Lovers Unmasked

by Katee Robert

  Then came Trevor, all restrained ruggedness in his black tuxedo, standing next to the placid-faced minister. Her eyes cut right, landed on Ian, and her heart did a little flutter. God, he looked so handsome. Tall and tanned and cover-model polished, but the civilized tux couldn’t conceal the energy coiled in his lean, hard body, or his innate, alpha-male assurance. That insanely gorgeous, sexy man right there loves you, a little voice whispered.

  The music swelled, and then subsided when they reached the arbor. Vern snuffled loudly, cleared his throat, and said, “Thought you girls were smarter than this,” in a gruff stage whisper that sent a ripple of laughter through the audience. He kissed Kylie’s cheek, then turned to Stacy, swept her into a theatrically dramatic embrace, and planted a loud, smacking kiss on her. She raised a hand to her head to keep her hair from spilling out of its sleek twist, and used the other hand to feign some damsel-in-distress beating on Vern’s back.

  He hauled her upright, tapped her chin lightly with his knuckles and said, “Best move you ever made, kid.” Then he was gone and the minister turned to Kylie and Trevor. Stacy watched, teary-eyed, as they pledged their love, their futures, their everything, to each other, and exchanged I-dos.

  Then it was Ian’s turn. She watched his face as he repeated the minister’s words. No hesitation. Not a single stutter. He topped it all off with a slow smile delivered straight to her.

  The minister turned to her. “And do you, Stacy, take—”

  “I do!” she shouted. Oh, hell yes, she did. She wrapped her arm around Ian’s neck, fused her mouth to his and kissed him with everything she had. And kissed him…and kissed him…and kept right on kissing him.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard the guests cheering and clapping. She heard the minister saying, “Wait. Wait…not yet!” and then rushing through the “With the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife” part.

  When she broke away for air, Ian looked down at her with a devilish glint in his eyes. “Wanna cut out early and get started on the honeymoon?”

  Her laugh turned into a squeal when he hauled her up against him and brought his mouth down to hers. “I do,” she whispered when she could speak again, and sealed it with a kiss.

  Acknowledgments

  You learn who your friends are when you turn to them and say, “I need to do research for a story. Want to go pole dancing?”

  I’m not naming names, or calling anyone double-jointed, but I do want to thank:

  Heather Howland, editor and masochist, for allowing me to be part of the anthology, and my anthology-mates, Cari, Katee, and Tessa, for inspiring me with your authorly awesomeness.

  Fellow Entangled authors Robin Bielman and Hayson Manning, for all your encouragement, (i.e. listening to me whine when my characters won’t behave).

  The whole Kentucky crew, for not disowning me, and especially Peggy Tucker, for saying what you said, and also for the pole dancing lessons.

  To my family, for everything.

  About the Author

  Award winning author Samanthe Beck lives in Malibu, California, with her husband, their son, Kitty the furry Ninja, and Bebe the trash talkin’ Chihuahua. When not writing fun and sexy contemporary romance, or napping on her beach towel with her face snuggled to her Kindle, she searches for the perfect ten dollar wine to pair with Lunchables.

  Connect with Sam via Facebook, Twitter, or through her website at www.samanthebeck.com to check her progress on that never-ending quest, or to get the latest on her upcoming Brazens!

  See where it all began for Ian and Stacy in…

  LOVER UNDERCOVER

  the first book in Samanthe Beck’s McCade Brothers series

  He’s undercover. She’s in over her head.

  Yoga instructor Kylie Roberts is the good twin. Or she was—until an accident prevents her sister from dancing at a posh Hollywood “men’s club,” and Kylie has to step into her twin’s sexy stilettos to make rent. But nothing could’ve prepared Kylie for the dead body in the club’s parking lot, a killer who only targets her clients, or the ridiculously hot detective assigned to the case. Too bad he thinks she’s her sister, because Kylie’s willing to volunteer for an intimate, full-body strip search.

