Blurb:
Mercy Jenkins is a free woman, at
last! Never again will she enter into a relationship without thinking it
through. Never again will she be swept off her feet without some way to anchor
herself firmly. Never again will she let a man have control over her heart. She
really should have known better...
Brant Carver is home for a holiday, not by choice. Going out for a night
on the town with his brother is exactly what he needs to help him forget why
he’s on vacation. Not once did he figure that he’d end up waking in Mercy’s
bed, or forgetting how he got there.
Mercy made a choice to be upfront with Brant about the consequences of
their one and only night together. What comes next proves they both have a
second chance at love.
Be Warned: anal
play
Excerpt:
“Come on, Brant. It’s a holiday, not like it’s a
prison term.”
Turning a glare on his
youngest brother, one that had made grown men piss their pants in the past, he
growled. The little shit didn’t even flinch, just smirked at him. Joshua
Carver, youngest male of the Carver family, was a pain in his ass and always
had been. He loved the kid, but damn if he didn’t wish he’d smothered him when
he was little.
“It’s a forced holiday,
not something I wanted. If I’d wanted a holiday in the midst of my biggest
fucking case, I’d have taken it. The fucking brass seem to think that I’m an
idiot and don’t see what they are doing,” Brant practically snarled out.
“So, what are they
doing?” Joshua asked.
He had to look carefully
at his brother, but all he saw was an honest inquiry to the trouble. Shit. He’d
been too long undercover if he had to see if his own baby brother was yanking
his chain. Maybe the brass was right. Maybe he did need a break. Nah, he
thought a moment later, they just wanted him out of the way.
“The director’s brat was
transferred into the main office two weeks ago. The kid’s been working in
various field offices to gain experience. In reality, he’s been making waves,
and had numerous reports written up on him. Those are permanent parts of your
records, unless of course your daddy is the Director of the DEA.”
“So his old man had them
wiped?” Joshua asked. He carried two mugs of steaming black coffee to the table
and handed one to Brant. Accepting it gratefully, Brant took a sip and let out
a happy sigh.
“No, they can’t be wiped
once they are in the system, but they can be buried. His old man slapped a
“classified” notation on them with some bullshit security level that means only
the Directors of the agencies, DEA, FBI, etcetera, can open them. That or the
President of the United States, of course.”
“Of course,” Joshua
parroted, rolling his eyes.
Pretty much how Brant
felt on the situation.
“So, the big boss gets
his kid back under his thumb to keep him in line after all these reports are
filed on the shit. What’s that got to do with you being forced out mid-operation
to take a vacation? I mean, you look like you could do with a couple days to
decompress, but not a month, bro.”
“It’s a big case, huge,
headline making,” Brant said. He saw it click for his brother a moment later,
Joshua’s eyes going huge. “Exactly. If the little shit makes a name for himself
off my hard work, and eight years of undercover work, blood, sweat, and
frustration, then all that bad stuff just vanishes from everyone’s thoughts.
He’ll be known for taking down one of the biggest cartels around. He can ride
that at a desk in any office anywhere in the world, and literally never have to
do an ounce of work again until he retires.”
“Fucking hell, what a
load of bullshit!” Joshua got up from his chair, and paced to the counter
before spinning to look at him. “So this little piss ant is going to get all
the credit for the last decade of your life? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Eight years,” he said.
Chuckling at the glare he got, Brant shrugged. “I have no say on it, bro. I
might be top dog in the field, but when it comes to office politics, I’m just
the fodder they throw into the path of the drug cartels to slow them down and
to make good headlines so the brass can shine.”
“Shit,” Joshua muttered.
He had his hands braced on his hips as he glared at up at the ceiling, shaking
his head slightly. “So, and this may be nothing more than my head doing its
thing, but what happens if the kid fucks up the whole thing? Like, he goes in
and the cartel ends up killing him?”
“Then his daddy will
know he should have listened to the fodder when he said the kid was too cocky,
too green, and will die. The only good thing is that my name’s been removed
from everything on the case except for some initial work at the beginning. The
boss’s brat’s name’s on everything now. Which means, when he fails, and he
will, then Daddy can’t save his ass ever again. He’ll be blackballed at best,
dead at worst. If he lives through this, he’ll be lucky to get a job flipping
burgers at some truck stop in the backwoods of Croatia.”
