“You all right there, softie?” Chase asked from the driver’s seat. “What do you have the heater set to? 85?”
“Around that.” And I would not apologize for it.
“Don’t let Liam catch you doing that. He’ll never stop giving you shit about it.”
He was probably right. I’d deal with that bridge when I had to cross it. Like tomorrow, when we headed out to Naugatuck for Liam’s New Year’s Eve party.
“Do you miss it?” I asked him, studying his handsome profile as he drove.
“What? Boston?” he asked. “I haven’t lived here since I was 18. I lived in California for four years, then Arizona. I always like visiting up here, but it’s not a home to me like Florida is to you.”
“I don’t mean miss Boston,” I clarified. “Though I’m glad to hear you like Florida.” He flashed me a smile. “What I meant is swimming. Competitively. I see you in the pool and you’re, just, larger than life.”
“Honestly?” He paused and I braced myself. This was it, the moment he broke it to me. He wanted to train again for the Olympics.
“Nope,” he answered, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. “I’ll admit, for about a month after the games I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t know how to get through a normal day without hours and hours of a rigorous training program. But I’m settling into it now. I’m excited about the center we’re building. And you’re in my life again.”
He gave me another smile and even I, surrounded by snow outside the car, felt warm right down to my toes.
“I’ve never been happier,” he said.
“Me, either,” I agreed wholeheartedly.
§
The night before New Year’s, we checked ourselves into a hotel on Naugatuck. The ferry ride over had been choppy. I wasn’t the only one who felt slightly green. Chase fixed himself a stiff drink, and one for me as well, and we settled down together on a couch.
“That sucked,” he admitted. His white knuckles had said it all, though on the ferry he’d maintained a tight-lipped “I’m fine” attitude.
“That definitely sucked,” I agreed. The ferry had actually had to slow down from its high speed to accommodate the swells. I’d seen one passenger throw up into her handbag. Another barely made it into the bathroom. Fun stuff!
“I’m glad we’re here, though.” He took my hand in his, rubbing his thumb along it. “Liam throws a great party. New Year’s is a blast, but his annual Fourth of July party is the stuff of legend.”
He went on to tell me a few funny stories, how celebrities vacationing on the island always seemed to find their stumbling way over to Liam’s. Last year he’d had an NBA player, a rapper, and a Hemsworth.
“Wait, what? Did you say Hemsworth?” My voice rose an octave.
He nodded, “I did.” He looked at me keenly. “Does someone have a crush?”
“What? Pfst.” I gave a completely unconvincing dismissive sound. Hells yeah, I had a crush, as did half the people on the planet.
“Well, I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t make a repeat appearance,” Chase concluded. “By the way, you should know, Liam had your back.”
“What do you mean?”
“In September, after the games, when we weren’t talking.”
“When you weren’t talking to me,” I clarified.
“Right, well, he told me I was being an idiot.”
I’d always liked that Liam. Now I did even more.
After a long, hot shower and a sweet, wet blow job, all thoughts of the bumpy ferry ride had been vanquished. A generous man, Chase returned the favor, turning me into a molten, writhing mess as he ate me out, then fucked me good and long and hard on the bed.
As we drifted off to sleep, a thought popped into my head. I’d wanted to talk to him about it earlier, but I’d been worried about his reaction. Now, post orgasm, I felt no stress. It was the right time to ask.
“What do you think about starting a blog?” I murmured.
“Yeah right.” He laughed, lazily, clearly assuming I was joking.
“No, I’m serious. We could blog about all the goings-on at the center. And I could profile some of the kids there. We could get them some visibility, maybe link it to a college scholarship fund.”
“OK, on one condition,” he warned me.
“What is it?”
“You wear a big hat the whole time that says in all caps, “I’M A BLOGGER.”
“Oh my God.” I swatted his broad chest, laughing, feeling the rumble of his laughter, too. That was the thing about love, it turned even the most painful of memories into something you could tease and laugh about.
