The love affair of her life…was over.
The woman that made every moment special somehow…he didn’t
know how, just that she DID…was gone. Totally.
~~~
A tragic breakup. A relationship finished.
Or… was it?
When Dare Logan and Abby Haines meet on a deserted tropical
island for a photoshoot…
…things happen.
~~~
Abby’s NOT happy:
“McMaster wants you on the beach to review yesterday’s
shots.” The words dropped from his mouth as casually as if they’d just been
talking about photo layouts and shoot stagings a minute ago.
Not like they hadn’t spoken a word to each other in three
years.
What was it they called the body’s automatic reactions?
Muscle memory, something like that? So was this sexual memory?
Whatever it was, that voice unleashed a cyclone of it whipping
through her body.
Abby flinched, even as she felt. Damn.
This was so not happening.
She swallowed deliberately, and hoped he couldn’t tell how
much she’d had to concentrate on that single swallow. “Dare. It’s been a
while.”
No smile. His work-tanned face, sporting the rough stubble
of five-o’clock shadow—stubble that had once caressed every inch of her willing
body, explored every hill, valley, and nook with the delight of a novice and
the thoroughness of an experienced master—didn’t crack a smile of recognition.
“Yeah.”
Ah.
Emotion coursed through her, memories tangling with anger.
Then resolve strengthened in her. Fine. If that’s how he
wanted it, fine. It was how she wanted it too. She’d been able to get through
the last three years without him, there was no reason to think she needed his
good will now. To expect anything from him.
And she didn’t.
Slapping the lid of the case shut, she shoved her feet into
canvas runners and pushed off the bench. The words flowed surprisingly well.
“Tell him I’ll be right there.”
“Tell him yourself. I’ve got work to do.” His gaze locked on
hers for a slice of a second and her pulse hammered. Snatching the canvas flap
off the sand he bent to leave, giving her a glimpse of pale blue jeans smoothed
over an ass to dream about. An ass that, once seen, lodged in the viewer’s mind
and never left.
She should know.
Watching him stalk away on the dirt path between the
haphazardly growing mandevillas and swaying coconut palms, she let out a shaky
breath, the skittering sensation down her spine lessening as her stomach
settled.
That was Dare. As cool and smooth as a tall, icy drink of
rum.
Bastard.
She wiped her hands forcefully down the front of her shorts,
digging her palms into her thighs. So he was here. Hell. She’d just have to
deal.
Though he hadn’t been that cool. Wasn’t that a muscle she’d
seen working away beside his jaw? One he’d had to strain into submission?
Dare’s NOT happy
either:
Shit. He’d said her name.
Abby.
The name he’d sworn he’d never say again.
Though that bit, the swearing it would never cross his lips
again, had just been pure male macho crap to placate himself that he hadn’t
been pussy whipped. By her bright eyes. By her laughter. By the look of
you’re-the-only-one-I’ll-ever-love crap that’d melted her eyes when she’d
looked at him in the past.
Sure, sometimes she’d wanted to pound him, but it was always
there underneath.
You’re the only man for me. Ever.
But whether or not he swore, it didn’t change anything. Pain
coursed through him, and he tensed hard to flatten it out of existence by sheer
will. His body fought it, recoiling against the force, and he shoved it away
purposefully.
~~~
Then things happen. They’re forced to take a dangerous trek
across the island.
But then when Dare leaves the island suddenly, and is on an
ocean liner anchored off Chandelle for safety, and a hell of a tropical island
storm blows up, he’s got time to think.
(Fyi – Ralph is their beloved dog, who
hasn’t seen Abby for three years.)
~~~
He turned his face back to the
crazy that was in motion all around him, the wildness that he’d had a brief and
somewhat unwelcome respite from him. Stepping into the wind, his clothes
suddenly streaming behind him in weird lines, the harsh air blasted the sudden
moisture from the rims of his eyes.
Damn it all, the internal voice yelled
within him. You need this job. You need the money. Not just for the pay.
With the connections, you could expand your crew, take on work internationally.
You could be setting yourself up for life. Take great care of your mom, your
sis. Set yourself up for…
The wind suddenly punched him with
a wicked blast he couldn’t have foreseen and he almost let go of the railing. Almost
fell backwards to smash into the iron bulwark behind him.
The question echoed in him, the
punctuation of everything he’d been mulling, that had been roiling around in
his gut.
Set yourself up for…what exactly?
The echoing emptiness inside
clawed at him with ragged strokes. And he no longer had a defense against it
all. And finally…
…felt. With Mother Nature
screaming around him.
