His By Sunrise: A Military Erotic Romance (Sexy Siesta Series Book 1)

HIS BY SUNRISE

A SEXY SIESTA NOVELLA

TALINA PERKINS

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

HIS BY SUNRISE

SEXY SIESTA NOVELLA

Copyright© 2014 Talina Saine

Excerpt from Tequila Sunset copyright © 2014 by Talina Saine

Edited by Em Petrova

Cover Artist: Bookin' It Designs

ISBN: 9781311781130

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the permission in writing from Author.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & DEDICATION

To my wonderful children who continuously support me through crazy writing hours, quick dinners, and for always being ready with a warm hug.

A special thank you goes out to my loving husband for never letting me doubt my ability to write, for never letting me lose sight of my goals, and for always being my rock.
Semper Fi
!

To my editor, Em Petrova-thank you for your friendship and for helping me make this story the best possible. I appreciate all your hard work and insight!

A special note to Dolores Maroney-thank you for not only going above and beyond in beta reading this story, but for your wonderful friendship and support.

And to my readers, this book is for you. Without you, I would have no one to share my stories with. Thank you!

Xoxo

Talina

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgements and Dedication

His By Sunrise

Excerpt: Tequila Sunset

About The Author

BLAKE MITCHELL
stood with his arms crossed, propped up against the wall for support while his blood pressure thundered through his veins, intent on taking him out for good this time.

He glanced over at the mahogany desk that took up much of the portable office’s front room, his vision zeroed in on the letter perched on the corner.

Any chance he’d read wrong? He pinched the bridge of his nose to fight back the red cloud threatening his vision. Going thirty-six hours without sleep played with the mind. Maybe he was seeing things.

Negative on all accounts.

Bold font stared up at him, and a sense of betrayal slapped him in the face. The letter spelled it out for him in about three hundred words—give or take a few.

The black ink got under his skin, but it was the slash of blue ink at the bottom that drove a double-edged knife hilt deep into his chest.

Blazed across the bottom of the resignation letter in perfect script—on his family’s fucking letterhead no less—was a blue signature that pulled at everything he had inside:
Isabella Marie
.

The woman was etched so deeply in his mind his, thoughts were never really his own. He could be halfway across the world and still recall the way her eyes lit up when he came home on leave.

He froze in place, paralyzed by the realization. No one had ever dug under his skin like she had.

He rubbed at his chest to ease the stab of pain. Knots burrowed under his ribcage and gave him a nasty case of dread. What a fucking way to make a bad night worse. Didn’t think it could happen.

He took a deep breath. Warm air laced with a lingering scent of perfume flooded his lungs, light with a scent of jasmine. Soft and strong all in one, just like the woman who wore it.

Isabella was beyond his reach because of a promise he made to her dead brother, Adrian. An iron fist tightened deep in Blake’s chest. Best friend or not, he was still pissed about the whole load of crap. The man had no right to lock him in on a promise that would slowly drive him fucking mad. And then Adrian had gotten himself killed during a takedown on a known terrorist cell their unit had been assigned to eliminate. Everything about the fucking mission had gone sideways the minute the chopper touched down.

Blake raked both hands through his hair. He needed air.

He threw open the front door of the office where Isabella had worked with his family for the past year. He sucked in the cold winter air, hoping it would help ease the ache. As Texas winters went, this one had a bit more bite to it than usual, even for the city. He didn’t mind. It was a nice change compared to what he was use to.

Sirens off in the distance caught his attention followed by a blast of horns. He couldn’t wait to leave the chaos of the city in his rearview and seek out the solitude of his home in the country.

He took in the familiar lay of the worksite. Early evening fast approached, her eerie shadows easing across the empty lot. As a kid he spent every summer here with his dad, learning the ropes and working machinery before he could even drive a car. Nothing had changed in the year since he’d been home. He could walk the place blindfolded with how methodical his dad kept everything. Seemed as though lately the only time he did come home was to bury a loved one. His best friend, and now his father.

He scrubbed a hand down his face. Tired from the trip then dealing with the funeral, his mind filled with what he’d do now. He was already considering retirement. Looked as if the decision was taken out of his hands.