“There was something else I wanted to tell you.” I feigned forgetfulness, drumming my fingers on his arm. Then I pulled myself up the length of his gorgeous body and gave him a full kiss. “Chase, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Emma.” He held me in the darkness, our hearts beating in sync, safe and warm and happy together.
Life was good.
THE END
Thank you so much for reading In Deep! I hope you loved every page! It’s such fun sharing the story of Chase and Emma with you.
Want a FREE bonus chapter of Chase and Emma post In Deep? Sign up for my newsletter here and/or my Facebook author’s group Callie’s Corner here.
I’ll send the chapter out on my newsletter a week or so after release and post it permanently on my group page. And, as a newsletter subscriber or an author group member you’ll be the first to know about my new releases, sales and other freebies. I’ve got a whole lot of hotness planned!
Find out the whole Callie Harper scoop on my website, www.callieharperbooks.com. It’s got it all—my books, info on the standalones in the series, bonus content. Check it out!
First Chase and Emma kicked off the All In series with In Deep. Next up is Liam. He’s the good guy, the hero, the one everyone relies on. Except for the one woman he wants most. You can’t always get what you want. At least that’s what he’s tried to tell himself. Until she moves back to Naugatuck. Stay tuned for Liam’s standalone story All of Me, out in late 2015.
But you don’t have to wait that long for more Callie Harper goodness! I’m thrilled to share the fifth and final standalone in the Beg For It series. Each of the members of the Kavanaugh family have their own book, which can be read in any order. Here’s a sneak peek of Undeniable (Dom & Gigi), to be released October, 2016.
UNDENIABLE (GIGI & DOM)
He’s the one she couldn’t have. She’s the one he couldn’t forget.
They haven’t seen each other in four years. He’s been serving with the Special Forces. She’s finished college. They’ve had time to move on. Neither one has.
Now there’s a death threat. Her family’s business has pissed off a drug cartel. Her life’s in danger.
They’re thrown together, on the run. He has to keep her safe. From everyone. Including himself.
NOTE: Undeniable is a standalone hot adult romance. It’s the fifth story in the Beg for It series—which can be read in any order—about the Kavanaugh family and the dominant, alpha men and the strong, sexy women who make them finally meet their match.
EXCERPT
Gigi
When he walked into the party I dropped a full glass of champagne. And it was a real glass, so I sent shattered fragments flying everywhere. It seemed fitting. When he’d left without a trace four years ago, I’d felt completely shattered.
Now he stood 20 feet away from me looking even more devastatingly gorgeous than before. I didn’t know how that could be possible. He’d spent the past four years in the Special Forces; I’d gotten that much out of my older brother, Colt. I knew the two of them had kept in touch after Dominic had saved his life.
After he’d nearly ruined mine.
When you fell in love at 18, it felt like the world was opening up, full of promise and new beginnings. Especially if you thought the man you loved felt the same way. And I didn’t mean puppy love
, full of rainbows and princess dreams. I meant honest, real, I’ve found the person I want to be with for the rest of my life love.
But then Dom had left, no warning, no forwarding address.
It might have had something to do with the fact that his mother married my father. We hadn’t seen that coming. But the marriage had only lasted a year and a half. My father had passed at only 67 years old from cancer. Dom hadn’t even come back for the funeral.
But now here he was at our family’s annual holiday party. Wearing a tux. And making me drop champagne glasses.
“Are you all right?” someone next to me asked. A server hustled to sweep up the shards.
“Oh, of course. How clumsy of me.” Dropped glasses happened every year at this party, usually toward the end of the evening courtesy of the open bar. I’d started things off early. Seeing the long-lost love of your life walk through the door had that effect.
He spoke briefly with my brother, Colt. But then he made his way over to me. I knew he would. Nervous, I flitted among partygoers, maintaining my ever-cheerful exterior even as I remained hyper-aware of his every move. I was famous for my composure, my happy demeanor. No one knew what had happened between me and Dominic. No one even knew I had a secret to keep.
