found herself pinned to the mattress. His hands were everywhere. Her hips, her waist, her ass.
Too bad for him he left her hands free. She planted one hand beneath and swung her other arm wide and up, knocking him sideways. Fresh sweat slicked her skin, but not his. She was good at hand-to-hand combat but he was infinitely better.
So when she pinned him to the bed, it was because he let her.
She straddled his hips and rocked against the erection straining at his jeans. “You thought you could scare me?”
“Couldn’t help myself,” he whispered, his eyes bright.
“Now the tables are turned.” She squeezed her hips, and something hard in his front pocket pushed into her inner thigh. Planting one hand on his chest, she gave him a stern look. “What is this?”
She quickly rifled through his pockets.
Handcuffs.
Lube.
Chuckling under her breath, she leaned forward, brushing her breasts over his face as she snapped the cuffs on first one wrist, then the other.
The entire time, Quinn watched her through hooded eyes, his gaze hot and hungry.
“We’re going to have to work on your abduction skills,” she teased gently.
“I’ve detained drug lords and terrorists in foreign country. My skills are just fine.”
“And yet you got taken down by a little woman.”
Instead of answering, he licked at her nipple through her t-shirt. Then he shrugged. “I missed you. Hard to maintain a desire to assault you when…”
“You were packing lube and totally willing for me to violate you instead?”
He laughed. “Don’t use that word.”
“I’ll use whatever word I like,” she whispered, cupping his erection through his jeans. He throbbed against her touch. “Got a problem with that?”
“God, no.”
“Good boy.” She pushed his t-shirt up, because it had been too long since she touched him, and his muscles tightened and bunched under her touch. She stroked her fingertips over the ridges of his eight-pack, then down again to the waistband of his jeans. “I’m so lucky,” she murmured as she undid his belt. “To have such a beautiful man, with a beautiful heart, attached to a gorgeous, big cock like this.”
He groaned as she found his length, hard and solid and yes, very big. “I’m the lucky one.”
“Maybe I’ll just play with you. Maybe I’ll be mean.”
He bucked his hips. “Okay.”
“God, you like that, don’t you.” She wiggled down his body until her mouth was right over his thick crown, shiny with pre-come.
“I like everything you do to me.”
“You are so deliciously dirty,” she said, her heart close to bursting as she licked the evidence of just how much he liked it.
He groaned again, pushing his cock into her mouth, and she swallowed him in, hungry for his taste and scent. Eager to give him pleasure. They’d only had phone sex for a month, and she was desperate for this physical connection again. As she bobbed her head up and down, fucking him with her mouth, she kicked off her sandals and wriggled out of her own jeans.
She wouldn’t touch herself. No, she’d make herself wait until after she’d given him his first orgasm, and then he could lick her or finger her or both…
With a moan, she re-doubled her efforts and sucked harder.
“Oh, angel, I’m gonna come if you keep that up,” he panted, his entire body straining beneath her. She squeezed the inside of his thigh, urging him to lose control.
When he did, thrusting deep into her throat and coming hard in long, hot spurts, she swallowed every drop.
“Where are the keys to the cuffs?” she whispered once she’d licked him clean and rolled onto her back. She wanted him to have his hands back. She wanted to feel his touch again, everywhere and without restraint.
He huffed a satisfied but exhausted breath, then swung his wrists into the air above them. With a press of a finger, one hand was free. He dangled the cuffs over her torso. “Quick-release.”
She laughed and wiggled closer. “Seriously? You wouldn’t trust me with regular cuffs?”
“Of course I would.” He grinned down at her. “And your new bed has a headboard with slats.”
Her new bed. His bed, in his house. “Can’t wait,” she whispered, sliding her hands up and under his shirt, around his waist, so she could press against him and kiss his jaw, his neck, and lick that deliciously salty spot in the dip of his collarbone.
He tangled his fingers in her hair and tipped her head back. “You got everything packed up okay?”
He’d wanted to come and help her, but her last day of her lease had coincided with an important mission briefing he couldn’t miss this morning, so they’d compromised on meeting here at the end of the day—and having a little dirty playacting in the process.
“All my worldly possessions are in a trailer behind my car, ready to road-trip back to San Diego with you.”
“We could have hired movers.”
“Mmm.” One nice thing about the Army moving her, she’d never had to worry about it before. But this time, she didn’t have a new posting, and since San Diego hadn’t been her home of record or place of entry into the Army, she’d been shit out of luck for getting any reimbursement.