And now with Isabella leaving…

He turned on his heel and headed back inside, taking in the last light of the day through the front window.

He walked over to her desk and reached for the letter again. Before he closed the step-and-a-half distance, a stiff blast of heat from the overhead vent caught the corner of the heavy-weight, official paper—woman never did anything half-assed—and sent the sheet tumbling to the floor.

He bent to scoop it up, but only got halfway when he saw the second sheet of paper resting beneath the first. He read over the full-page offer already signed and sealed. Gold and black stood out against the stark white paper with the same perfect blue signature at the bottom, sealing her resignation and her fate away from him.

His gut dropped to his knees and rolled for the second time tonight.

He crumpled the paper, stood, and slammed his fist against the panel to his right. White light from the office overheads flared to life, chasing away the evening shadows and highlighting his worst nightmare. Hell, not even his worst fucking dreams could have conjured up this shit.

Angry at himself, the fucking world, he tossed the paper down and straightened. In the Marines his height alone scared the shit out of people. Add to the mix words like Recon and
dead shot
, people’s natural instincts forced them to give him a wide berth, but Isabella? She loved pushing his buttons every chance she got, and today she meant to draw blood.

How could she do this,—resign from a company, a family—that treated her as their own? How could she just turn her back on him when he needed her most by resigning then signing a new work contract with another company?

Get a grip
. He took a deep breath. Calm replaced the anger boiling just beneath the surface.

He tried to smooth the crumpled paper as best as he could. Satisfied, he shoved the papers back in the side pocket of the satchel where he’d found them just moments ago.

Before he lost it and called the beautiful brunette minx back to the office for a bit of explaining, Blake stepped back from the phone, did an about-face toward the back office his father had used, and headed straight for the fully stocked bar.

She’d only stayed long enough to give him the rundown on the business. Hell, he knew it wasn’t the time for jokes or sexy banter, but the dry, hurried tone she greeted him with wasn’t like her. That alone should have been a clue something was up. If not, the way she hauled ass out of here had been the dead giveaway.

Between answering the mountain of sympathy calls from clients and booking the church, he’d dropped the ball somewhere. He should have seen the fire in her emerald eyes and heard the R’s of her native language as she rolled them out with a fiery flare when he managed to rub her the wrong way. Happened too often and not often enough. He loved to see her all fired up. Guess that made him a masochist.

Fuck, could this day get any worse? He couldn’t hold back the bark of laughter at that. Hadn’t he already asked that question? Look what it got him.

He should have left the letters where he’d found them, but damn, after he saw the word
resignation
splashed across the top of a paper like a sucker-punch to the gut, he couldn’t just leave it alone.

His instincts had kept him safe this long. Why he didn’t listen now when they screamed for him to stay the fuck away from the place was beyond him. He should have stayed home or something—anything—to avoid the hell storm about to break open over his head. Growing up he’d learned the hard way to keep people at a distance. His mother had made sure he understood just how easy it was for a person to walk out on you.

As a man, he learned how to trust the Marine at his Six and the Marine at his Twelve. Now it looked as if history wanted to play a game of fucking repeat, and it burned him alive inside.

It had taken damn near all his life to learn how to trust again and four damn seconds to rip that all away.

Blake scoured over the bottles, bypassed the tumbler, and went straight for the bottle of Johnny. His favorite since he and Adrian had raided his father’s stash the spring before joining up with the Marines. As a last hurrah before heading out they’d done some crazy shit down at the lake that night. Hell, he wondered if their at-the-time girlfriends still thought about them and their wild night of fun.

He briefly smiled at the past as it slipped away, replaced with memories even a fifth of whiskey couldn’t drown.
Doesn’t mean I never tried
.

Blake eased over to the only window in his father’s office. With his arms resting on the small ledge, he looked out over the construction site that sat back about hundred or so yards from the main drag.

A thick layer of dust settled on the doublewide pane. Bright light from the yard’s security lamps fought back the night but didn’t make a dent through the thick layer of dirt on the glass. He didn’t miss how it summed up his life at the moment— unclear and no way to know where to step next.

