Excerpt
“Dani-girl.” His voice, that rich rumble of masculine
excellence, washes over me and I shiver again before cursing under my
breath. The rumble of his low laughter
tells me that he definitely didn’t miss that little move.
Kill me
now.
“Hey,
Coh,” I say with a smile. “What brings
you in? Last minute, I might add.” I pat the chair before walking around and
holding the back while he sits down.
When his
scent hits my nose, I almost come on the spot.
Lord, he smells good. I wonder
what he would smell like while his body covered mine, all sweaty from hours of
good lovemaking. I run my fingers
through the longer lengths on the top and feel my cheeks heat slightly,
thinking about doing the same when his face is buried between my legs.
“…needed
a trim.”
Shit. I missed what he said because, naturally, I
was thinking about him naked. Naked and
thrusting into my body. Naked and
feasting between my spread thighs.
“You
feeling okay? I thought Nate said you
were better?”
“Uh, I’m
fine. Just—is it hot in here?” I fan my face and avoid his eyes.
He’s
silent, so I take that as a sign that it’s safe to bring my attention back to
him.
Big
mistake there. His knowing eyes are
boring right into mine. The chocolate
depths sparkling in a way that makes it clear he has a good idea about where my
mind was going.
“Did you
hear what I said, Dani-girl?”
“Of
course I did, Cohen. What, did you think
I was standing here daydreaming?” I joke.
“Well,
yeah, that’s exactly what I think.” His
eyes darken and he smirks a devilish grin.
“Did you know you talk in your sleep, Dani?” he asks, and I drop my
comb.
Oh,
God. Shut up, shut up, shut up. This is not happening. No way.
“No, I
don’t,” I childishly snap.
“Dani,
you do. So, yeah, I do think you were
standing there daydreaming. Want to know
why?” He uses his booted foot to move
his chair so that he’s facing me, and then he leans in so that his face is
dangerously close to mine. Even when
he’s seated, his head is almost level with my own. Curse my horizontally challenged self. “While you were zoning off into space with
your fingers running through my hair, you had this smile on your lips. The same smile you had the other day when you
were dreaming. About me, Dani. And don’t deny it, because you don’t moan my
name if you’re dreaming about another man.
Yes, Dani, you very much do talk in your sleep.” He smiles again before leaning back and
looking down to his phone. “Clean up my
neck please, cut the length off the top, and give me a buzz on the sides. Other than that, you’re clear to continue
with your thoughts.”
I must
have been standing there like an idiot because he looks up from his phone,
laughs to himself, and, with one tan hand, reaches out and pushes my mouth
closed.
“You’re
going to catch flies that way, Dani-girl.
One day, maybe you can clue me in on what those dreams are about.”
Drives me
insane, the control he has over me.
There isn’t a single person in the world, other than Cohen, who can turn
me into a ridiculously stupid, sputtering fool.
My normal confidence disappears.
And clearly, he isn’t as oblivious to my feelings as I originally
thought.
How in
the hell am I supposed to handle this?
Wait a
minute. Cohen or not, I’m not going to
let him pull my strings when I know he is just doing this to make me feel
uncomfortable.
So, time
to call his bluff.
“Why? You planning on doing something about it?”
He looks
up sharply, clearly not having expected me to actually say something in return
since he was going for shock value.
“Try me,”
he demands, his voice thick and even deeper than normal.
I throw
my head back and reach out to run my fingers thought his hair again, just
barely suppressing the shivers. Curling
my fingers slightly so that I can grab a good hold, I lean in and pull his head
back at the same time. With my nose just
a hair away from his and our breaths mingling together, I say, “Cohen, you
couldn’t handle the truth of my thoughts when it comes to you and we both know
it. So how about you let me know when
you’re ready for me to clue you in.” I give his hair a light tug and smile when he
swallows loudly and shifts in his seat.
“Ready for that trim?” I ask with a wink, and I’m rewarded with his
groan.
I have no
idea how I do it, but I manage to get through his cut without coming
unglued. I can see Lyn trying to get my
attention from across the room. Stella
had to leave after she overheard my words to Cohen because her giggles were
getting the best of her. Cohen has
remained silent the whole time. His eyes
though… They’re speaking louder than his
words ever could.
They
haven’t left my reflection in the mirror since I started. I can feel them every time I shift. When I stopped to go grab another comb after
I dropped my fourth one, I felt his gaze follow me across the room to Stella’s
station. The few times I stopped cutting
to meet his eyes, the heated promise written all over his face almost did me
in. I almost just said ‘fuck it’ and
climbed on his lap to have a go regardless of the people watching our every
move.
