Lumberjack BRIDE (Lumberjack DUET Book 2) Read online

  Lumberjack BRIDE

  The Lumberjack DUET

  Tabatha Kiss

  Copyright © 2017 by Tabatha Kiss

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover Design by Cover Me Timbers

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This novella contains explicit descriptions of erotic and sexual acts that some may find offensive, including perverse adult language.

  All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual.

  Reader discretion advised.

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  Contents

  Also by Tabatha Kiss

  Lumberjack BRIDE

  1. Hazel

  2. Leo

  3. Hazel

  4. Leo

  5. Hazel

  6. Leo

  7. Hazel

  8. Leo

  9. Hazel

  10. Bonus Chapter: Leo

  Who is Mandy Black?

  Also by Tabatha Kiss

  About the Author

  Also by Tabatha Kiss

  HEARTTHROB HOTEL SERIES

  You can check out anytime you like,

  but you’ll never want to leave!

  Just a Touch

  Just a Kiss

  OLD HABITS SERIES

  Meet the Naughty Men of Clover, Kansas…

  Steamy, Small Town Romances!

  The Mechanic

  The Milkman

  RICH BITCHES SERIES

  Wealth. Power. Brunch.

  Pretty Little Thing

  Pretty Dirty Trick

  Pretty Ever After

  SWEET CRAVINGS SERIES

  Sugary Sweet. Sinfully Dangerous.

  Muffin Top

  Hot Sauce

  THE SNAKE EYES SERIES

  Heart-pounding romances. Interconnecting stories.

  One unforgettable adventure!

  Bodyguard

  The Hitman’s Dancer

  Love and Wargames

  Bloodlines

  Hard Bounty

  No Fury

  THE BAD BALLER BOOKS

  Irresistible Sports Romances!

  Whiplash

  Deeper

  Home Run Baby

  THE MIDWEST ALPHAS

  Romantic Suspense in an MMA Underworld!

  Untouched

  Unbroken

  Undying

  THE LUMBERJACK DUET

  Wealth. Power. Wood.

  Lumberjack BOSS

  Lumberjack BRIDE

  THE BELLE ACADEMY BOOKS

  Steamy, sweet, and oh-so-taboo!

  Ruin Me

  2 in the PINK

  For more, go to tabathakiss.com

  Where does your favorite couple fit into

  the Tabatha Kiss Universe?

  Find out in the newly updated Character Map!

  tabathakiss.com/charactermap

  Lumberjack BRIDE

  By Tabatha Kiss

  You’re Invited!

  Please join us for the wedding of

  Hazel Smith and Leonard Jackman.

  Something old, something new.

  Something borrowed…

  You know the rest.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: This novella is an extended epilogue to the novel, Lumberjack BOSS.

  One

  Hazel

  I stare at Leo Jackman from my spot on the floor by the fireplace. My brow twitches as the feeling of pure, unadulterated betrayal slowly sinks in.

  “You cheated?” I ask.

  It’s not really a question. It’s a fact. One I have to repeat out loud before I ever believe it to be true.

  Leo doesn’t try to deny it. Instead, he sits up a little taller on his cushion and has the audacity to smile. “Yes, I did,” he replies.

  “You’ve been cheating this whole time?” I accuse.

  He nods. “Yes.”

  “Since before we moved in together?”

  “Oh, long before that…”

  I grab one of my white pawns off the chessboard between us. “How many times?” I ask.

  “Hazel,” he warns, calmly, “you don’t want to know that.”

  “How many times, Leo?”

  He exhales. “Tonight? Or total over the past year?”

  My jaw drops. “Oh, my god.”

  Leo laughs as he raises his wineglass to his red lips. “You’re too good, Hazel. I had to do something to level the playing field.”

  “So, instead of practicing and learning new strategies like a decent person, you swipe my pawns when I’m not looking?!”

  “Yes!” he admits. “That’s right! I cheat at chess — but only when you’re really drunk and less likely to notice.”

  I snatch the pillow beneath my bottom and swing it over the board at him, striking his side over and over again.

  “Hey!” he shouts, blocking each hit. “Pearl! Help me!”

  “Help you?” My laughter spills off my lips. “Help me, Pearl! Leo Jackman is a damned liar—” I hit him again. “And a cheat—” And again. “And he has a really stupid beard!”

  Leo grabs the pillow as his face turns serious. “Hey, now. You leave the beard out of this!”

  “Pearl!” I cry out her name again as she appears from behind the couch. “Sic him, girl!”

  “No!” He points at me. “Sic her! You obey me, Pearl. I’m the one who raised you since you were a puppy. Remember? Man’s best friend.”

