Matt—The Callahan Brothers (Brazos Bend Book 2) (40 page)

Laughter bubbled up inside her. “I truly have created a monster.”

He smiled wickedly and grabbed her hands, then held both wrists by one hand as he tugged the knot of red fabric at her breasts. As her sarong slipped to the ground, his index finger traced the swell of her breasts. “So how about it, Mrs. Callahan? You up for a little...” He tightened his grip on her wrists. “Bondage?”

Now her laughter burst free. “I don’t know, Mr. Callahan. I’m on board with the hotel rooms, the hot tub, and the ocean scenes. The room at Oxford University gives me pause, but I’ve always liked the name Inga.”

“Inga Bergstrom. Beautiful blonde. He picks up some foreign tongue when she teaches him Danish.” He slipped the knot on her swimsuit top and it fell onto the sand. “I knew you’d be game with some role-playing. You’re an adventuress at heart, Victoria.”

“Up to a point. I’m happy to play Holly Goodhead... .” She dropped to her knees before him and reached for his swim trunks. “But never, ever take me to a barn.”

It was half an hour later before he could breathe well enough to come back to the question. “Why not a barn?”

“I refuse to play that particular role. I will never, ever be Pussy Galore.”

Matt frowned at her. “Torie. C’mon. All this sand is great, but the thought of you ... like this ... in a haystack? Remember my Texas roots.”

“Hay itches.”

Then Matt, the Demon, winked at her and quoted, “What would it take for you to see things my way?’”

She wrinkled her nose and tried to keep the smile off her lips. “It’s too crass. I’ll never—”

As was his habit, Matt shut her up with a kiss, but this time he didn’t stop with her lips. Matt kissed his way down her body, tore off her swimsuit bottoms with his teeth, then devoted himself to driving her wild with a magic tongue and mouth. When she cried out her pleasure and collapsed, spent and deliciously sated, he lifted his head, looked at her, and challenged, “Darlin’, never say never.”

The End

Read on for a note from Emily March.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Brazos Bend! I hope you enjoyed your visit to the Texas Hill Country.
 

The part of Texas where the Callahan men grew up is home for me, and Possum Kingdom Lake is one of my favorite places on Earth. Thank you for allowing me to give you a glimpse of my world—both real and fictitious.
 

Reviews are helpful to authors, so if you'
’
d like to share your thoughts about MATT—THE CALLAHAN BROTHERS with other readers at online booksellers and Goodreads, I’d appreciate it so very much.
 

If you missed the first book in the series, LUKE—THE CALLAHAN BROTHERS, it is available now. The next book, MARK—THE CALLAHAN BROTHERS
is available for pre-order and releases in October 2014. My Christmas short story, A CALLAHAN CAROL, arrives just before Thanksgiving in time for the 2014 holiday season, and I have plans for more Callahans to come!

You can read more about all of my books at my
website
,
 
and please sign up for my free newsletter here so I can alert you to my new releases. I’m active on
Facebook
, on
Pinterest
, and on
Twitter
. Please reach out and say hi!

As always, happy reading!

Emily

Read on for more of Brazos Bend, an excerpt from
MARK—THE CALLAHAN BROTHERS.

MARK—THE CALLAHAN BROTHERS

Emily March

Copyright 2014 by Emily March

Lanai, Hawaii

The things we do for family.

Mark Callahan’s bloody hands clutched the coarse holds of the blue-black rock face as his right foot searched for the next foothold. A hundred feet below him, ocean swells crashed violently against the rocks. Above him, a three-quarter moon and a sky full of stars cast a silvered light across the land. Soft music and occasional laughter drifted on the gentle breeze from the terraces of the mansion called Hauoli, still another hundred feet away at the top of the cliff.

From the Zodiac anchored below, his brother Matt’s voice sounded in his earpiece. “You doing okay, bro?”

“Nice of you to ask,” he drawled, the sarcasm in his voice unmistakable.

“You scared me during that slide. I dropped my mike. Took me a couple minutes to find it. What happened?”

“I damn near fell, that’s what happened. The wall pancakes from ten feet of solid basalt to ten feet of fractured, crumbly rock. Lost my footing. Sliced my hands up.”

“Well, be careful. We don’t have time for you to climb the cliff twice.”

His brother’s sympathy overwhelmed him, so Mark responded, “Bite me.”

His foot found purchase on a narrow ledge and he ascended another step. Filling his lungs with salt-scented air, he looked up. Twenty minutes more, he figured. Maybe twenty-five. He had plenty of time.

Mark knew what he was doing. He’d climbed more dangerous cliffs in his life under far worse conditions. One instance in the mountains of Afghanistan stuck out particularly vividly in his mind. Wind blowing a gale. Gunfire from down below pinging off the rocks all around him. Tonight’s climb was a walk along the Brazos compared to that.

Besides, he’d prefer the challenge of a cliff any day or night to what awaited him above. A party. The kind with expensive food and liquor and women— women whose smiles were as plastic as their boobs. Not at all his idea of fun.

He adjusted his night-vision goggles, then spied another foothold. He worked steadily, capably, and quietly until he reached the top of the cliff. “I’m here. Signal Luke.”

“Roger.”

“No, Luke,” he murmured back, repeating an old joke between brothers.

Mark cautiously lifted his head and studied the area in front of him. Solar lamps and spotlights illuminated the area. Beyond a short hedge of flowering bushes, lush green grass stretched toward the house some thirty yards away. To his left he spied a resort-style pool and tropical waterfall and spa. A tennis court lay off to his right. This stretch of land along the cliff was the only section of the estate’s perimeter that wasn’t fenced, but it was protected by—according to his research—a buried cable perimeter intrusion detection system. Which was, judging by the presence of guests milling on the lawn, disabled for the evening, just as he’d anticipated.