I finish
the last buzz of my clippers around his right ear and move to brush all the
stray hair off. “All done,” I say softly
and unclip his cape.
He
stands, shoving his phone in the back pocket of his jeans, and walks over to
stand in front of me. I continue to
pretend I’m busy with the cape I just removed, brushing stray hairs off here
and there, when his hand comes up, his finger and thumb hitting my chin, and my
face is lifted until I have no choice but to look in his eyes.
“Do not
tease me, Dani. It’s not a game you want
to play if you don’t intend to follow through.”
“I-I
wasn’t… I wouldn’t,” I stammer.
“You did,
and I have no doubt you’ll have the brilliant idea to do it again. The next time you allude to those dirty
thoughts I know you have about me, don’t think for a second that I won’t drag
you to the closest bed to show you just how fucking dirty they’ll get.” He leans close, his scent hitting my
nostrils, and I involuntarily inhale deeply, earning me a rumbled chuckle. “What you don’t know, Dani—because contrary
to what you think, you don’t know me well enough to assume what having me would
really be like. But I promise you this:
every little thought that you have had that causes you to moan my name while
scissoring those perfect legs back and forth, praying for completion—it would
be so much hotter than you could ever imagine.”
He gives me a soft, sweet kiss against my temple that has fire racing
from that spot all over my body until it ends in the awareness that I’m pretty
sure I just came in my pants.
Unexpected
Fate by Harper Sloan
Prologue
“Axel Reid, don’t you dare!” my mom exclaims. Then she yelps when my daddy
charges through the front door.
“Don’t I dare what, Princess? No way that
boy is going near my girl. Look at
him! He looks like he can’t wait to
creep on my daughter!”
“Well, there is no need to scare him to
death!” she mocks.
My cheeks heat instantly when I see Dane
start backing away from the porch. My
hopes of being able to actually go to
my senior prom are starting to go up in flames.
Poof.
Just like that.
Not that I should be surprised about
it. Mom did her best to calm Daddy down,
but we should have known better. He took
one look at me and stormed over, only to return ten minutes later looking like
he does now.
So embarrassing.
“You need to stop this nonsense right
now, you big lug, or you’ll be sleeping on the couch,” Mom fumes.
“Like hell I will, woman!” Daddy roars at
my mom.
I watch her face get sharp. He stops long enough to sling one of—that’s
right, ONE of—the rifles he’s carrying over his shoulder, where it lands next
to the other one he already has over his other shoulder.
Only my mom would be brave enough to deal
with him when he’s in “Protect Dani from everything with a penis” mode. He looks absolutely ridiculous. He has two hunting rifles now hanging by
their leather straps over each shoulder.
He has two handguns strapped to each thick thigh, two on each side of
his belt, and various knives along the way.
His shirt, which he thinks is hilarious to wear when I attempt to go out
on a date, says I kill things…and eat
them. I know it’s a hunting
shirt—for animals, not teenage boys—but Dane doesn’t.
Mom moves in front of him, standing in
the front doorway and blocking his path, where Dane is still slowly
retreating. She’s been dealing with this
way before they even had me.
He’s…protective. I guess that’s
the nicest way to put it. Well, she
calls him protective. However, I call it
possessive, overbearing, controlling, demanding, and jerky.
“This is her senior prom, Ax. You wouldn’t let her go last year.” She
pauses when he grunts. “And I’m sorry, but you won’t be stopping her this
year. She has a right to experience
this. And Dane is a nice boy. Right, Dane?” she yells over her shoulder.
“Uhh…” he stammers, causing my daddy to
grunt some more.
“The boy doesn’t even know how to talk,
Izzy. I bet he will be nothing but
handsy and think with his little pecker.
Nope. No way. Not near my baby girl.”
Oh.
My. God. I wish I could just fall into a hole right
now. I try to see over my parents to find
out if Dane heard that, but with Daddy basically being a giant, that’s not
happening.
“You did not just say that!” I yell at
his back.
Daddy turns around, his movements awkward
with how many weapons he has strapped to his body. His green eyes, so like my own, slant and
harden. He looks down at my dress for
the thousandth time since I came downstairs and doesn’t even bother hiding his
displeasure that it’s showing too much of my body. Even if it is about as tasteful as it gets.
My strapless, red dress has a sweetheart
neckline, and everything he calls my “girly bits” is covered. There isn’t really any cleavage. Well, okay, there is some, but surely with my
lack of being busty, you couldn’t even call what is showing “cleavage.” His
first problem was with how much of my legs was showing. Then I made the mistake of turning around
without my wrap on. That’s when he saw
that the dress was completely backless to my bra line. Well, what it would be if I had been wearing
one. Which is clearly when he lost his
mind.
