Lucky 7 Brazen Bachelors Contemporary Romance Boxed Set

by Caridad Piñeiro

  “My engagement?” Gwen strolled over to the railing, stopping just a foot away from him. Far enough to maintain the distance she needed for this conversation. But close enough to throw herself into his arms if it went well. “You know, it’s funny how everyone seemed to think I was getting engaged except for Russell. And myself, of course.”

  “Russell didn’t propose?”

  Not in so many words.

  “Russell doesn’t love me,” she said instead. “And I don’t love him.”

  Noah’s eyes lit.

  “So you’re ready to give us a try then?” He reached for her, a huge smile spreading across his face.

  “Wait.” Gwen stepped back so fast she almost tripped over her feet. “What exactly are you wanting to try? Because as great as sex in the closet was, that’s not what I’m looking for.”

  “Anything,” he promised, closing the space between them. Hot and tempting, his hands slid over her hips. “I want you, Gwen. And I’ll do whatever it takes to have you. Today, tomorrow, forever.”

  “Anything? You will do anything to get back together with me?” she asked, desperate to clarify that she’d heard him right. Her head was reeling at the idea that he cared that much so she pressed one hand against his chest before he could pull her any closer.

  Ignoring the barrier of her hand, Noah angled himself forward to smooth a kiss over her bottom lip. Oh, God, she wanted him. She could still feel him in the tingling between her thighs. But she had to settle this.

  For herself.

  And for him.

  So before he could take the kiss any deeper, Gwen pushed him back a few inches.

  “Seriously?” she asked. “You’re saying you’ll do anything I want if it means we get back together?”

  “Sure.” He tried to pull her into his arms again but this time Gwen took a step backward.

  “What if I want to move across the country? Or if I insist you marry me before we share another orgasm? What if I’m only willing to date you if you’re a civilian, or if I refuse to let there be anything but sex between us?” she threw out, figuring she’d put every crazy option on the table now, while she had the chance.

  Because she knew once they kissed—really kissed—again, that she’d give him anything. Everything.

  And she’d enjoy every second of it.

  “You want me to leave the Navy?” Noah asked, focusing on the only one of her options that meant a damn to him. His stomach jittered.

  “Would you?” Gwen asked, her eyes locked on his as if his response would make or break their chances.

  And it would, he realized. So while he wanted to promise her anything, to say he’d do whatever she wanted, he had to be completely honest.

  “I don’t know.” His fingers tightened on her hips in case she tried to walk away again, but she didn’t move. “I have another year in this tour. I’d like to spend it trying to make things work as they are now, with me in the SEALs and you living anywhere you want. If that doesn’t work, I could stay in the Navy but transfer out of the team and see how that goes.”

  He choked at that point, not able to promise anything further. Not because he wasn’t willing—although he really didn’t want to think he’d have to give up one love in his life to keep the other. But because he simply couldn’t comprehend that two people as perfect together as he and Gwen wouldn’t be able to make it work.

  “So you’d want to take it slow, give us a chance to make it work and compromise along the way if there are issues?” Gwen said in a contemplative tone.

  Noah frowned. He couldn’t tell if she thought that was a good thing or not. But again, all he could do was be honest.

  “Yeah. That’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to give us a chance. I’d like to spend the next few months getting to know each other again while we decide how we want to go forward.”

  Years ago she’d offered to wait for him while he served in the SEALs. She’d have put her life on hold for him. And while that was great for his ego, he knew it wouldn’t work for their relationship.

  “I want to know we’re both happy with whatever we do together. That we’re both on the same page,” he said quietly. “We can take some time—as long as you need—to figure out if we want to take things slow and date for a while, or of we want to jump in and live together. Or if it’s right, if you’re ready and trust me again, if we want to get married.”

  Noah held his breath, hoping he hadn’t gone too far, hoping more that he’d offered enough to convince her.

  For a second longer she simply stared.

  Then her eyes filled, tears pooling in their blue depths before spilling over.

