Command Control

A good soldier follows orders!

U.S. Army Ranger Logan Reed’s Vermont hometown has turned into hell. Logan is now known as either the hot-’n’-available widower or the town hero. And with the memory of his last mission still raw, the last thing he wants is to be called a hero. What he does want is the bold, redheaded stranger who makes his libido stand at attention.

Sadie Bannerman is in town to help her pregnant twin…and to lie low until the world learns she’s the author of the hottest new erotica novel! Thanks to her explosive chemistry with Logan, she’s getting plenty of naughty inspiration for her next book. Because this supersexy soldier knows exactly how to follow her every command….

Can’t resist a sexy military hero?

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Mills & Boon Blaze’s bestselling miniseries

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Dear Reader,

I am so excited to share Logan’s story with you! Army Ranger Logan Reed was one of the horse soldiers from my Mills & Boon Blaze debut, Command Performance. He appeared as a side character, but I could not stop thinking about the lonely widower sidelined from the job he loved. I felt he deserved a happily-ever-after. But first, I needed to find the perfect heroine.

Then I met Sadie, the erotica writer determined to succeed. I love writing about strong women, but what made Sadie stand out in my mind was her constant struggle for work/life balance. Sadie seemed like a great match for Logan—except for the fact that he is on a mission to keep a low profile and she is actively seeking publicity for the next book in her bestselling erotica series.

I love hearing from readers! Could you relate to Sadie’s desire to balance her personal life with her career ambitions? Did you enjoy the small-town setting? Let me know! Find me on Facebook or drop by my website, www.sarajanestone.com, and while you’re there don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter to receive information about new releases, contests and more.

Happy reading!

Sara Jane Stone

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After several years on the other side of the publishing industry, Sara Jane Stone bid goodbye to her sales career to pursue her dream—writing romance novels. Armed with a firm belief that dreams do come true, she sat down at her keyboard to write fun, sexy stories like the ones she loved to read. Sara Jane currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, with her very supportive real-life hero, two lively young children and a lazy Burmese cat. Visit her online at www.sarajanestone.com, become a fan of Sara Jane Stone on Facebook or follow her on Twitter, @sarajanestone.

Command Control

Sara Jane Stone

ISBN: 978-1-472-04724-3

COMMAND CONTROL

© 2014 Sara Jane Stone

Published in Great Britain 2014

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk Version: 2020-08-24

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To Maya, for her help plotting this book.

And to my husband, thank you for your endless support and love. I couldn’t have written this book without you!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Quotation

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

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

Extract

The things he wants, they are dirty—depraved even—but then so are my fantasies. The difference is he knows how to ask for what he wants, and I lost my voice long ago.

—Isabelle’s Command: Possession, Volume 1

by MJ Lane

“Don’t leave,” he says. This time, his words are not an ultimatum. “Tell me what you want. Anything. I am yours to command.”

—Isabelle’s Command: Submission, Volume 2

by MJ Lane

I found my voice. But now, my heart is exposed. And I don’t know if I’m ready to love him.

—Isabelle’s Command: Control, Volume 3

by MJ Lane (A Work In Progress)

1

“EVERY WOMAN IN here is staring at you.”

U.S. Army Ranger Logan Reed looked up from his burger at the petite, white-haired woman across the table. Fact was he would rather be anywhere—Iraq, Afghanistan, a remote African village—but here, sitting across the table from his aunt Lou at The Quilted Quail, an old barn that had been converted into the only respectable restaurant in Mount Pleasant, Vermont.

“Because they want to raffle me off at the Summer Festival.” He returned his attention to his food. After a week spent hiking and camping, he’d thought a decent meal would be worth venturing into town for an early dinner. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

“You can’t hide from the people who have known you since you were in diapers. Look, there’s Cindy.” Aunt Lou waved her hand at the blond-haired, blue-eyed first-grade teacher. “She was asking when you’d be back from your trip. She is in charge of this year’s raffle and she thinks ‘lunch with a hero’ will be a big-ticket item.”

“I’m not a goddamn hero.”

“Language, Logan,” his aunt scolded.

