At Your Service
Masters and Mercenaries~Topped,
Book 4
By Lexi Blake
Coming November 14, 2017
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.
When their passions collide,
these new lovers will be forced to confront Juliana’s past and come to terms
with Javier’s present. Will they find their way or will this reservation be
canceled at the last minute?
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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.
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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