At Your Service
By Lexi Blake
Masters and Mercenaries ~ Topped, Book 4
Juliana O’Neil’s promising future was burned away in the heat of battle. She had been an officer with a bright future in the military, but now she is struggling to survive. Her husband gone and her career in shambles, she finds a job at Top as a hostess and tries to put together the pieces of her life. The last thing she needs is any kind of male attention, but she can’t help but be amused at her neighbor and coworker’s lothario antics. Not that she would have anything to do with him, at least not for more than one night.
Javier Leones doesn’t understand monogamy. No woman could ever be enough for his endless libido, but he has to admit Juliana has his attention. For reasons he doesn’t fully understand, he can’t seem to get the gorgeous redhead with the sad eyes out of his head. After one scorching night together, he realizes he’ll never be able to get her out of his system. But with his reputation, he fears she’ll never see him as more than a one-night stand.
EXCERPT
All alone with the storm. Maybe she should call Kai.
And ask him to get out in the middle of this? That seemed pretty selfish especially
since she knew exactly how poorly driving in storms could go.
A hard flash of white light made her jump
back.
Nope. She wasn’t going there. She was going
to stay in the here and now, and that meant finding a flashlight and trying to
get some candles lit. Someone was out there working on getting the power back
on, and then she would ride out the storm watching rom coms and falling asleep
on the couch. It was going to be okay. Deep breath. It was going to be okay.
A few moments later she’d found her one
flashlight and had a nice set of candles out, and she was faced with the
problem of lighting the suckers. Oh, she had a big box of matches, but she’d
never struck a match without her left hand.
A lighter would be easier. She could figure
out a lighter maybe. Jules tried holding the box against the table with her
stump while she struck the match with her right hand. She fumbled, the action
so unnatural it made her slip up and break the match.
And the second one.
And the third one.
Tears pierced her eyes, but she wasn’t
going to shed them. She was going to figure this out or she would make due with
the flashlight. It was all about adapting. That was what she had to do. Adapt.
She wasn’t going to let this beat her.
Normally she was tough. It had happened and she dealt with it, but between the
storm and the conversation with Suzanne the day before about her mother and the
sweetness of flirting with a handsome man she couldn’t have, she was feeling
awfully vulnerable. She wasn’t going to sit here in the dark and cry.
A knock on the door made her gasp and jump.
Fuck. She wasn’t like this. She hated
this…this anxiety she got when it rained. It was weakness and she couldn’t
abide it.
If you walk away from this
you’ll ruin your life, Juliana. Don’t think I’ll watch you do it. You go
through with this and you do it on your own. Am I understood?
Sometimes she felt like she was still seven
years old, and if she could just get her mom’s attention everything would be
okay.
Jules gripped the flashlight and walked
across her apartment to the door. It was likely one of the neighbors coming to
check on her. Actually, that was an excellent idea. She could go down and see
if Mrs. Gleeson needed some company. There were some elderly residents she
could check on and a single mom she’d met at the end of the hall. She could see
if she could be of any assistance and that would get her through the night.
She opened the door expecting to see anyone
but the man she saw standing there.
Javier Leones. He had a flashlight in one
hand and a bottle of wine in the other. He was wearing jeans and a button down
that he’d left undone enough she could see a nice swath of golden brown skin.
His hair was deliciously mussed, as though he’d taken a shower and simply
rubbed a towel over it to get it dry.
He was big and male and so sexy it hurt to
look at him, and Jules realized she could do something else to take her mind
off things.
Those plump, sensual lips of his broke into
a bright smile. “I thought you might like some company. I know I would. I
actually don’t have any candles, so I was sitting in my living room with this
sad one flashlight. You look like a woman who likes some candles.”
But she couldn’t light them. She hadn’t
figured that part out.
His face fell and he walked into her place,
closing and locking the door behind him. “Hey, what’s wrong? It’s okay if you
don’t have any candles. It’s cool. Two flashlights are better than one.”
He set the flashlight and wine bottle down
and moved into her space, his hands coming up to cup her shoulders. “Jules,
what’s wrong?”
She had to be stronger than this. She shook
her head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
His jaw tightened. “Don’t. Please don’t. I
live with a stubborn asshole who won’t let me help him in any way. I get that
we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but I thought we were friends. You
help me out all the time. You’re kind to me. Fucking let me be kind to you. I
spend every day trying to help someone who won’t let me. Please let me feel
like I’m worth something.”
If he’d said anything else, joked about the
weather or told her to suck it up, she could have, but he’d opened a door. He’d
been vulnerable and honest, and she found she couldn’t pay that back with
stubbornness.
“I have candles and I can’t figure out how
to light them.” Tears rolled down her face. She was vulnerable.
All the time. Even when she pretended like she wasn’t.
“You can’t…” he began and then he looked
down. Instead of stepping back and giving her space, he drew his hand down her
arm, warming her skin where he touched her. It was dark but the moon was full
and gave enough light to see the outline of his face. There was no look of
horror there. He caressed her arm until he got to the place where she’d been
split apart and sewn back together unwhole. He brought it up and wrapped it
against his palm, his fingers closing around it until the whole thing was
surrounded with his warmth. “You haven’t figured out how to do it yet. Probably
hasn’t come up or you would know what to do. How long since you lost your
hand?”
“A year and a half,” she said. He was
touching her there. No one had touched her there except her doctors and
therapists.
Come to think of it, no one had touched her
at all since before the accident. Had it really been so long since she’d felt
warm flesh against her own? He was so close, close enough that all she would
have to do was go up on her toes to brush her lips against his.
Would that be wrong? As long as she
remembered who she was dealing with, why couldn’t she take a few moments of
respite for herself? If he wanted her.
ABOUT LEXI BLAKE
NY Times and USA Today bestselling author Lexi Blake lives in North Texas with her husband, three kids, and the laziest rescue dog in the world. She began writing at a young age, concentrating on plays and journalism. It wasn't until she started writing romance and urban fantasy that she found the stories of her heart. She likes to find humor in the strangest places and believes in happy endings no matter how odd the couple, threesome, or foursome may seem.
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