Lisa Jones - Jump Start

They’d been in lust, and she was all about lust in that moment. All about pleasure. For two weeks, he was here, the man who’d been the best sex of her life. She’d be a fool to run. She would enjoy him, and then she would say goodbye.

Starting with this kiss. The instant Jennifer’s mouth touched Bobby’s, he pulled her closer, taking her mouth, as if he feared she might change her mind. His mouth parted hers, intimately, full of demand. One of his hands tangled in her hair, the other slid up her back, pressing her close, molding her to all that delicious hard muscle. Her hands slid over his back as he pressed her against the car. Long, strong thighs entwined with hers.

Their kiss was…arousing. It made her thoughts spin and her heart race. Yet, still, he seemed unaffected, cool, confident, in control, with an edge that had always been Bobby and had only grown more frustratingly sexy with time and maturity.

“Peace offering,” he said, obviously offering so much more….

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the Hotzone—The Texas Hotzone—where three ex-members of the Crazy Aces Special Forces team have opened a skydiving operation right outside of my hometown of Austin, Texas.

Jump Start is book one in the trilogy, and it is a story about finding what you’ve lost. And no, I’m not talking about your car keys, but rather the key to your heart. Which consequently, in Jump Zone, is going to require a whole lot of seduction by the hero, Bobby Evans, because this key is buried deep. Of course, he gets help in the form of a combination bachelor/bachelorette party and a game of truth-or-dare. Read onward to find out if his heroine, Jennifer Jones, chooses the truth or the dare, and just how hot things have to get to find that key.

I hope you enjoy Jump Start, and look for book two, High Octane, in March. Please visit me at www.lisareneejones.com.

Enjoy!

Lisa Renee Jones

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Lisa spends her days writing the dreams playing in her head. Before becoming a writer, Lisa lived the life of a corporate executive, often taking the red-eye flight out of town and flying home for the excitement of a Little League baseball game. Visit Lisa at www.lisareneejones.com.

Special thanks to Casey and Ethan Maxwell for helping with my military research. Janice, once again, for proofing and proofing and proofing again while living the deadlines with me. And Diego—for driving the U-Haul from NY to Colorado so I could write this trilogy.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

QUICKSAND. That was what you called a mission that went from bad to worse with every maneuver you made.

Sergeant Bobby Evans sat inside a C-130 Hercules awaiting takeoff from the U.S. aircraft carrier Vincent with four of the twelve soldiers in his Special Ops team, “Crazy Aces.” It was a name they’d come by honestly, doing crazy things like today’s HALO, a high-altitude low-opening jump from thirty thousand feet. The mission was to extract the ten-year-old son of the newly elected American ally, Iraqi president Aban Kaleb Sadr, from Al Qaeda hostiles.

Free-falling at high altitudes came with risks, from unconsciousness to frostbite, but was necessary to stay off enemy radar. A HALO was a death-defying act that could give even veterans like the Aces a sense of quicksand, he supposed. But in seven years of Special Ops duty, and more than his share of HALOs, Bobby had seen quicksand only three times while a mission played out—and every one of those three times had been a bloodbath he’d have nightmares about the rest of his life.

Sitting next to Bobby, Mike Reynolds, the youngest of the Aces at twenty-eight, pulled out a picture of his fiancée, Jennifer, from beneath his jump jacket. “This is it, the last time I’m going to watch out for your sorry Texan asses,” he scoffed, referring to the roots that Bobby shared with Caleb Martin and “Cowboy” Ryan Walker, the two other Aces along for this ride with them. “I’m going home to damn good New York pizza and a hot woman. Adios muchachos.”

Both Bobby and Mike were up for reenlistment, and Bobby had no idea why he hadn’t signed, sealed and delivered his new contract. But Mike, lovesick puppy that he was, had already opted out. He was gone in two weeks and none of the Aces were complaining, but not because they didn’t love the guy like a blood brother—because they did. The Aces were tight. Family without the ancestry. But ever since Mike had met Jennifer six months ago on leave, he’d been operating with the wrong head in control.

And Bobby understood. He used to have his own Jennifer back home twisting his gut in knots. The irony of the shared name didn’t sit well with Bobby one bit. Not when his Jennifer had been, and always would be, the love of his life. The woman he would never forget, could never completely let go. The fact that a mutual, close friend’s upcoming wedding was stirring old feelings only brought that fact closer to light. He’d never stopped checking on his old flame, keeping up with her from a distance, but seeing her up-close and personal, facing what he’d left behind, wasn’t going to be easy.

“Put the flipping picture away and focus,” Bobby said sourly, that quicksand feeling sliding from his feet to his knees and threatening to climb. “I don’t want to ship you back to your woman in a body bag.”

Caleb sat beside Ryan, directly across from Bobby and Mike, his head against the wall, eyes shut. “I’d rather jump without a chute than be led around by my dick like you are,” he mumbled, lifting his head and casting Mike a damning, icy-blue look.

“You’re a dick,” Mike grumbled roughly, stuffing the picture back in his jacket.

“A happy-to-reenlist-and-be-single dick, at that,” Caleb agreed.

The engine roared to life, and Bobby flipped his headset on. The heavy thrum of engines filled the next twenty minutes until a buzzer sounded the ten-minute warning. Instantly all the men were on their feet, adjusting their equipment and preparing the oxygen masks they’d wear for their jump.

Ryan, Bobby’s closest friend, made his customary announcement in his headset. “Let’s go get ‘crazy,’ Aces.” His gaze shifted to Mike, as he added, “Soon you can be pussy-whipped all day and all night, and nobody but your woman is going to give you a hard time.”

Laughter erupted in Bobby’s ears, but there was a subtle tension lacing the air, and Bobby and Ryan shared a look. He felt the quicksand, too.

At the five-minute buzzer, all masks were in place and the doors slid open. Headsets were turned off. This would be a silent jump. They were ghosts, off radar, nonexistent to even their own government. All hands latched on to the rail on the ceiling as a wicked wind screamed a warning and then pounded against them with the force of being hit with a concrete slab.

The jump conditions were far from favorable, but neither were the Iraqi boy’s chances of making it through the night. At the one-minute buzzer, there was a final check of oxygen tanks and chutes in preparation for a jump that would end in a low chute pull that left no time for a backup if anything went wrong.