  “Oh, crap,” he muttered, unfamiliar panic gripping him. “Don’t do that. I’m sorry. I was just trying to be honest. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t upset me.” Gwen shook her head so fast her hair flew over her shoulders. “You made me happy. Honest is good, and your answer was perfect.”

  Relief flooding him, Noah risked pulling her a little closer so their lower bodies were flush.

  “Perfect?”

  “Perfect,” she agreed, reaching up to cup her hands over his cheeks. “If you’d promised me everything, or if you’d offered to sacrifice your career to be with me, I’d have known it wouldn’t—couldn’t—work between us. And we’ve been apart too long to know if what we have is real or just sexual attraction.”

  “We do make great sex,” he pointed out, pressing his hips a little tighter against hers and sliding his hands around to rest on the full curve of her butt.

  “And great sex,” she agreed with a quick laugh. “But instead of all big promises, you offered us a chance.”

  “So that means yes?”

  Her eyes brimming again, this time with more love than he’d ever thought he’d deserve, Gwen nodded.

  “That means yes.”

  Noah’s smile was part delight, part relief. Looked like honesty had worked where seduction hadn’t.

  For years, he’d wondered if he’d done the right thing. He knew that to be a good SEAL, he had to commit one hundred percent. He’d thought that meant there was nothing left for anything else. For any one else.

  Now he knew better.

  Now he knew he could have both.

  His career, and his woman.

  “I love you,” he said just before he took her mouth. “I feel like I’ve loved you forever. Now I’m going to find a way to make love with you forever.”

  THE END

  About the Author

  Tawny Weber

  New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of over thirty books, Tawny Weber has been writing sassy, sexy romances since her first one hit the shelves in 2007. A fan of Johnny Depp, cupcakes and color coordination, she spends a lot of her time shopping for cute shoes, scrapbooking and hanging out on Facebook.

  Readers can check out Tawny’s books at her website, www.tawnyweber.com, or join her Red Hot Readers Club for goodies like free reads, complete first chapter excerpts, recipes, insider story info and much more.

  Additional Books by Tawny Weber

  CHRISTMAS WITH A SEAL

  A SEAL’S SECRET

  RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

  Kiss of a Lifetime

  Nina Bruhns

  Kiss of a Lifetime: Chapter One

  VENICE BEACH, CALIFORNIA

  Would it be there?

  Geoffrey Treynor tore his gaze from the amazing view of the Pacific Ocean from the window behind his desk, swiveled his chair back around, and smoothed his hands over the latest issue of Mercenary Life magazine. For the past half hour he’d been gathering his courage to scan the classifieds for the ad he both dreaded and longed to see.

  WAS IT YOU IN THAT CLOSET ON ST. GRIMALDI AUGUST 13TH? PLEASE CONTACT. REWARD, it would read. And then a box number.

  That was all it ever said. But there was no doubt it was meant for him.

  Please contact. So polite.

  For eight years, Trey had ignored her
pleas. Now, in the ninth, he wondered if she was still trying to find him—Lacy Warrick, of the Atlanta Warricks.

  The woman in the closet.

  Had she finally given up on him?

  He ran an agitated hand through his hair. He would miss her if she stopped. More than he cared to admit. Hell, he already did miss her. There hadn’t been many days during the past nine years he hadn’t thought of Lacy Warrick.

  Tough to forget her with those two damned photos staring down from his office wall, sticking out like sore thumbs amongst the other awards and accolades. His old merc buddies had thought it a hoot to frame the two magazine covers and present them to him at a reunion party a few years after they were published, telling him to go the hell out and find the damn woman he’d been mooning over since that fateful day…

  Yeah, right. Like he was really looking for that kind of heartache.

  Rising from his desk, he poured himself a straight tequila from the bar and reluctantly went to stand in front of the framed photos. His and Lacy’s parting moments had made the covers of two very different magazines after they’d defied death together on St. Grimaldi.

