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Reckless Pleasures
Tori Carrington
Six months apart is a long time. For security expert Megan McGowan, it feels like forever since she's felt the strong arms of Darius Folsom around her. Since Dari's military deployment six months ago, every minute apart is another minute that Megan finds herself tempted….Bad boy Jason Savage is Dari's best friend– and a partner in the new private security firm Dari and Megan have formed. Only as Megan and Jason work closely together on an emotionally charged case, the attraction between them goes from hot to nuclear meltdown.But even as Megan's libido screams "Oh, yes!" she wonders if it's possible to love one man– and give in to her hunger for another….
“That should never have happened,” Jason said.
Megan nodded, trying like hell to grasp the situation. What was she thinking? She loved Dari. Missed him. Lived for his texts and phone calls. So what, then, was she doing practically devouring Jason? It didn’t make any sense. And yet it made perfect sense.
“Look, what just happened doesn’t have anything to do with us. It’s about physical need.”
She bit her bottom lip, trying but failing to quiet the pool of desire in her lower stomach. “But the kiss…”
“The kiss was too intimate,” he said.
She released a breath. “Oh, boy, you’re not lying there.”
The side of his mouth inched up in a smile. “So let’s not kiss.”
“Good idea…” She relaxed and started to walk away.
Jason caught her arm, his grip soft but insistent.
“Let’s just sleep together…”
Dear Reader,
Sexual need is a purely physical condition easily remedied without emotional attachment…right? Going without can lead to heightened stress levels and impact job performance. So what’s a simple sack session between friends? Not just friends, but fellow ex-marines involved in an important case on which the success of their newly formed company, Lazarus Security, rides?
In Reckless Pleasures, we put this theory to the test. Of course, a Tori Carrington book wouldn’t be complete unless we further complicated the issue: What if Megan McGowan was already involved with a third marine, Darius Folsom, currently posted overseas? And if the other participant, Jeremy Savage, was Darius’s best friend? And what if it just so happens Darius returns unexpectedly right after the dirty deed is done?
We hope Darius and Megan and Jason’s sizzling story keeps you riveted long after you’ve reached the end…and moved onto books two and three— Wicked Pleasures and Undeniable Pleasures—in our Pleasure Seekers miniseries out in July and August.
We’d love to hear what you think. Contact us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612, or visit us on the web at www.toricarrington.net, or www.facebook.com/ toricarrington where there’s fun to be had every day.
Here’s wishing you love, romance and hot reading.
Lori & Tony Karayianni
aka Tori Carrington
P.S. Check out the new Blaze Authors’ Pet Project at blazeauthors.com!
Reckless Pleasures
Tori Carrington
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Multi-award-winning, bestselling authors Lori Schlachter Karayianni and Tony Karayianni are the power behind the pen name Tori Carrington. Their more than forty-five titles include numerous Harlequin Blaze miniseries, as well as the ongoing Sofie Metropolis comedic mystery series with another publisher. Visit www.toricarrington.net and www.sofiemetro.com for more information on the duo and their titles.
We dedicate this book to readers like us who enjoy
a healthy dash of the forbidden with their sex.
And, as always, to editor extraordinaire Brenda
Chin, who merely smiles when we come up with
our outlandish ideas, her red pencil at the ready…
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Prologue
Eighteen months…
MEGAN MCGOWAN LAZILY rubbed her calf against Darius’s leg and curved her body close against his, finding it impossible to swallow the amount of time he’d be away.
A year and a half…
Seventy-five weeks…
Five hundred and sixty-three days…
A long, long time until she’d be able to feel his skin against hers again… His breath teasing her ear… His thick, hard length stroking her wet softness… Filling her… Making her whole…
“It’s not like we haven’t had time to prepare,” Dari whispered and then kissed her hair. “The order came down months ago.” He kissed her mouth, igniting in her a desire to feel his skillful attentions directed toward other more strategic areas of her anatomy. “And we’ve both been here before.”
