Love's Tender Bond [Bonding Camp 6] (Siren Publishing Menage and More)

Bonding Camp 6

Love’s Tender Bond

When two people searching for love come together in a surge of heat, they realize love was right in front of them the whole time. Missy Blue and Sam Rodgers have attended bonding camps but never together. Once they make a connection, they find their feelings for each other are of a deeper sort of bond.

Missy never had a real family life, and neither had Sam. Once they arrived at the compound owned by the law firm of Cane, Moss, and White, they both knew they had found their home. But a sense of family still eluded them.

Left to themselves after the last member of the compound “family” found her mate, Missy and Sam become closer. Talking and getting to know each other quickly turns into an erotic exploration of their feelings for each other. Missy and Sam bond, their hearts becoming one as they find the family they’ve always longed for in each other.

Genre:
Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

Length:
22,106 words 

LOVE’S TENDER BOND

Bonding Camp 6

Christelle Mirin

MENAGE AND MORE

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

IMPRINT: Ménage and More

LOVE’S TENDER BOND

Copyright © 2012 by Christelle Mirin

E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-035-3

First E-book Publication: December 2012

Cover design by Harris Channing

All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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Love’s Tender Bond
 by Christelle Mirin from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

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LOVE’S TENDER BOND

Bonding Camp 6

CHRISTELLE MIRIN

Copyright © 2012

Chapter One

Missy Blue stopped dead in her tracks and watched him.

Sam Rodgers, the constant caretaker of the compound, was pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with mulch toward the back patio of the main house. He stopped, parking his load beside a flower bed, and pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket.

Missy stepped off the path and melted into the tree line. She didn’t want Sam to catch her watching him. Not this time, anyway. She placed the palm of her hand on the rough bark of the tree she was hiding behind and caught her bottom lips between her teeth.

He stood so she had a view of his profile, and when he lifted the cloth to wipe the sweat from his brow, Missy’s heart skipped a beat. Time slowed down, it seemed, as Missy focused on the play of his muscles beneath the tan skin of his upper arm. Today he wore a white tank top and a pair of faded jeans that fit like they were tailored just for him. Sam didn’t dress this way often. He would never let any of the members of the firm see him in anything less than slacks and a polo.

Unless, of course, he was participating in a bonding camp session.

Thinking of him in that way—totally naked, his body glistening with the exertion it took to convey his passion—caused Missy to dig her fingernails into the bark of the tree. Pain flared beneath the nail of her index finger on her right hand. She jerked her hand away from the tree and sucked in a breath. There was a splinter shoved beneath her nail, which was already beginning to throb.

“Dammit.” She shook her hand and stepped back onto the path. She would need tweezers to remove the chunk of wood from her nailbed. And the closest place to find a pair of tweezers was in the main house kitchen first-aid kit. That meant she was going to have to pass by Sam to get there.

Missy looked at him again. He shoved the handkerchief into his back pocket and reached for a spade that was lying on top of the wheelbarrow full of mulch.

Fantasy-time over.
She had to get this sliver out before she got an infection. Shaking her head, she started down the path toward the house. It had been stupid of her to dig her nails into a tree like that. She couldn’t afford to injure her hands. Missy was the company masseuse. She had to have full use of every part of her body, especially her hands, to be able to do her job.

Missy could smell him before she could hear his movements. Sam smelled like pine trees, musk, and a hint of hard-working man. She almost closed her eyes, savoring his scent.

“Hey, Missy. How are you?” He turned toward her with a smile and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

Missy’s heart did a little stutter then regained its rhythm. Every day it was getting harder to conceal her attraction to him. “I’m good.” She stopped beside him and raised her injured hand. “Except for somehow managing to ram a log underneath my fingernail.”

Sam’s smile was replaced with a frown. He tossed the spade back into the wheelbarrow and wiped his palms on the front of his shirt before taking her hand in his and turning it palm up. “Let me see.” He moved closer to her, turning her hand for a better view. “Ouch,” he said with a wince. “We need to get that taken care of and fast.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and started toward the kitchen door, pulling her behind him.

“Sam, really, I can take care of this myself.” She didn’t want him to think she was a wimp, but she couldn’t just jerk her arm out of his grasp, either.

“Stop arguing.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“Yes, you are.” He opened the kitchen door and drew her into the coolness of the air-conditioned house. He closed the door behind her then turned her so they were face-to-face. He looked her straight in the eye. “And you know it won’t do you any good to fuss with me because I will always win.” A smile bloomed on his lips. His ocean-blue eyes sparkled with mirth, the corners of them crinkling with laugh lines.

Missy couldn’t help but smile back.
He’s so easy on the eyes. When he smiles, it warms my heart.

“Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s take care of your injury. Come and sit.” He led her to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair for her.

She sat, the vinyl of the seat chilly on the backs of her legs. Missy wore her usual workout garb of short, loose shorts and a sports bra. She had been jogging earlier and was walking the paths that crisscrossed the estate to cool down when she had spotted Sam. Glancing at him while he dug through one of the cabinets searching for the first-aid kit, she secretly sniffed herself, hoping she didn’t smell too bad after her run.

“Here we go.” Sam straightened and turned toward her, a small white box in his hand. “Found it.” He moved to the table and set the kit down. Then he grabbed another chair and drew it closer to Missy. “You’re not going to go all girly on me and cry, are you?” he teased, sitting down in front of her, their knees touching.

They both had their chairs turned so that their sides were to the table, Missy parking her right arm on the tabletop. “I won’t go all girly on you,” she replied, tilting her head. “But if you stab me, I might end up kicking you.”

His eyes went round in exaggerated surprise and he stopped rummaging through the kit. “You be careful where you plant those feet.”

Missy forced down a giggle. “It would be a reflex. Just sayin’.” She shrugged and looked away before she smiled. She was teasing and he knew it.

Sam chuckled, the sound like a low rumbling. He took her hand in his.

Missy turned her gaze back to him. He held the tweezers just above her finger.

“Are you ready?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

She nodded, curling her left hand into a fist in her lap. “Go ahead.”

He nodded, then squeezed her finger tightly. “Here goes.” He focused on what he was doing, gingerly probing the tip of her finger.

Missy jerked, sucking in a sharp breath when he bumped the sliver with the tweezers.

“Sorry.” Sam winced but didn’t pull back. “Almost got it.”

One hot poker of pain and then he held the sliver up for her to see. “There!” He grinned.

Missy thought he looked like a young boy who had managed to fish a prize out of a claw game vending machine. Sam Rodgers may be over forty but there was still the spark of a child hiding inside him.