  Pearl’s long, golden snout snaps back and forth between us. She refuses to lean in either direction, completely torn between her two masters.

  Finally, she passes around us to lie down by the fireplace and huffs loudly in annoyance.

  “Ouch,” Leo says. “Eh, can’t say I blame her.”

  I pick up the chessboard and turn it to dump the remaining pieces into the box beside us.

  “What are you doing?” he asks me, still chuckling. “We’re not done yet. I was actually winning that one.”

  I glare at him as I slap the board back down. “If you’re going to cheat like a child, then we will play a child’s game.”

  I fish out the bag of checkers and dump the pieces onto the board.

  Leo laughs. “All right. If you say so.”

  “I said so, didn’t I?”

  We line up our pieces, all the while glaring at each other across the board. I try hard to make my lips stop twitching with amusement but I’m way too warm and tipsy tonight to pull that off.

  After spending Christmas Eve with his family, we drove back home for an evening to ourselves. It’s our first official Christmas here in Jackman Springs, formerly Lover’s Trail, the place where my parents fell in love and pledged their lives to one another.

  A quarter of a century later and Leo and I have done the same. We’ve lived here for almost a year now and life, well...

  They call it a happily ever after for a reason, right?

  I glance across the living room at the tree stump in the corner.

  Carter + Olivia.

  Leo hiked for miles to find it. My parents’ honeymoon tree. He chopped it down by himself, cleaned it, and — after we moved in — converted it into an end table for his reading corner. />
  I see it every single day and, every single time, I smile at the heart and letters my father carved into it all those years ago. It’s the last piece of them I have left after they died suddenly last year right before I met Leo.

  Leo clears his throat and slides a checker forward from his front row. “Let’s do this,” he says, his amused, pink cheeks puffing out above his trimmed beard. “You ready?”

  “To kick your ass?” I shift onto my knees. “Come and get it, wood boy.”

  We trade moves quickly, shifting and hopping back and forth on the board. For two chess pros, checkers is — as I said — child’s play. I don’t bother thinking five or six moves ahead like I usually do. Every piece in checkers is the same, every movement and rule the same for each player. Until you reach the other side, of course.

  I slam a piece down on his back row, my chest swelling with victory. “Boom!” I shout, slightly startling Pearl in her spot beside us.

  Leo rolls his eyes. “Oh, calm down. We just started.”

  “Shut up and Queen me, Jackman!” I say before taking a sizeable chug from my wineglass.

  He drops a red piece on top of mine. “Okay,” he says.

  I glance down at the board to see where he’ll move next but he doesn’t budge.

  Finally, I notice that he didn’t drop a second piece on top like I thought he did.

  It’s a diamond ring.

  I blink and shake my head, thinking that my mind has played some devious trick on me, but it never disappears. It sits there, shining in the firelight like a damn lighthouse.

  “Hazel Smith,” Leo begins.

  “Holy...” I whisper.

  “Will you marry me?”

  “Laundry.”

  He sits forward. “What?”

  “Laundry,” I repeat, setting my empty glass down. “I forgot to switch out the loads earlier today.”

  Leo stares at me with wide eyes as I stand up off the floor. “Uh, Hazel...”

  I hold up a finger. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I literally just asked you to marry me.”

  “It’ll only take a minute!”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  A little more panic rises in my chest as I rush down the hall. “But it could get all mildewy!” I shout back across the house.

  I reach the laundry room and slide the door open and closed behind me. As I pop the washer lid, I hear it open again and Leo follows me in.

  “Hazel.”

  I turn knobs. I fumble socks. I do anything but look at him. “I think these will have to go through again...”

  “Please drop the clothes and step away from the machine,” he says.

  “But it has to get done.”

  “On Christmas Eve?”

  I let the damp clothing slip back into the washer. “You’re right. A good wife wouldn’t have forgotten about it in the first place...”

  He takes a step back and sighs. “Is that what this is about?”

  “I can barely even cook!” I cry out.

  “Neither can I,” he says with a shrug.

  “I don’t even know how to sew! How am I supposed to mend your socks?”

  “Hazel, I asked you to be my wife, not travel back in time with me to the 1940s,” he jokes.

  I exhale hard with frustration. “I’m serious, Leo.”

  “And so am I.” He steps forward and takes my hands. The act calms me almost instantly. “Haze, I don’t expect marriage to you to be any different than the way life already is. I especially don’t expect you to mend my socks.”

  “You don’t?” I ask.

  “I just want you — as you are right now — with me, hanging out, living nice and quiet lives together, making half-assed meals, and occasionally forgetting to switch out loads of laundry while we fool around by the fireplace...”

  He kisses my cheek, his beard tickling my skin.

