Lovely Trigger(99)

We’d had to buy a mini-van. I was in heaven. We had so many kids that I was officially a min-van mom. We loaded them all up and took our Jared home.

We didn’t sleep the first night. When I say we, I mean all of us. Tristan and I couldn’t tear ourselves away from the nursery, and Ming wouldn’t stay in her bed. Even Nikolaj couldn’t stop coming to check on his new brother.

“Why did we name him Jared, Daddy?” Ming asked between adoring glances at her baby brother.

He got choked up at the question, but eventually, haltingly, he started to tell our Ming the story of his brother, Jared. It was an important story, and though she wasn’t old enough to really understand it now, I knew that we would be sure to teach her that, though those we loved may die, our love could keep them close to us forever.

Ming fell asleep halfway through his story, sitting on his lap in the rocking chair. He just held her closer, kissing her on the top of the head. Nikolaj had fallen asleep in his other arm a while back.

I was sitting in a rocking chair facing his, cradling Jared in my arms.

We shared a look. What a journey it had been. I had a whole lot of happy under my belt these days, but never in my life had I been so happy as I was in that exact moment.

“I love you,” I mouthed at him.

He flashed one ruinous dimple at me. “Love you more.”





BOOKS BY R.K. LILLEY

IN FLIGHT (UP IN THE AIR #1)

MILE HIGH (UP IN THE AIR #2)

GROUNDED (UP IN THE AIR #3)

LANA (AN UP IN THE AIR NOVELLA)

BREATHING FIRE (HERETIC DAUGHTERS #1)

BAD THINGS (TRISTAN & DANIKA #1)

ROCK BOTTOM (TRISTAN & DANIKA #2)

LOVELY TRIGGER (TRISTAN & DANIKA #3)

AND COMING SOON…

THE WILD SIDE (A NOVEL)

CROSSING FIRE (HERETIC DAUGHTERS #2)

MR. BEAUTIFUL (UP IN THE AIR #4)





Thanks so much for reading this series! Keep up to date on all of my current and future projects at www.rklilley.com, and if you liked this book, please, please, please, review and tell all of your friends!





Here’s an excerpt from my upcoming standalone erotic romance.

Coming 2014

THE WILD SIDE





ARE YOU READY TO TAKE A WALK?

Alasdair Masters is in a rut. He just hit forty, has been nearly celibate for the past year, and his life has turned into a daily sequence of lonely patterns that revolve around avoiding human contact.

His tidy life is turned on its head when a hot young blonde at the gym that’s been pseudo-stalking him decides to rock his world. A very young blonde. Way, way too young for him. The problem is, he can’t seem to tell her no, and she just keeps coming back for more.

It doesn’t help that he’s ninety percent sure she’s a criminal, and still, he can’t seem to turn her down. What is a dull introvert to do when a chaotic cyclone that oozes sexuality comes twisting into his life?

At first, he thinks she’ll give him a heart attack, but after his twenty-year marriage ended a year ago, he’s been a little lost, and when she comes crashing into his life, he realizes that he’s never felt more alive.

Is a walk on the wild side just what he needs to get his life on track or a disaster in the making? Is it possible for someone that much younger to be just what he needs, or is she a fortune hunter, as everyone keeps telling him? Is it his hormones telling him that the mysterious younger woman is the one, or could it be more?





I set my two perfectly folded gym towels down on a chair by the treadmill and got on the machine.

I always brought two. I wasn’t even sure why. I was a creature of habit. Once I started a pattern, I tended to stick to it, rain or shine.

Kind of like my marriage. Of course, that hadn’t lasted forever, but that hadn’t exactly been my choice.

I punched in my settings and began my warm-up. I had already done twenty minutes of stretching at home. My three-hour daily workout was very precise. I had a family history chock-full of heart disease, and so I aggressively fought to stay healthy. I was intelligent enough to know that I’d brought the whole thing to an extreme, but honestly, what else was I supposed to do with my free time? I was busy enough with work, but my work involved a lot of sitting down and tapping away at a computer, and I felt I had to counter all of that physical inactivity, somehow.

I’d just had my dreaded fortieth birthday, and I felt like I was in as good of shape as I’d ever been. My waistline wasn’t growing, thanks to my three hours a day in the gym and an impeccable diet, and my muscles were well toned and good sized. I had no idea what age I actually looked, but I figured the liberal salt and pepper at my temples brought it at least close to forty. I didn’t really give it much thought, as I stayed largely to myself, and any time I was on camera, I went out of my way to avoid seeing it.

The gym was busy, as it usually was, so my time there was literally the most social I was in an average day, and I usually got away with a nod and a good morning to the receptionist on the way in.

That was it. The only verbal interaction in my day.

Sometimes I had to talk on the phone for work, and once, maybe twice a year, I did a few television or radio interviews.

And that was it.

The scary part was it was effortless for me. It had started with an ugly divorce just over one year ago, and slowly shaped its way into this. A sad, old man that could have easily embraced a life as a complete recluse.