He stood before me. “Gigi.”
I’d recognize that voice anywhere. I still heard it in my sleep, low and dark. I didn’t have to look up to know it was him, so I didn’t. I kept focused across the room where some acquaintance or other was giving me wave. Perfect, bright, upbeat as always, I waved back.
But a storm raged inside me.
“How are you?” He still stood there, so tall, broad and powerful. Of course I knew in the military he’d have pushed himself physically, but he’d already been in killer physical condition when I’d last seen him. Now? He looked like Thor with short, dark hair.
“Oh, fine!” I answered in bright falseness, the exterior I wore for everyone else in place. Everyone else accepted it without doubt.
Dom reached out and grazed my hand with his. I couldn’t ignore that. I looked up into his eyes, the ones I’d dreamed about for years now, so dark and yet the more you looked into them the more depth you could see, shades and hints of light.
“How are you?” he asked again.
I looked up at him, all pretense instantly gone. Stripped naked, bare for him, all my emotion in my gaze.
How was I? I was still in love with him. Deeply, madly, irrevocably. That’s how I was.
I drew a shaky breath. And then a friend intervened, a party girl, one of New York society’s finest. Exactly the type I tended to hang with, all surface, all the time. It was easier that way. When no one around you had any depth, then no one suspected you did, either.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” she asked, flashing him a seductive smile. His eyes never left mine.
“Of course!” I fluttered, shifting easily into social butterfly mode. “Samantha, Dominic. Do you know the two of you are both from California? I’m sorry, please excuse me. There’s someone I have to say hello to.”
And just like that I extracted myself from the situation. Now I simply had to staunch the bleeding from the freshly opened wound in my heart. That shouldn’t take long, maybe only another year or so.
Dominic. Back in New York. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined he’d return tonight. All right, in my wildest dreams he’d done a lot more than find me at a party and say hello.
I took a deep breath, then reminded myself to let it out. It had always been like that around him. Hard to breathe, with him staring directly into my soul. I guessed some things never changed.
I’d just have to make sure we never ran into each other again.
Dom
I got the call late at night. I’d grown accustomed to midnight emergencies. In the Special Forces, you didn’t exactly keep regular hours like a nine-to-five desk jockey.
But I’d finished my four years of active duty. I was now officially in the reserves, technically on call but no longer storming and raiding in foreign, war-torn countries, watching my friends get blown apart by IEDs. Big difference. At least I’d thought.
When I’d seen Colt at the holiday party Saturday night, I’d expected a follow-up call. He’d stayed in touch relentlessly over the years, tracking me down even when it was damn hard. And it was damn hard most of the time. I’d grown to respect him, his loyalty, his friendship. The man remembered who’d helped him when he’d needed it. That said a lot about his character.
But I hadn’t expected him to call at 2 a.m. Monday morning. I’d been awake, lying in bed, thinking about her. At the party, Gigi had looked like a fucking beam of sunlight struck down through a crack in the ceiling in that shimmering silver dress with her soft, creamy skin and gleaming waves of strawberry blond hair. All the times I’d dreamed of her, envisioned her like a talisman of hope in the middle of my darkest hours, I’d tried to convince myself that I’d exaggerated. I must have embellished the truth over the years. No one could be that staggeringly beautiful.
Then I saw her again and realized my fantasies hadn’t even done her justice. Her full lips, her petite frame. The way she held herself, graceful and light. The way she couldn’t meet my eyes. Then how she’d looked when she finally did, gazing up at me with her dark blue eyes wide and brimming with unspoken emotion. I saw a mixed-up brew of confusion there. And maybe longing? I might have seen a hint of that. Late at night, I sure hoped I had.
I’d already felt pretty worked up before Colt’s phone call. But his words jolted my adrenaline into hyper-drive like a hostile raid.
