THE BLASPHEMY SERIES
12 Masters. Infinite Fantasies.
Welcome to the Erotic Romance Stand-Alones of Blasphemy...
Will insert all of Laura’s buy links from amazon here:
HARD TO SERVE
BOUND TO SUBMIT
MASTERING HER SENSES
EYES ON YOU
THEIRS TO TAKE
Enjoy the first chapter from Laura Kaye’s Theirs to Take!
HARTLEY FARREN STARED at the wreck of her catamaran and tried not to cry. Or scream. Or punch something with her bare fist.
She’d done everything right to prepare for the hurricane that had come through the area two days before. Lighthouse Point’s marina provided an excellent safe harbor with a fantastic track record of low storm damage, and she’d been sure to use long dock lines to allow the boat to rise and fall during the storm surge. But none of that mattered when someone else wasn’t as diligent in his preparations. And the consequence had been that another boat had lost its mooring and the wind had driven it into her Far ‘n Away, damaging the port side.
“I’m really sorry,” the other owner said for the dozenth time. “I told Charlie we needed more lines, but he said the Chesapeake never gets hit that badly.” In her sixties and sweet as pie, the lady made it hard for Hartley to stay mad when she revealed that their own boat, a total loss, had been their only residence for the past eighteen months, leaving them essentially homeless. They stood and watched while the lady’s husband worked with the harbor master to have the wreck towed away.
“I know,” Hartley said. “It’ll all work out somehow. For both of us.”
Hartley had to believe that. Because that cat was her whole life.
Her father had left his chartering business to her when he died three years before. Now, that business and that boat provided her whole income and allowed her to keep her grandmother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, in a lovely assisted-living community.
But now Hartley was dead in the water. Or, at least, her chartering business was. Until she dealt with the insurance claims and found someone to do the repairs. Both were sure to be a pain in the butt following a big storm.
Hartley sighed. Neither crying, screaming, nor punching something was going to make anything better. And she’d certainly fared better than some others—she had to be grateful for that. She slid the business card detailing the couple’s contact information into her pocket and said her good-byes, and then she made her way to the marina office.
“Hi Linda,” she said to the office manager she’d met for the first time when she was only eight or nine. Back then, Hartley had been her dad’s “first mate” as much as going to school and playing field hockey had allowed.
“How bad is it, hon?” Linda tucked the gray hair of her bob behind her ears as she came around her desk. The office was a big square with four desks, the back two partially hidden behind cubicle partitions. Normally, the room was bright and airy, as windows lined the two exterior walls, but boards currently covered the glass, making it feel like nighttime in the middle of the day.
“Fixable. That’s not the problem, though. The problem is whether it can be fixed fast. There’s no avoiding having to cancel several weeks of charters, but I’ll be sunk if I have to pull out of the Sailboat Show and the Sailing University courses I’m teaching.” Thank God, she’d been smart enough to buy business interruption insurance, but that was only going to cover her so far. If she didn’t get the Far ‘n Away repaired within three weeks, well, she wasn’t going to think about that. Not yet.
“What can I do to help?” Linda asked, giving her the same affectionate, grandmotherly look she’d been giving her for the past twenty-plus years. It was an affection born not only from their long-time friendship, but from the fact that Linda and her father had been close—close enough that Hartley suspected something romantic between them before her dad unexpectedly died of a heart attack. Since then, Linda had been one of the few people who seemed to understand the grief and loneliness Hartley had been working through.
“Can I borrow a desk and your Wi-Fi?” Hartley gestured to the messenger bag on her shoulder. “I have my laptop and I’d love to dive into finding a place that can do the work.”
“That’s easy. Of course. You know your way around. Make yourself at home.”
“Thanks, Linda. What would I do without you?” she asked as she sat at the more private desk behind Linda’s.
The older lady peered around the corner at her and smirked. “Says the woman who spends days and days alone at sea. You’d get by just fine. You don’t need me, Hartley. I’m just your cheerleading section.”
Hartley chuckled. “Well, I appreciate that, too.” She set up and turned on her laptop. She’d just looked up the contact information for her insurance company when Linda returned and placed a steaming mug on the desk.
“I’m also your deliverer of mint tea.” Linda winked.
And clearly also a goddess,” Hartley said, taking the cup in hand. She adored the feeling of warm ceramic against her palms. “Can’t forget that one.”
