His Taste of Temptation: In the Line of Duty, Book 3 (16 page)

Chapter Twelve

Brad sped through the city streets, taking the corners too fast and running the lights when no other vehicles were around. He pulled up in front of Granddad’s beautiful old homestead and when he saw two cars in the driveway his heart went to his throat.

He jumped from the cab of his truck, ripped the
For Sale
sign off the lawn and ran into the house. When he stepped inside and three sets of eyes turned his way, he blurted out, “It’s not for sale.”

“Brad,” his realtor said, jumping from his seat at the small round kitchen table, “What’s going on?”

Brad looked at the young couple who’d put in an offer earlier that day, their eyes wide and confused as they sat at the oak table talking about the house with his realtor. “I made a mistake. The house is no longer for sale.”

Disappointment moved over the young woman’s face as her glance went from Brad, to the realtor, to her husband. “But I thought—”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t sell it.”

“I think you’re too late, pal,” the guy said, his voice challenging as he stood up. “You accepted our offer and already signed the papers.”

“No, you don’t understand. I can’t sell it.”

The man folded his arm over a broad chest, but his wife stood beside him and put her hand on his arm. Her brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”

Brad scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “This house…it’s my future…my….everything.”

“Brad,” the realtor said in a soft tone voice meant to placate. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Look,” he blurted out. “I’m in love. So fucking crazy in love I don’t know what to do with myself. And I want to show her just how much I love her, by giving her what she’s always wanted.”

“What has she always wanted?” the girl asked.

“A house…a family…in the right neighborhood. One she can live in forever, and turn the downstairs into a bakery.” He pointed to the wrap around deck that he could close in and turn into an eating area. “This place is the perfect location for Sweetie’s Bakery. The perfect house for her…for us.”

“Sweetie’s Bakery?” the girl asked, her eyes wide. “Are you talking about Madison Graham?”

Brad nodded, his heart beating so hard in his chest he felt dizzy. “Yeah, do you know her?”

“Not personally, but I eat at her bakery all the times. She’s amazing.”

“Yeah, she is amazing.”

The woman looked at her husband, who seemed to be shifting uneasily on his feet. “We can’t buy this place now,” the petite blonde said.

“Yeah, I knew you were going to say that.” He shrugged and held a hand out to Brad. “What can I say, I’m a sucker for love too.”

“Thank you.” Brad rushed out, and after a quick handshake he darted into the small office to grab the blueprints he’d been working off of while refinishing the place. He had one more stop to make before he hurried back to Madison.

Three long hours later, after waking his friend and putting him to work on modifying the blueprints to incorporate a downstairs café, he was back in his truck on his way to see Madison, equal amounts of excitement and nervousness erupting in the pit of his gut.

He drove into her parking lot and noted that all the lights were out. Assuming she’d gone to bed, after all she probably thought he’d be on his way up north at this point, he unlocked the door and quietly stepped inside.

The steps groaned under his weight as he walked upstairs, but when he reached her bedroom and found it empty, worry moved through him. Where the hell was she?

Turning around, he made his way down the hall toward the bathroom, but when a noise inside Jonah’s room caught his attention, he pushed the door open. What he saw next stopped his heart and had all his blood draining to his feet.

The blueprints fell from his hands, and when the tube hit the floor, Madison sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“Brad?” she asked. “What?” She paused and pulled out her bite plate to talk. “What’s going on?”

“What the hell?” Jonah said, from his side of the bed. “Brad?” Jonah flicked the light on, and Brad’s glance went from the woman he loved, to the brother who’d stolen his women more times than enough. “What the fuck?” Jonah asked, scratching his head as he blinked against the bright light.

Brad shook his head, and if he didn’t know better, he’d say his brother really had taken over where he left off.

“Brad,” Madison said breathlessly. “It’s not what you think.”

Brad straightened. “Oh, no. I think it’s exactly what I think.”

Madison flung the bed sheets off and moved toward him. His heart pounded with everything he felt for her as she smoothed her hands over her long nightshirt. The same one she’d transformed into a prize winning T-shirt a month ago, when they started their affair. An affair that changed everything between them.

“Brad, please,” she said, panic in her voice as she stopped at the foot of the bed. “Let me explain.”

“Madison—”

She pointed to Jonah shifting uneasily in the bed behind her, then toward her bedroom at the end of the hall. “I forgot…I didn’t want to sleep…I didn’t know if you were coming back.”

He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You don’t have to explain anything, Madison.”

“I don’t.”

“No. I trust you.”

Worry left her face. “You do?”

“Yes.”

“Then where did you go? Why did you run out on me like that?”

