Hard Way (36 page)

“At three months? That’s ridiculously early. Isn’t it?” She leaned against his chest, still surprised by how easily she’d fallen in love with becoming a mother. Near as she could tell, her lack of maternal feeling had been another extension of her fear—the fear of raising a baby on her own, with Liam lost to them forever.

He wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, during Sunny’s pregnancy, Liam had been the one to methodically read every single baby book at Barnes & Noble.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s a little early, but are you really surprised? Of course our children will be prodigies.”

“I think I’d rather have a kid who’s a prodigy with the piano. Or math. Maybe even spinning a yo-yo. I can’t really see a market for growing teeth.”

“Not all miraculous skills have to be marketable.”

She couldn’t help but giggle. “Miraculous? You’re such a sucker for her.”

“Would you have it any other way?”

“Nope. Only good things for us.”

“Speaking of good things.” He shook his head. “I heard a rumor from Mike that Eric’s got a girlfriend.”

“I bet there’s no more to tell and you just said that to prove you can gossip with the best of them.”

“The curse of a house husband,” he said with a shrug and a smile. “Apparently we’ll meet her at the barbeque. Which had better be six years from now. I’m so fucking tired.”

Their bedroom was their haven, their sanctuary and the place she most associated with their games now. With a baby in the house, certain things had needed to change. Other things would always stay the same, including the assured, possessive way Liam touched her—only now it wasn’t out of desperation or fear. They touched because to do otherwise was to stop living.

Even though he was exhausted as well, he found her nape. His grip released so much of her tension. She sighed, letting her shoulders droop. “Oh, that’s good.”

“I know it is.” He waggled his eyebrows at her in a halfhearted tease. “Wanna come lay down and see what else I can make feel good?”

“You said it yourself. Exhausted, remember? If we lay flat, we’ll be out in two point six minutes.”

“You know what happens in that case?” He pulled her to the bed anyway, his fingers delving into her hair. Pin by pin, he released the heavy mass and combed it down over her shirt, then stripped the shirt too.

She shucked her restrictive skirt while he folded down the comforter. “Well, then the house falls apart. There’s dishes to do, and I need to sterilize a few bottles for Kavya.”

“I’ll get those in the morning.” He slipped into bed beside her as she found a spot to settle her hand on his chest. He smelled sharp and clean, with a hint of musk from sweat—the right combination to remind her sleepy body how much she wanted him. “But…
after
.”

“After what?”

“After we sleep.” He nuzzled her ear, leaving goose bumps in his wake. “And then after her five a.m. feeding, we’ll sneak out to the garage for a sparring session. And I’ll pin you down, hold your wrists over your head and feed you my cock until you choke.”

“You’re such a romantic.”

“That’s why you love me.”

He laughed, and she did too, and the moment was so ridiculously perfect that they wove together in a knotted tangle of limbs, so happy that it shone from their souls. Sunny curled her toes against the pure wash of feeling. Warmth and joy.

She’d come home. She was staying home. And there was no better place in the world for her but in her husband’s arms.

Author’s Note

The 64
^th
Aggressor Squadron is an active United States Air Force unit assigned to the 57
^th
Adversary Tactics Group, stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada. The pilots’ objectives are as we’ve described: to fly as adversaries against allied pilots from around the world, teaching them to better counter enemy tactics. The unit dates back to WWII when it participated in multiple theaters of operation.

Now, the 64
^th
and other “bandits” from the 57
^th
ATG regularly conduct dogfighting simulations in the United States, known as Red Flags, and Maple Flag exercises in conjunction with Canadian Forces. They also add their expertise to the USAF’s Weapons School syllabus, and travel the country to provide training and test mission support to various units.

All individuals described in this story are fictitious. Research mistakes are entirely our own.

In the meantime, we enjoy assuming that at least one of these dedicated, highly skilled bandits has a black belt in karate.

About the Author

Katie Porter is the writing team of Carrie Lofty and Lorelie Brown, who’ve been friends and critique partners for more than five years. Both are multi-published in historical romance. Carrie has an MA in history, while Lorelie is a US Army veteran. Generally a high-strung masochist, Carrie loves running and weight training, but she has no fear of gross things like dissecting formaldehyde sharks. Her two girls are not appreciative. Lorelie, a laid-back sadist, would rather grin maniacally when Carrie works out. Her three boys love how she screams like a little girl around spiders.

To learn more about the authors who make up Katie, visit
www.katieporterbooks.com
or follow them on Twitter at
@MsKatiePorter
,
@carrielofty
and
@LorelieBrown
.

Look for these titles by Katie Porter

Now Available:

Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Vegas Top Guns

Double Down

Inside Bet

Hold ’Em

Club Devant

Lead and Follow

Coming Soon:

Vegas Top Guns

Bare Knuckle

Club Devant

Chains and Canes

Pretty and Twisted

Watch and Wait

Blaze and Betrayal

The best partners share everything…

Lead and Follow

© 2013 Katie Porter

Club Devant, Book 1

Lizzie Maynes’s torn ACL threatens more than her career as an international Latin ballroom champion. During her lengthy recovery, her longtime professional partner, Dima Turgenev, has been dancing at the Chelsea District’s most notorious burlesque, Club Devant. More than just dancing, he’s been experimenting with shocking new moves that make her want to pull him off stage and get back on tour as soon as possible—the better to keep their successful friendship safe.

