Excerpt: Expendable by Maggie Jaimeson & Giveaway

For the final stop on the tour, I thought I’d share a little humor served up with some sexual tension. This excerpt  involves our hero, Reed, on the phone with one of his Marine Corp buddies who is also an attorney. So, you don’t get confused, Jason is also known as Cheeks because he was shot in the ass once when they were in Iraq.  Our hero, Reed, is known as Rat Face because he’s always attracted women and his buddies didn’t want him to get too cocky about his good looks.

“Jenna…” Reed gulped as she walked out of the bedroom, her hair wet from a shower and a towel wrapped around her sarong style. It covered her from just below the shoulders to mid-thigh, but still, he knew what was beneath it and there was that one part of her he hadn’t seen yet.

“Jenna? Is that her real name or a nickname?” Jason asked in his ear.

“Who you talking to?” Jenna asked. “Do you have anything I can borrow to wear until I can wash my clothes?”

“She’s there, isn’t she?” Jason asked in his ear. “I can tell by your shallow breathing. Is she naked or are you just imagining things? I’m starting to feel like this is a porn call here.”

“Just a minute,” Reed hissed and muted the phone to give Jenna his full attention. “I’m talking to an attorney friend about helping you get custody of David.”

“Oh.” She wandered over to the coffee pot. “Can I have some?”

“Yeah, sure.” He clicked the Bluetooth to talk again.

She opened a cupboard and reached to the second shelf for a mug. It was just a little tall for her. The towel rose giving him a better view of tight lean thighs. Just as he thought he might see more, she fingered the mug off the shelf and the towel lowered to mid-thigh again. She poured a cup and walked barefoot to the fridge, pulled out the milk carton and poured some into the cup.

He stepped close and reached over her head to the top of the fridge. “Sugar?” he rasped, his throat suddenly dry as sandpaper. Citrus shampoo wafted from her hair. His shampoo—but it smelled sweeter on her.

“No thanks.” Her eyes looked up at him. “Thanks for last night.”

“Uh…no problem.” He lied. He bent his face toward her.

“Hey, rat face did you forget about me?”

He jumped back. “Shit!”

She chuckled.

“Sorry,” he said to Jenna. “Just a minute.”

“Rat face, are we going to finish our conversation or are you going to jump this lady’s bones? I really didn’t want to let my imagination play with all the silences I kept hearing.”

“Yeah, thanks for pulling me back from the brink,” Reed said. “Just a sec.”

He muted the phone again and turned to Jenna. “You can, uh, borrow some sweats—second drawer in the chest. I know they’ll be a little big.” He looked her up and down. “Or a lot big. But at least you’d be warm. Okay?”

“Thanks.” She ambled back to the bedroom.

Reed sighed as he watched the backs of her knees, the curve of her shoulder, and the swing of her ebony hair. Damn! He’d been a saint this morning.

“I’m back,” he said into the phone. “She came out in a damn towel. Fuck. Life is really unfair sometimes.”

Jason laughed. “I’m sure you’ll find a way around your inconvenient ethics pretty quick; anyway, while you were salivating, I was starting the paperwork. We have a contract with a reputable company that gives fast service for DNA tests. It’s in Gresham. Just a sec and I’ll get you the info.”

Reed heard keys clicking.

“Okay, it’s Vienoy, Inc. 122 Division Street. She can go to any doctor to have the swab done, and take the kid, too. Then have them send both of the samples to Vienoy for processing.”

Reed wrote down the company name and address. Then he repeated it back.

“Thanks, Cheeks, I owe you for this.”

“You owe me so much, Rat Face, you’ll never be able to pay me back.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it.”

“Keep me posted,” Jason said, his tone more serious. “This sounds like some wicked shit going on. I know you can sometimes be a lone ranger, but I don’t think you should be on this one alone.”

“I won’t be,” Reed promised. “Not with a woman and kid involved. I’m calling Stain in on this, and then I’ll get back to you with a plan.”

“Right, we’ve always got your back.”

As Reed hung up, he couldn’t help thinking that his back wasn’t the problem. Right now, he just needed to concentrate on controlling his front.

Giveaway: Maggie is giving away an ebook copy of Expandable. To be entered into the contest please leave a comment below. Contest ends October 28th.