If I had tried to walk away, she would’ve followed. Had she been the one to test our love in that way, I may not have been as brave.
Siren wound her arm through mine, and I kissed her forehead.
“Look,” she said, pointing out the window. “I can see the Blazing T!” She sighed and smiled. “I can’t wait to be home.”
In all the times I’d looked down at the same view as I flew back from missions around the world, I’d never felt the peace and contentment I heard in Siren’s voice. Not until today. “I can’t wait to be home either,” I said, for the first time, meaning every word.
Want more?
How about a free book?
Sign up for my newsletter and receive a free book!
CLICK HERE!
______________
Keep reading for a sneak peek at
Handled,
a spinoff from the Invincibles series written in
K. Bromberg’s Everyday Heroes World.
______________
Following that, is the sneak peek at
Bucked,
the next book in the Invincibles series.
Handled
I took a deep breath, making sure there were no holes in the story I was about to tell. I had to sell it and sell it good because the people I was lying to were trained to recognize even the most minute mistruths.
If I failed to convince any one of them, the house of cards I’d carefully built would come tumbling down.
“You better be fucking sure you can protect me, Cope,” the agent I’d handled since the beginning of both our careers said last night when I told him his arrest was scheduled for this morning.
“You’ve trusted me this far, don’t blow it now by panicking.”
“I’ll be the one locked up in a cell like a goddamn sitting duck.”
“Just keep your mouth shut and let me handle it like I always do. If you don’t, every risk we’ve taken in the last seven years will be for nothing.” I didn’t need to add that if he talked, I’d fucking kill him.
Download today!
Handled
Bucked
—Buck—
“How are you holding up?” I whispered in the ear of the woman standing beside me.
“About as well as you are,” she whispered back as we watched the woman I’d fallen hopelessly in love with walk down the aisle toward the man she was marrying instead of me.
My plus-one, Stella, and I had spent a couple of drunken nights drowning in our shared misery since she was equally in love with the groom. I was sure tonight would be no different.
We turned when Ali, the bride, reached Cope, the groom, who stood waiting with the minister who would marry them. It wasn’t the bride who captured my gaze, though. It was Stella. She looked so damn pretty today I almost swallowed my tongue when I picked her up at her apartment.
“Stop that,” she’d said, punching my arm.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me like I’m really your date.”
I wanted to tell her she really was my date and that she was breathtaking. But I wouldn’t put her on the spot like that. The woman, whose real name I didn’t know—I’d only heard her referred to as either TJ or Stella—had been in love with Sumner Copeland since the day I met her. It didn’t matter that it was unrequited.
Cope had given her the nickname Stella. All the more reason for me not to use it. Maybe today would be the day I stopped. Maybe it would also be the day I told TJ how I really felt about her, and that instead of being her convenient plus-one, I wanted to be the real thing.
I shook my head at my foolishness. Not only would she carry a torch for Cope for-fucking-ever, she was a city girl. Born and raised. I was the exact opposite. I’d grown up on a ranch, shoveling shit, and never able to get the dirt out from under my fingernails.
The thing we had in common, other than being in love with people who weren’t in love with us, was that we’d both traveled the world for our jobs.
She was an award-winning journalist, and up until recently, I had been an agent with the CIA. I’d retired but still worked in the business, just for a private intelligence firm instead.
That was how TJ and I met. I’d been assigned to an op involving asset protection—for Ali. TJ was covering a trial involving Cope, during which Ali’s safety had been compromised.
I glanced at my date again when the minister began the ceremony. Instead of looking at Cope, she was looking at me.
—Stella—
“You clean up good,” I’d said to Buck when he picked me up at my apartment. What I’d almost said instead was that he looked really fucking hot. So hot, I wanted to take his clothes off piece by piece and spend the afternoon exploring his naked body, rather than attending the wedding of the guy I’d spent the last few years secretly in love with.
Was that even true? Had I been in love with Cope, or was it just infatuation? Before Ali, his bride, was in his life, I’d had plenty of fantasies in which he was the star. Porn star, if I was honest.
I looked Buck up and down when I saw him doing the same thing to me. The man was every cowboy fantasy I’d ever had, come to life. Add in his scruffy beard and long hair, and he was the exact opposite of Sumner Copeland. No less hot. Actually, more so.
Unfortunately, one of the things Buck and Cope had in common represented the reason my hot cowboy fantasies would never come to life. They were both hopelessly in love with Ali Graham Mancuso, who in about fifteen minutes, would add Copeland to her name.
Why had I agreed to even come to the wedding? Especially with Buck? If I’d said no, I wouldn’t have been forced to watch the man I wished I’d had sex with at least
