Title: Cowboy
SEAL Homecoming
Author: Nicole
Helm
Series: Navy
SEAL Cowboys, #1
Pub Date: January
2, 2017
Three former Navy SEALs
Injured in the line of duty
Desperate for a new beginning…
Searching for a place to call their own.
Alex Maguire never thought he'd go home
again. The perfect soldier, the perfect leader, he's spent his whole life
running away from Blue Valley, Montana—but when a tragic accident bounces him
and two of his men out of the SEALs, there's nowhere left to turn but the ranch
he used to call his own…and the confusing, innocently beguiling woman who now
lives there.
Becca Denton's like nothing he could have
imagined. She's far too tempting for her own good, but when she offers to help
turn the ranch into a haven for injured veterans, he can't exactly say no.
He'll just need to keep his distance. But something in her big green eyes makes
Alex want to set aside the mantle of the perfect soldier and discover the man
he could have been…safe and whole within the shelter of her arms.
The Prodigal SEAL has come home.
NICOLE HELM writes
down-to-earth contemporary romance specializing in people who don’t live close
enough to neighbors for them to be a problem. When she’s not writing, she
spends her time dreaming about someday owning a barn. She lives with her
husband and two young sons in O’Fallon, Missouri.
Find Nicole
Online:
Website: http://www.nicolehelm.com/
Twitter: @NicoleTHelm
EXCERPT:
Alex remained frozen in place and
Becca didn’t know how to let go of him. How to step away. Even when he’d
ordered her not to kiss him, she didn’t know how to walk away.
Because
he hadn’t answered her question. Not fully. If he’d only tell her that…that all
he cared about was her well-being and safety. That this had nothing to do with
the attraction she felt, then she would give this up. She would go back
inside and sit with Mac and know that nothing with Alex was ever going to
happen.
But
he had to tell her. She needed to hear it from his lips to really be able to
give it up.
He
lifted the hand that had been hanging at his side and curled his long, blunt
fingers around her elbow. He removed her arm from around him, but as he pulled
her arm off and released her elbow, his fingers trailed—probably accidentally—down
her forearm.
It
jittered through her, like nerves and electrical shocks. Something swirling low
in her stomach, sparks rioting in her chest.
His
breath hitched, but his gaze didn’t meet hers as he pulled her other arm from
around him.
“I
don’t know what you’re trying to get at. I don’t know what other reason there
could be.”
But
he didn’t look at her, which was so weird. Alex always looked her in the
eye.
“You’re
lying.” Which she hadn’t meant to say out loud, but it was such a surprise to
see it. To read him so well and so easily. “You’re really bad at it.”
His
gaze finally met hers, and that she couldn’t read, whatever war was
going on in his dark depths.
“Maybe
you think I’m lying because that’s what you want.”
Which
was true, but there was too much lining up to her way of thinking. He’d brought
up not sleeping together this morning. Jack’s words—as drunken as they might
have been—the whole not looking her in the eye and shuddering when they
touched.
“Okay,
that is what I want.”
She
could tell she’d surprised him. That he’d expected her denial or maybe her to
stutter and scamper away, but she wasn’t going to do that. “I’m attracted to
you. Yup. Not going to deny it. You’re hot. You’re a good person—such a good
guy, even when you’re annoying the piss out of me. I feel comfortable around
you in a way I don’t with a whole heck of a lot of people. So, yeah, I’m not
going to stand here and try to deny it, because I am not a coward—but you are.”
The
shock written all over his face sharpened. “Excuse me?” he said, dangerously
calm.
Clearly
the word coward got under his skin. But that’s what he was being. Hiding
behind lies and whatever else. It was cowardly. She should know. She was
always a coward when it came to people.
Well,
not anymore.
“I
said you’re a coward,” she replied, giving a shrug she wished felt a little
more nonchalant. “You won’t admit you feel exactly the same way. Because you’re
afraid. Or is that for my protection too?”
He
took a deep breath, clearly trying to find some calm, but his eyes were furious
and his jaw was so tight it was a wonder it didn’t crack in half. Everything
about him vibrated with anger, and she felt powerful.
Her.
Becca Denton. She felt in charge and right. Not a doubt or a
second of uncertainty.
“A
coward, huh?” he finally muttered through gritted teeth, one of his hands
flexing into a fist and then open again.
“Yes.
A big ole fraidy-cat over the fact that you’ve got some feelings for your much
younger step—” But before she could get the remaining words out of her mouth,
he used the front of her shirt to jerk her against the hard wall of his much
larger body. She was too shocked to jump back or fend it off, and even though
nerves slammed through her, well, she liked being this close. Not just hugging
close, but pressing close.
Then
his mouth crushed against hers, hard and unrelenting, and whatever powerful
feeling she’d had evaporated on the spot. Incinerated completely. She didn’t
even have time to think about how she didn’t know how to do this. His hands
were in her hair, her hair, tangling and moving her head whichever darn
way he pleased.
She
grabbed for purchase, a little afraid her knees were wobbly, holding on for
dear life. Letting his lips and tongue lead hers, guide hers.
It
was fire and it was shock and it was good. It was good to be hollowed
out and feel as though she was filled with liquid gold. Shimmering and lazy. To
be pressed up against nothing but hard muscle and skilled mouth and know not a
thing could touch her here.
Not
a thing but him.
“Christ,
we can’t do this,” he muttered, but it was against her mouth, his arms banded
around her so that whether they could or not, they certainly were.
She
wanted to keep doing it. Experiencing it. Participate instead of just letting
it happen and soak it up—which was good, oh it was good, but she wanted
more.
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