Taking Chloe (12 page)

“That’s only because you’re ten inches shorter than me, Gracie.” Jackson seemed to be having way too much fun with this. Merrick never could understand why the man seemed to take such pleasure in provoking Grace. “Christ, Jackson, can’t you at least try to be nice?”

“Can I say something?”

He hadn’t expected Chloe to want a say in it. Although, one of the things they’d learned since they’d started counseling was to respect each other’s role in the business. At one time Vaughn’s Business Solutions had been in his name alone. He’d fixed that error. Now the business was both of theirs, equally. It’d been another attempt to prove to Chloe that he was deadly serious about keeping her number one in his life.

Merrick nodded, encouraging her to go on. Chloe dove right in. “Grace, you won’t get a better opportunity than this. You’ve worked hard to get that degree, and Merrick’s offer is your reward.

Besides, isn’t this exactly what you wanted?”

Grace nodded and stayed silent, for once. Amazing.

As they walked away, Merrick quirked his lips and tugged his wife around to face him. “You’re good.”

Chloe laughed. “All I did was point out the obvious.”

“What if they kill each other? This may end up a real bad idea.”

“No, they won’t. She’s in love with him, and he’s got the hots for her big time.” Merrick stiffened, every single one of his protective instincts kicking in. “The hell you say! He’s way too damned old for her.”

Chloe placed two fingers against his lips and said, “Shh, it’s their business, not ours. And he’s only thirty-two to her twenty-two. Not exactly a huge gap.” Merrick’s gaze sought out the two antagonists, shocked to the core when he witnessed Jackson sliding his fingers through Grace’s blonde hair. Grace stepped back, forcing Jackson to drop his hand. “He has no business thinking of her that way,” Merrick muttered.

Chloe laughed, which had him as hard as a baseball bat. “Only because she’s your little cousin and you’re way too overprotective. Let it go. It’ll all work out.”

“I still don’t like it,” he grumbled.

Chloe smoothed her thumb over his bottom lip, adding extra fuel to the fire in his loins. He grabbed her wrist and sucked the digit into his mouth, then bit the fleshy tip. “Think of a way to escape, baby,” he murmured around her finger. “I need you.”

“I’ll always need you, Merrick.”

“Keep saying things like that and I’m hauling your ass out of here, regardless of the barbeque.” Suddenly, black smoke wafted around them, pulling them out of their lusty haze. Merrick turned toward the grill and groaned. The hamburgers resembled little charcoal discs. “I suck at cooking.”

“It’s okay, because you excel at
other
things.” Merrick ached to show her those other things, but his mother shouting from the patio door had him scowling instead. He looked up to see Lacey heading toward them with a fresh batch of hamburgers. Shit, it was going to be a long night.

The heated look in his sweet wife’s eyes made him see the truth, though. As long as he had Chloe, he was ten feet tall and capable of anything.

About the Author

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Look for these titles by Anne Rainey

Now Available:

Haley’s Cabin

Touching Lace

Tasting Candy

Burn

Turbulent Passions

Coming Soon:

Tempting Grace

Love. Is it providence, or just a lump on the head?

Turbulent Passions

© 2009 Anne Rainey

Sapphire Demas and her twin brother have a secret. Since the awful day their parents were killed, they've been in hiding, fearful the same fate will befall them. Now she’s grown tired of living a half-life, tired of lying. She wants something just for herself. When she stumbles across an unconscious man while hiking through the woods and brings him home to heal, she knows she’s found it. Even if he’s a dangerous outsider.

Investigative journalist Adam Richton trusts only one thing—his nose for news. He’s never failed to get a story and doesn't intend to start now. Until a beautiful and mysterious woman rescues him. In an instant, he forgets all about his career. Now all he wants is Sapphire, any way he can get her.

Then he witnesses something extraordinary that puts his reporter instincts back on full alert.

