by Lori Ryan
“Nashville, huh?”
She nodded. “For a little while. Just to—”
“We’re going to take care of these babies.” Willa’s arm went around Lyra, squeezing her shoulders tight, as though Lyra were one of the babies, too, and Lyra smiled at the tall woman.
Luke opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but before he could, Savvy and Tracy came down the hall. There was another flurry of hugs and tears, and telling of tales by the girls. Luke moved to the side, thinking he could wait until her friends’ attention was on the twins and then pull Lyra aside to talk. Although, what he would say, he wasn’t sure.
He didn’t get the chance. A nurse broke up the group, walking between them all and leading everyone back into the hospital room.
“Okay, I’ve got the last of the paperwork, Mrs. Hill, and you’ll be set to go.”
Lyra glanced at Luke as she walked away, but her eyes quickly shifted away and she was gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Lyra smiled as Savvy wrapped her arms around her and hugged. As much as she’d needed the time away at her in-laws, three weeks was a long time to go without lunch with her girlfriends. They’d gotten the scare of a lifetime when Savvy had come to the apartment in the middle of the night and found Lyra and the girls had disappeared suddenly.
“We missed you!” Tracy said, taking over the hug where Savvy had left off.
Lyra smiled. “I missed you guys, too.” She sat on the couch as Savvy took the other side of it and Tracy took the large chair beside it.
“So, tell us. How is the business going?”
Despite the fact that Joel’s business had survived, she had given her notice right away after the kidnapping. She realized she needed to grab life and go after her dreams. Dream Weavers for Women had been born two weeks ago.
“I’m booked for the next four months.” Lyra couldn’t believe her launch had gone so well. She offered branding and software solutions for women-owned businesses. Within days of her launch, several friends had posted about the business in a few Facebook groups for women-owned businesses, and things had grown from there. “Now I have to sustain it.”
“You will,” Tracy said with a wave of her hand. “Word will spread and you’ll be turning people away for years to come.”
Lyra grinned. Despite her happy expression, there was an emptiness she’d found she couldn’t get rid of. And its name was Luke. The man had left a gaping hole unlike anything she’d felt since she’d lost her husband years before.
“So, Billy took the plea?” Savvy asked.
“Yes. If my parents hadn’t stepped in and paid for a solid attorney, I don’t know if he would have gotten such a great deal. It helped, too, that Luke and Samantha told the FBI he worked to help them stop the auction.”
“How long will he serve?” Tracy put in.
“Three years in a minimum-security prison.” Her heart hurt just thinking about Billy in prison, but he’d known what he was doing was wrong. He had to face the consequences for the choices he’d made.
There was a pause and Lyra didn’t miss the look Tracy and Savvy exchanged. She raised her brows at them.
“Have you talked to Luke?”
Lyra shook her head, a tight knot forming in her throat.
“We were wrong.” Savvy was the one to speak but Tracy was nodding her head.
“What do you mean?”
“He wasn’t a hot quick lay to keep you busy while he was here,” Tracy said.
“What she said.” Savvy pointed and nodded. “He cared about you. We could see it as soon as we saw you guys together.”
Lyra shook her head and fought the rising tears in her eyes. “I was a job to him.” She felt the stab of warring emotions. Humiliation, anger. Want.
“That man had feelings for you. I don’t care what his job was or what brought him here.”
Tracy jumped back in. “He wouldn’t have gone to bat for Billy as much as he had if he didn’t care for you.”
Lyra bit her lip and looked back and forth at the girls. “I don’t even know where he is.”
Savvy let out an offended huff. “You have his phone number. Getting in touch shouldn’t be all that hard, even if he isn’t across the hall anymore.”
Lyra let her gaze fall where her feet rested on the coffee table.
“What are you afraid of?” Savvy asked her.
“Everything.”
“That’s a little vague.” Tracy swatted at Lyra’s feet with one of her own. “Explain.”
“I just don’t know if I can go through that again. I mean, I thought I could. I thought I was ready to open myself up again, you know? And then I found out he’s some undercover cop or something. In the end, I realized, it wasn’t betrayal that hurt so much at that moment, it was the thought that he was gone. That I didn’t really have this great new thing in my life.”
“This is one of those dance things.”
“Huh?” Lyra looked at Savvy and couldn’t help but smile.
“Sure, those dance things. That’s the song. Actually,” Savvy frowned. “It’s a lot of songs. I Hope You Dance, and that one by Garth Brooks about not having the dance even if there was loss that came with it. This is one of those dance things. And you, woman,” she pointed her finger at Lyra, “deserve to dance.”