“You look just like your mother did that
night twenty years ago when we finally came back to each other. Right down to those strappy shoe things. And
I guarantee you, Danielle Reid, any teenage boy who doesn’t bat for the other
team will be thinking thoughts I’ll cut his dick off for. No.
You aren’t going with that boy, and that’s final.”
I harden my eyes, and his narrow even
further.
I put my hands on my hips, and he squares
his shoulders, his rifles clinking together.
I raise one brow, and he mirrors the
action.
“Daddy.”
“Dani.”
“I’ll cry.”
“No, you won’t. You have more balls than that.”
“Want to bet?” I attempt to muster up some tears, knowing
that he won’t be able to handle them, but before I can force the first one out,
my brother jumps into my line of sight and blocks our standoff.
“Yo, Dane! You just run along now. Dani is unfortunately feeling a little under
the weather. Ebola. Or the flu. I don’t
know. It’s really ugly and you probably
don’t want to be around this. The boils—they
could pop at any moment.”
“You did not just do that,” I heatedly
whisper, fuming at his nerve.
Nate turns and smirks at me. “Oh I just
did.”
“I can’t believe you two!” I spin to look at the one person who can help
me. “Mom, seriously?”
Her expression softens, and she just
shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Dani. I tried.”
“You two,” I start, pointing between my
older brother and father. “You just
can’t leave it alone? I’ll be eighteen
in a few months. What are you jerks
going to do then?”
“You’re not dating, Danielle. Not ever.”
“Oh yeah, Daddy? And how realistic is that crap?”
“Watch your mouth, little princess.”
“Mom?”
“I’m so sorry, Dani.” She walks over and wraps me in her small
arms.
I could probably really cry now a lot
easier than when I was trying to fake it, but I’ve never been one of those
girls who weep constantly. It would be
easier to just go upstairs, take off the dress mom and I spent hours looking
for, scrub off the light makeup she helped me apply, and pretend this night
didn’t happen.
***
An hour later, I’m sitting in my bedroom,
still wearing my perfect dress. My
makeup is still done and my hair is still flowing in long waves. And I’m no less mad at the men in my life
than I was earlier. I’ve considered
climbing out my window. I’ve considered
asking my best friends, Lyn and Lila, to come help me escape. But what would be the point? Rambo-Dad already scared away my date, the
only boy left in school who had been willing to ask me even though his friends
had warned him about my father.
I lie down on my bed and stare up at the
ceiling. Maybe I should go away for
college. I planned on living at home
while I attended Georgia Tech, but there is no way I can deal with this stuff
any longer. If my father had things his
way, I would be shipped off to become a nun.
Or he would buy an island and make it an all-girls cult.
“Uhggggg!” I yell to the empty room.
“Seriously, Dani-girl, things can’t be
that bad.”
I jump up when I hear the deep, gravelly,
insanely sexy voice coming from my bedroom door. That voice.
My lord. The things it alone does
to me should be classified as illegal.
My hair slaps me in the face, a good
handful landing in my open mouth, and I hastily pull it out before I turn to
where he is standing.
My lord, he’s beautiful. He’s always been. My heart speeds up when I take in his
smirking face and the mischief dancing in his brown eyes.
“Cat got your tongue?”
I shake my head.
“Speechless?”
I shake it again.
“Do you really have some flesh-eating,
boil-slash-Ebola-like sickness?” he laughs.
I narrow my eyes at him, and his rich
laughter booms through the room.
“I’m just kidding, Dani-girl. Come on. Get yourself ready and let’s go rock
this prom.”
My jaw drops again. “What?”
For the first time, I notice that he’s
dressed in a perfectly tailored tux. My
eyes travel down his tall form to his shining, black dress shoes. On the way back up, my eyes hit the corsage
spinning around his finger before I look back up into those gorgeous eyes.
“Let’s go, beautiful.”
“Does Daddy know you’re here?” I ask, not
moving from my spot.
He sighs, steps into my room, and walks
over. His cologne, Gucci Black, wraps
around me. He’s worn the same scent for
years. I perversely sniff it every time
I hit the mall with Lyn and Lila. That
scent—it’s my undoing.
He grabs one of my hands and gives my
knuckles a kiss before placing the corsage around my wrist. He gives my hand a squeeze before letting
go. Placing his strong hands on my shoulders,
he presses down until I’m seated on my bed.
Kneeling before me, he takes my feet one by one and fastens the straps
of my black heels before standing and grabbing my hands, again, to pull me to
my feet.
The whole time, I act like a freak and
just gape at him.
What in the hell is going on?