“Because the second I saw you standing outside the bathroom earlier tonight, looking so warm and comfortable with me, I knew I wanted to make this arrangement between us permanent.”

“You do?” she asked, her breath coming quicker.

“Yeah, and I wanted to show you how much I care.” He bent down and grabbed the blueprints. He pulled them from the tube and spread them open to show her the changes on the house. When he looked back at her tears were in her eyes.

“Madison,” he began, “I know you were counting down the thirty days, but I don’t want this to end.”

“I was only counting down the days because I figured I could only keep up the façade that long.”

“Façade?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the women you gravitate toward, and well, I knew I could be that kind of woman for a short time.” She waved her hand over her clothes. “But eventually this side of me would show through.”

“Babe,” he said, “I love how you’ve grown comfortable in your skin, but I love this side of you too. This is the side that made me realize I wanted you in my life forever.”

He listened to her throat work as she gulped. “Forever?”

“Yes, forever. I want us to live in this house together, raise a family together.” When she went quiet, he exhaled sharply. “Jesus, Madison, please tell me you want that too.”

Her hand touched his cheek, her touch so soft, so intimate, so full of emotion. She smiled up at him, and his heart stopped because he recognized that look, it was the same one he’d seen Tallulah give Garrett, the same one she’d given him when he pulled her back to bed that morning so long ago, when he refused to let her rush from his arms to freshen up.

“You love me,” he said, a statement, not a question.

“Yes, Brad. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Ever since we were kids, I’ve loved you.”

His heart took flight, and he was sure he was grinning like the village idiot when he shook his head and said, “Jesus, I had no idea.”

Her smile widened and there was so much love on her face as she looked up at him that it took his breath away. She poked a finger into his chest. “That’s because your granddad was right.”

His head came back with a start. “About what?”

She chuckled. “Sometimes you can be really dense.”

When Brad laughed with her, Jonah flung his covers off and jackknifed in the bed. “What the fuck is going on?”

Brad shifted his focus, so lost in Madison that he’d forgotten Jonah was there. “What’s going on is I’m in love with Madison, and I want her to be my wife.”

Jonah gave a hard shake of his head. “One month. I’ve been gone for one fucking month and the world goes to hell around me!”

“The world hasn’t gone to hell, Jonah. The world is just how it should be, how it should have been a long time ago.” He looked at Madison. “So what do you say, Madison? Will you marry me, move into the house with me and start that family we both always wanted, while we turn the downstairs into a bakery?”

“One condition,” she said.

He angled his head. “Condition?”

“When I’m in the kitchen, you let me wear my apron.”

With that he laughed out loud, scooped her up and carried her to her bedroom, where he spent the rest of the night buried inside the woman he loved with all his heart. A woman who helped him let go of the past and taught him to love again.

About the Author

New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author Cathryn Fox is a wife, mom, sister, daughter and friend. She loves dogs, sunny weather, anything chocolate (she never says no to a brownie), pizza and red wine. She has two teenagers who keep her busy with their never-ending activities, and a husband who is convinced he can turn her into a mixed-martial-arts fan. Cathryn can never find balance in her life, is always trying to find time to go to the gym, can never keep up with emails, Facebook or Twitter, and tries to write page-turning books that her readers will love.

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Look for these titles by Cathryn Fox

Now Available:

Blood Ties

One on One

Dance of the Dragon

Pleasure Inn

All Tied Up

All Worked Up

All Lit Up

Whispering Cove

Wet in Whispering Cove

Brazen in Whispering Cove

Silk in Whispering Cove

Flirty in Whispering Cove

Boys of Beachville

Good at Being Bad

A Lick of Flame

Bad Girl Therapy

In the Line of Duty

His Obsession Next Door

His Trouble in Tallulah

His Strings to Pull

Coming Soon:

His Moment to Steal

When faking it takes on a whole new meaning…

His Trouble in Tallulah

© 2014 Cathryn Fox

In the Line of Duty, Book 2

Tallulah Duncan is excited about her brother’s upcoming wedding in Louisiana, but what she’s not looking forward to is facing the man who will undoubtedly be waiting for her. Years ago she and an old boyfriend made a pact. The next time she comes home, if she’s still single, they’ll get engaged.

He’s a nice guy, but Tallulah doesn’t love him—or the idea of being an undertaker’s wife. And the smokin’ hot guy next to her on the plane is a loud-and-clear reminder that her biological clock is on the fritz.

Security specialist Garrett Andersen is pretty sure the gorgeous woman next to him on the plane is about to have a panic attack. And when he tries to distract her, she does the most enchanting, adorable thing he’s ever seen. She blushes.