Lyra nodded. She wished she could say she was feeling the confidence of a prized fighter, but the truth was, she wasn’t. When she thought of facing Luke and having him reject her, she froze up.
Which was silly, really. She’d just started her own business. She was raising her twins on her own. She was a strong woman.
Lyra took a breath and felt hope flicker in her chest. “I’ll call him.”
Her friends’ grins matched and they started to theorize about the reunion and how hot it would be. Lyra was laughing when she went to answer the door moments later.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
As soon as Lyra looked through the peephole, her heart rate skyrocketed. Luke stood on the other side of the door.
“Maybe it’ll include wall sex.” Savvy was still talking about the hotness of the reunion with Tracy as she fanned herself. “I’ve always wanted a guy who’d push me up against the wall and—”
“Shh!” Lyra cut her off and opened the door. She could hear her friend’s hushed comments in the background, and she was pretty sure there was some ooh-ing and ah-ing and one mention of making popcorn.
“Hi.” Luke glanced through the door at her friends, but then his eyes found hers and she saw just as much uncertainty in them as she’d been feeling. “Can we talk?”
Lyra nodded and stepped back as Tracy shoved Savvy toward the door. “We were just leaving.” So, it must have been Savvy who’d made the popcorn comment.
When they had shuffled out the door, Lyra shut it and turned to Luke. She’d be lying if she said her head wasn’t a little caught up on Savvy’s up-against-the-wall sex comment.
He looked good. Really good.
“Hi,” she said.
Intense eyes burned into hers and she felt her breath catch as she waited for him to speak. She’d missed him so much. Had he been feeling the same way?
He opened with, “I wanted to try to explain.”
Her heart fell. He was just here to try to assuage his guilt.
“You don’t have to, Luke. You were just doing your job. I get it.”
“No. I wasn’t. I could have done my job just fine without getting so close to you.” He stepped to her with those words, one hand coming up to cup her face and slide into her hair, tipping her face back so she looked him in the eye. The other hand slid to her hip, pulling her close and making her heart slam in her chest. “That part. That part was all me. All because I wanted to be with you.”
“Oh.”
His thumb brushed her face. “I missed you.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting the scent of him seep into her. He was really here with her. He’d come back to her when he could have si
mply walked away. “I missed you, too.”
His mouth was soft and yearning when he kissed her and she pressed into him. His arms came around her, pulling her close now and she sighed. This felt right. Good.
So good, like coming home.
He pulled back and rested his forehead on hers. “Can we start over, Lyra? Can we date and talk and get to know each other without the case between us? Please?”
She nodded. “I’d like that. A lot.”
This time, when he kissed her, there was heat and passion and she responded so quickly it was almost dizzying.
Maybe she should have slowed things down then, done as he suggested and gone on a date. But she didn’t want to. Her feelings for this man flowed deep. She pulled him closer, leaning to press her body against his and he growled his response. He back-stepped her into her apartment and shut the door behind her.
“Are we alone?” He asked, barely breaking contact with her mouth as he spoke.
“Yes.” She ran her hands down his muscled back. “For several hours.”
She thought she heard him swear but his mouth had moved to her neck and she lost all sense of what was happening. His hands ran down her body, bringing her to life beneath his touch. She was lost then, in sensation and emotion.
He lifted her and carried her to her bedroom, making swift work of their clothes when he arrived.
“You’re so beautiful, Lyra. So soft, so gorgeous.” The words were punctuated with kisses and nips as he came down over her, covering her body with his and working his way over her, learning her body.
She did the same, using hands and mouth to explore, to find out what made him tighten and groan.
When they came together, him entering her in a slick powerful thrust, their moans mingled and her heart tightened in hope, in the beginnings of love. In what she knew was a future that was more whole than what she’d dared imagine for herself in a very long time.
EPILOGUE
Nine months later
“They really love it.” Lyra, Savvy, and Tracy stood shoulder to shoulder in the backyard of Lyra’s new home. She was renting it, but they were out of their apartment and into a home with a backyard. Someday, she’d buy.
“They really do.” She watched Luke push the girls on the swing set as Tracy’s and Savvy’s kids climbed to the top of the slide. Naomi stood by, talking to her uncle. She’d come home for a long weekend.
“And they love him,” Savvy said, her elbow nudging Lyra playfully.
Lyra sighed. “They really do.”