“We have a situation,” he’d begun, asking if I could be downstairs in five minutes to step into his limo.
Inside the car, he gave me the highlights of his current shitstorm. He was right. It was a bad one.
Colt was CEO of the family business, Kavanaugh Investors. I knew enough about human nature to understand without being told, you didn’t become a billionaire without getting your fingers dirty every now and then. No one amassed that kind of wealth and stayed squeaky clean.
It turned out his former COO had been dealing dirty for years, getting in way over his head with exactly the kinds of people you didn’t want to mess with at all, ever. I knew about those kinds of people. I hadn’t grown up with a silver spoon in my mouth like Colt. I’d grown up in Fresno, my father in a motorcycle club, my mother in a strip joint. It was cool on Sons of Anarchy, but not so cool as a seven-year-old needing regular meals.
But it had given me more of an education than all of Colt’s Harvard degrees. Most everyone I knew had a dark side and, given the right conditions, they’d go there. Greed and power were ruthless motivators.
Colt’s old COO had gotten into it with a Columbian drug cartel. I didn’t get all the details, we didn’t have time, but the gist of it was he’d gotten Kavanaugh Investors involved with the coffee trade, which had pissed off those involved with the cocaine trade, and now the cartel had issued a death threat.
The thing about a Columbian drug cartel was they really knew how to hit where it hurt. A typical bad guy would have taken a swing right at Colt. A more clever bad guy would have targeted his new wife, and that would have been effective. But Colt had her under wraps, heavily guarded since intel had reached him that this could become a problem.
But these guys? They were the real deal, experts at cruelty and getting what they wanted. So they’d made a death threat against Colt’s beloved, vulnerable younger sister. Unprotected, living single in the city, Gigi would make an easy target.
Or so they thought.
“You’re the one I can trust,” Colt told me, intense, fervent, more desperate than I’d ever seen him. “You’ll keep her safe.”
“I’ll get her out tonight,” I agreed, not even bothering to formally accept the assignment. No one would hurt Gigi. I didn’t care what they tried to do. I would stop them.
“I’m working on a place—”
“I know a
guy.” I took charge of the situation. Colt knew how to make all sorts of business arrangements, but he didn’t know how to make these kinds of plans. We needed a heavily-guarded safe house, the kind of place we could disappear for a while until Colt straightened out the mess.
“Thought you might.” Colt exhaled with relief. I wanted to tell him he should keep on holding his breath, this thing was far from over. But I’d let him worry about that.
I had my mission now. I needed to grab Gigi, steal her away without a trace under the cover of night and hide her from anyone trying to do her harm. I was on it. I would succeed.
I had only one question. Who was going to protect Gigi from me?
iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/
book/undeniable/id1120981899?ls=1&mt=11
Goodreads TBR: https://www.goodreads.com/
book/show/30359129-undeniable
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you so much for reading!
Thank you, thank you to my family and friends for their love and support. I am so grateful every day for each of you!
Linda Russell at Sassy Savvy Fabulous PR. Oh my goodness, what would I do without you? You are tireless, patient, creative and really fun to work with. Thank you so much for believing in me!
Perfect Pear Creative, I’m IN AWE over the cover you designed for In Deep. Genius! I’m so thrilled to be working with you and can’t wait to see what you come up with for the rest of the All In series.
A huge thank you to Candy and the team at Help Me Edit for proofreading. I so appreciate how quickly and thoroughly you read my work. Thanks also to Jenny Wootton for her close, perceptive read!
Sophie at Bookalicious Babes Blog, you’re absolutely lovely. Thank you for the early read of this book, for your consistently great advice, and for being an early and constant supporter of my writing! You’ve helped me so much in understanding and navigating this wonderful and wild book world, and I’m deeply grateful.
Thanks to Kylie, George and the rest of the group at Give Me Books. Michelle, graphics guru extraordinaire, thank you for your patience and persistence.
In Deep: Chase & Emma (All In Book 1) Page 24