Now that she was unemployed and planning to be a poor college student for a few years, she needed to keep all her pennies. When she’d explained that to Quinn, he’d accepted it, but from their time on Miralinda together, she’d gleaned that he had family money.
Saving his pennies wasn’t something he’d ever had to do.
He nuzzled into her neck. “Ignore me,” he whispered. “Let me make you feel good, girl who’s been driving all day. Lifting heavy boxes and being ever-so-capable.”
She stretched like a cat against him. “That’s right. I think I deserve a little reward.”
“Little?” He growled and nipped at her skin.
“I meant your tongue. But it’s not little, either.” She giggled as he peeled up her t-shirt and licked down her flat belly. “Yes, keep going.”
He covered her thong with his hand, his fingers hot and heavy brands against her skin where they reached past the silk, spanning her entire pelvis.
She slid her fingers into his hair and pushed, urging his mouth to cover the silk instead. He didn’t need to be told twice. Beneath the silk, she was slick already, and when he peeled it aside he
dove right in, lapping up her arousal until her legs pulled up around his head.
“Oh, that feels so good,” she praised him. “You drive me crazy.”
He swirled the tip of his tongue around her clit and laughed under his breath before latching on and sucking with his whole mouth. Yes, it was crazy. Also wonderful. He drove her straight to a leg-shaking, heart-stopping orgasm, then peeled her panties off, finally got them both all the way naked, and sank into her, skin-on-skin for the first time.
“I love you,” he whispered as he thrust into her. “I’m so glad you’re coming home with me.”
Her chest tightened and she buried her face in his neck as she wrapped her legs around his hips. When he was inside her, she was already home.
Epilogue
Leah sighed and pushed away from Quinn’s kitchen table.
College application forms would be the death of her. She needed coffee, and maybe a shot of something strong, as well. She set a mug under the single-cup coffee maker and carefully measured the ground coffee into the reusable pod. Then she reached to her right and pulled open the junk drawer for the third time this week.
She swore under her breath. Okay, enough was enough. That was clearly where the cutlery was meant to be.
Before she could fling the contents of both drawers onto the counter and fix what was clearly broken, she heard the growl of his muscle car as he pulled into the lane behind his house.
When he came into the kitchen, she was back at the table, sipping her coffee.
She lifted her head and he kissed her gently on the mouth.
“Hello my angel. How goes the paperwork battle?”
“It goes…” She fought back a frown, but he was too observant for that.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re grumpy.”
She made a face. “It’s no big deal.”
He sank to his knees in front of her and made a cajoling noise. “Come on. Out with it, don’t let it stew inside. I’m not letting you take it out on my ass with a paddle.”
Oh, that sounded fun. She gave him an are-you-sure? look that he just shook his head at. She huffed out a breath. “Fine. Your spoons are in the wrong place.”
He blinked up at her, then burst out laughing. “Okay. Move them.”
“But I don’t want to be bossy.”
“Babe, you live to be bossy. And you haven’t had a chance to properly jack someone up in two months. Please, feel free to tell me how my kitchen has terrible feng shui.”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Go make a coffee.”
“Are you trying to show me that you’re right? It’s really fine. Move it, I don’t care.”
“But if you have it like that for a reason—”
“This is your place now, too. And you care about stuff like that. I don’t. Please, be my very bossy not-at-all-a-guest and switch them around.”
“Can I ruthlessly purge some of the shit in your junk drawer, too?”
He gave her a pained look. “One thing at a time?”
“Probably not.” She jumped to her feet and got right to the task before he changed his mind. It didn’t take long as they worked together, and once it was fixed, she was in a markedly better mood.
She crowded him against the counter and pressed hard against his rock-hard body. “Thank you for being you,” she whispered. “And for giving me that delicious spanking idea, too.”
“About that…” He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers, and at the same time he squeezed her butt. “Check your back pocket.”
She twisted around. He’d tucked a piece of paper into her jeans. A print out. Admission for two to a local fetish convention for the month following. “Oh my God.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t know if they allow spanking demonstrations there, or if we’ll just look at some paddles or whatever, but…”
“Oh. My. God.” She squealed and jumped up, wrapping her legs around his waist. She peppered his face with kisses. “You are the best boyfriend in the entire world.”
He blushed, and she knew if she followed the pink down his neck and under his tattoos, he’d be flushed right down to the very happy trail leading into his pants. Quinn loved her with his entire being, and she loved him right back. They had to do something about that boyfriend label. It wasn’t serious enough.
