The Major's Welcome Home

by Tessa Bailey

  Arms locked at her sides, Kenna came closer, staying just out of his reach.

  “Hey, Mary?”

  His ex-girlfriend jolted at the sound of another female voice, although how she could have missed his rapt attention on Kenna baffled him. Couldn’t everyone tell he was taken? The fact was so carved in stone it had to be stamped on every inch of his body.

  Mary swiped a hand across her eyes, darting a look between Kenna and Beck. “Y-yes?”

  “I, um.” Kenna shifted in her heels. “You seem nice and all, which kind of blows. I was hoping you’d be evil, maybe wearing a coat made of puppies or something.” She took a step toward Beck. “But I’m sorry. You’re going to have to fight me for him.”

  For the first time in his life, he experienced what it felt like to be weak and strong, both at the same time. His limbs shook with the need to hold her, while his heart rumbled like an approaching locomotive, gaining power with each passing second. Kenna had already been his, but nothing would ever compare to hearing her make it official, despite her own fears. Nothing.

  Mary gave a resigned laugh. “Looks like someone beat me to it.” She wedged her purse beneath her arm. “I can’t even say I’m the least bit surprised. I knew if it wasn’t me, a good woman was going to snatch you up one day and never let go.”

  As Mary repeated the words Kenna had said to him their first night together, her mouth fell open. That’s right, darlin’. You’re that good woman. And I’m the luckiest fucking guy on the planet.

  Neither one of them broke eye contact as Mary turned and left the building. Beck wasn’t sure he’d look anywhere but at Kenna ever again.

  “So, yeah. I’m fighting for you,” she whispered. “And I’ll go with you to Georgia on one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  Her smile melted the remaining ice in his chest. “I drive.”

  “Thank Christ.” Beck lunged forward to grip the sides of her face. “You don’t have to fight for me, you crazy, gorgeous girl.” His thumbs swept across her cheeks. “Neither of us has to fight. We won.”

  Her laugh sounded slightly incredulous. “I mean, I was really ready to throw down, though.”

  Beck shook his head, dying to get started on the next sixty years with this girl. “It’s a good thing you held off,” he murmured, watching her green eyes go smoky. Yeah, she knew what was coming. “You’re going to need your energy.”

  She gasped as he dipped down, wrapped his arms behind her legs and threw her over his shoulder. She recovered in time to smack his ass as they strode through the double doors, out into the night. Together.

  EPILOGUE

  Kenna walked through the peach grove, a plastic jug of lemonade swinging by her side. Yeah, she was that girlfriend who brought refreshment to the hard-working men—so sue her. She’d worked damn hard herself that morning, having been commissioned by the local parks department for a statue honoring a local town legend, which just happened to be Beck’s great-great-grandfather. A project she’d enjoyed all the more for its importance to her boyfriend.

  Beck. Kenna was grateful for the summer breeze lifting the hair off her neck, as the mere act of thinking his name heated every inch of her skin, sent a languorous thrill sliding down her spine. They’d arrived in Georgia two weeks ago and true to his word, Beck had found her a workshop. Before they’d even unpacked, he’d begun clearing out a small barn adjacent to the house, working like a man possessed despite her assurances that she could wait. His aim to solidify her place in Georgia—eliminating any and all excuses to leave—was clear as the bright, blue, southern sky above her.

  Watching Beck from the kitchen window as he’d carried lumber into the barn, she’d waited. Waited for her skittishness to return. Waited for her cowardly impulses to flair, sending her running back to Fort Black Rock, where she wouldn’t have such pressure to hold up one end of a relationship. What did she know about relationships, anyway?

  Nothing. And it didn’t matter two shits. She had a man who cared enough to stay awake three nights in a row, building her a dream workshop, complete with Christmas lights and a hammock. A man who maintained just enough energy to flip her over upon finally returning to bed and claiming her like a lust-crazed animal. Yeah. You didn’t question a single thing when a man like Beck found and kept you. So Kenna Sutton was holding on for dear life.