Excellent. His gaze swept the area, then snagged on a woman dressed in red, facing away from him. Whoa.

The gown exposed most of her back and clung like a second skin to a world-class ass. She was tall and lean, and she wore her auburn hair piled high on her head. The long slit in the back of her dress revealed shapely legs that stretched on forever. From this angle, anyway, she was one fine example of womanhood. He wished she’d turn around. Wished he was closer so he could see her more clearly. Something about her called to him.

Hold on, Callahan. Remember where you are. What she’s liable to be.

He’d outgrown porn queens years ago.

Seconds later, the first explosion sounded, followed quickly by a second, then a third. Luke’s distraction successfully alarmed the guests strolling on the lawn and sent them hurrying toward the house—well, except for the woman in red, who took off toward the pool area. A guard rushed past Mark’s position, pulling his sidearm as he ran toward the booms. Luke’s string of high explosive, not-legal-in-the-good-old-USA firecrackers were doing their job.

Mark pulled himself up over the crest of the cliff onto level surface. He ducked behind a flowering bush, stripped off his black jumpsuit, and used it to wipe the blood from his hands. After stashing the suit and his climbing shoes in the shrubs, he quickly removed his dress shoes from his pack and slipped them on. A brief glance confirmed that no one looked his way, so he shot the cuffs of his tuxedo, stepped out onto the lawn, and strolled toward the house.

Glass doors led into a sumptuous formal living and dining suite with a wall of floor-to-twelve-foot-ceiling windows that provided a panoramic view of the Pacific.
Bet the daylight view takes your breath away,
Mark thought as he accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and idly noted the opulence of the furnishings and design of the luxurious estate. The style was classic Louis XV, with magnificent marble and murals, crystal chandeliers, and embroidered silk draperies that framed Technicolor views of the Pacific Ocean.

Obviously, porn paid exceptionally well.

The estate’s owner, Harvey P. Selcer, was a second-generation pornographer who had used his father’s string of adult bookstores to launch Selcer Films back in the 1980s. A B-school graduate, Harvey introduced a business model that brought modern marketing techniques to the industry, and today Selcer Entertainment Group was sometimes referred to as the Microsoft of the porn world. Now in his fifties, Harvey had billions in the bank, a Hugh Hefner reputation, and Howard Hughes paranoia.

And a porn-queen girlfriend born and raised in Brazos Bend, Texas.

Hence, the Callahans’ presence at this party. Sophia Garza had called home for help, claiming that Selcer wouldn’t allow her to leave the estate. Her great-aunts, Maria and Juanita Garza, had asked the Callahan brothers to solve the problem. Mark didn’t care a flying fig about Sophia—she was a pitiful, pitiable figure, in his opinion—but he loved the Garza sisters. He and his brothers had made this trip for them.

A woman dressed in blue sidled up next to him. Not Sophia—her pretentious habit was to always wear pink. “Hello, handsome. I don’t believe we’ve met before. My name is Eloisa. What’s yours?”

Mark arched a brow and gave her a swift once over. Bleached, Botoxed, lifted, and implanted. He didn’t bother to smile as he replied, “Not interested.”

She huffed off as Matt spoke into his ear. “Don’t be such an ass. Socialize. Remember, you need to blend in.”

What he needed was to find Sophia and get the hell out of here. With that objective in mind, he made his way toward one side of the bronze, wrought iron twin staircase, thinking he could more easily observe the crowd from the upper mezzanine.

Halfway up the staircase, Mark hesitated. The hair on the back of his neck rose. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of the woman in red. There is something about her.... But as he turned his head to look at her fully, the sight of another person stopped him in his tracks. “Un-believable,” he muttered.

“What is it?” Matt asked.

“Not what. Who. Radovanovic is here.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the wire before Matt said, “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not.” Mark almost, almost pulled his nine-millimeter from his shoulder holster and shot the bastard dead. Rad might not be the one who actually kidnapped and murdered Mark’s brother John, but he’d damned sure protected the man who had.

In that moment, Radovanovic lifted his head and caught sight of Mark. The shock in the Croatian’s eyes quickly morphed into fury.

“You need to get out of there,” Matt said.

“Right. He’s seen me.” Mark knew he was in a vulnerable position and should move, but he’d be damned if he’d break eye contact first.

Matt let out a long string of curses.

“No sign of Sophia yet, either. Maybe I should just kill him.”

Matt hesitated a moment before saying, “No. We don’t have the necessary connections in Hawaii. What the hell is Radovanovic doing there? He’s on the wrong damned side of the world!”

Finally, ol’ Rad caved and shifted his gaze away. Mark continued up the staircase, his mind considering and discarding various scenarios of how to deal with this unexpected complication. What would the Croatian do now? Send his minions after Mark? Maybe he’d run. He wouldn’t know that Mark didn’t have an army backing him up.

Upon reaching the mezzanine, Mark turned to survey once again the scene below him. Rad stood beside the door leading to the pool area, and there—a flash of pink. Sophia, on Harvey Selcer’s arm. Hmm ... that gave him an idea. Maybe he could pull this off, after all. He’d use Selcer to—

A gun poked into his back, and Mark went still and stiff.

“Of all the ops in all mansions in all the world, he has to walk into mine,” said a familiar feminine voice. “Do exactly as I say, Callahan, and you might get out of here alive.”