“Naturally,” Linda said. “Hey, since you’re here, can you let anyone who comes know I’ll be right back? I have to run over to the Harbor Master’s office for a short meeting.”
“You got it,” Hartley said, sipping at the sweet, minty tea. A moment later, the front door opened and closed, leaving Hartley alone to figure out who was going to be her savior.
Scheduling a time to meet with the insurance adjuster turned out to be easy enough. But, thirty minutes later, she’d called a dozen boat repair shops and only found two willing to consider the work—but neither could even come look at the cat for almost a week, nor commit to completing the repairs within the next three.
Hartley dropped her head into her hands and heaved a deep breath. In the quiet, the soft opening and closing of the outer door reached her ears. “Hey, Linda,” she called. Then, to herself, “What am I going to do?”
“Hey, are you okay?”
The voice was deep, male, and definitely not Linda’s. Hartley’s gaze whipped up. And up. To find a tall and incredibly sexy man standing in the doorway to her cubicle. Sun-kissed shoulder-length blond hair framed a ruggedly masculine face and intense gray eyes that were at once inquisitive and observing. Broad shoulders and defined muscles pulled taut a heather-gray T-shirt with a single word written across the chest: NAVY. His forearms and legs beneath a pair of khaki cargo shorts were toned and tanned, as if he spent a lot of time in the sun.
“Uh, hi. Yes. Sorry. I’m kinda in my own world here. Did you need Linda?” Hartley managed as she pushed to her feet. At five-five, she wasn’t short, but his impressive height made her tilt her head back to meet his assessing gaze.
He shook his head. “I was coming by to see if she needed any help around the marina.”
“Oh. Wow. I’m sure she’d appreciate that. She stepped out to a meeting but she should be back soon if you’d like to wait.” Despite his selfless reason for being there, the man-made Hartley nervous. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the intensity behind those odd, gray eyes. Or the way he towered over her. Or how freaking good-looking he was.
“I’ll do that. Thanks.”
“Sure,” she said. But he didn’t leave. “Um, anything else I can do for you?”
His gaze stayed glued to hers, but she had the oddest feeling that he was checking her out nonetheless. He smiled and shook his head. And, man, was his smile a stunner, highlighting the strong angles of his jaw and charming her with the way the right side of his mouth lifted higher than the left. He thumbed over his shoulder. “I’ll just grab a seat.”
And then he disappeared from her little doorway.
Hartley was half tempted to peer around the corner and watch him walk away. Just to see if the rear view was as impressive as the front.
On a sigh, she dropped back into her chair. And even though her thoughts should’ve returned to the huge problem of fixing her boat, they lingered on the Good Samaritan currently making small noises on the other side of the room. Who was he? Hartley had essentially grown up around this marina. Even though she couldn’t say she knew everyone here, she still recognized most of the regulars. And she’d never seen Mr. Tall, Blond, and Ruggedly Handsome before.
Her cell phone buzzed, pulling her from her thoughts.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Mrs. Farren, this is Ed Stark returning your call from Stark Restoration.”
Hope rushed through Hartley. “Hi, Mr. Stark. Thanks for calling back so quickly. And, please, call me Hartley.” Being called ‘missus’ was almost laughable when she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone on a date. With rebuilding the business after her father’s death and taking care of her grandmother, Hartley didn’t have time to date. Or, at least, she hadn’t made the time. Not that she’d had any prospects motivating her to do so. Shaking the thoughts away, she filled the man in on the damage and the challenge of her timeline.
“I might be able to get someone out to take a look at your boat by the end of the week, but you’re at least the tenth call I’ve had today. I wouldn’t be able to guarantee a completion date without assessing the damage, and I’ve got a number of other repair jobs ahead of yours at this point.”
It was the same thing all the others had told her. And she got it. She did. It wasn’t anyone else’s problem that she depended on the Far ‘n Away for her livelihood. Or that she’d put most of what her father left her into her grandmother’s home and a bigger boat that could carry more passengers two years ago. Or that July had been so rainy that her normal charter business had been halved. Or that she needed the extra income that the sailboat show and Sailing University courses would bring in to make it through the leaner winter months.