“So do you,” Tracy said.
“Can’t argue with you there.” The women laughed and sipped their lemonade. Lyra had known she was in love with Luke for a long time. It was something that thrilled her and filled her days with wonder. Between Luke and her girls, her life was full.
In a little bit, there would be more friends coming over and burgers and hotdogs would go on the grill.
She saw Luke stop the girls’ swings and lean down to whisper something to the twins, his gaze falling on her as he did. She didn’t know what it was, but Alyssa and Prentiss slid from their swings and ran to her, smiles and laughter filling the yard.
“Luke says he has a question for us, Mommy,” Alyssa said, taking one of Lyra’s hands, as Prentiss took the other.
“An important question.” Prentiss stressed.
“Does he?” She looked up to see Luke coming toward her, his eyes locked with hers as he reached into the side pocket of his BDUs. Naomi stood by his side, and he kissed the top of her head before she came to stand near Lyra and the girls, a broad smile on her face.
Lyra’s breath caught and she heard her friends still beside her as he dropped to a knee. He held out a jewelry box that held a diamond ring in the center. The ring was flanked on either side by two smaller versions of the ring in just the right size for her girls.
“Lyra, Alyssa, and Prentiss,” he said as Lyra’s eyes filled with tears and her heart overflowed with love. “Will you marry me, girls? Be my girls forever? Be all in with me, as I am with you?”
Lyra pressed her lips together and nodded as the girls squealed and climbed into his lap. “Yes,” she said, as he lifted the twins, one resting on either forearm, and came toward her. She pulled him in to kiss him.
“I love you,” she whispered. “All in.”
“All in,” he replied. “I love you, Lyra. So damned much.”
Later that night they lay together, moving slowly as he entered her and made love to her. It was different than the times he caught her in the middle of the day and held her against a counter or tabletop to make love to her. It was different than the times they’d lay in bed while she rode astride him, taking her pleasure as his hands dug into her hips and he roared his release.
This time was slow and sweet, it was love and honor and the knowledge that they would share a lifetime of this together.
As Lyra lay in Luke’s arms afterward, her heart feeling like it might overflow, she looked at the ring Luke had placed on her finger. It was perfect.
“Please tell me the rings you gave the girls aren’t real,” she said.
The deep rumble of laughter that came told her he understood her girls. “No. But I did have real ones made. They’re in a safe deposit box for them for when they’re older. Along with three backup fake ones for when they lose these ones.”
She laughed. He knew her girls.
“Hey, Lyra,” he said, his mouth going to her neck as he shifted and came over the top of her.
She looked into his eyes. “Yes?”
He trailed a kiss along her shoulder before nuzzling her neck in the spot just under her ear. The spot that always made her moan.
“You’ve given me two girls.”
“Mm hmm,” she half murmured, half moaned.
“But I was thinking, I don’t have any boys.”
The laughter was lost on her lips as he brought her back to that place where words didn’t matter. All that mattered were the feelings and emotions and sensations of her and Luke coming together. Again.
The End
Thank you so much for reading ALL IN! If you liked the characters who came in to help Luke toward the end of the book, check out my Sutton Capital Series and On the Line Series for their stories. You can find details at http://loriryanromance.com/books/.
The Sleeper SEALs series is a multi-author branded series which includes twelve standalone books by some of your favorite romantic suspense authors.
The next book up is Geri Foster’s BROKEN SEAL and you can find it here: http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-50.
Check out the rest of the books at:
Susan Stoker – PROTECTING DAKOTA – 9/5/17
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-39
Becky McGraw – SLOW RIDE – 9/26/17
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-32
Dale Mayer – MICHAELS’ MERCY – 10/3/17
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-31
Becca Jameson – SAVING ZOLA – 10/17/17
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-30
Sharon Hamilton – BACHELOR SEAL – 10/31/17
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-34
Elle James – MONTANA RESCUE – 11/14/17
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-38
Maryann Jordan – THIN ICE – 11/28/17
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-33
Donna Michaels – GRINCH REAPER – 12/12/17
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-48
Lori Ryan – ALL IN – 1/9/18
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-49
Geri Foster – BROKEN SEAL – 1/23/18
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-50
Elaine Levine – FREEDOM CODE – 2/6/18
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-51
J.m. Madden – FLAT LINE – 2/
20/18
http://sleeperseals.com/series-books/#jp-carousel-52
Table of Contents
Copyright
Table of Contents
Also by Lori Ryan
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue