Exposed: Book One of The Love Seekers Series

by Vickers, Maria

  Life was funny. The day I ran into the room, I wanted to rescue a stranger because she needed it. Years later, I unknowingly volunteered to help the same girl because I wanted to save her yet again. It may have been a different type of rescue than the day Allen had taken advantage of her, but I still wanted to protect her. And in the end, I wanted to be her prince.

  “You okay?” I asked Emma. Her body trembled next to mine, which made me angrier. I wanted to beat Allen into a blood pulp again.

  The day he hurt Emma years ago, after we dropped her off, Paul and I took him behind the house and proceeded to beat some manners into him. Such a shame they didn’t take. Maybe another lesson was in order.

  She nodded, her head resting against my shoulder.

  “Em, look at me.” I lifted her chin and bent down to kiss her lips. Our reunion hadn’t been anything like I imagined it would be. I expected to go through the security exit, see her, run to her, and sweep her in my arms. Dealing one bitch of a sister and one bastard of a cousin never appeared in my plan.

  I’d been home less than an hour and I had an upset girlfriend, beat a bastard, yelled at my sister again, and would probably have to deal with my parents for how I treated Rayne. I was fairly certain, as soon as she got Allen and Paul in her car, she called them and told them how horrible I was to her.

  For a brief second, I thought about transferring back to San Diego immediately, but this time, Emma would come with me. Then again, if she wanted to remain on the east coast, we could always transfer up to Norfolk, which was far enough away that I wouldn’t have to see anyone I didn’t want to see.

  Releasing her lips, I noticed the dazed glimmer in her eyes. Damn, I missed her and that expression. I should’ve let her come out to see me when she offered, but I’d been so busy trying to get everything ready for the move, I declined because I didn’t think it wise to throw her in the middle of box jungle. Plus, I hadn’t been home all that much the last couple of months. Next time, I was going to say fuck it. “You okay?” I asked again.

  I didn’t miss her small sigh or the way her expression changed from dazed to frustrated. “I’ll be fine. Just never expected to run into my past again.”

  “We never do, but at least I’m part of that past too.” I winked.

  Her pink lips, slightly swollen from my kiss, turned up in a tiny grin. “Yes, you are. I guess I can call you my hero or…”

  Mel pulled up to Emma’s apartment building, however, no one got out of the truck. “Or?”

  “Captain America.” She chortled.

  My eyes grew, and then my head whipped around to glare at Mel. “You told her?”

  Holding up her hands in surrender, she defended herself. “Before you go killing me and leaving Luke completely alone and pitiful, you need to ask her why I told her. How could I not after what she told me?”

  “What the hell? Em?” Emma was laughing so hard, she had to hold her side and couldn’t answer me. My eyes darted back to Mel for some sort of explanation. “Well?”

  “Out! I’m not going to spoil this one for her. Besides, I need to pick Luke up. He’s been at Chad’s watching some game, and he’s probably sloshed by now. You two have fun tonight.”

  Reluctantly, I got out of the truck and then helped Emma out. Handing her the walker I pulled from the bed of the truck, I waited until she felt steady on her own before I grabbed my bag. We made it two steps away from the truck before Mel peeled out of there. At least she waited until we were clear before she left.

  And Emma continued to giggle. Shaking my head, I sighed. “Come on. Let’s get inside so you can tell me what the big secret is.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You will.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I have ways of making you talk.”

  “I might like to see what you got.”

  Yeah, I definitely missed her, this, and everything in between. Grinning lasciviously, I swatted her bottom. I leaned close to her ear, and spoke softly. “I’ll show you what I’ve got. It’s missed you.” I mentally patted myself on the back when her breath hitched, she swallowed hard, and she licked her dry lips.

  “When do the movers show up to your apartment?”

  “Tomorrow.” What was she up to?

  She opened the door to her place. “Oh.” Why did she sound disappointed?

  I dropped my suitcase and backpack in the entry way before I grabbed from behind. Every attempt was made to ignore the jumping dog crying at my feet, because despite his cuteness, Emma required my undivided attention. Spinning her around, I bent low, threw her over my shoulder, and carried her toward her bedroom.

  “Oh? You know, my apartment is a little bigger than this. It’s also close to the beach and on the first floor.” I dropped Emma onto the bed, and enjoyed the way she bounced from the impact. Crawling onto the bed and over her, I settled on top of her, placing my arms on either side of her shoulders. They took the brunt of my weight.

  And then there was Curley. I forgot to close the door and he’d jumped on the bed with us. He sat next to us with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, staring at us. It was a bit unnerving. He demanded attention. Patting the little dog on the head, I addressed her. “Therefore, you shouldn’t look so disappointed. When I went searching for a place, I made sure you would be able to maneuver it. In fact, it’s a newer apartment and completely set up with handicap access. And I was thinking, since your lease ends next month, instead of renewing, you should move in with me.”

  Her shocked expression looked adorable on her. “What?”

  “I’m serious. What do you think?” I held my breath. Like with every other plan that concerned her, my original idea to ask her in a more romantic fashion, failed. I had come to the decision, winging it was the best course of action with Emma.

  “Yes!” she screamed, wrapping her arms and legs around me.

  My dick swelled immediately, however, I possessed self-control, and I pushed aside my desires to ask one more question. “How did you know about Captain America?”

  Her coy expression told me I might have to torture her first. “Something.”

  Grabbing her sides, I started to tickle her. Her laughter was a balm to my soul after everything that had happened earlier today at the airport. “Tell me.” Curley began barking again, and got in on the action by licking Emma’s face, making her laugh more.

  “AH! No!” she yelled.

  “Tell me!”

  “NO!”

  Her legs were no longer wrapped around me, but swung wildly on the bed. I grabbed one and relocated the tickle session to her feet. She screamed loud enough to make my ears hurt. “Tell me,” I demanded playfully.

  One minute we were both laughing, and the next she started to choke. I panicked when I saw her struggling. Falling to the side in order to get off of her, I jerked her into a sitting position so she could breathe a little easier. “Em! Emma! Are you all right?”

  With a hoarse voice she said, “Yeah. Some spit got stuck in my throat and I guess my throat chose that moment to stop working. I’m fine.” She tried to wave off my concern, but her words did nothing to tamp down on the worry and anxiety I felt. “Hey. This is life with MG. I choke sometimes when my throat doesn’t want to work. Sometimes it’s my legs, my arms, my eyes, my throat, or any other muscle in my body. If it got to the point where I needed extra help, I would tell you to take me to the hospital.” She paused before inquiring, “Are you sure you can handle this?”

  I honestly didn’t know, however, if it was a choice between dealing with the MG or saying goodbye to her, I would choose the disease and everything that came with it. I’d be there for her to support her, and whenever she needed me to, I’d take care of her, because I loved her. In a short amount of time, she had become my world. I always thought everyone’s favorite line from Jerry McGuire was cheesy stupid: “You complete me.” But now I understood what they meant. Emma did that for me. She was my other half and she completed me. “I can handle it, because it’s you
.”

  Leaning her head on my shoulder, she whispered, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Holding her tightly, I fell backwards and laid down with her. Curley curled himself into a ball on the other side of her and began snoring. After my scare, I didn’t care about Captain America or satisfying my own needs. I only wanted to feel her in my arms, to feel her lay her head on my chest, and to know she would be all right.

  We had the rest of our lives for everything else, and next time I needed to remember to shut the door to the bedroom, leaving a certain dog on the other side of it.

  Epilogue

  Bryan

  Had the temperature increased? In the last fifteen minutes, it felt like it rose by at least 100 degrees, because I was suddenly sweating buckets while my heart raced faster than any car at NASCAR. Fuck! I felt overheated!

  “Will you calm down? She’ll be here soon,” Luke ordered.

  “I know she will!” I barked back, my nerves intensifying even further. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but he of all people should understand how anxious I felt.

  After Emma moved in with me a month ago, I finally understood exactly what she dealt with on a daily basis. It was so much more than I had been exposed to in the few nights I spent with her. More medicine than I had seen any one person take, walkers, canes, doctors, therapy, etc. But at the same time, I could also say that seeing it all, immersing myself in it, made it easier to deal with and understand. Even on the days she deemed “bad” when she could barely get out of bed, were no longer as terrifying as they once were. That in no way meant I liked seeing her struggling, however, it made it easier to cope with it all. Now, more than ever before, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

  “They’re here!” Luke stressed and I chuckled. I wasn’t sure who seemed more nervous: him or me.

  The time had come.

  Mel and Emma strolled into the club. Brantley Gilbert was playing in a small local club for a special fundraiser and I managed to get tickets. Not only that, but since I knew the owner of the club, I arranged for a little surprise during the performance.

  As always, Emma took my breath away. She wore simple jeans that hugged her hips and accentuated her ass, showing off those curves I loved so much. Her top was strapless, black, and gave everyone a view of her ample cleavage. I loved the way her hips swung a little bit more when she saw me no matter if she used a cane—as she did tonight—or if she used her walker. Hell, she could be in the middle of a bad day dressed in a pair of her sweats, and I’d still believe her to be the sexiest woman on the planet.

  “Hey, baby.” I stepped up to her, pulling her in close for a kiss. I hoped she could not tell how nervous I felt.

  “Hey, sexy. You ok?” she asked, one hand holding tightly to her cane and the other holding onto my waist.

  “Perfect. Lonnie put us to work when we got here. That’s all.” Not exactly a lie. We arrived early to talk to Brantley, and Lonnie, the owner of the club, asked for our help. Considering she had been the person who arranged my meeting with Brantley, I owed her. “You sure you’re okay with just the cane?”

  “Yep. My legs are actually cooperating for a change.” She grinned.

  I hadn’t been the only one to change since we dove head first into each other’s lives. In the past, she had tried to use her cane on days she really needed her walker, but after she moved in with me, she’d been doing better about not taking unnecessary risks.

  A couple of weeks before she moved in, we were both at her apartment and she was using her cane when she shouldn’t have been. She wobbled and the cane did nothing to steady her. Trying to take a step to the right to go into the living room so she could sit down, her foot refused to cooperate, and she would have fallen if I hadn’t caught her. It scared me to death. What if something happened to her? What if she hurt herself? I couldn’t handle it. My anger got the better of me and I yelled. She yelled back, and I left. I came back after I calmed down and we talked it out, but my fear still lingered. She agreed to make better choices if only to stave off my impending heart attack.

  I still busted her doing things she shouldn’t, like when she still tried to use a cane on bad days because “it’s only five feet,” but tonight she was all right. I exhaled in relief, pulling her tightly against my side. “Good.” Kissing the top of her head, I breathed her in and allowed her scent to calm me.

  The club had been set up for the event with tables surrounding a dance floor, and Lonnie was gracious and wonderful enough to give us a table closest to the dance floor and the stage. Finding our seats, we waited for the show to start. I grinned, seeing how excited Emma appeared to be. Bouncing in her seat, she could barely sit still as she glanced all around the club taking in everything. The sights, the atmosphere, the people. She wanted to experience and remember it all. Tonight would be extra special for her since this singer happened to be one of her favorites. She owned every single album Brantley Gilbert had released, and had been to at least three of his concerts.

  When I told her I’d gotten us tickets, she gasped and then slapped me on the chest with her open palm. “You’re shitting me. Are you joking?”

  I almost laughed. “No. I really got tickets to Brantley Gilbert’s charity concert. I got a pair for Mel and Luke too. I figured we can go on a double date. What do you think?”

  “Really?” She looked as if she was going to start jumping in the middle of the kitchen, and that freaked me out. She wasn’t leaning against the counter, and only held onto her walker. It turned out, I should’ve been concerned. She’d been wearing socks and slipped on the tiled floor, landing on her ass. Luckily, she only got a bruised tailbone that day.