Something that exposes Sapphires secrets, challenges him to believe the unbelievable…and to trust in something way out of his comfort zone: love.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Turbulent Passions: So she wasn’t wearing a two-piece and she didn’t plan to skinny dip, but the bright pink one-piece wasn’t anything to sneeze at, either. Full, round breasts filled out the top half, and long shapely legs tempted him beyond reason. He wanted to pull the straps of her suit down her shoulders and watch her pretty tits spring free. His mouth watered as he imagined tasting her soft skin and sucking on her perky nipples.

As he stood in the grass and concentrated on not getting a hard-on, Sapphire slowly descended into the water. The surrounding trees and wild flowers made the little round pond seem more like a private oasis. They were completely alone. Anything could happen.

“Come on,” she enticed, “the water’s just right.”

He walked to the very edge and was about to step in when she splashed him a good one. He sucked in his breath as the cold water hit his bare chest. “Damn, that’s freezing!” She splashed him again, before ducking under the water and out of sight. Adam took the plunge and dove in. When he resurfaced, she was staring at him, a wicked gleam in her eyes.

He stalked toward her, noting the way she firmed her shoulders. Her nipples were stiff little peaks that he wanted to nibble on for hours. Her dark, wet hair was smoothed back, giving him a good view of her oval-shaped face and those mesmerizing blue eyes. Adam all but drooled.

“You’re a little minx.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Within inches now, Adam made a grab for her, just barely catching her upper arms before she ducked under the surface again. He drew her against his chest, aligning their curves. Damn, she felt good against him.

“If you aren’t careful, you might get more than you bargained for, baby,” He growled as he kissed her. He teased her lips and coaxed her to open for him so he could play with her tongue.

She tasted like warm chocolate, creamy and sweet and much too addicting.

Adam pulled his lips from hers before ducking under the water. He grabbed her ankle and tickled her foot, careful not to irritate her cut. She squirmed and tried to wiggle her foot out of his grasp.

He took pity and released her. When he resurfaced, the sound of her laughter filled the air. She made an attempt to swim away, but he caught her easily. “You want more or do you surrender?”

“I surrender,” she said in a husky voice, sending a very clear signal to his cock that she was aroused.

Adam attempted to tame the beast and released her. She put a few feet between them, he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “This place is like a small oasis,” he said as he took in the Black-Eyed Susans and mature walnut trees. “It’s so quiet, as if we’re the only people on earth.

Do you like living out here, away from everyone?”

Sapphire drifted closer to him, her hands moving back and forth just below the surface. “I get a little stir-crazy sometimes, but for the most part I don’t mind the solitude.”

“I’m so used to having neighbors. Hell, I don’t know what I’d do with all this quiet.”

“I know what you mean. In college I lived in a dorm. It was noisy twenty-four hours a day.

Moving here was a serious adjustment.”

Adam moved closer, enjoying the sexual tension growing between them. “I’ve never lived anywhere but the city. I think I might need to change that some day. For now, living a few minutes from my work is handy.”

“I can understand. I miss the city some, but I don’t think I could go back now. I’m too used to having my privacy.”

Adam was close enough now to touch. He reached out and played with a wet curl. “You and I started something last night that we never got to finish.”

“I wanted you desperately,” she admitted. “I couldn’t sleep for the ache.”

“Sending you away wasn’t the easiest thing to do, baby.”

“Why did you?”

“I wanted to get to know you a little first and I didn’t want you to wake up regretting sleeping with me.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

As much as he wanted that to be true, Adam wasn’t sure. He didn’t think Sapphire was the type for casual sex. “I don’t sleep around,” he confessed. “I’m no virgin, but I’m no player either. I want you to know that.”

Her fingers trailed over his chest and Adam had to suck in his breath when her thumb teased his nipple. “I’m not a virgin either, Adam. I’m a grown woman and I know exactly what I’m doing.

Stop protecting me.”

“My stay isn’t permanent,” he reminded her. “I can’t offer permanent, Sapphire.” He didn’t want her seeing things that weren’t there. Again he was reminded of the real reason he’d come to Waverly, the real reason he’d been on their land. He pushed down the guilt slowly eating away at him. He’d tell her. Soon. And while he worked to convince her this thing between them would be a casual summer fling, he wasn’t sure he was buying it himself. The thought of leaving, of never seeing her again, already didn’t sit well.