  Detective Trevor McCade needs Kylie’s help. His plan is to pose as a regular customer and draw out the killer. It means long nights undercover, and long dances where Kylie’s body tempts him with sensual promises. Dances that leave them both wanting more. But despite Kylie’s hidden identity and the danger lurking in the shadows, it’s only a matter of time before Kylie and Trevor take this undercover operation under the covers…

  Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iTunes

  Can’t get enough of Samanthe Beck’s romances? Check out her hilarious and heartfelt debut novel

  PRIVATE PRACTICE

  He’ll teach her how to bring a man to his knees…

  Dr. Ellie Swan has a plan: open her practice in tiny Bluelick, Kentucky, so she can keep an eye on her diabetic father, and make hometown golden-boy Roger Reynolds fall in love with her. But Ellie has a problem. Roger seeks a skilled, sexually adventurous partner, and bookish Ellie doesn’t qualify.

  Tyler Longfoot only cares about three things: shaking his bad boy image, qualifying for the loan his company needs to rehab a piece of Bluelick’s history, and convincing Ellie to keep quiet about the “incident” that lands him on her doorstep at two a.m. with a bullet in his behind.

  The adorable Dr. Swan drives a mean bargain, though. If sex-on-a-stick Tyler will teach Ellie how to bring a man to his knees, she’ll forget about the bullet. Armed with The Wild Woman’s Guide to Sex and Tyler’s lessons, Ellie is confident she can become what Roger needs…if she doesn’t fall for Tyler first.

  Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iTunes

  Protecting What’s Theirs

  a Line of Duty novella

  Tessa Bailey

  Other books by Tessa Bailey

  Protecting What’s His

  His Risk to Take

  Officer OffLimits

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Tessa Bailey. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Edited by Heather Howland

  Cover design by Heather Howland

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-271-5

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition September 2013

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Laundromat; Tupperware; Snickers; Google, NRA; 9 to 5; Chicago Cubs; Captain America; Olive Oyl; Popeye.

  For Bailey’s Babes

  “Get a Fan”

  Chapter One

  Shitshitshit.

  Ginger Peet took one look at the offending piece of plastic in her hand and hurled it clear across the room. It was reflex. An unconscious action. If she’d have held it a second longer, it surely would have set her hand on fire. She watched the object bounce off her chest of drawers and slide to a stop at the base of her life-size Dolly Parton statue. For once, the giant porcelain likeness of her idol offered zero comfort, the Smoky Mountain Songbird’s frozen smile taking on more of a smirking quality that Ginger definitely did not appreciate. Not now, when she’d just gotten the shock of a lifetime.

  Considering some of the shocks she’d been dealt in her lifetime, especially in the last year, that was truly saying something.

  “Well, Dolly?” Ginger
plopped down hard on the wooden floor, the heels of her cowboy boots making a loud clunk. “No clever, down-home advice for me? You’re just going to stand there and act all high and mighty? I didn’t plan for this to happen, you know.” She breathed a sigh. “I don’t mean it, Dolly. I’m just upset, is all.”

  Of course, the statue kept quiet, although when Ginger looked away for a split second, she swore it tilted its head to the left. On hands and knees, Ginger crawled across the room and without touching the object, leaned down and squinted at it, hoping she’d been wrong the first time.

  Nope. Still knocked up.

  She rolled over onto her back, staring blindly at the ceiling. “How did this happen?” Okay, that time she didn’t imagine the statue’s head tilt. Right? “I mean, I know how this happens. I worked in a bar for seven years. You pick up a thing or two listening to people piss away their troubles over whiskey. But we were so damn careful.”