She was going to marry this man.
She didn’t deserve him, but she’d spend the rest of her life trying to make him as happy as he made her.
Thank you for reading Fall Quiet! The island that Quinn and Leah meet up on, Miralinda, is also home to my ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights series, and you can read Mick and Cara’s story in Ruined by the SEAL, available now. Their wedding, and another glimpse at Quinn and Leah, will be in a future ACN novel.
If you enjoyed this story, please join my VIP reader mailing list at www.smarturl.it/ZoeYorkNewsletter to stay up to date on all my Navy SEAL romances!
And you can find all my books at www.zoeyork.com. Navy SEAL romances in the SEALs Undone series, sexy small town romances in Pine Harbour and Wardham. Book boyfriends you will fall in love with in every story.
To Score Or Not To Score
Book One in the Hurling Series
Angela Quarles
About this Book
To Score or Not to Score - Angela Quarles
One blind date. One case of mistaken identity. One Navy SEAL faced with his high school crush. What could go wrong?
To Score…
Holy cow, my blind date is rawr-hot. Everything in me aches to explore more with this man, but I can’t. I’ve got too much on the line professionally, with me starting at my new medical practice on shaky ground. But I can’t deny that I want the sex. A fling is perfect. Bonus—I will prove my idiot ex-boyfriend wrong. I’m not cold.
Or Not to Score…
Once she mistakes me for her blind date, my plan is clear. Be this Rick the Lawyer she thinks I am. And for the space of this coffee date, talk to the only woman who’s ever made me feel any spark outside of combat. Best case scenario, I get to be outside my skin—free to be whatever the hell I want. Worst case—she recognizes me as we chat. She’ll be pissed, call me an asshole, but it won’t be anything she hasn’t called me in the past, so… Win/Win?
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, except where it is a matter of historical record.
TO SCORE OR NOT TO SCORE
Copyright © 2017 Angela Trigg
Developmental editing by Jessa Slade
Line editing by Erynn Newman; copy editing by Julie Glover
Unsealed Room Press
Mobile, Alabama
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Digital Edition 1.1.200
Preface
A note about hurling and a short glossary
Luke and his teammates play an ancient Irish game called hurling, dubbed as the fastest game on grass. Players use sticks like hockey, but instead of a puck, they use a round ball similar to a baseball. Players can catch the round balls in their bare hands and hit them like a baseball, and ball speeds have been recorded as high as one hundred miles per hour. Needless to say, it can get rough on the field.
Hurling and Gaelic football are two Irish sports that are overseen by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). But what makes it different than other national sports is that the GAA prohibits the players from earning a salary. So these players in Ireland—who are followed with the same level of fervor Americans follow their pro-sports players and soccer (football) fans worldwide follow their fave teams—are doing it solely
for the love of the sport, not for the money. After a rough game, they go home to their day jobs.
Sliotar – the ball, pronounced “slitter”
Hurley – the stick, which is a bit fuller at the whacking end than a hockey stick
GAA – Gaelic Athletic Association, the governing body for the sport, which oversees hurling and its close cousin, Gaelic football.
Chapter One
Pepper
ur 2 cold
I glare at the four-month-old text, barely glancing at the bearded hipster bumping past me on the sidewalk. The sender? That’d be my ex. The hockey goalie who slapped away our year-long relationship with a text. Well, a series of texts over a five-minute span.
I’m killing time, and like someone who keeps picking, picking, picking at a scab, I’d pulled up those texts to stare at that last one. Cold?
Ambitious. Driven. Yes.
But cold?
I shove the phone into its pocket in my purse. I am not my parents. Thinking of those two fills me with a familiar but fuzzy unease.
A searing wave of fuck-that-asshole follows. He’s still infecting my life—what I need is closure. I can’t let that infection spill into my new life here in my old hometown. I yank the phone back out, resigned at this point to looking like an idiot to anyone who might be watching.
An article on Facebook from yesterday waves at me—hello, perfect revenge!
Tap, tap, tap. A quick search, a phone call, and…Yes.
I mash the end call icon on my Samsung and do a tee-hee dance on the sunny sidewalk. I sheepishly glance around to see who witnessed my little bout of enthusiasm on Sarasota’s Main Street, but the locals and the few meandering tourists are preoccupied with their own lives this morning. Why should I care anyway, right?