“I know. It’s okay, I’m not asking for permanent.” Her fingers moved below the surface, just barely grazing the waistband of his swim trunks. “I need you. I ache for it.” Adam’s control snapped. He swung her into his arms, licked a droplet of water from her cheek and kissed her forehead. “Hmm, we certainly can’t have that, now can we?”

“No, it could prove very inconvenient.”

He held her close to his chest as he left the water and covered the distance to the house. He entered through a back door and took the steps to the upstairs bedroom two at a time. Her lips caressed his throat and his knees nearly buckled. Hell, falling down the stairs really wasn’t the way to impress a woman. He forced his feet to keep moving even as her tongue teased his skin.

She was so open and uninhibited. It was all he could do to make it to the bed.

He placed her carefully on top of the yellow quilts. The soft light from the lace-covered window illuminated the room. He let her watch as he stripped out of the black swim trunks she’d let him borrow. Her eyes, those magnificent sapphire pools, ate him up. His cock flexed, eager to sink inside the little beauty.

“Come here,” she coaxed, a smile curving her lips.

The outline of her pussy lips and the tempting bud of her clitoris beneath the wet suit had him starving for a sip of her tangy juice. Her succulent tits spilled out of the top half, and Adam’s hands itched to fondle and squeeze.

He moved closer, unable to deny her sensual request. “What are you planning to do with me, sweetheart?”

“I think I’d rather show you what I want to do,” she purred as she leaned forward and kissed the head of his cock.

She’ll make him finish what he started—if they live through the night.

Alaskan Heat

© 2009 Pam Champagne

Framed and on the run, FBI agent Joe “Hawk” Hawkins has only one chance to clear his name: hit the road for Eagle, Alaska. Things can’t get much worse, until a woman from his past steps into his path. Sophie’s a brilliant statistician, pissed off about their disastrous one night stand—

and offering him a deal.

This is Sophie’s first field assignment, and the fact that it involves Hawk doesn’t make it any easier. She’s never forgotten or forgiven the night Hawk found his way to her bed and left her wanting more. Now she’s on a double mission to make Hawk finish what he started, and get them both to Eagle alive.

The long Alaska Highway stretches before them, and long nights of sexual fireworks that rival the Northern Lights. Caution turns to trust, and then to a love neither of them bargained for.

With two rogue agents in hot pursuit, though, the end of the road may be closer than they think…

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Alaskan Heat:

Sophie forced a casual smile even though her body thrummed with the need to leap on Hawk.

She didn’t want foreplay. Already the insides of her thighs were wet and sticky. She cleared her throat and reached for the robe hanging on the outside hook of the bathroom door. “Sounds tempting. As soon as I get back.”

The man of her dreams sat up and bumped his skull again. “Damn it,” he muttered. “Where are you going?”

Two steps brought her to the door. “To put Rueger in the cab for the night. Be right back.” Once outside, Sophie breathed in the nippy air. More than likely there’d be a frost tomorrow morning. Unlocking the truck, she fished around the seat until her hand curled around her cell.

The hard, packed gravel hid the sound of her footsteps as she sprinted toward the woods. As soon as she’d run far enough for privacy, she punched five on the speed dial.

“Clements here.”

“It’s Sophie.”

“Sophie, why haven’t you called? I told you—”

“Be quiet and listen. I only have a minute. Hawk’s with me. Call off your hounds.”

“What hounds?” Stan’s confusion sent a shard of fear through her.

She gripped the slim cell hard enough to break it. “Some feds stayed on our tail for several miles.

I turned into a picnic area and they sped by.”

“Damn it. Has to be Blair and Reed. I had to put them on administrative leave, but I can’t restrict their movements. They’re on to us.”

“Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“Not this far from Eagle.”

Sophie whirled. The camper rocked. “Got to go.” She disconnected and slipped the phone in her robe pocket, making sure to shut if off in case Stan decided to call back. She whistled for Rueger and jogged back to the truck. “Up.” Once he jumped inside, she slammed and locked the door.