  Masculine voices reached her from up ahead in the clearing, a circle of pick-up trucks peeking through the trees. Knowing Beck would be easy to spot, since he stood a foot taller than most, a smile was already beginning on Kenna’s lips when she stepped off the path—

  The jug of lemonade slipped from her fingers, but she never heard it hit the ground. Beck didn’t see her, being that he was in the process of loading crated peaches into the back of his red truck…oh, but she certainly saw him. Today marked the first time she’d visited him in the grove and realized—with what little remained of her working brain—that he must have been showering in the bunk house before coming home each evening…because he was distinctly unshowered now. Dirt streaked his shirtless body. Every sinewy inch. Some splotches had even made it up to his jaw, his neck. Rivers of sweat interrupted the dirt throughout, leaving beads of moisture on his stomach, lower even, where that V disappeared into his worn jeans.

  His back flexed as he loaded the crates, chords of muscle bunching all the way down to his ass, the top of which swelled above his waistband. Sweet Jesus, she didn’t know where to look. There were several tears in his jeans around the thigh area—had his thighs grown even bigger since they’d driven south?

  Kenna’s mouth was parched, her palms damp. An invisible fist ground itself along the inside of her pelvis, creating such an immediate pressure to find relief, she must have made a sound, because Beck’s head whipped around, twin blue eyes homing in on her with a mate’s precision. He loaded the crate in his hands and started in her direction, those long strides making mince meat of the ground. And she couldn’t help her baser nature, gaze dipping to the crotch of his jeans, where his manhood was clearly outlined by the sweat-moistened denim. No underwear today. As if Beck heard her thought out loud, his hand dropped down to adjust his bulk and the sight almost killed her.

  “Hey, darlin’. You walked all the way out here?” When Beck’s towering form reached her, he stooped down to pick up the fallen—and forgotten—lemonade jug, before rising to run concerned eyes over person. “I would have come and picked you up.”

  Pick me up. Pick me up now. “No, I…I enjoyed the walk.” For the first time, she became aware of the grove workers watching just beyond Beck’s shoulder. At once, her arousal and need for Beck felt so obvious that hot nerves forced her back a step. She’d come out here in a thin, white cotton dress carrying lemonade—couldn’t even wait until he came home for a fix. His fellow workmen probably thought her shameless and horny, which was sadly accurate at the moment. “I brought lemonade to the menfolk. How lame is that, right?” She tugged on the hem of her dress. “Like some wannabe Martha Stewart.”

  When she tried to take back the lemonade container from Beck, he pulled it out of her reach. “Kenna, you standing in my orchard, holding this lemonade is just about the best thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” His eyes trailed down the front of her body, then shot back up, as if he still found it disrespectful to ogle her. “And if you don’t mind me saying so, in that dress you look about the furthest thing from Martha Stewart.”

  Beneath the cotton, her nipples turned to tight peaks. “I didn’t realize you got so…dirty when you worked out here.”

  She couldn’t believe it when the tips of his ears turned red, his hand reaching for a rag that had been stuffed into his back pocket. “I try and get it all off before I come home to you, darlin’…”

  Before Beck could use the rag to wipe away the dirt, Kenna stepped forward and snagged his wrist. “Leave it. I like it.”

  With an audible swallow, Beck’s gaze fell to her staying hand. “Why?”

  His thicken
ed tone of voice grabbed Kenna by the ovaries and shook. “You look…um. I don’t know if I can put it into words.”

  “Try for me?”

  “Hot.” Kenna’s breath shuddered out. “Male. Just huge, hot and male. A male that uses his body to make a living, then comes home and uses it to—”

  “Say it,” he rasped.

  “To fuck,” she whispered, made bolder by the way his eyes blazed. “Fuck his girlfriend until she forgets how to speak properly. Or can even make it through an afternoon without feeling him moving inside of her.”

  Conscious of the men watching, Kenna tried to be discreet about dropping her attention to Beck’s erection, so heavy and prominent, she sucked in a breath. Without taking his eyes off her, Beck turned his head and shouted over his shoulder. “Head on out to the south orchard. I’ll be along in a while.”

  They both stood perfectly still as the group of men climbed into their vehicles and started to depart, one by one. “You can do that?” Kenna breathed, not giving a damn that she sounded like a starry-eyed teenager. Maybe she was one just then, looking at her boyfriend in all his rugged, masculine glory, watching him order men around.