  HER PROTECTOR was what the photographer had named the gritty photo that was on the cover of an obscure soldier of fortune magazine. It showed them just after he’d carried her through a gauntlet of machine gun-toting enemy soldiers, shielding her with his body. He looked fierce and rough, and she looked worshipful and adoring. He had to admit, that was the cover he preferred.

  KISS OF THE DECADE read the banner that slashed across the top of a glossy national entertainment magazine. This was the photo that had won awards right and left. It was gut-wrenchingly emotional. They photographer had caught their last kiss, at the very instant he and Lacy had both realized they would never see each other again. Trey tried to avoid looking at that one.

  Yeah, their parting moments had made quite a splash. Something about the image of lovers torn apart by war had captured the imagination of the whole country. Thank God no one had tipped the magazines to his name, so Trey had managed to stay anonymous through the entire publicity storm. That had been a blessing in more ways than one.

  Lacy hadn’t been so lucky.

  Silently, Trey toasted the pictures, tossed back his tequila, and walked over to his desk. The Mercenary Life classifieds gaped up at him, mocking the success he’d made of his life over the years since he’d quit the soldier of fortune trade. The friends and contacts he’d made during years he’d spent crawling around the jungles and deserts of the world had proven beneficial to all concerned. He’d built his import business from scratch, parlaying it in record time into one of the country’s most respected purveyors of licensed, certified, fair trade native arts and crafts.

  He was now rich, successful, and considered a prime catch for hostesses from Beverly Hills to Miami to New York City. He never had a problem getting a date in whatever city he found himself in. Women loved the idea of sleeping with a wild, untamed alpha male.

  Yeah, he’d kept up the rough-trade image. Big-time. The old rumors were great for business. The trouble only came after those same women—or, more often, their wealthy daddies—dug up his murky past. Suddenly, they’d find him vaguely distasteful and run like crazy for the nearest accountant, engineer, or other safe, sane man.

  Hell, they weren’t the only ones who found his past distasteful. He’d done what he had to do to survive at the time, dragging himself out of a childhood from hell…by whatever means necessary. But that didn’t make it any more palatable, even to himself.

  He could thank Lacy Warrick for that little gem of an insight. It wasn’t until he saw that first classified ad in Mercenary Life a year after they met, and he’d actually entertained fantasies of going to Atlanta to sweep her off her feet, that the cold, hard reality of what he did for a living actually dawned on him. Before that, he’d pretty much operated on auto-pilot, taking one difficult step at a time in his climb out of the morass of poverty and abuse.

  He’d only lasted another year in the trade after that unpleasant, self-analytical light bulb had gone off.

  But being a changed man didn’t change a man’s past.

  Slowly, reluctantly, Trey drew his gaze down the sleek columns of ads offering shady jobs to misfit adventurers, retired soldiers who couldn’t let go, and young kids running from the kind of past that had never let them be kids.

  There.

  Second column, halfway down.

  WAS IT YOU IN THAT CLOSET ON ST. GRIMALDI AUGUST 13TH? PLEASE CONTACT. REWARD.

  Nine fucking years. The woman did not give up easily.

  For a split second, he thought about answering it this time. After all, she knew better than anyone the kind of man he used to be, and it clearly hadn’t scared her off. These days, he was rich, famous in his own right, and had won enough humanitarian awards to fill an entire office wall. That didn’t make up for the killing, of course, but at least it balanced it out a bit. He’d done everything he could to lead a righteous life these past years, and to help his old friends and contacts overseas as best he could.

  But none of that would matter to Lacy’s family. They would never accept a former mercenary from Hell’s Kitchen, no matter how far he’d distanced himself from that life. The air around the Atlanta Warricks was so refined you’d get a nose bleed just standing next to them.

  Good thing he and Lacy had been lying down in that closet on St. Grimaldi…

  With a grimace, he poured himself another tequila, this time to the brim, and stabbed the button on the intercom.

  “Yes, Mr. Treynor?”