Dima knows all about safety, and the lack thereof, because he blames himself for Lizzie’s injury. Far from the pressures of competition, Club Devant is the perfect creative venue to rebuild his rattled confidence. He’d love for Lizzie to join him and revel in the club’s intoxicating freedoms. By exploring the new sensual energy simmering between them, they could become
more
than friends.

Paul Reeves, a recently divorced Texan starting over in the Big Apple, is all for joining the dancers as they blaze through sexual boundaries. But he also knows their sizzling trio won’t last. Lizzie and Dima belong together. Before the last sparks fade, he plans to transform two stubborn friends into lasting lovers—one raunchy lesson at a time.

Warning
:
Burlesque meets ballroom in this f***ing sexy book when a smoldering Russian dance god and a blonde firecracker with hips possessed by the devil share a sunny, filthy-minded Texan—but only for a dance or two.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Lead and Follow:

The taxi sped north into Hell’s Kitchen.

Pressing her head against the cool window, Lizzie gazed without focus at the bright lights. A gentle rain began to fall, which only refracted the colors to smaller slivers. After paying the driver, she raced out of the car and up the brownstone steps. Key code. Front door. Safe and dry. She trudged up the stairs as if a firing squad awaited her in their living room.

More often than she wanted to admit, she’d lain in bed listening to Dima and his occasional one-night stands get it on. Headboard banging. Girl shrieking. Hell, sometimes it’d been another man—their thrusting rhythm even harder, meaner. Only Dima’s moans and grunts of pleasure tempted Lizzie to slide her trembling hand down her panties. She’d stroked herself, circling her clit faster and faster, as their rhythm turned orgasmic.

Always she would lie there in the aftermath of overwhelming release, panting, her mind full to bursting with images she’d believed she would never see in person. Justifications jumped to mind quickly, defensively.

Just like porn.

Could’ve been anyone.

Only an easy way to get off.

She didn’t want him. She didn’t want to be the one he made scream.

No way could she handle it. Something too raw had been scraped open. Considering the little display she’d enacted with Paul, she deserved whatever Dima dished out. That didn’t make the prospect any more palatable.

She wanted their old life back. Her career. Her partner. No complications. Just the satisfaction of winning and knowing her place in the world. At the top of the second flight of stairs, she smacked her knee out of spite. The ruined knee.

Making plenty of noise in the lock, she allowed enough time for his date to freak out and grab a blanket, if she turned out to be the modest type. With Lizzie’s luck, that girl Jeanne would be the sort of exhibitionist who liked screaming and moaning.

Hands shaking. Breath shallow. Inner thighs tender from straddling Paul. Christ, she was a mess.

The apartment was dark. Quiet. Still.

Relief swished down her spine, leaving her boneless. She could shower, rest and regroup before having to face him again. But the back of her neck prickled. She was reaching out to flip on the floor halogen when his voice pierced the dark.

“Don’t.”

“Shit, you scared me,” she said on a squeak.

“Sorry.”

She didn’t think he was. Otherwise he wouldn’t be sitting on the couch in the dark. Open shades in the dining room let in light from the streetlamps, bathing his bare chest in a golden glow. Her mouth had gone dry. She didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Two months back in each other’s company and they were still behaving as politely as strangers.

God, I miss you.

She cleared her throat. “I didn’t think you’d be alone.”

“And I didn’t think you’d be home so soon. Wasn’t he worth waiting for the end of his shift?”

Ice clinked in his glass as he sipped. A vodka bottle was open on the coffee table. Since when did he drink hard liquor? He was such a health nut, and his parents’ slow demise into the throes of alcoholism had turned him into a near teetotaler.

Lizzie frowned. Maybe he wasn’t as closed off as she always thought. The drink in his hands was the equivalent of waving a bright red flag. Maybe he was as lost as she was, but that didn’t mean sitting down and having a heart-to-heart. She’d survived fifteen years as his partner because of their common purpose. There wasn’t much to interpret when training, traveling and winning were their only goals—well, and keeping each other sane in the process.

Now, however. No goals. No way of getting inside his locked-down thoughts.

She tossed her clutch on the desk, knowing its momentum would mess up his careful stacks of bills and papers. Time to try out her theory. “You should know he was good, Dima. You were listening at the door.”

Had Lizzie missed the mark entirely, he would’ve denied it with a look of indignation. He didn’t.

She smiled very, very softly to herself and crossed to the back of the couch. Her heels sounded overly loud on the hardwood. None of this made sense. The terrible, taunting refrain of
mine, mine, mine
—it was back. She couldn’t tune it out. Dima Turgenev was her best friend. At the moment, poised on possibilities, she wasn’t seeing him as just a partner. She wanted a taste of something more.

She slid her hands over his shoulders and down his naked chest. He was tense. Incredibly tense. His little intake of breath encouraged her more than any words.

“You did,” she said. “You listened at the door of your own dressing room.” His taut stomach muscles bunched beneath her fingertips. “I wonder if you could hear him come over the music.”

He swallowed. “No.”

“Such a gorgeous low groan,” she whispered against his neck. “But I’m sure you heard me.”

Another swallow. His heart thundered beneath her palms, which only stoked the fizzle and pop in her blood. Oh, this was not good.
Really
not good. Because the concept of coming on to two men in the same evening—one of them the partner who rarely merited a second look—should’ve been repulsive. Trampy. Maybe even desperate, knowing she was only trying to prove herself after her injury.

Instead she felt powerful and so sexy. She would’ve traded every second with Paul had the choice been between riding that hot cowboy and stroking the firm, graceful muscles of Dima’s chest.
Since when?