Authors: Diana Hunter
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary
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This book is
loosely tied to characters from Secret Submission and Submission Revealed.
Recently back from
Iraq, Lauren Carr is still trying to put her life together. Her best friend
sets her up on a date with an incredibly sexy man who promises to tie her down
and make love to her all night long. His offer intrigues her, piques her
interest in the submissive lifestyle she’s so curious about. This strong, dominant
man might be just what she needs.
John McAllen is an
ex-Marine who has put his demons to rest. He has a successful career and
friends who share his kink. The beautiful Lauren, who was so capable in a
crisis, turns out to have PTSD. In spite of his desire, he isn’t sure he wants
to deal with her damaged psyche. He needs a woman who can submit to his
control, to his passion for ropes and chains and floggers. To his every sexual
demand.
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
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ISBN 9781419934773
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Services Rendered Copyright © 2011 Diana Hunter
Edited by Pamela Campbell
Cover art by Syneca
Electronic book publication August 2011
The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are With the exception of quotes used in reviews, Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or This book is a work of fiction and any The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the |
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Diana Hunter
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the men and women
of the Armed Forces of the United States. Thank you for your service.
Acknowledgements
I need to give a special “thank you” to
Averill Bauder for sharing his expertise in the firing of Civil War cannons.
His knowledge brought life to the Civil War reenactment scenes.
And another special thanks to Tara Nina,
who told me a story one time…
Author Note
In the world of fantasy anything goes, but
in reality, remember to always practice safe sex.
Prologue
The dusty street, hot in the mid-afternoon
sun, lay bare and empty. From some corner of hell, a hot breeze blew sand in
small devils along the few spaces between the crowded buildings. Nothing else
stirred. Not even the dozen men standing alert in their hiding places, their
khaki camouflage sticking to their sweaty bodies, their hands slippery on their
gunstocks. An errant fly buzzed each in turn, yet not one of them moved.
The low murmur of voices drifted on the
breeze from inside the least squalid hut that squeezed itself onto the street.
And still the twelve waited, breathing in sand and heat, the strange cinnamon
scent of the desert barely noticed.
The voices in the hut rose as if in anger
and one of the twelve nodded just once to a soldier on the other side of the street.
Slowly lifting his hand, he held out three fingers, then two, then one and
pointed toward the door.
The first two soldiers slid through the
curtained doorway, knowing, from previous visits by spies, the layout of the
narrow hut. A hall led directly from the door to the open courtyard behind. A
room immediately to their right, another behind it. At this time of day, their
quarry would be in the second room.
The second pair followed closely, peeling
off to take position in the first room. They would wait and make sure none
escaped into the street. Two others would remain outside for the same reason
while the remaining six guarded the entrances to the street.
The first two paused at the curtain that
closed off the second room. The men in the room argued loudly now, the Arabic
words sounding like so much gibberish to all but one of the twelve. The other
soldiers spoke only English with smatterings of high school Spanish and French.
Only the leader had studied the language of the people whose land he’d be helping
to rebuild. Only the leader understood the terrible action the men discussed so
heatedly.
And for that, he gave thanks. He knew his
men. If they understood the depth of the plot they were about to foil, there
would be blood spilled. That, however, was not their job. They were simply to
arrest these men, not to act as judge and jury. There had been enough of that
in this desert land already.
His men in place, he nodded once more. They
knew the plan. He and another would enter the room, the two behind him would go
through to secure the courtyard and the two just outside would enter only as
backup if needed.
Their attack, swift and silent, took the
inhabitants by surprise. “We are Americans,” he shouted in Arabic over their
noise. “You are under arrest. Put your hands in the air.”
In an ideal world, the men who plotted
murder would have done as he told them. They would’ve risen from the pillows on
which they sat and gone along peacefully, accepting that they’d been caught.
Except no ideal world existed in Iraq. On
the far side of the room, a man raised a machine gun. Without hesitation, the
leader fired, killing the Iraqi. One of the men sitting on the floor leapt up,
pushing his gun up and out of the way with one hand and pulling a knife with
the other.
Twisting away, the leader brought his gun
barrel down on the man’s head, sending him spinning away. More shots filled the
air as the men on both sides shouted their anger. Gunfire erupted outside the
room too. Damn the intelligence. There were only supposed to be three men
inside, instead there were nearly a dozen. And there were obviously men in the
courtyard, all armed better than the military had been led to believe. He’d led
his men into a trap.