  Beck nodded once, coming closer to fill her vision completely, blocking everything else out. “Yes, I can do that. This is my land, Kenna.” He twisted a hand in her dress and tugged her up against him. “If you let me have my way, it’ll be yours, too. Someday very soon.”

  Behind Beck, the last truck drove off in a cloud of dust, giving Kenna’s fingers the green light to reach out, releasing her boyfriend’s arousal from his jeans and shoving the damp garment down past his hips to reveal him. “Yes, I want that,” she whispered, rubbing the underside of his girth with her palm. “I want all of you.”

  With a rough groan, Beck tugged a condom from his front, right pocket. But some instinct had Kenna taking away the foil square and letting it slip to the ground, giving Beck a meaningful look the whole time. Such a small action, but it seemed to crack Beck wide open. His growl ripped the air between them a second before their mouths began to wrestle for a decent taste. Kenna’s stroking grip was covered by Beck’s powerful hand, assisting her in jacking him off. Hard. Fast.

  He broke off on a loud groan, then focused in on her with an obvious effort. “Kenna, be sure. Be real sure. Once I have you this way, once there’s a chance you could bear our children, I’m making you my wife. Nothing will stop me.”

  Her heart joined with her body to revel in him, quickening with a swiftness that stole her sanity until she was just talking, babbling, saying anything that popped into her mind. “Look at you. You’re the kind of man who takes what he wants.” She rubbed her thinly covered breasts against his sweaty chest, uncaring that the dress would be soiled. “You wanted me and you took me. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” Beck panted, mouth descending to suck at her cleavage. “Yes. I took you because you were mine, Kenna. Mine.”

  Yes. Always. “You’re the kind of man who wants to see his woman’s belly swell, aren’t you?” His hands were lifting her dress, nearly ripping the material in an effort to get it off, his desperate grunts almost deafening in her ears. “You don’t know any other way to live, except for keeping what belongs to you, any way you can. I want to belong to you. I want to be full of you.”

  Kenna felt the potency of the shift inside him. That monstrous click when Beck’s sweet side was eclipsed by something…wicked. A wicked and delicious something she’d come to crave. “My men knew. When they left, they knew what I was going to do to you. They knew. And I don’t care. I want everyone to know I’ll fuck my woman whenever she needs it because I’m her provider in all things. I don’t care if that’s wrong.”

  “Nothing between us is wrong.” Kenna didn’t know how she managed words when her body was already experiencing the distinct tightening of an oncoming climax. God, he never stopped surprising her. Or finding a new way to turn her on to the point of lunacy. She bent forward to remove her panties, licking the salty tip of his erection as she did so. Beck was having none of it, though, and she knew it was because of what she’d promised. What was to come.

  Beck tangled his hand in Kenna’s hair, tugging her head back and leaning over her, his hot breath ghosting over her lips. “Get up on my cock where you belong.”

  Kenna moaned and squeezed her thighs together to prevent an early orgasm. Lord, she couldn’t think or see anything but him as she hooked her shaking knee over his chiseled hip and hefted herself up. Two calloused hands found her bottom, assisting Kenna’s descent onto her man’s rampant arousal. Their groans collided as she slid down, down, stopping only when she couldn’t take any more. “Oh, oh, oh. Beck. Jesus Christ.” Again, the flow of words couldn’t be stemmed. “I need you so many ways all the time…I can barely stand it. Please, please.”

  “Stop. You know I can’t go slow when you tell me you need me,” Beck grated against her lips. “I wanted us in our bed the first time.”

  “The first time?” she managed on an expulsion of breath.

  Beck licked his perspiration-dotted lips, nodding. “The first time I get you pregnant.” Kenna’s inner walls drew on him like a suctioning mouth and she let out a scream, cut off by Beck’s stinging slap against her backside. “Shhh, darlin’. Don’t lose your voice again. I can’t live anymore without hearing you say my name.”

  “Beck, Beck…” she sobbed. “I’m dying.”

  “No, you’re not. I won’t let you,” he crooned, giving her throat a long drag of his tongue. “Daddy is going to take care of everything, isn’t he?”

