Authors: Melissa Schroeder
Tags: #navy, #nurse, #marines, #military romance, #best friends to lovers, #melissa schroeder
“
You are going to marry me
because I’m not sure you’ll find another man to put up with that
smart mouth of yours.”
Bran walked through the hotel door
into the honeymoon suite and whistled. The drapes were open,
presenting them a view of DC sparkling in the night. The sitting
room had a couch and chair, along with a dining set that had
champagne and strawberries chilling on top of it. Flowers filled
the room, along with candles. “Not bad, Johnson,” the women in his
arms said. He grinned at her.
“
Dad pulled some strings
and got it for us. I guess I could take credit for it, but I won’t.
The candles and flowers were all his doing.”
She giggled and his heart danced. He
didn’t think he would ever get used to the sound of it, or the fact
that she was his.
“
I love you very much, Ms.
Keller-Johnson.”
She slipped her hand over his shoulder
to the base of his neck.
“
I love you very much,
too, Mr. Johnson.”
Then she kissed him. Soft, sweet and
enough to make him lose what little control he had left. From the
moment he had seen her walk down the aisle with her father, Bran
had been lost.
He set her on her feet and stepped
back to look at her. When she had chosen not to wear her navy
uniform, he had been somewhat confused. That is, until he saw the
slinky ivory dress. It hugged her curves and showed just enough of
her breasts to drive him insane. He’d wanted to tear it off of her
the moment he’d first seen her in it.
“
What?” she asked as her
smile dimmed.
He shook his head but didn’t even try
to hide his feelings. “You take my breath away.”
Her face pinkened and she grinned at
him. “You’re not too bad yourself.”
“
I’m glad your parents
gave up on the idea of a Florida wedding and came up
anyway.”
“
First, not very sexy
talking about my parents before we’re supposed to have hot monkey
sex for the first time as a married couple.”
He laughed.
“
And secondly, it wasn’t
my mom, just my dad. Mom hates Florida so she was cool with
it.”
“
Ah.” He pulled off his
dress jacket and laid it on the chair. Then, he started to undo his
bow tie and shirt. “Now, Tess, about that monkey sex.”
She squealed and turned to run. He
waited only a second before he followed her into the bedroom. He
easily caught up with her. Bran pulled her into his arms then
tumbled them both onto the bed. She was laughing when he kissed
her.
“
I love you,
Tess.”
Her eyes shimmered with happy tears.
“I love you too.”
Then, he went about showing her how
much he did love her.
* * * *
If you loved Tess and Bran, be sure to
leave a review!
From an early age, Melissa loved to
read. First, it was the books her mother read to her including her
two favorites, Winnie the Pooh and the Beatrix Potter books. She
cut her preteen teeth on Trixie Belden and read and reviewed To
Kill a Mockingbird in middle school. It wasn’t until she was in
college that she tried to write her first stories, which were full
of angst and pain, and really not that fun to read or write. After
trying several different genres, she found romance in a Linda
Howard book. Since the publication of her first book in 2004,
Melissa has had close to fifty romances published. She writes in
genres from historical suspense to modern day erotic romance to
futuristics and paranormals. Included in those releases is the
bestselling
Harmless
series
. In 2011, Melissa branched out into
self-publishing with
A Little
Harmless Submission
and the popular military
spinoff,
Infatuation: A
Little Harmless Military Romance
. Along the way she has
garnered an epic nomination, a multitude of reviewer’s recommended
reads, over five Capa nods from TRS, three nominations for AAD
Bookies and regularly tops the best seller lists
on
Amazon
and
Barnes & Noble
. She
was recently named Author of the year and most Accessible Author of
the Year by the Authors After Dark Bookies.
Since she spent her childhood as a
military brat, Melissa swore never to marry military. But, as we
all know, Fate has her way with mortals. She is married to an AF
major and is raising her own brats, both human and canine. She
spends her days giving in to her addiction to
Twitter
, Facebook, Doctor Who, and
theBig Bang Theory. She is very thankful her airman is retired and
they can live where the bugs die in the winter.
You can connect with Mel all over the
web:
Or email her at:
[email protected]
Coming in December, get the story
everyone is dying to read!
A Santini Christmas
Join the Santinis this holiday
season and find out how your favorite family of military men are
getting on with their new lives. Plus, go back in time to see how
Joey and Papa first fell in love all those years ago.
And now, enjoy the first chapter
from Leonardo, the book that started it all!
The bright sunlight almost blinded
Leo Santini the moment he walked into Jeff’s hospital
room.
“Dammit to hell,” he
muttered.
“Still a vampire, I see,” Jeff said
with a chuckle.
Leo squinted at him. “And you’re
still a sun loving freak from Florida.”
As Leo approached the bed, he felt
some of his anxiety dissipate. His old boot camp buddy looked
better than he expected. After the report he read on Jeff’s
injuries, Leo hadn’t been sure what to expect. Just the fact he
wasn’t completely medicated meant he was making strides.
“Freak? Please. You’re the one who
moved to Texas.”
He settled in the chair beside the
bed. “Please. Not like teaching at Ft Sam was my first choice. Of
course, it allows me to see your sorry ass.”
Leo glanced around the room. There
were four beds but at the moment, only two of them were
occupied.
“Smith, this is Leo Santini, an old
buddy of mine who is teaching here as a medic. Leo this is Roy
Smith.”
“Nice to meet you, sir,” he
said.