  “That’s all you want?” I ask.

  “That’s all I need,” he says. “Well, that and Pearl, naturally.”

  I chuckle. “Wouldn’t be the same without her, that’s for sure.”

  “And later... if we choose to expand our family, we have plenty of room here for more.”

  I smile. “Expand?”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “You make it sound so business-like,” I joke. “Like we’re opening a second location in Helena.”

  “Well, you know me. I like to be the boss.” He wraps his arms around my waist. “Doesn’t mean I’m not open to the idea of taking on a partner.”

  “An equal partner?” I tease.

  “That’s right.”

  “So, let me get this straight. I’d be entitled to half of your business assets?”

  He pauses. “Well...”

  “And I’d be a partial owner of L Jack Industries?” I ask with excitement. “Fifty-percent. That’s equal, right?”

  “Hold on.”

  “And I’d finally have some decent damn health insurance.”

  He squints at me. “Hazel.”

  “Sure,” I say, grinning. “I’ll do it. Let’s get married.”

  “I’m having some second thoughts,” he says.

  “Too late. Already said yes. Can’t back out now.”

  He picks me up and I yelp with laughter as he sets me down on the washer. “Hazel, will you marry me?” he asks again.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the ring I left behind. I present my finger and he slides it down my knuckles. A perfect fit. I admire the shimmering stone nestled snug along the golden band, feeling a little foolish that I ran so quickly away from it in the first place.

  “I love you,” he says.

  “I love you, too. Oh — almost forgot.” I twist around and push the knob to start the machine. It turns on, vibrating softly beneath me. “Laundry,” I say.

  He grins as he leans in to kiss me. “Definitely wife material now...”

  I grip his flannel shirt and yank it upward as his hands travel beneath my blouse. The little hairs of his beard scratch at my chin as he kisses me, always bringing back warm and happy memories of our first nights together at his cabin. Storm raging outside. Candles lit in every dark corner. Pearl’s little, beady eyes following our every move.

  I pull his belt loose as he steps back to slide my jeans down to my ankles, panties and all. I spread my legs wide as I draw him back toward me and he settles between them. He cups my face and kisses me again, softly laughing to himself. I laugh with him. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just the absurd places my mind goes under panic and stress. Or maybe it’s the washer’s soft vibrations teasing my core. Maybe both, honestly.

  I flick open the last few buttons on his shirt and let my hands roam his soft, hair-covered chest. He slinks even closer until I feel his begging erection pressing along my thigh. I want so badly to feel him inch inside but he doesn’t give me what I want yet. He raises my shirt and draws it over my head. The fabric tickles my back as he pulls it upward, striking a subtle pleasure along my spine.

  Leo drops the shirt to the floor and gazes at my body, his eyes just as full of lust and greed as the first time he saw it. One hand travels from my waist to my exposed breast, all the way up my neck to finally rest on my cheek. He kisses me again, this time slowly, his breath heated but completely in control, while I quiver in his grip. His other hand takes hold of his shaft and he guides it between my open, dripping folds in front of him.

  He exhales hard as he thrusts inside. I bite my lip as pleasure grows and I rest my arms on his shoulders to embrace him against me. He crushes our mouths with a hard and deep kiss as his hips do the work and his fingers hook beneath my trembling knees.

  I moan into his open lips and he replies with a sudden, deep groan. His pace quickens with his breath, his cock churning in and out of me. I grip him harder as the heat between us rises and the washer starts spinning.

  Again, we laugh, overwhelmed by passionate need. His lips drop to my expos
ed neck. He licks and nips at me as I roll my head back.

  I open my eyes and my attentions instantly pull toward Pearl sitting and staring at us from the open doorway.

  “Pearl...” I wave a hand. “Shoo.”

  She doesn’t move.

  Leo pauses his thrust and looks over his shoulder at her. “Pearl... go away and you’ll get extra special Christmas treats from Santa tonight.”

  She rushes off down the hall back to the living room.

  I bury my face in his shoulder and laugh. “Where are my extra special Christmas treats?” I ask.

  Leo winks. “Oh, I’ll show you,” he says as he easily scoops me up into his arms.

  I close my eyes and I hold on tight as laughter rips me apart.

  I’m getting married to this man.

  I’ll hold onto him for the rest of my life.

  Two

  Leo

  “Do you, Leonard Jackman, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

  I inhale a deep breath, feeling time stand still for one brief and beautiful moment. I’ve been ready to answer that question ever since I gave her that ring six months ago.

  Hazel looks up at me, standing tall beside me on the dock, and smiles. Water laps softly against the wood beneath us, a cool summer breeze warms me inside and out.