Joshua was frowning at
him. “How do you know your name’s been wiped off everything?”
“Because I made sure it
was. If they want to take my op away, fine. If they are going to pass it off as
someone else’s then I don’t want any association with it. If he crashes and
burns, he will crash and burn alone. Plus, if the kid fucks this up even half
as bad as I think he will, then his daddy will be forced out too for shaming
the agency. I also made sure that all the other agents on the case had the
little shit’s name on their documentation too. No one is throwing this back on
me when the kid gets killed. Not that I’m hoping he does, but he’s too full of
himself to see where the threat will be coming from.”
“Fuck,” Joshua said.
Shooting him a glare, he shook his blond head.
“Nothing to be done
about it,” Brant said. He knew better than to keep beating a dead horse. He was
pissed, would be for a good fucking long time, but he couldn’t do a damn thing
about it when the Director of the DEA said he was out. Not like he could go whining
to the President of the United States about the director favoring his
snotty-nosed little turd of a son.
“Well, we’re not going
to fucking sit here and bitch about it. Let’s head over to The Shanty. We can
drink a little, flirt with the ladies, and then drink some more. I’ll get Ali
to come and rescue our drunken hides at some point. She’ll do it. She’ll give
me grief, but when I lay this on her, she’ll fully understand.”
Get drunk without having
to worry about someone trying to kill him? What a novel concept. Brant hadn’t
had a night out on the town in too long. A few trips during his time in the
Rangers with the other guys, but that had been a rarity.
The more he thought
about it, the more he liked the idea. “Fuck yeah, why not? I haven’t had a good
night out drinking in forever. Be nice to have to be poured into my bed for
once instead of pouring someone else into theirs.”
Getting to his feet, he
went over to his brother. “If you wake me up at the fucking butt crack of dawn
tomorrow, I will kill you. I will snap your little neck and bury your body out
in the middle of fucking nowhere. No one will be able to prove I did it. Ever.
We clear?”
Joshua was laughing at
him and just shrugged. “At least you don’t have to be up before dawn. I do, so
I’m going to stop drinking as soon as the room starts spinning. If I drink any
more than that, I’ll be hurting all day tomorrow. To ease your mind, big brother,
I won’t be waking you up.”
“Good enough for me.
Let’s go,” Brant said. He checked his pockets for his wallet and keys, in case
he needed to be the one to let them back into the house. His hand brushed over
the small of his back and he had to hide the flinch. He didn’t have a weapon on
him. He fucking felt naked without it, but he couldn’t go around carrying it on
him while he was on vacation. Not that he didn’t have his service weapon with
him. It was just packed away, out of sight and out of mind.
Mostly. Sighing, he
scrubbed a hand through his short, dark blond hair. “First round’s on me,” he
told Joshua.
“Hot damn.” His brother
smirked. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.”
Laughing softly, he
followed Josh out of the house and to the truck. It was going to be good to get
out, see some of the folks he’d grown up with, and just relax for a couple of
hours. He’d likely regret it tomorrow, but that was tomorrow and this was
today. Fuck tomorrow.
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Author Bio:
Having been a lover of the written word all her life April has always wanted to expand her horizons and write something that could be shared with the world. Only one thing held April back, the fact that the letters and numbers mixed and jumbled more often than not. Diagnosed with Dyslexia when she was eight years old April had to work her butt off just to be able to keep up with the other kids in reading and writing, so her love for fictional writing was tossed to the wayside for the moment.
Time marched on, as it always does, and she forgot her childhood dream of becoming an author and instead focused on what she had to - creating a career for herself.
As the endless waves of time passed the shores became less rocky and more sandy, a place where she could find an even foot. That and Microsoft invented Word. Halleluja.
This is where April began her journey into the written world, the world that her imagination had been ceaselessly creating for her entire adult life.
Now she has been given a chance to let her literary wings unfold and fly, thanks to her amazing publishers.
Now its time to let the dream take flight and watch it soar!
Author Links:
Website ~ Evernight ~ Secret Cravings ~ Bookstrand ~ Amazon ~ All Romance
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