  A flush crept up her neck as a barrage of scenes starring her and Lieutenant Derek Tyler, her boyfriend of nearly a year, blurred together in her mind, starting the week she, Willa, and Dolly had moved in next door. They’d been on the lam, having fled Nashville to escape their dire circumstances. A cop had been her last choice in a neighbor. He’d wasted no time making his intentions clear. Very clear. She shook her head to dispel the visions of their naked, writhing bodies on various surfaces. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said to Dolly. “I remember that time at the Laundromat. And that weekend in Miami last month…”

  Ginger slapped her palm to her forehead. Derek had surprised her with a last-minute trip to South Beach, having finally wrapped up a major case and deciding to take his very first vacation since joining the force. Never having been to Florida, let alone on a vacation, she’d forgotten her birth control pills in the excited rush to pack. At first, they’d been careful about using condoms, but there’d been that one single time. And wasn’t that always the way it happened? That afternoon they’d spent on the beach, sipping mojitos. Swimming in the ocean, slipping against one another’s wet bodies, tempting, heightening the anticipation. He’d growled over her choice of a purple string bikini, but she’d felt the effect it had on him. Hadn’t wasted any opportunities to brush against him with her barely covered bottom, wrapping her legs around his waist, leaning over his impressively muscled chest to apply sunscreen.

  By the time they stumbled, kissing and petting each other, into the hotel room, they’d been in a sexual frenzy. She’d been pulled down onto the floor, just inside their hotel room door. Her purple bikini had been torn from her body, baring her bottom to receive the mighty slap of Derek’s palm…he’d been inside her before they remembered he hadn’t worn a condom. By then, nothing short of a tsunami could have stopped them. Ginger remembered it clear as a bell, as if it had taken place five minutes ago instead of six weeks prior. There had been an illicitness to their lovemaking, as if the risk were adding a whole new element. Knowing they were gambling, in a sense, had made them twice as wild.

  He’d finished with a roar, then flipped her over and taken her again. Harder.

  Ginger cleared her throat in the silent room. “Well. I seem to have sorted out the when and I’ll be keeping it to myself, Dolly, if you don’t mind. Now on to the why now.” She glanced over at the framed picture of her and Derek that sat on her bedside table. Derek kissing her forehead, arms wrapped around her protectively. Always protecting. So solid and reassuring. The picture had been taken by Willa, her photographer younger sister, when they were both unaware. It was the main reason she loved the picture. No posing or false smiles. Just the two of them as they were at that moment. Happy. At peace.

  Would this unexpected news change that? Yes, they loved each other. Yes, this last year, without question, had been the happiest in her twenty-four years. But this…a baby…it would change everything. They’d never even discussed having children. Although to be fair, she suspected Derek would avoid that topic at the risk of sending her screaming for the hills. He knew every gory detail about her shitty upbringing, her issues surrounding family. Her mother had been a drug addict and a prostitute who’d turned tricks in their living room. Not exactly a shining example of motherhood in all its glory.

  One of the insecurities she and Derek had set out to overcome was her intense fear of commitment. After watching her mother being used and discarded regularly, she’d never envisioned herself in a relationship. She’d only moved in with Derek a few months ago and while she loved him to an astonishing degree, it had been a monumental decision for her. The stubborn man had all but tricked her into it. A baby epitomized commitment. A lifetime’s worth of it. She wasn’t sure she was ready for that kind of thing. Even if she was…what about Derek?

  She thought of herself nine months pregnant, wearing maternity clothes to accommodate her swollen belly. And allowed the tiny niggle of worry to creep in at the image. At age fourteen, she’d realized men liked the way she looked. Sure, she’d used it to her advantage. Even while luring Derek into what she’d thought would be a purely physical encounter. She didn’t waste a moment regretting it, either. Use what you’ve got had been the words she’d lived by for so long. But since breaking free of her past and taking control of her life, she’d stopped relying on them. Her body’s shape didn’t define her anymore. Her self-confidence had grown exponentially since moving to Chicago and meeting Derek.

  She was now a businesswoman. An actual role model to the sister she loved. Yet…she always knew the looks were at her disposal if she needed them. And perhaps a small, leftover part of her past self was worried that Derek wouldn’t want her as much with cankles. She hated thinking that way. It was vain and silly. And yet.