Just then, the front door opened again. “Hartley, I’m back. Sorry I was gone so long.” This time, it was definitely Linda. “Oh, Jonathan. How are you? How did you guys make out in the storm?”
“Our shop’s fine, ma’am,” the man said. “Thanks for asking.” Jonathan. Jonathan who apparently had a shop somewhere in the marina?
Even more curious about him, Hartley stepped out of her cubicle and tried not to stare. Or drool. She forced her gaze to her friend. “Hey, Linda. Everything go okay?”
“Oh, yes. Just little fires everywhere that need put out,” Linda said, dropping a legal pad full of notes onto her desk. “Were you able to find anyone to do the work?”
Hartley’s shoulders fell. “No. No one can even look before Friday.” And with a hole in the side of the cat, who knew how much more damage it might sustain over those four days.
Linda frowned, and then her gaze swung to Jonathan. “Have you two met yet?”
That intense gray-eyed gaze landed on Hartley, unleashing a whirl of butterflies in her belly. “Haven’t had the pleasure to do so officially,” Jonathan said.
It was a simple statement. But something about the word pleasure from that man’s mouth made a tingle run down her spine. It’d clearly been too long since she’d been on a date. Or been kissed. And waaaay too long since she’d last had sex. Embarrassingly long. Like, she didn’t even want to admit to herself how long.
(Fifteen months.)
With that fantastic thought in mind, all Hartley managed to say was, “Uh, hi. Again.” She chuckled to cover how much she wanted to duck back into the cubicle and bang her head against the desk.
He grinned. “Hi. Again. I’m Jonathan Allen.”
“Hartley Farren.” Feeling Linda’s amused gaze on her, she cleared her throat. “You have a shop in the marine center?”
He nodded. “A&R Builds and Restoration.”
“Jonathan and his partner Cruz own the business that moved into the old Stanton space at the beginning of the summer,” Linda added helpfully.
Hartley’s eyes went wide as her heart kicked into a sprint. “You do builds and restoration?”
He chuckled. “As the name suggests.”
She didn’t even mind the teasing, not when he might be able to help her. “Then you might be my new favorite person.”
“Is that, right?”
The office phone rang, and Linda excused herself to answer it.
Hartley stepped closer to Jonathan. Why did that make her feel like she was approaching a usually friendly but sometimes lethal animal? Her stomach did a little flip. “Yes, because I need a huge, huge, gigantic favor.”
He arched a sexy brow. “And if I do this favor, will I officially be your favorite person?”
She grinned, enjoying his playfulness—and the fact that he was entertaining doing her a favor when they barely knew each other. “Without question. I’ll even make you a certificate. Jonathan Allen. Hartley Farren’s Favorite Person.”
That crooked smile emerged again, and hope flooded through her. “Hmm. I don’t know. I mean, a certificate is nice and all, but…”
Was he playing with her? She thought he was, but she didn’t know him well enough to know for sure. Hartley braced her hands on her hips. “Are you teasing me? Because that would be evil, Jonathan, and you don’t strike me as an evil man.” Now she arched a brow.
His chuckle this time was different. Deeper. Grittier. Sexier. With an undercurrent of…something she didn’t understand. “You never know, Hartley.”
Her stomach did a little flip, because it had been eons since anyone had flirted with her. Let alone a man this attractive. “Oh, come on. Can I at least tell you what my favor is?” she asked.
Those gray eyes sparkled with amusement. “Well, I couldn’t help but overhear your phone conversation, so I might have an inkling.”
Wait. He knew what she needed and still hadn’t said no? Hope and anticipation rushed through her, making her feel restless and brave. “Then if my awesome certificate idea isn’t enough, what can I offer to convince you to walk out to my slip and take a look at my catamaran?”
That eyebrow arched again, and Hartley suddenly felt like they’d been playing chess—and her words had just allowed him to put her in checkmate. But still, he didn’t make any claims of her.
She stepped closer and dared to flirt back. “Jonathan. Mr. Allen. Mr. Allen, My Already Officially Favorite Person, are you going to make me beg? Because that wouldn’t be very nice,” she added playfully.
Those gray eyes flared. She would’ve sworn they did. He bit back a chuckle as he shook his head. And when his words came, they were filled with a deep intensity that made her shiver. “Why don’t you show me your boat, Hartley, and then I’ll answer your questions.”