  “Millie, please call and cancel my date with Celeste. I still have a ton of paperwork to send over to the Met for the exhibit’s change of venue, and I need to email it all before my flight leaves in the morning.”

  He’d been thrilled when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had called a few days ago to offer him a rare, coveted guest exhibit spot when a foreign private collection fell through at the last minute. In the indigenous arts and crafts trade, a show at the Met represented the absolute pinnacle of achievement. It would mean instant fame and fortune for his business. But more important, it would assure his continued ability to support his artists and craftsmen around the world, many of whom were widows and orphans in war-torn villages, relying on him for their sole income.

  There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d pass up that incredible opportunity. Unfortunately, the dates coincided with an exhibit already booked at the Charleston Institute of Art in South Carolina.

  Charleston was history, but Trey was flying out there tomorrow to smooth things over, and see what could be arranged in the way of compensation.

  Millie tsked. “Celeste is not going to like being put off again. This is the second time in as many weeks.”

  He rolled his eyes at his secretary’s scolding. Millie insisted on calling him Mr. Treynor, but had no problem voicing her opinion on any aspect of his life, down to the most intimate detail. “Send her flowers if it makes you feel better.”

  “A classy woman like that, she won’t be putting up with this kind of neglect for long, bless her heart.”

  “Thanks, Millie. I’ll bear that in mind.”

  Not.

  He really should call Celeste himself…and remind her nicely—again—that an occasional date did not mean he was interested in being her damned boyfriend. He knew exactly how that would end.

  Besides, she was far too high-maintenance. The woman could whine with the best of them, and he was so not up for the drama. Especially not tonight.

  There was only one woman he wanted to see on this particular anniversary, and it sure as hell wasn’t Celeste.

  Glancing back at the magazine cover on his wall, at the sweet, innocent woman he’d held in his arms a lifetime ago, kissing her like there was no tomorrow, he again lifted his glass to her, and tossed back the burn.

  Ah, well. No sense fantasizing about Lacy Warrick, even if she had been reaching out to him for nine years. T
alk about high-maintenance. Going down that particular road was a heartache of epic proportions just waiting to happen.

  But he couldn’t help wondering why she’d persisted…

  What could she possibly have seen in him during those few short, intense hours that would keep her looking for him all this time? A pretty, naïve, rich girl like her, who could surely get any man she wanted?

  She must know as well as he did that there could never be anything between a Lacy Warrick and a Geoffrey Treynor. For a million reasons.

  Despite what they had shared.

  And what she had gifted him with.

  With a harsh curse, Trey stalked to the big picture window, and looked out over the vast panorama of sea and sand, and the endless waves crashing against the shore. Trying his damndest to forget.

  But fucking hell. All he could do was close his eyes…

  And remember…

  Kiss of a Lifetime: Chapter Two

  NINE YEARS AGO

  ST. GRINALDI ISLAND, THE CARIBBEAN

  A spate of staccato gunfire suddenly splattered all around the royal palace courtyard, shattering the stillness of the lazy tropical morning.

  Moving with instincts honed by years of training, Colonel Geoffrey Treynor threw down his coffee mug, grabbed his Uzi, and ducked for cover. Rolling to the wall of the kitchen where he had been mooching a piece of the cook’s delectable mango pie, he halted to listen.

  The cook had frozen where she stood, a mountain of a woman against a slim wooden table, soup spoon poised in midair. He gave her a sign, and she hurried out the back door to the servants’ quarters, where the help would be rounded up by whoever was running this latest show. Servants were rarely killed. Especially the cooks. Raped, yes, sometimes beaten, but killed, not usually.

  Trey’s fate, if captured, would not be so kind. He’d probably suffer all those indignities, and plenty more he didn’t care to ponder.

  Not that he was too worried. He’d worked all over the world as a mercenary, contracting out to despots, drug lords, gold miners, and the CIA, without suffering much more than a scratch. He figured he’d scrape through this latest coup against his present employer—the president of the beautiful Caribbean island republic of Saint Grinaldi—somehow.