  “You understand, right, Dolly? You never leave the house without your sequined bustier and blond wig.” Okay, now that time the statue definitely shook its head disapprovingly. Pregnancy was apparently already taking its toll on her sanity. “Don’t look at me like that. Everyone knows about the wigs and no one here is judging you. Especially the pregnant lady talking to a damn statue.”

  Raising a baby was simply not in her wheelhouse. While she may have grown emotionally and shed most of her hang-ups, it didn’t mean she was ready for another human being to be completely dependent on her. She’d managed to raise Willa, now majoring in photography in college, through trial and error. Lord knew she’d made plenty of mistakes along the way. There’d been no time to prepare for this.

  She doubted it was on Derek’s radar, either. Not with his heavy workload, the way his peers relied on him. He’d been honored by the department earlier that year for his work in a sting operation involving two local gangs. She’d watched him accept his plaque from the Chicago police commissioner to thunderous applause from his colleagues, so choked with pride she could barely breathe. His career was on a major upswing. This would mean change. Sacrifices. Then, there was her own work. She’d opened Sneaky Peet’s in Wicker Park, creating and selling custom furniture. Her designs had become so popular, her hours were nearly as demanding as Derek’s. Throwing a baby into the equation at this stage, well, it was damned inconvenient.

  Automatically, she felt an immense wave of guilt at her own thoughts. Slowly, very slowly, her hand crept to her still-flat belly and lay there. The world didn’t end.

  “Hell, Dolly. I’m screwed. I already love the little booger.” She blew out a breath toward the ceiling. She would tell Derek. He would understand. He’d hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right. She had to believe in that. Believe in him. “Looks like the three of us are having a baby.”

  Chapter Two

  Without looking up from his mountain of paperwork, Lieutenant Derek Tyler waved in the detective who’d just knocked tentatively on his glass office door.

  “Do I not look busy enough to you, Alvarez?”

  Most detectives knew when to back off around him. Not Alvarez, twenty-year veteran and all-around bullshit artist. He whistled softly through his teeth. “Someone’s even
testier than usual. I know you haven’t been home to see your woman in two nights, but cut a dude some slack. Only doing my job.”

  Stone-faced, Derek simply let Alvarez squirm under his stare. He didn’t like any of his men talking about Ginger. Not in any capacity. His woman. His business. Being that he’d spent the night away from their bed, instead of wrapped around her soft form where he belonged, he wasn’t in the mood to make an exception for the ball-breaking detective. Derek had thought when she moved in with him, he wouldn’t feel quite so anxious, unsettled, when he was forced to spend the night working. She’d be safe in his bed, behind a door he’d locked himself. Oddly, the desire to be home had grown exponentially. He should be home with her. Seeing to her needs. Demanding that she see to his. Spending every moment enjoying the fact that she’d taken that leap for him. With him.

  His work-weary gaze strayed to the clock on his computer. Nine fifteen in the evening. She’d be spreading on lotion after a hot bath. Throwing on one of his department Tshirts. Nothing but tiny panties underneath. Sitting cross-legged on the floor cutting out pictures from magazines for her furniture designs, her brows drawn in concentration over her beautiful face. If he were to walk in the front door right now, she’d give him that hundred-watt smile and climb up his body for a long, wet, welcome-home kiss. God, as bad as he needed a fix of Ginger right now, he’d probably throw her down on the closest surface and fuck her hard and thorough before they’d even exchanged hellos.

  So, no. He wasn’t in the mood for this shit from Alvarez.

  “The point. Get to it.”

  He threw up his hands. “Fair enough. Although by the time I’m finished giving you this report, you’re going to wish you’d put it off a little longer.”

  “I highly doubt it.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Alvarez flipped open the manila folder in his lap. “Two words. Gino Lazio.”