Still clutching the fifth from the bar, Blake threw himself down in the black leather high-back and shoved aside the blueprints cluttering every square inch of work space. His gaze moved to the chair where he knew Isabella had spent the better part of everyday for the past year.

Isabella. My sweet Bella
.

A day didn’t go by that he didn’t think about her sensual curves and kissable lips. Didn’t matter where the hell he was in the world, her voice followed him. The way his name rolled off her sweet lips sent a rush of blood to his dick every time. Even now the memory of the short skirts she preferred, paired with her favorite peacock painted cowboy boots, sent all his blood south.

Heat stirred in his balls just thinking about how she handled the workers when they tried to get fresh with her. The way she made even the toughest of men feel no bigger than gum on the bottom of her boot fired Blake’s libido.

Her wicked ability to cuss out anyone who challenged her authority in a mixture of Spanish and English flat-out amazed him. The times he was home, unless he saw a need to step in, he just sat back and watched as the men got their balls handed to them by the bravest damn woman he’d ever met.

Fire blazed in that woman, and he loved to stoke it. The sparks in her green eyes made him want to do sinful things with her. Things mamas warned their girls about.

He rocked forward to rest his elbows on the desk. If Adrian were here he’d already have Blake’s hide for just looking, much less the downright perverted thoughts he had for the man’s little sister.

On the other side, it was no secret his father wanted him to go for it. His old man thought the world of Isabella and made it crystal clear Blake was a fool for staying away. But two words he’d been forced to say to Adrian—I promise—faded the lines of the black and white rule book he followed, keeping Isabella beyond his reach.

He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. Being home stirred up a fucking barrel full of emotions he didn’t know how to handle. Keeping that promise just might mean his own lonely death.

Son of a bitch, how the hell was he supposed to handle all of this shit without her?

His gaze landed on a framed picture by the door. A happiness he’d lost and thought he’d never know again radiated out at him from the image. It was one of the few times he and Adrian had been on leave together. Isabella had insisted on a group photo the minute they walked through the door.

She’d met them on the first knock and jumped in Blake’s arms. The minute her emerald eyes connected with his, he was lost. Little Bella was now an all-grown-up Isabella, complete with the sexiest smile and summer-kissed legs he’d ever seen.

It was the last time they were all together.

A year already and every time he looked at their smiling faces the hole in his heart ripped anew. He reared back and slammed his fist into the wall. Flimsy paneling cracked under his abuse. Instead of easing his anger as he’d hoped, it only grew. He ground his teeth against the ache that clutched his heart, unable to take a deep breath.

He couldn’t go through this again. He couldn’t lose another person in his life. Promise or no. He hung his head a moment then straightened. Adrian would understand. Or the Devil had just reserved a special seat with his name on it. The way he saw it, it didn’t really matter much. He was already in hell—might as well make it worth the fucking ride.

He fisted the neck of the bottle and cracked the seal. The first swallow hit home. The familiar burn eased back the fingers of tension in his chest.

“This is for you.” First, he raised the bottle to the framed image of his father on the corner of the desk then to the image of his best friend. He threw back another swallow then carefully, almost reverently, placed the bottle on the cleared space of the desk.

Every day he thought about how it could have—should have—been him sent home as KIA instead of Adrian. Less than a foot more to the right and it would have been.

He wasn’t built for all this emotional shit. The dumbass who said time healed everything was fucking lying through his teeth. He called bullshit straight out of the gate on that one.

He glanced at the clock. Just enough time. Maybe. He’d need to call in a couple of favors though.

In a swift movement that hailed to his training, he palmed his cell, Isabella already primed on autodial. If that wasn’t a clue right there that he needed to correct his wrong, he didn’t know what was.

His gaze landed on the dark-haired beauty in the photo. Normally Adrian wouldn’t have allowed a womanizing man near his sister, but since Isabella, Blake had changed. Like many big brothers, he couldn’t fault Adrian for caring for his sister. He had a handle on how Latin families guarded their own. Hell, he’d probably be the same way if he had a sister. But it was time—past time—for him to show just how far he was ready to go for her.