“Ready?” he asks.
“Uhhh…”
“Right. You’re ready,” he laughs, grabs
my hand, and pulls me through the house, down the stairs, and into the entryway
of the house, where my parents are waiting.
Mom has her camera ready, forcing us to
take some pictures, for all of which I’m sure I’m just standing there in a
daze. I think I smiled in them, but I
was too busy trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Daddy smiles big and triumphantly the whole
time, like he’s won some battle here.
“Oh, good. You got here,” Nate mumbles through a
sandwich he’s stuffing down his throat.
I shake out of my stunned stupor and look
over at him. “You did this?” I ask with disbelief.
“Well, duh. Can’t have my little sister miss her prom
because of some boils. Plus, I knew this
guy,” he says, pointing at our father, “wouldn’t mind him.” He takes another bite
before he looks over my shoulder. “And I
know he isn’t going to try to pet the
cat.”
“Nathaniel Gregory!” Mom gasps.
“What?
Why do you think Dad acts like he does?
Just because I’m willing to say the words doesn’t mean you have to freak
out.”
I look over at my mom, who has turned
bright red.
Daddy laughs at her embarrassment and
pulls her into his arms. “Are you sure
we didn’t drop that one a few times as a baby?”
She slaps his hard stomach and shakes her
head. “You look beautiful, honey. Have
fun, okay?”
I smile at her and move my eyes to Daddy
to judge his mood.
He just smiles at me. “I trust him.
He won’t let any of those pimple-faced, prepubescent boys touch a
beautiful hair on your head. Have fun,
sweetheart.”
I walk over and give them both a hug,
standing up on my toes as far as a can to whisper my gratitude in his ear. He’s annoying, overprotective, and possessive
of his girls, but I love him and I know he comes from a good place.
“Uh, excuse me? Do I not get any little-sister love
here? I’m the one running this show, you
know?”
“You’re such a dork, Nate,” I laugh and
give him a hug before turning back to my date.
He’s standing by the door, talking in low
tones to my daddy. I can’t hear him, but
he’s still smiling, so I’m guessing there isn’t any talk about dismemberment
going on. He looks over, his smile
deepening and the lines around his eyes crinkling. Something moves behind his eyes that darkens
them slightly, but he looks back over at Daddy, finishing up their
conversation.
“Ready, Dani-girl?” he asks a few minutes
later, making my heart speed up again.
Holy.
Crap.
“Yeah. I’m ready.” Or at least as ready as I’ll ever be.
**
That night, while dancing to Brett
Young’s “Kiss by Kiss,” I knew I would never be the same. I could feel the jealous waves coming off
every female in the room as he held
me in his arms. Of course, I had a man
and not a boy as my date. Five years
older than I am and very obviously not a teenager.
Being held in his arms was a dream come
true. His scent invaded my lungs with
every inhale. His eyes twinkled as his
smile held me hostage. I knew I would
never love a man as much as I love him.
Yeah.
That was the night I confirmed what I had always known. What I had always felt.
Cohen Cage owned my heart and I never
wanted it back.
Meet
Cohen & Danielle in the newest stand alone
in the
Hope Town Series by Harper Sloan!
Nook: http://bit.ly/16PbeyN
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Unexpected Fate
(Stand alone)
Have you
ever felt like you were living your life for a future that was predetermined?
Like there was some bigger picture you just prayed you would someday see
clearly? That picture has been crystal clear to me since I was old enough to
recognize it for just what it was.
Or I
should say recognize him for who he was.
I’ve
loved Cohen Cage since I was a small child. He’s been my everything for the
last twenty-two years. I’ve loved him through every girlfriend he’s ever
brought home. Through his college years and then mine. I’ve loved him through
two deployments. And ever since the day I told him how I felt, he’s acted like
I’m a stranger.
My name
is Danielle Reid, and it’s time for me to get my man.
Our
future is an unexpected fate, and no matter what our parents, siblings, and
friends say…it’s going to be worth every second of the fight to make it happen.
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About the Author:
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Harper lives
in small town Georgia just a short drive from her hometown of Peachtree City.
She (and her 3 daughters) enjoy ruling the house they dubbed 'Estrogen Ocean',
much to her husband’s chagrin. Harper has a borderline unhealthy obsession with
books; you can almost ALWAYS find her with her eReader attached. She enjoys bad
reality TV and cheesy romantic flicks. Her favorite kind of hero--the super
alpha kind!
Harper
started using writing as a way to unwind when the house went to sleep at night;
and with a house full of crazy it was the perfect way to just relax. It didn't
take long before a head full of very demanding alphas would stop at nothing to
have their story told.
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