He watched as Cindy weaved through the wooden tables. He’d been approached by nearly everyone who had anything to do with the town’s Summer Festival since his commanding officer had ordered him to take some time to rest, relax and get his head on straight. After Logan’s mistake had left his teammate with a bullet in the shoulder, he couldn’t blame his CO. And now that a journalist wanted to write a book about the mission Logan had screwed up? The army had even more reason to keep him on R & R.

Active duty Special Forces soldiers did not give interviews. Press, good or bad, hindered his team’s ability to do their jobs. His team, like many of the other elite units, was designed to slip into an area unnoticed, execute their task and leave undetected. Sometimes, their missions required them to blend in with the local population without alerting the enemy. They wore their hair longer than the average military buzz cut. Some of the guys grew beards. And at times, they worked alongside the good guys in the area. If the media put their names and faces out there, along with their rank and job description, the enemy would see it and there was a chance it would handicap their future missions.

Not to mention the fact that nine times out of ten, the press focused on their mistakes, not their wins. His team had completed hundreds of successful missions, but the only one anyone wanted to write about was the one that had gone south. His CO was determined to make sure that didn’t happen.

Logan was ready and willing to do his part and lie low in rural Vermont. His job as a Ranger—it was everything to him. This time, when Logan returned to his team, he would be ready for duty—no distractions. That meant he needed to put his grief to rest.

He’d never forget. Not by a long shot. But he didn’t need to feel like he was drowning in loss every damn day. Jane had been gone for over a year now. At some point, he had to put the past behind him.

But thanks to his friends and family, he felt more bound to his memories than ever. They had good intentions. Still, everyone treated him as if he was supposed to spend the rest of his life immersed in sorrow. Unless he was on the battlefield. Out there they assumed he could do no wrong, as if putting on the uniform transformed him into some sort of idol. That’s why he’d gone hiking in the first place, to get away from the town determined to label him a freaking hero.

“I agreed to come to town for a burger,” he said. “Nothing else.”

“If we always got what we wanted out of life,” Aunt Lou said, “I’d be living in one of those fancy homes like the ladies on The Real Housewives.”

And he’d be back with his team doing the job he loved instead of sidelined indefinitely. Or better yet, Jane would still be alive and he wouldn’t have spent the past year feeling like everyone in his life was tiptoeing around him. He didn’t need an endless pity party.

The smell of Cindy’s floral perfume reached the table first. Logan glanced at the door, debating whether to abandon his burger.

“Mind your manners,” Aunt Lou ordered as Cindy followed her perfume cloud to their table.

Logan stood, allowing Cindy to wrap her arms around him.

“Logan, it’s so good to see you out.” Cindy drew back and looked at him, her brow furrowed. “How are you?”

God, how he hated those three little words. “Just fine, ma’am.”

He reclaimed his seat and his burger. Without waiting for an invitation, Cindy pulled a chair from an empty table and sat down next to him.

“Have you given any more thought to the raffle? The people of Mount Pleasant would be lining up to buy tickets if they knew the grand prize was lunch with our very own U.S. Army ranger. Everyone is dying to learn more about your latest mission.” Cindy dropped her voice to a near whisper, leaning in until the scent of her perfume left him practically gagging. “Especially after seeing that picture in the paper.”

She wasn’t the first person in town to reference the picture that had spread like wildfire through the nation’s media. The image showed Logan and his teammates riding horses provided by an Afghan warlord, their faces thankfully obscured by handkerchiefs. “That’s classified.”

“Surely you can share some of the details,” Cindy pressed. “Perhaps over lunch with the raffle winner? All the proceeds go to the school’s literacy program.”

Logan reached for his beer and took a long drink, wishing like hell he could get up and leave. He had a hunch the raffle winner would be a woman—the men in town wouldn’t be caught dead on a lunch date with him—and she wouldn’t be interested in the nitty-gritty details of his latest mission.

Since he’d been home, a number of single women had tried to cozy up to him, always proclaiming how sorry they were for his loss while trying to drop subtle hints they were interested if he was ready to start dating again. It was plain weird.

Logan glanced at the door. Too bad he couldn’t call for an extraction team and fast-rope out of there. But walking away wouldn’t stop Cindy from trying any tactic to get a commitment out of him. He gave his aunt a pleading look.

“Cindy, you know he can’t talk about the details of his missions.” His aunt stood and took Cindy’s arm. “I think I saw Suzanne Hummel on the patio, and I need to speak with her about the band she hired to play at Summer Festival.”