Chapter One
John McAllen lay face up in the field, his
open eyes staring at the cloudless blue above, trying to remember just why he
had decided to die so early. The sun beat down, turning his wool uniform into
an oven that slowly baked him all the way through to his spine. Ants had found
his shirtsleeve and even now paraded along his arm, enjoying the shade and
tickling his skin with their tiny legs.
But he wouldn’t move. That was part of the
deal. Once you were dead, you didn’t get to move. Shots came from his right,
yet he resisted the urge to look. Didn’t matter who was winning the battle.
Didn’t matter who fell or who managed to walk away at the end of the hour. The
enemy had found its mark in him and all he could do now was lie in the sun and
cook.
A welcome shadow fell over him, ostensibly
checking for a pulse. Will Bondman, his brother-in-arms in more ways than one.
John said nothing, per the rules of the dead, as Will whispered to him, “You
should’ve fallen facedown. You’re gonna get sunburned.”
John glared at him and remained still.
“I can roll you over, if you want.”
“Don’t you have a battle to fight?” John
risked the words between barely moving lips.
“Action’s moved into the woods. Thought I’d
check on a newbie reenactor first. But if you don’t want my help…”
“Turn me over.”
Hiding a grin, Will turned over John’s
blue-clad “dead” body then hefted his heavy, antique Springfield rifle as he
stood.
“You’ll learn,” was all he said before John
heard him drift away, heading toward the trees and the action.
* * * * *
Lauren Carr watched the “battle” below with
a mixture of boredom and disgust. These play soldiers cavorted around beautiful
fields belonging to the Genesee Country Museum, pretending they were teaching
history to the tourists who paused in their trek around the re-created
Victorian town, when in reality they just made a mockery of what real soldiers
lived and died doing every day. War was too real for her to stand and watch it
played at. She’d been home only two months and that wasn’t enough time for her
to forget what she’d seen. Hell, two years wouldn’t be enough.
“Aunt Lauren, look at that dead man. One
guy rolled him over, but he didn’t move hardly at all. Do you think he’s really
dead?”
Lauren looked down at her eight-year-old
nephew and fervently hoped he would never have a need to enlist in any branch
of the military. She’d seen enough action for both of them. The boy’s dark
hair, tousled by a breeze that popped up from nowhere, framed eyes wide with
concern. Lauren smiled and put her arm around his shoulders.
“No, Ian, he’s not really dead. It’s just
for show.” She looked out at the man her nephew indicated. True, he looked more
realistically dead than several others who lay scattered like beached blue
whales. At the irreverent thought, she hid her grin, lest Ian think she made
fun of the action he watched so intently.
Maybe it is a good thing he takes it
seriously
, she thought as the soldiers in blue
moved back into the field, obviously in retreat. This action supposedly
represented the battle of Antietam, but from what she could tell, the flat field
with the gazebo in the middle and a tree line at the far end that barely hid
the museum’s town buildings on the other side didn’t look anything like the
real fields in West Virginia where so many men had lost their lives. If Ian
understood that people really died in war, and that their deaths were not
pretty in any way, then standing on this hill overlooking the re-creation and
watching this absurdity might just be worth it.
A trumpet sounded some unfamiliar notes and
the soldiers on both sides dropped their weapons to their sides. A man with a
microphone stood up in the gazebo and explained to the audience that the battle
had ended and any weapons with gunpowder still in them would be discharged.
This was followed by several pops and puffs of smoke as rifles were fired into
the air. The sound had a higher pitch than the rifles she was used to. And
quieter. Battles in the past had definitely been quieter.
But then the cannon let loose and she
reacted instinctively, falling into a crouching position and dragging Ian down
with her. Out on the field a white ring of smoke wavered its lazy way across
the open area and the dead rose from their positions.
“Aunt Lauren?”
“Lauren?”
With an effort, Lauren refocused on the
present. Her nephew looked up at her with eyes wide with confusion while Beth,
her best friend, looked on with concern. “It’s okay, Ian. Took me by surprise,
that’s all.” She straightened, ignoring the stares of the people nearby. Out on
the field the dead men rose to rejoin their companies and once again Lauren
wondered just what lesson Ian would take from this. Would he think war was just
a game and you went home after it was all done? Or would he remember his
concern when the one soldier didn’t move for such a long time? She prayed he
would never feel the panic for those long seconds when you didn’t know for
sure, or feel the struggle to breathe when death still hovered in the room and
you had to close your eyes against the living.