Today’s #ThrowBackThursday feature is TRICKS.
Tricks is a standalone romantic suspense novel in the Take It Off series. All the novels in this series are standalones.
Love can play tricks on your heart…
After serving several years in the United States Marine Corps, Sergeant Tucker Patton decides to hang up his uniform and go to work at a private investigative firm owned by his buddy. His boxes are packed and he’s got one foot out the door when a phone call changes everything.
Instead of going to North Carolina, he heads to New York City to literally step into the life of his twin brother, who died under suspicious circumstances. But pretending to be someone else isn’t easy.
Especially when the person you’re supposed to be is wanted dead.
Not only that, but he’s going from being blissfully single to living with his brother’s woman. An uptight, no-nonsense lawyer.
Charlotte Rose Carter doesn’t have time for fun and games. She graduated with honors and made all the right moves fresh out of college to jumpstart her career as a successful young lawyer. She even snagged the most eligible bachelor in New York City’s corporate world.
So what if her and Max’s relationship isn’t burning up the sheets? So what if their life doesn’t read like a chapter from a sizzling romance novel? This is the real world, and in the real world that stuff is just fantasy.
Until it isn’t.
Suddenly, just the slightest touch or a single glance from Max has her heart doing somersaults. Suddenly, the lackluster relationship begins to spark, and Charlotte finds herself tied in a knot of desire.
But she has no idea about the tricks being played right under her perky little nose.
Read Chapter 1 of TRICKS now!
1
Tucker
My mouth felt like it was packed with cotton. You know that dry but slightly sticky feeling? My tongue moved and it brushed against the roof of my mouth and the cotton came with it.
I grunted and opened my eyes only to immediately shut them again. I wasn’t ready for morning. Shit, how much did I drink last night? My body was still heavy with sleep, my limbs not wanting to get up and cooperate.
One of my arms was flung wide and I pulled it in to rub a hand over my sleepy face, hoping it would wake me up a little more. I knew I needed to get up… I just couldn’t think of what the reason was.
Something shifted beside me and I felt the covers lift and drop. The soft sound of footsteps reached my ears. It wasn’t a something. It was a someone.
I went home with someone last night.
Opening my eyes again I glanced to my left in time to see a woman wearing nothing but a pink thong step into the adjoining bathroom and quietly close the door. Well, now I remembered the reason I went home with her.
Her ass was luscious.
Vague memories of last night filtered through my hazy beer soaked memory of skin against skin and a low seductive laugh. What was her name again? Veronica? Violet? Shit, I hadn’t a clue.
Tossing away the covers I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and looked down. I was buck-ass naked. I looked around for my clothes which were lying in a pile near the door of the bedroom.
Must have been in a hurry to get naked. I smirked. I was always in a hurry to get naked. Especially when I was with a woman with an ass like that.
I glanced back at the closed bathroom door as the toilet flushed and the tap water turned on. That was my cue to leave. I had my boxers and jeans on when the door opened.
Rushing out the door with shirt in hand seemed a little immature, so I turned. And man did I get an eyeful. There was no way in hell her boobs were real. They were too perfect. Large round, creamy globes sat high atop her chest. They gave way to a flat stomach with a light reflecting stud in her bellybutton. The pink thong was still in place, but left little to imagination and her long, tan legs stretched all the way to the floor.
Her hair was dark, her features exotic and her lips were full.
Even drunk I had good taste.
I motioned with my chin, a little what’s up gesture, and draped my t-shirt over my shoulder.
“Leaving so soon?” she asked, padded across the carpeting toward me.
I didn’t even pretend to not look at her chest. Shit, this had been a one night stand. She could think I was a dog all she wanted. Hell, she’d be right.
Course, she clearly wasn’t the type of girl to be offended by my wandering eyes. She walked right up to me, wound her arms around my bare waist and pressed those perfect tits right up against my chest. Then she rubbed around like she was a cat and I was her scratching pole.
“Don’t you want to stay for breakfast?” she purred.
“Much as I’d like to, I can’t. Got somewhere to be.”
The woman who’s name might or might not be Veronica pulled back and sashayed her ass across the room to a wooden nightstand by the bed. She bent at the waist, giving me the perfect view of said bottom as she scrawled something on a piece of paper.
I considered staying longer, but if I did that she’d think this wasn’t just a one night stand. Girls were complicated like that. If our one night stretched into morning they got ideas. Ideas that maybe they would be the one to capture the guy no one else could. They would read something more into morning sex than the sex that occurred late at night when both our tongues tasted of beer.
I might sleep around, I might like a variety of ladies but I never gave false hope where there was none. I might be a dog but I wasn’t an ass.
Sweet cheeks (I had to call her something) swayed her hips back across the room and held out a scrap of paper to me. “Call me.” She said, flipping her hair behind her shoulder.
I glanced at her chest one more time then stuffed the piece of paper in the front pocket of my jeans.
She leaned up and pressed her lips to mine, slipping her tongue between my lips. I kissed her back quickly and then slowly pulled away. Reaching around, I palmed her ass. “Thanks for last night.” I said and walked out of her bedroom without even looking back.
By the front door I found my shoes and leather jacket and quickly finished dressing before stepping out into the cold morning air. I wasn’t going to miss this cold. I was actually looking forward to moving on, trying something new.
The windshield on my truck had a thin layer of frost covering the glass, instead of getting out and scraping it I blasted the head and let the engine idle, letting it melt on its own. While I waited I pulled out the already crumpled piece of paper I was just given. Smoothing it out I looked down, my eyes skimming over the number I was never going to call to look for her name.
I laughed and crumpled the paper back up and tossed in on the floor of the truck.
Rachel.
Damn. I hadn’t even been close.
Read the rest of TRICKS now!
Tricks (Take It Off Book 6)
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