“Of course.” Cindy turned to him, dropping her voice low. “Promise me you’ll think about the raffle. We need an answer soon. The festival is only days away.”

Aunt Lou pulled Cindy away, but they were still within earshot when Lou called over her shoulder, “If you leave first, do me a favor and move the small desk in the library down to the guesthouse.”

Logan nodded. He had every intention of ducking out as soon as he finished his burger. He’d driven his truck here knowing he might need to escape before his aunt. “Sure. After I feed the cows.”

“Before,” his aunt insisted. “I have a tenant arriving today and she’s a writer. Asked if we could provide a space for her to work.”

Logan frowned. A writer—specifically a journalist—was the reason he was on forced R & R. “A writer? What kind?”

“She didn’t say, but you can ask her yourself when she arrives.” Aunt Lou walked away, taking Cindy with her. “And think about the raffle, Logan.”

Logan turned his attention back to his burger. He had nothing against raising money for literacy, but posing as a hero? It made him feel like a hypocrite. Yes, he’d ridden a horse through Taliban country. Big deal. He’d also been so damn distracted when his team had gone in to rescue the three female aid workers held captive in a remote region of Afghanistan that he’d forgotten to cover his teammate. One inch in another direction and that bullet would have hit the woman in Hunter’s arms. It had practically brushed the top of her head.

No, he couldn’t sit down to lunch and recount his heroics. He was biding his time in Mount Pleasant, helping his aunt with the farm, until he could return to work. It killed him, sitting on his hands, away from the action. But he knew he deserved the punishment. And this time when he went back, he needed to have his head in the game 100 percent.

Still, his team was like family. Aside from Aunt Lou, the only one he had left. Being away from them—the loneliness ate at him.

Logan shook away the thought and returned to his burger. Across the restaurant, the door opened, letting in a shaft of midday summer sunlight. A redhead with mile-long legs walked in and headed for the bar that ran the length of the barn-turned-restaurant.

He studied the mysterious woman as she moved across the restaurant with carefree confidence. In one hand, she held a spiral notebook and a small purse. She was new to town, probably a tourist, though she didn’t look like the type to spend her free time hiking and biking. Her high-heeled sandals screamed big city.

Her loose curls bounced with each step, the bright red a sharp contrast to her creamy white skin. And her green eyes shone with playful mystery, as if she had a secret she wanted to whisper in his ear. Everything about her was vivid, fresh and exciting.

His gaze returned to her legs, narrowing on the point where they disappeared beneath her black miniskirt.

If you think her skirt is too short, she’s too young for you. His teammate wasn’t with him tonight, but Mike’s familiar mantra echoed in Logan’s mind. One of his T-shirts would cover more of her legs. He closed his eyes. And, great, an image of the redhead in his army T-shirt was now planted in his mind.

Logan forced himself to look away. She was too young for him. Not that thirty-five was ancient, but the word widower made a man seem older than his years.

He took one last look as the redhead slid onto a stool at the end of the bar. She’d chosen a seat close to his table and the proximity offered an up-close view as she crossed her legs, the indecent skirt sliding a little higher. Too young and too wild. Logan turned away, praying no one saw the longing in his eyes.

If he was being honest with himself, what he really wanted was a few nights of hot and heavy sex to take the edge off his loneliness. Nothing serious. Just something physical to make him feel alive.

Logan caught the waiter’s eye and signaled for the check. While he waited, his gaze drifted back to the woman.

He watched as she accepted a glass of red wine and opened her notebook. She took a sip, but her eyes never moved from the words in front of her. Setting the glass down, she drew her lower lip into her mouth and ran her teeth over it. She made reading look like a forbidden act, something that should be done behind closed doors.

The waiter returned and Logan opened up his wallet. Then he stood and headed for the door. He had to get out of here. Longing and loneliness would not change the fact that any reasonable woman would expect things he wasn’t ready to deliver.

2

“SEDUCE ME. I want to feel your hands on me. Your mouth, your tongue. I want to feel every inch of you holding me down, claiming me,” I say as I lean back on the bed. “That’s an order.”

Sadie read the words for a third time, but failed to reach the next paragraph. She couldn’t concentrate on the pages she’d written yesterday. Not with a man staring at her. Reading a sex scene in public was nothing new. In Manhattan, she’d reviewed her chapters while riding the subway. Before she’d sold her first book, commuting to and from her multiple waitressing jobs was when she’d done most of her writing.