Since they’re headed to the same wedding, he finds himself agreeing to step into the role of adoring fiancé. In real life, she’s his comrade’s kid sister, so it’s hands off all the way. Except behind closed doors, her all-out campaign of sweet seduction is burning that strategy to ashes…

Warning: This book contains some very hot, very steamy sex, with a smokin’ hot security specialist who knows just how to hit his mark—and make it explode. Did we mention it was hot?

Enjoy the following excerpt for
His Trouble in Tallulah:

Sweet Mother of God and all that was holy!

He’d never taken Tallulah as the clumsy sort—a rambler when nervous, yes, but never clumsy—which meant one thing, and one thing only. She was bending over and driving him mad on purpose.

He raked his fingers through his hair and tried not to look. But who was he kidding. Although he couldn’t quite classify what he was doing as looking. No, it was more like gawking. Wide-eyed and immobile, he stood there staring at her like some sort of voyeur who got his rocks off from spying on others.

The shirt he’d given her to wear climbed up the back of her legs, and he nearly sobbed when it almost exposed the soft curve of her ass. Jesus H. Christ, either she was trying to drive him insane, or she was hell bent on getting him into that bed with her. He clenched his jaw hard enough to grind bone, and when she dropped her novel for the umpteenth time, he stepped in to help her.

“Here, let me get that.”

He picked the book up and turned it over in his hands. When he caught a glimpse of the cover, and noticed it was that very popular book that had been all over the news for months, he cast her a curious glance, never expecting a sweet thing like her to be reading such naughty material. His mind instantly flashed to the image of her bound to the headboard, completely at his mercy, his to do with as he pleased, and his heart damn near palpitated right out of his chest.

“Thanks,” she murmured, their hands brushing as she took it from him. Shockwaves rocketed through his body, and he fought the natural inclination to give in to temptation and pin her against the wall where he could kiss a path down her body, going lower and lower until he reached the spot that his tongue craved the most.

Christ, talk about a serious reversal of roles here. This sweet and innocent girl was all kinds of contradictions, and he was intelligent enough to know that she was acting out of character, and she’d calculated this seduction, right down to borrowing his clothes. Tallulah Duncan was trying to coax him into her bed.
Him
. A guy who never ran away from a good fuck. Until now.

But she was different. Everything about her screamed danger. Which meant that no way, no how was he going to give in to temptation. Ever.

She stepped away, her sweet ass dragging his focus. “You don’t mind if I read for awhile do you?” she asked and perched herself on the edge of the mattress, his T-shirt riding high on her sexy thighs.

She looked so fucking sexy sitting there in his clothes, the plunging neckline on his too-big T-shirt affording him a view of her cleavage, with her nipples pressing against the thin material that it was all he could do to keep his cock in his pants.

He shifted, uncomfortable, and angled his body to hide the evidence of his raging hard on. “No, go ahead. I need a shower anyway.”

Determined to keep his shit together, Garrett made his way to the bathroom. He shut and bolted the door behind him, locking her out and him in before he did something that he’d kick his own ass for in the morning. He turned on the cold water and once it was freezing he climbed inside. A yelp crawled out of his throat as the frigid needle-like spray cooled his hot body.

He stayed under the nozzle for a good long time, and hoped that when he was done, Tallulah had finished reading that sex book of hers and fallen into a deep sleep. After turning off the tap, he towel dried, and pulled on his boxers. He grabbed his clothes from the floor and cautiously inched the door open to peek out. When he caught sight of Tallulah bent over the bed, her curvaceous ass barely covered by his T-shirt as she fluffed her pillow, he gave a low, slow groan.

The sound gained her attention. She tossed him a glance over her shoulder, her long hair spilling over her back in provocative ways that nearly rendered him senseless.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” he managed to spit out past the lump in his throat as he crossed the room. He dropped his clothes onto the chair beside the bed, grabbed a pillow and tossed it onto the floor.

She blinked at him and patted the mattress. Long lashes flashed over come-hither eyes. “It really is a big bed, and it would be foolish of me to let you to take the floor when that whole side is empty.” There was something very suggestive in her eyes when she lowered her voice and added, “Besides, sleeping together is what engaged couples do, isn’t it?”

Garrett looked at the soft bed, and the sexy woman sitting cross-legged on the other end of the mattress, his T-shirt pulled between her legs. Goddammit he knew he’d never be able to keep his hands to himself if he crawled in there with her. Even from across the room, the sweet smell of her skin drove him bat-shit crazy.

“I’ll take the floor.”

She pursed her lips and after a long thoughtful moment countered with, “I’ve been thinking. This is your room, so by rights I should be the one sleeping on the floor.”

“You’re not sleeping on the floor.”

“No, it’s only fair.” She tossed her pillow down and climbed from the soft mattress, determination etched on her pretty face.

