Code Name: Nina's Choice (Warrior's Challenge)

CODE NAME: NINA’S
CHOICE

A Warrior’s Challenge
series

Book Three

Natasza Waters

Sensual Romance

Secret Cravings Publishing

www.secretcravingspublishing.com

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A
Secret Cravings Publishing Book

Sensual Romance

Code Name: Nina’s Choise

Copyright ©
2014
 
Natasza
Waters

E-book ISBN:
978-1-63105-197-5

First E-book Publication:
 
May 2014
 

Cover design by Dawné Dominique

Edited by Tamara Hoffa

Proofread by Laurie White

All cover art and logo copyright ©
2014 by Secret Cravings Publishing

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
This
literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without
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All characters and events in this
book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is
strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER

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www.secretcravingspublishing.com

Dedication

For Micheal, Deanna, Mark and Rick.

You allowed a childless woman to know
what a mother
feels like. Every moment is cherished.

Acknowledgments

Thank you Tamara
Hoffa, your magic wand continues to make my novels sparkle.

Matthieu Grondin,
thank you for gracing the cover of Code Name: Nina’s Choice, and bringing Petty
Officer Mace Callahan to life. May all your dreams come
true.

Luis Rafael,
photographer extraordinaire. You capture a person’s soul and express a story
throug
h pose, not prose.

My street team,
Waters’ Warriors, as time goes on we have drawn closer, shared laughter and the
challenges life brings to each of us. I am so grateful to you all.

Tonya Smalley, my BFF
so far away, but a thousand miles can’t keep us apar
t.
Your sharp eyes, warm heart and words of support never cease to amaze me. Thank
you for reading the draft of CNNC and for your honesty.

TJ Mackay, Chief
Editor of InD’tale magazine, patron saint of Indie authors, my boss and my
friend. You shared your thirty years of experience in the literary world with
me.
Your pulse, always in tune with
the reader.
The hurdles in this book are gone beca
use you gave me a new bearing. Thank you.
 

Finally, to the United
States Navy SEALS and the warriors around the world who stand boldly in the way
of our enemies, but never lose grip of their humanity. May you all have loving
arms waiting for you at
home.

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*
Trouble With a Cowboy
, a western, erotic romance:

18 wheels
had her heart until one hard-up cowboy found her kickin' up her heels and
propositions her to take his bull to Vegas.

Jacie
Hawkins drives big wheelers for a livin'. Something not a lot of women do.
Littleton Oklahoma is just a dry stopover for a few hours of rest and
relaxation at the nearest bar. Jacie needs to find a hot cowboy to release some
of her pent up frustrations on for the night, but wannabe's aren't her style.

Tucker
Marshall needs a big-rig driver to haul his prize bull to National Finals Rodeo
and he needs one fast. Who would have thought he'd find one shootin' pool at
the local bar dressed to kill and takin' numbers?

Can some
slashed tires and an ornery bull bring two hard-headed people together for some
fun in the sun and a little more?

**
Blood Kisses (Nightwalkers 1)
,
paranormal erotic romance:

Ashleigh Brown, the author of
the popular Nightwalkers series, lives a quiet life free of the limelight.
 
She keeps her real identity secret by
writing under the pen name, Victoria Allure.
 
She soon finds herself in a bind when
she's kidnapped by a group of handsome vampires seeking Victoria.
 
She then agrees to meet their Master,
who's a huge fan of her books.
 
But
instead of meeting him, she accidentally crosses paths with her rock star
crush.
 
He is the sexy muse behind
Nightwalkers and the man she based the hero in the series upon. She would do
anything to meet him but little does she know her crush has a secret...

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Beth Walker

CODE NAME: NINA’S CHOICE

A
Warrior’s Challenge series

Book Three

Natasza Waters

Copyright ©
2014

Chapter One

Nina Samson sat at the
kitchen table, knees
jiggling like a jackhammer.
Watching a pot didn’t make it boil faster. Glaring at her phone wouldn’t create
a message or land a plane any faster either. Tinman and Tadpole, two SEAL team
members waited at the San Diego airport for one very brave, but batte
red warrior. Her phone beeped. Snatching it up, she gazed
at the text from Tinman.

Heads-up,
incoming SEAL.

Petty Officer Mace
Callahan was home.

She remembered the day
Mace walked into Base Command with the rest of his squad, literally minutes
after
she’d arrived in Coronado. Her friend and
mentor, Kayla Banks had been hired almost a year earlier as an analyst for the
U.S. Navy. Nina followed in her wake and had applied for a job when another
vacancy was posted.