She hummed, pressing her nose against his neck. “I know. But back then we were both shipping out. Now…”
She caught herself up short. Now she was like the spouse being left behind.
Only she wasn’t a spouse. Not yet. Dari kept threatening to propose, and while they both joked about marriage, they were still very single. They even maintained separate apartments, although they mostly spent their time together at her place. Dari said it was because she was more likely to have something in the refrigerator; she knew it was because his place was more like a true bachelor pad, where he left his military neatness at the door.
They were both Marines. But where she had completed her tour of duty and accepted honorary discharge, Dari remained a reservist and thus could be called back at any time. And he had been.
“Would you feel better if you were being sent back out with me?”
She realized she would. “Yes.”
And that knowledge helped her relax.
“You’re good at that, you know,” she said, kissing his neck, tasting the salt of his sweat there from their hours-long sack session.
“I’m good at everything.”
She laughed. “I mean, you’re good at telling me exactly what I need to hear, exactly when I need it.”
She pulled back to look into his handsome face draped in shadows. It would be dawn soon…and shortly after that she would drive him to Petersen Air Base where he would catch a ride on the first transport out.
“I try,” he joked.
She smiled.
He kissed her leisurely. “I’m sure Lazarus will take a lot of your energy.”
Lazarus Security.
In her vulnerable state, the name stirred emotions both of sadness and hope…and served to distract her, however briefly, from the other more pressing issues at hand.
Was it really over a year ago that their friend Barry Lazaro had surrendered to the ultimate enemy?
Still, it seemed impossible. He had survived so much while they were on the front lines overseas. He’d been the most capable of them, the go-to guy, the one to lead the charge… Ironic that returning to civilian life had proven the one battle he’d ended up losing. Lazaro had been home only a couple of months when he’d been found hanging from his own shower-curtain rod, dead.
Megan went still, the memory almost too much for her to handle just then.
It was in Barry’s name the five surviving members of the elite team whose friendship was forever fused while fighting in Waziristan established Lazarus Security: her, Darius, Jason Savage, Lincoln Williams and Eli Stark.
Lord knew building the independent security company had taken all their energy over the past few months, along with the nonstop attention of the four active partners. She, Dari and Jason handled most of the organizational and grunt work. With his background in both the military and the FBI, Linc had the strong government ties that would bring in subcontract work normally seen to by active ranks. And Eli…
Well, Eli had taken the news of Lazaro’s death the hardest, offering up the financial resources with which to start the company, but insisting he remain a silent partner.
Megan wondered if they’d all known, going in, how hard they’d have to work if they’d still have done it.
Then again, seeing as they were all either ex-or semiactive military, hard work was no stranger to them. And they were poised to make some major inroads in the industry, with plans that needed to be implemented, personnel hired, compound expansion overseen.
One day Lazarus Security would serve as the ultimate tribute to a fallen hero, a man they’d all known and loved.
“It won’t be the same without you here,” she whispered now to Dari.
He smoothed his hand over her hair and down her back, eliciting a delicious shiver that left her wishing his fingers even farther south.
“Don’t you dare meet anyone else over there.” Her words were barely audible, and so unlike anything she’d usually say, they surprised her.
But Dari seemed to take them in stride as he chuckled and easily slid her to lie on top of him, toe to toe, nose to nose, setting fire to every inch of her. “I have more than I can handle with you….”
He kissed her, much the same way he had the first time while they were stationed together in Afghanistan two years ago. The night had been cool and airless…the sex sweaty and hot. She hadn’t been able to get enough of him then…and nothing had changed. No matter how often they made love, she wanted more.
She knew he wouldn’t stray. It wasn’t the way he was made. They didn’t come any truer than Darius Folsom. It was the second thing she loved about him.
The first was how he touched her…
His fingers firmly budged in the direction she’d been craving, cupping her bottom then moving toward her shallow crevice. She caught her breath.
“How about you?” he asked.
She swallowed hard, barely able to concentrate over the rush of white-hot sensation. “Me?”
“Mmm…do I have to worry about you being here, all by yourself?”