“Look,” he began, running anxious hands through his hair as she stood there staring at him, looking like a sex-kitten that he’d do just about anything to hear purr. “I’m not going to take the bed and let you sleep on the floor. Not when we have a king-size mattress that could easily sleep five.”

A smug look came over her face. “Exactly,” she said, and he somehow felt that he’d just been duped. She blinked up at him with bright-eyed innocence as she bent over to pick up her pillow. Jesus Christ, she really needed to stop all that fucking bending!

“And don’t worry. I’ll try to refrain from touching you,” she said, tossing his teasing words back at him.

She flicked the lamp off and once she was under the covers, Garrett climbed into his side, keeping his back to her and his face toward the window. Clinging to the edge, he pulled the covers over his chest and concentrated on getting his breathing—and his hard-on—under control.

Since he hadn’t bothered to shut the curtains, moonlight poured over the bed, and he struggled to focus on something other than the woman beside him. He thought about work, his tours overseas, walking Jenny down the aisle.

Tallulah.

Goddammit. He lifted his head and punched his pillow, unable to get comfortable. Even with the slant of light, the room seemed to close in on him, the air growing heavier, more suffocating, by the minute. Silence hung for a long time, and the bed felt warm, hot even, making the tension between them that much more palpable.

She made a restless noise and shifted beside him, breaking the quiet. Garrett squeezed his eyes shut, staying still. Perfectly still.

“Garrett.”

Don’t answer. Don’t do it. Pretend you’re asleep.

“Yeah.”

Dammit.

Her voice was low, barely audible when she said, “We have the luncheon tomorrow and my entire family is going to be there.”

The worry in her voice did him in. With a sigh, he rolled onto his back. Her body heat reached out to him and fucked with his libido in ways he’d never before known. He worked to leash his control but his cock was so hard, craving the feel of her heat wrapped around it. Sweat beaded on his brow and upper lip. “And?”

“I’m a little worried.”

“What about?”

“What if we can’t pull this off?”

He shifted to his side to face her, and the second their eyes met, sparks leapt between them and nearly set the room ablaze. Her long loose curls tumbled in silken waves over the pillowcase, the erotic image straight out of his fantasy. Blood left his brain in a whoosh and headed south until his cock was at full attention, standing tall and erect like any good soldier ready to dive into battle head first.
Head first… Ah, Jesus.
He sucked in a breath but couldn’t seem to fill his oxygen starved lungs.

“It will be fine.”

“What if I blow it? I mean I blew it with Kat tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it. I told Brad too.”

“I don’t know, Garrett.” She exhaled an exaggerated breath. “We all know I’m an easy read, and what if…?”

Her voice fell off and common sense urged him to roll back over and let it go, to put an end to this conversation before it got him into a shit load of trouble. But with raw hunger overshadowing sensibility, he probed, “What are you worried about?”

“What if you touch me somewhere I’m not expecting it and I…flinch.”

His heart thundered in his chest, his body begging him to put her worries to rest by pulling her beneath him and touching her all over, with his hands, his mouth, his tongue. But he wasn’t going to. No, he understood she wasn’t a girl who took sex lightly—he’d seen it in her eyes, read it in her every gesture—and he wasn’t sure what kind of game she was playing, but he’d be damned if he was going to play it with her.

He cleared his throat. “Don’t worry. You won’t.”

“How can you be so sure? If I couldn’t fool Kat, how will I ever be able to convince my entire family we’re a real couple? I mean, just say you touch me and I flinch, they’ll know in an instant something isn’t right.”

“I touched you tonight and you didn’t flinch.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Her voice dropped to a soft whisper when she added, “But you didn’t touch me here.”

He heard the sheets rustle and her arms moved beneath them. Unable to help himself, he visualized her putting her hands on her body, her breasts, between her legs. His cock swelled. Christ, he should have released the pressure in the shower. She made a sexy noise and the mattress dipped near him as she shimmied closer.

With her body only inches from his, his rock hard cock screamed at him to do something, like climb over her body and impale her until he gave them what they both wanted. He groaned in frustration, using every ounce of strength he possessed to keep his hands to himself. Okay, he needed to get the fuck out of her bed and he needed to do it now.

Walk away, Garrett, just walk away.

“Where didn’t I touch you?”

Ah, fuck.

She rolled onto her back as his fingers crept across the mattress. When he reached her stomach, he brushed her flesh lightly, drawing small circles over her abdomen with his thumb. He listened to her breathing change, become more erratic, and he fought valiantly to keep his shit together.

Her hand closed over his. “Here,” she said, as she guided his palm to her breasts. “You didn’t touch me here,” she purred, her sultry invitation smashing his resolve in seconds flat.