As Kayla introduced
Alpha Squad, Mace h
ad hung back, standing in an aura
of quiet, handsome strength that tied Nina’s tongue in knots. She learned
quickly that Mace was the noblest, most compassionate, not to mention sexiest
man, she’d ever met. Within hours she could read him like a book, and
she wanted the whole encyclopedia. His
boy-next-door features with a
knock-a-girl-on-her-ass smile only made Nina desire him more. Rolling,
hard-earned muscles roped down his body. Nothing new to her, after working for
years with the Canadian Navy, but whe
n their gazes
collided his kind eyes made her want to shimmy aboard and take the express
train straight to ecstasy with him. A man making her scatterbrained from hello
hadn’t happened for nine years.

From the second she
arrived in Coronado the shit had hit
the proverbial
fan. She’d learned a serial killer was leaving a trail of women behind him, and
her friend Kayla was on his hit list. Nina joined that list and was put into
protective quarantine with Kayla. They were guarded twenty-four-seven by SEALs,
but
Alpha Squad in particular had closed ranks around
them. The captain in charge of the West Coast SEAL teams had fallen madly in
love with Kayla, and their baby was due in September.

She’d only known Mace
for a couple weeks before he and Alpha Squad were de
ployed
to Syria to rescue an Egyptian diplomat. Mace left for the mission in early
February. At the end of April bad luck struck. Mace was injured. He’d been
transported to a hospital in Germany, barely alive. Captain Redding, Coronado
Base Command’s Offic
er in Charge and her ranking
officer, had given her five days leave. When she arrived in Berlin, she hadn’t
expected to come face to face with a very angry Mace.

Kayla had accompanied
her because Captain Austen had been badly injured as well, but within an
hour Kayla had left and flown back to the states. Minutes
after landing in San Diego she’d disappeared, and most people thought the Blood
Shark, the serial killer slaughtering women on NAB
Naval
Amphibious Base
Coronado, had claimed her as his next victim
. Captain
Austen still searched for her friend, never caving in to doubt.

Everything around Nina
had gone FUBAR in a very short period of time. In the last three weeks she’d
considered packing up her bags and heading back to Canada numerous times. She
miss
ed her daughter, and feared for Kayla, but it was
the man about to walk through the door and her stubbornness that kept her feet
rooted in U.S. soil.

While Mace remained in
Berlin under the doctor’s care, she’d tried to contact him, but he wouldn’t
take he
r calls or respond to her texts. Tony “Tinman”
Bale, another member of Team One Alpha Squad, gave her updates on his progress.
His injuries had taken him down, but not out. The doctors said he’d be fine
with therapy, but Mace didn’t believe it, especially
since
his groin had been badly injured, leaving a guy’s most prized possession
unresponsive.

Nina’s thoughts
meandered to a night before the squad left for Syria. Kayla and Captain Austen
had a meltdown of cataclysmic proportions. Nina learned a few things
for certain that night. The infamous SEAL named Thane
“Ghost” Austen loved her friend beyond words, but what landed like an
unexploded grenade in her lap was his team sniper, Mace Callahan.

Once the excitement
died down, she and Mace scrammed for dinner t
o give
Kayla and Ghost some privacy. They never made it past the beach. They’d
wandered down to take a walk by the water, and eventually sat down against a
log above the tide line. Mace stared off in the distance with a pronounced
wrinkle on his brow.

“Mac
e, she’s
going to be okay.”

“How?” he said, his jaw tightening.
“She’s so beat up inside.”

“Hey.” She rested her hand on his
shoulder, and her heart took up a galloping beat, feeling the marble-like
strength beneath his shirt. “Kayla’s PTSD does things to
her that would make most people curl up and die. Don’t
confuse her barriers for coldness. She’s the most giving person, and she’s
always been there for me and my daughter, Gabbs. I think Captain Austen will
help her conquer her demons.” She shifted to get
away
from the sharp shell sticking in her left butt cheek, but what she couldn’t do
was shake the growing need for Mace’s hands to roam across her skin. “From what
I can tell, Kayla is totally
swooned
by your captain.”

“It tears me up when she has a panic
attack. I’m trained to keep my concentration, but I can’t
when she’s thrashing around to save herself, and I can’t do a damn thing for
her.”

“I know. It isn’t easy to watch.” She
paused to stare out at the gentle swells crawling up the sand. No loud cracks
or bangs from exercising recruits invaded the air. The
California wind brushed a tepid cloth around her bare shoulders and arms. “She
told me about you. Said you were her best friend. I was actually a little
jealous.” A grin slipped onto Mace’s lips and h
er
heart took another large step toward a big, fiery hole. “I think Captain Austen
is enough of a man to hold her down until she succumbs to his will.” She
swallowed suddenly, realizing what that sounded like. It had a double meaning,
and she was sure her
desire had just one-upped her.

With any luck she would be working in
Coronado soon. She shouldn’t be panting over the SEAL sitting beside her, but
his essence saturated her like standing under a waterfall.