But reading while a stranger watched her as if he wanted to devour her? That destroyed her focus and sent parts of her body spiraling toward take-me-now excitement.

Sadie shifted in her seat. His attention—and her response—reminded her how much her body missed her ex and their regular bedroom workouts, even if her mind had moved on quickly in the wake of their parting three months earlier. But the interest she felt had nothing to do with the past.

She looked up from her notebook as the stranger walked by her bar stool. With his wavy dark brown hair, piercing brown eyes and muscles even his cargo shorts and loose black T-shirt couldn’t hide, the man defined ruggedly handsome.

She turned her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. He seemed strangely familiar. Studying his backside as he walked toward the door, she knew. Mr. Ruggedly Handsome looked like Hugh Jackman when he’d played Wolverine in the X-Men movies—minus the facial hair—from his serious expression to his ready-for-battle body.

He walked with grace and purpose. Part of her wanted to go after him, find out if he was available and interested. But she couldn’t. Not right now. Her sister would be here any second. As long as she was in Mount Pleasant, her family came first. Everything else, from work to drool-worthy strangers, needed to take a backseat.

The door opened and he disappeared into the sunshine, leaving Sadie to her reading.

“There you are.” Laurel, Sadie’s twin, enveloped her in a big hug. They might have been born the same day, but the similarities ended there. Sadie had inherited their father’s Irish coloring, while Laurel looked like the all-American girl next door with her blond hair and blue eyes. A very pregnant girl next door.

“Careful, you’ll crush the baby,” Sadie said, struggling to maintain her balance on the barstool.

Laurel squeezed tighter. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“You said you needed me.”

“I know. And you always come through for me. But this time you’re here. For a whole month. I never thought you’d leave New York for that long.”

“I can barely believe it myself.”

An entire month in small-town Vermont, away from the hustle and bustle of her everyday life in New York City, away from sushi delivered to her doorstep, away from her quiet writing space. Of course, she could work here. She could write anywhere. But still, she was here. For Laurel. For once, she was trying to put her sister first, to tip the scale between personal life and professional.

“Sit. Please,” Sadie said, pulling away from her twin’s embrace. “You look like you should be resting with your feet up. You’re...”

“Enormous?” Laurel said with a wide grin.

“That wasn’t the word I was looking for.”

“Only for another month.” Her sister took her hand and squeezed. “I can’t believe you’ll be here when the baby arrives. I asked Dad to come up, too, but he said the trip was too expensive.”

Sadie frowned, her wineglass hovering close to her lips. “I sent him an extra check with a note to buy a plane ticket.”

“Oh, well, he didn’t mention it,” Laurel said, the excitement in her eyes dimming.

Damn him, Sadie thought. Her father might begrudge her charity, but he didn’t have to take it out on Laurel. As far as Sadie was concerned the monthly checks weren’t a handout. Their father had worked hard to provide for his twin girls after their mother had passed away when they were babies. Now it was Sadie’s turn to take care of him. She had the money to ensure they stayed afloat. And with the way her book had taken off, she could do a lot more than pay the bills. But her father and sister would only accept so much.

Laurel shrugged. “It’s just as well. I don’t know where I’d put him. We barely have room for you and the baby.”

Sadie set her wineglass on the bar. “I found someplace else to stay.”

Laurel’s brow furrowed. “You’re staying with us. After all you’ve done for us, the checks you sent when I lost my job, we owe you. I can’t repay the money, but I can feed and house you for the next month. Please, Sadie. Let me do this for you. I promise to bake your favorite cookies.”

“I’d be in the way on your couch.” Laurel and her husband rented a cramped one-bedroom cottage outside of town. And while Sadie lived in a Manhattan apartment the size of a shoe box—albeit one with a Central Park view—it had been years since she’d shared her living space with her twin. They’d fought day and night back then. She couldn’t imagine it would be better now that Laurel was eight months pregnant.

“I saw an ad online for a guesthouse rental on the neighboring farm,” she continued. “I called and it was available. This way you will have some time with Greg before the baby arrives and I will have space to write. I have a book due soon.”

“Lou’s guesthouse?”