  Feeling hypnotized, Kenna nodded. “Yes.”

  He walked them backward until he could rest one hand on a peach tree, using the opposite forearm to support her hungry, undulating body. “Now go on and work the seed out of me. Don’t stop until you’ve gotten all of it.”

  Beck’s husky groans and slaps of Kenna’s flesh filled the orchard.

  EXCERPT FROM GETAWAY GIRL

  CHAPTER ONE

  Addison

  Scandal Erupts as Captain Du Pont Left in the Lurch at Church

  —Charleston Courier

  When I woke up this morning, I didn’t plan on crashing a wedding.

  But here I am.

  In leather pants and a faded T-shirt, I didn’t even bother dressing up, which is drawing censorious raised eyebrows from the Charleston upper crust. There they are in their pressed pastels and bow ties, neatly divided into two sides of the aisle. Golden blondes on the left. Deep, rich brunettes to the right. Not a head of midnight-black hair among them.

  None like mine.

  Defiance rears back inside me and I toss that mane of inherited black hair now, letting it whip and settle around my shoulders. Perhaps it’s the move that causes an older woman in the back row to recognize me—finally. Or recognize my mother, rather. I’ve grown up a lot since leaving this town, and since I own a mirror, I’m aware of the resemblance.

  Green eyes, resting bitch face, stubborn chin, indecent curves.

  I’m a Potts girl, head to toe.

  Looking as if she’s seen a ghost, the woman fingers her pearls and leans over to start a gossip wildfire, no doubt. My mouth curls into a pleased smile and I go back to observing the congregation. Everyone is seated and waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle, except for me. I’m standing in the far back corner, cloaked in shadows. Appropriate, considering my cousin, Naomi, is getting married this afternoon and no one in my family was invited.

  What family? You’re the only one left now.

  An invisible fist grinds into my chest and I push off the wall, intending to duck out for a breath of fresh air. No way I’m going to lose my composure in front of these people. Especially the blonde side of the room. When I turn to leave, however…that’s when I see him.

  Once, during a hurricane, I made the mistake of leaving my apartment in Brooklyn for a gallon of milk. Cereal makes up ninety percent of my diet, so I was desperate and tired of eating fistfuls of dry Che
erios. I didn’t make it two steps out of the building when a hundred-mile-an-hour wind swept my feet out from under me, landing me on my back with a view of the dark thunderheads above. I still went and bought the milk, because I am a stubborn piece of work, but I remember that feeling of utter shock. The confirmation that forces more powerful than my iron will exist, just waiting to knock me on my butt.

  That’s how I feel when I see the groom. Naomi’s groom.

  My throat resists my attempts to swallow, coating itself in mud. Palms sweaty, pulse clamoring, knees buckling—yes, buckling—I fall back against the back wall of the church. I turn to find a full back row of blonde heads watching me and I lift my chin, commanding myself to pull it together. What in God’s name is wrong with me?

  As if induced by magic, my gaze lifts to the groom once more. He’s not the cookie-cutter trust fund boy I was expecting. No, he’s…compelling. Hands clasped behind his back, he’s the authority in the room without moving a single muscle. He must be six foot five, based on the way he towers over the groomsmen, and the breadth of his muscular chest is somehow fierce. Braced and ready for action. He has a thick head of tobacco hair, face shaven but already battling a beard. His blatant masculinity isn’t what robs me of the ability to stand, though.

  It’s his eyes. For all this man’s obvious power, they’re heartbreakingly kind.

  When I read the wedding announcement online, I scoffed at the description of Naomi’s fiancé. I rush to recall it now. Elijah Montgomery DuPont. Citadel graduate. Served three tours overseas with the army. What else? There was something…else.

  Oh. Right. Elijah is the son of Charleston’s longest-sitting mayor. Plans to follow in his father’s footsteps. Imminently. Would I expect anything less in a husband for impossibly polished, former pageant girl Naomi? Granted I haven’t seen her sailing through town since we were teenagers, Naomi in her private school getup, me in ripped jeans and Salvation Army specials. I remember well, though. I remember the way her gaze skimmed over me and shut down, the whispers to her friends. Her mother. Her mother is the one…