“Ghost is crazy in love with the woman,”
Mace said
, turning to look at her. “He’s not an easy
man, but they see something in each other, and they both want to hold on to
it.”

Under the moonlight Mace’s beautiful
eyes embedded hooks in Nina like an anchor catching on the seabed. How could a
warrior have su
ch empathy in his gaze?

“Ghost lost his heart to her from the
first second he saw her.”

He fingered a small pebble, rolling it
slowly with his thumb. Her inner minx imagined him doing that to her breasts.
Damn! Stop! “She’s ignoring it, but I know she feel
s
it.”

 
“I know she does, but they’re like two
typhoons colliding in the Pacific. They didn’t see each other coming, and when
they met on the same track it turned into the perfect storm. They resisted each
other for no good reason.” His voice dropped off w
hen
she could only stare at him. Mace’s head tilted and he blinked as if trying to
remember what he was going to say. “I think I know why he changed; why he
couldn’t resist her.” He swallowed deeply, his gaze intensifying. “You are
breathtaking, Nina, and
I don’t think I can resist
you. Nor do I want to.”

Those few words slammed into her. The
immediate heat between her thighs made her shift in the sand.

“Nina.”

He growled her name, carried on a wave
of need. “Yeah,” she whispered back, trapped in a cocoon c
ompletely woven by the sound of his voice.

He ran his tongue slowly across his
bottom lip. “Do you have any idea how exquisite you look under the moonlight?”

Her inner minx took control of her
tongue. “No, but I think I want you to show me.”

She’d watched
a mega-casino implode on TV once, the triggers set off in rapid fire. Concrete
and debris exploded out the windows, and the entire structure trembled before
it caved in. As Mace leaned over and traced her bottom lip with his tongue,
that’s exactly what ha
ppened to her.

Hands that were trained to kill gently
slid around her waist, his rough fingers meeting in the hollow of her back. As
soon as they grazed her skin, he went rigid and slammed her body against his.
The rocket fuel in her blood ignited. Tilting
his
head, he branded her with his mouth. Confidence flowed through his kiss into
her. Full lips nipped at the pulse in her neck. When he licked a sensitive spot
behind her ear, her heart stopped, and all good sense evaporated. Awash in this
man was like b
eing consumed from the inside out.

She was on her back, the sand pressing
its residual warmth against her body. As he yanked his shirt over his head, her
pulse deepened. Taut, sleek skin covered his powerful shoulders and abs. Her
tongue demanded she inves
tigate, as her hips arched
toward his with instinctive need. Normally vanilla sex didn’t do a thing for
her, but right now she wanted Mace any way he came.

Mace hovered above her. “I want you,
Nina,” he breathed on her lips.
“Right
here.
Right now.
Under t
he
stars.”

Talking wasn’t necessary. She swiveled
to her knees, leaped onto his lap, and pushed him over.

A sexy smile tightened his jaw. The
moonlight caught the craving in his half-lidded eyes and told her she wouldn’t
be disappointed. His fingers drifte
d beneath her
shirt with a slow, sensual crawl and she wanted to rip it off, but his warm
hand engulfed hers, thwarting her impatience.

Eyes too beautiful to be
legal,
dazed her. “Slowly, baby. I want to remember our first time. All of it.”

She wasn’t
known
for her patience, and his seductive order just rammed her pistons into carnal
overdrive. “I want you to take me now, hotshot.” She leaned over him, speaking
her words against his lips. “How does a warrior make love?”

His hips pressed against hers and
the bulge nudged against her core. “Until
we
both forget who we are, Nina.” His voice paralyzed her, allowing his thumb to
follow the contour of her breast. Skirting her nipple, it ached to be caressed.
“Until I’ve memorized every
beautiful curve.”
Mace i
nched
closer.
“Tasted all of you.”
Her breast became heavy with need as the evening shadow on his jaw grazed its
soft skin. A tremor of pole-shifting proportions turned her inside out with
desire. A pyroclastic blast of passion blew her mind as his full li
ps circled her nipple and he sucked it deep into his mouth
with a low moan of satisfaction.

A key in the door
jolted Nina from her thoughts. Her nerve endings squeezed shut, and her mouth
dried as she shot to her feet. In Berlin, Mace had told her to leave
him so many times she lost count. No matter what she
said,
and she’d said a lot, he remained
resolute, denying what was obviously something incredible between them. Since
Kayla had gone missing, she’d been trapped in Mace’s apartment by herself and
left t
o climb the walls. Her footprints and doubt
were all over them.

Today would be her
last shot at trying to make Mace see some sense. If not, she’d need to find
somewhere else to stay, because this was his home, not hers. The Blood Shark
was still killing wo
men and dumping them on the base.
Now
she
was on his radar. Yet, she didn’t care
about any of that, she only cared that her warrior was home.