“Don’t call me sir, I work for a
living,” Leo said good-naturedly.
“I wonder what Vince would say
about that.”
Leo stretched out his legs as he
thought about his brother who was a Marine Lt Col
select.
“Last time I said it to him, he
suggested I do something that was anatomically
impossible.”
Jeff chuckled and closed his eyes.
“Santinis never mince words.”
“That’s definitely true. My mother
is ashamed of our manners.”
He looked good, almost healthy
considering that an IED tried to blow him to hell and back. There
were still dark circles under his eyes, but Leo understood that
probably had more to do with memories than anything else. “Need me
to leave?”
Jeff shook his head and opened his
eyes. “I’m resting up for my physical therapy.”
Smith laughed.
Jeff frowned in his direction.
“That’s right. Laugh it up. Me, I have to deal with her
today.”
“Her?” Leo asked.
“The physical therapist. Johnson.
She’s...scary.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Smith
said. Leo got a better look at him and realized the soldier was
much younger, probably a year or two younger than Leo’s youngest
brother, Gianni. His red hair and freckles along with the baby face
that probably made people think he was younger than he actually
was.
“Are you telling me you two are
afraid of a woman?”
Jeff laughed. “Spoken like a man
who has never been married. But yes, I’m afraid of her. She’s tiny,
but she’s a terror.”
“Can’t you ask for someone else? It
would mean just talking to her commander...”
Leo broke off when the two men
started laughing again. They were so loud he doubted either of them
would have heard him anyway.
“Yeah, no. That’s not going to
happen. First of all, she’s a civilian. Most of the therapists here
are. And, truthfully, I was lucky to get her. She’s a battleax but
she’s the best from what I understand. I just wish she wasn’t so
mean.”
He was going to ask more about the
woman, but she’d obviously been eavesdropping.
“So, you brought in someone to
bitch to, soldier?”
The voice was strong, southern,
and—as the men had said—scary.
He turned expecting to see an older
woman built like a Mac truck. Instead, he found a woman who would
have been blown away from a hard wind. She was lucky if she hit
five-foot-three and she was as tiny as Jeff had said. Small-boned,
with long dark hair that she had up in a ponytail, she looked
so…well not sweet. Her aquamarine eyes narrowed as she studied
Jeff. Her scrubs had some kind of cartoon character on them, but
she wasn’t smiling. Instead, she settled her petite fists on her
waist and frowned.
“Well, are you going to answer me,
soldier? Or are you Army guys just too wussy to actually answer a
little bitty woman like me.”
“You didn’t give me a chance,” Jeff
said.
“Oh, sorry. Forgot what branch of
the military you’re in. I will allow time for you being
slow.”
Irritated, Leo rose out of the
chair. She looked at him, her gaze traveling the length of him. He
ignored the flicker of sensual awareness as she studied him. She
had to tip her head back to see his face.
“I think you need to settle down
there.”
She looked past him to Jeff. “Is he
your bodyguard?”
“No, ma’am.” Leo heard the
amusement in Jeff’s voice, but he ignored it.
She looked back at Leo. “I would
suggest you take a seat and shut it, soldier. I’m here for
Markinson not some overgrown idiot.”
He stepped in front of her to stop
her. That was a mistake. This close he could see the sprinkle of
freckles across the bridge of her cute nose. Her skin wasn’t ivory,
but golden, as if she spent a lot of time in the sun. Worse, her
scent teased his senses. It wasn’t anything like perfume, though,
just sexy, musky woman.
He shook his head and tried to keep
his mind on the problem at hand. “Your attitude needs an
adjustment.”
She looked up at him. He expected
something different than the annoyance he read in her eyes. One
perfectly sculpted eyebrow rose.
“Oh, really? Listen, I have two
more people to work with today and Markinson here takes the longest
because he whines. A lot.”
“Aw, come on, Johnson, I don’t.”
Jeff did sound like he was whining but he wasn’t about to take the
nurse’s side in the argument.
“Pftt. You cry more than a
cheerleader with a broken fingernail.”
Leo was ready to give the woman a
piece of his mind but he heard Jeff chuckle. “Santini, you can cool
it. Johnson is all bark and no bite.”
She looked past Leo again, her
attention focusing on Jeff. He could see the slight softening of
her gaze. If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he would have
missed it.
“Don’t be lying to these people
here or I will make you regret it.”
She had lowered her voice, but he
heard the change in her tone. It hit him that she was handling Jeff
the same way his mother handled him and his brothers.
When she looked back at Leo, her
gaze hardened. “Are you going to move, Santini, or do I need to
make you cry like a girl, too?”
He wanted to argue with her. She
was mean as they said but he realized it might be part of her job.
As a medic himself, he understood the position she was in.
Sometimes patients needed to be pushed. He nodded and stepped
aside.
“Now that the bulldog is going to
let me near you I have to say I am ashamed of you. Talking about me
behind my back. That’s just not right, Markinson.”
She motioned behind her and that’s
when Leo saw the orderly. Leo stepped out of the way and she pulled
the curtain closed.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Jeff
said.
“Yeah? What if some sweet little
old lady walked by and got a shot of you moving and you showed her
some skin. She’d pass out. Can’t cause that kind of
ruckus.”
Leo could tell from her voice she
was joking but he knew that she had done it to save his friend the
embarrassment of being lifted in front of Leo. His opinion of her
went up a notch.