As
fucking bad as when she’d first left. When he thought there was supposed to be
oxygen in the air, but somehow he’d fallen into a part of the world where the
parts per billion had been drastically reduced. To a part of the world where
color had been sucked out of the universe, and his own cells were no longer
properly aligned—at least not in the configuration they’d been in before.
Suddenly, they didn’t fit, and everything bumped up against everything, abraded
raw. It hurt just to look at their livingroom, when he’d loved it before, their
clumsy bohemian approach to what they laughing called decorating obvious. To
walk in the park. To order a cup of coffee at the diner, alone.
Nothing made any fucking sense any
more.
And that feeling swirled around inside
him again.
You have a life, the responsible dude
inside him screamed. She left you, a-hole. You had no choice but to claw your
way into a new thing you then called life. Try it on, make it fit. And some
parts of it had been okay, had fit some. Not great, but ok.
But nothing fit in that one part.
It was like the room was barred off, closed, boarded up. The furniture covered
with dust piled on it, frozen in time like that old hag’s room in that so-called
classic he’d been forced to read back in school. Haversham? Something like that.
And he’d tried to build a new room, God knew he had. Tried to open it to prospects but it hadn’t felt the same, had felt like shit and he’d shut that down. Lost himself in taking care of himself and his crew. His new family. And Ralph. Their mutt.
And he’d tried to build a new room, God knew he had. Tried to open it to prospects but it hadn’t felt the same, had felt like shit and he’d shut that down. Lost himself in taking care of himself and his crew. His new family. And Ralph. Their mutt.
Ralph, who loved her as he did,
and would go crazy protecting her.
And a thought
flashed into his mind, as a particularly nasty, high wave broke onto the deck,
a few meters away. Crashed into a million dirty jewels, breaking around him,
then gone, as if it had never existed, in the next wild second.
Ralph would eat his nuts if he knew he’d left her on
an island, in a storm.
What the hell was he doing here?
Protecting a business so he could
be…alone? So she could possibly—and terror seized him by the throat—never come
back?
“Enough. I’m done.” He strode off
to find the crewman he’d so roundly ignored a few minutes earlier. Found the
dude, made him talk to him. Was taken to the captain, made his case. Signed the
fucking release for them to let him go on a shifting bar.
If the storm had been any fiercer,
it would have meant the loss of life and limb almost certainly, and he would
have been shut down. But something, somewhere, held for him. Even though all
hell was breaking loose around him, the elements held themselves in stasis,
didn’t wind up further until he was lowered onto the boat and slapping the
cruiser through the rough seas at a demented horsepower, still too slow for
him.
He didn’t know where he’d land.
He’d been advised to go to a cove he’d seen briefly, but he hadn’t really paid
attention and wasn’t really sure quite how to get there. Rocks to watch out for.
Stuff like that.
But hell.
And though an errant monster of a
wave could wash him over and he be lost, and she’d never know he was coming—something in his heart clenched, yet,
incredibly, sang at the same time. All those cells within his ravaged body came
back into alignment.
He was on his way back for his
girl.
TAKE THE RIDE...
With Dare and Abby this summer.
Also introducing the men and women of Jack's Bay...and the Real Men series.
Real Deep
Real Men #2
by Susan Saxx
Deserted tropical
island, hunky male models. Sole female photographer. Everything is on track for
Abby Haines to please her sleazy boss and win the make-or-break photography
contest of the year so she can prove herself to the wealthy parents who’ve
disowned her, keep the career she loves, and oh yeah. Eat.
That is, until the
past love of her life shows up. The scumbag.
Part-time solider and
handyman extraordinaire Dare Logan gets things done. But life just ratcheted up
a few degrees for the guy from the wrong side of the track. If he doesn’t
kowtow to the creepy shoot director, he can’t save his fledgling renovation
business and take care of his mom and sister. And now he’s got to deal with
Abby - the woman who broke his heart, proving that what he could provide for
her wasn’t enough. Super.
But when they’re sent
on a dangerous trek across the island and fate plays with their
deeply-entrenched principles and worse, their hearts, choices will have to be
made, and the stakes are no longer simple.
Real Men
A new, small town military romance series. Featuring full-length
stories and meet-cutes.
Read the entire series to fall in love with the men of Jack’s Bay!
About Susan
Susan
Saxx writes sexy, unexpected, heartwarming romances. Her
REAL MEN series focuses on a band of Canadian military reservists and the
strong women they fall in love with. Meet the cowboy, the ex-hockey player and
more at her website, and join her mailing list for exclusive teaser stories and
release updates!
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