  It had all been worth it though, to see her happiness and over-the-top reaction, then and now. Her excitement intensified mine.

  An hour later when the show began, I swept her out onto the dance floor. Like a little girl danced with adults, I held her tightly as her feet balanced on mine. I didn’t want her to expend any additional energy because she needed to last through the rest of the concert…and the surprise. Besides, I kind of liked her dancing on my feet. We were on cloud nine, and the whole night felt magical.

  Before the third song started, Brantley addressed the crowd. “Tonight’s a special night for not only Folds of Honor, but if I can get a spotlight up front here, and ask Bryan Sampson to come on out, the floor is yours.”

  “Bryan? What’s going on?” Emma’s voice dripped with confusion.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I smiled so big before. Lifting her out of her seat, where we had returned after the first song, I carried her out to the center of the dance floor. Luke set a chair down and after I sat her in it, I lowered myself to one knee. “Em, when we started this journey together, I promised I’d find you someone special, someone who’d love you the way you deserved to be loved. I promised you wouldn’t go through life alone. Little did I know that as I got to know you, I’d fall in love with you myself. In short order, I came to realize you were everything that’d been missing from my life. I’m not saying things will be easy, but they’ll be easier together. I’m not promising I won’t make you cry, because I can be a selfish bastard whose head is shoved up my ass at times.” We both laughed, and I wiped away her tears. “I’m not promising we won’t fight sometimes, but there is no one I’d rather fight with than you. And I’m not promising perfection, because let’s face it, I’m far from perfect—even though I think I am sometimes. What I am promising, is to love you no matter what, to be there for you so we can face every challenge, every day, together. I swear that I’ll support you in whatever you want to do, to cheer you on when you need it, and to carry you when you can’t walk or need to rest. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” I pulled out the ring, holding it out to her as Brantley started to sing his song, Fall Into Me.

  Her tears fell faster, and as soon as I wiped them away, more replaced them. I waited for what seemed like an eternity, even though
I knew Brantley had only sung a few lines, before she answered, “Yes!”

  Wrapping my arms around her, I stood up with her in my arms, spun her around in a circle, and shouted, “She said yes!”

  The day she accidently messaged me was the first day of my new future. The day she agreed to move in with me, I knew she would be mine forever. And today, she answered my prayers and became my dream come true. I couldn’t wait for forever with this woman, and tonight was only the first step to our always.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s funny. When I started working on this book, I was in the middle of writing another book, which did not want to flow for me. I had a dream about accidentally pinging someone after a bad date, and that person responding with an encouraging message.

  I love hockey, and my family will tell you that I never write during a hockey game. This dream gave me an idea for a story, and that idea would not leave me alone. I finally decided to write one paragraph even though I was in the process of watching a hockey game. One paragraph turned into one chapter…and it just kept flowing like that. I don’t think I’ve ever written something that plagued me to write it as much as this book and the characters in it.

  Originally, it was going to be a one shot, but Chad kept speaking to me and he wound up with a bigger part in Exposed than he was initially scheduled to have. He’ll also have his own book in the series, which will be found in Love Seekers Two. The title, Redeemed. But that isn’t the end of the series. Evan’s book will be the third and final act in the series.

  In 2010, I suddenly became very sick. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. I was weak, couldn’t breathe, and struggled with functioning on a day to day basis. Eventually, I was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis. As with many people with an auto-immune disease, other auto-immune diseases were found. The doctors have since decided I don’t have myasthenia gravis, but they haven’t quite figured me out yet. I like to keep them on their toes.

  This book was a journey for me. Many of the feelings are my own. Some of the struggles and the horrible dates, really did happen. Not everything though. I do have to use a walker. I do have to take a lot of meds to keep me upright. I do have an army of doctors that help me. And I do hope for a cure for myself, and for my fellow auto-immune sufferers.