The Secret

John believes he has completed his tour of duty when the firebrand, Bella, becomes twenty-one. She begins a career in Antiquities Archeology and has no more need of his protection.

But the wishes of Bella's deceased grandfather bring them together again in a way that shocks them both: A marriage of convenience with a twist. If they don't wed, Bella will be left penniless. John drags his feet, but marries the woman most likely to give him ulcers instead of a happily ever after.

Reviews 

"Bella Cantatore, an antiquities expert, is attending the reading of her grandfather’s will. She’s shocked to find out the terms of the will, and rebels against the last dictates of her grandfather even as her libido trembles. The will gives her the ammunition that she needs to get her hooks into the mouth-watering man of her dreams.

John Lawless, ex-navy pilot and cowboy, has wanted Bella since forever it seems. He’s not let that stop him from living a single man’s dream life, but when the issue of marriage comes up between them, he bites the proverbial bullet and makes the silly twit his wife. And then the fun starts.

The Secret is a hilarious and poignant tale about two lost people finding each other. It’s like Park Avenue meets Main Street, USA when Bella and John collide. They are complex, endearing characters, and will have you on tenterhooks waiting to see what their next escapade will be. I was charmed and drawn into their tale of lust, love, and loss, even as I belly-laughed at their antics. Will they finally figure out what they mean to each other when danger strikes? Author P.J. Womack hits the bull’s-eye dead on with this sultry, sweet and sexy story." - Reviewed by: Michelle, Fallen Angel Reviews.

"Wow, fantastic cliffhanger!!! Can't wait to see what they say about Bella's chaps. heehee! I love the sexual tension between these two, it sizzles." - Vonda Ogle, Author.

"THE SECRET is a wonderfully written, romance-filled story about two people harboring a secret...they love each other. Bella is independent, willful, and downright mean at times, but she loves John with a passion. Strong and protective, John is a force to be reckoned with, which Bella soon learns. Bella and John are multi-dimensional characters who both feel unworthy of the other. John feels like he's too poor and unsophisticated for the likes of Bella, while she entertains the idea that she isn't up to his level. They fight, they make-up, and they fight again, and yet, in the end, they grow stronger as a couple. Secondary characters pop up throughout, adding insight into John and Bella's lives, but this is definitely Bella and John's story.

P.J. Womack writes a delightful romance with THE SECRET. Enchanting characters, an engaging storyline, and profound lovemaking, make this book hard to put down." - Sinclair Reid, Reviewer.

Excerpt 

By the time he got home, the sun was setting and he was hungry. Seven o'clock and no aroma of pot-roast calling him to the kitchen. No rattle of pot lids signaling a man- pleasing meal was being prepared. John chuckled over the ridiculous expectations and went into the living room.

His loving wife sat on the floor with a bowl of something in her hand, spooning whatever it was into her luscious mouth.

"What's for dinner?" He almost choked on the comedic question.

She waved the spoon around and didn't look up from the game show she was watching on the television. "Ice cream and blackberries."

"Now, Mrs. Lawless." He squatted down to smile at her. "That's not a meal to keep your husband satisfied."

"If you want something else, cook it."

He stayed where he was, eyeing her like a hungry hound while those sweet plump lips sucked on blackberries and cream. This was one cruel woman, giving him an inkling of how artful her lips could be, how quick her pink tongue lapped out. Without thinking, he grabbed her hand and took the bowl from her. He couldn't take anymore of the licking thing.

"Let's go out for dinner. I'm starving."

She still had the spoon in her hand. "I'm not hungry."

"You're not, but I am."

She jerked her hand from his grasp, splattering ice cream over the front of his navy-blue shirt. He eyed her with a crooked grin. "Baby wants to play?"

The soft chortle from her throat went double time to his crotch like an unexpected caress. To cover his immediate needs, he dipped his fingers into the bowl and smeared ice cream on her lips and chin.

She jutted her chin out and pointed to her lips. "Now, clean it off."

Her demand was met and his heart went on a rampage of flip flops and high jumps while he cupped her chin in his hand and licked a path over it to her lips with a leisurely sweep of his tongue. He couldn't stop the tremble in his hands or the desire to taste her parted lips.

So this was bliss, soft plump satin bliss that led him down the path to his basest desires, telling him to suck her lips into his mouth and slip his tongue deep into the warmth he had longed for.

How sweet and smooth and cool with vanilla ice cream. Her sweet mouth beneath his seemed to be responding, softening and yielding. There was no mistaking the slide of her tongue against his, or the exploring of his mouth with quick darting swirls of tasting, pulling in and out like a humming bird. She was leading him to the edge and pushing him over and Lord he wanted to free-fall.

He pulled back, taking the spoon from her hand, his voice husky with emotion. "Let's go."

"Where?" She drew back and wiped her chin. "I'm not hungry."

He reached down to pull her to her feet and gazed into her eyes. "Okay. You have a choice. Cook or make reservations somewhere."

He let her go when the phone jangled in a jealous intrusion and he grabbed the noisy contraption. It was his ranch manager's girlfriend.

"Yeah, Ellie." He walked into the kitchen, pulling his tie off and unbuttoning his splattered shirt. He wrote on a note pad while he talked to the ranch foreman's girlfriend. "I'll come out as soon as I can get away."

He turned around to find Bella staring at him with a dark glower.

"Going out?"

"Not exactly out." He could swear she was jealous, but Flower probably had no idea what jealousy felt like. "That was Ellie. There's some kind of emergency out at the ranch."

"What?" Bella's eye's narrowed as if she was suspicious of his reason to be leaving the apartment.

"It's a problem in the stable. They thought I might want to be there." He lifted his shoulders in a broad shrug and pulled his shirt from his pants while Bella followed after him.

"Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

She still held the spoon in her hand and John thought about the sweet softness of her mouth. "She said it was urgent." In a way, he was glad of the excuse to get away from the teasing minx. "Got a colicky mare."

"Can I go with you?" She went into the kitchen to put her dirty dishes in the sink. "I'm not working tomorrow."

"You hate Ellie and will be whining to come home before I get everything done." He went into his bedroom and pulled a long sleeved chambray shirt from the closet. "Remember last Fourth of July?"

Bella looked away as if she were in complete disgust at his audacity of ever bringing the event up. "That was a friendly disagreement."

He patted her rear as he passed behind her. "I'd hate to see a declared war between the two of you."

She stood quietly and observed him while he traded his slacks for some comfy faded Levi's. "You really don't want me to go with you?"

He turned around to look at her, tucking his shirt down in his jeans. "I'll be back in the morning."

Her voice was husky, emphasized by the flashes of sapphire fire in her eyes. "John. If you spend the night

with any woman, it's going to be me."

Her statement caused his crotch to tighten. Yeah, it was the oddest feeling, but Bella could touch his cock with a word or a smile or gesture. She had just done that and he began to firm up.

"Bella, baby." Maybe if he made it sound disgusting, she wouldn't insist on going. "Okay. You can help vaccinate the colts and castrate a stallion. But, not until we watch our prize mare being bred."

"You wait right here, Mister Cowboy." She hurried off toward her room, turning to look at him.

"I'm waiting right here, Flower." He grinned and sat down to wait on his impulsive and beautiful wife. He did want her to go, but damn, she was not the rancher type. Sure, she could ride a horse, but didn't know where steak or chicken nuggets came from.

Heavy thumping sounds came from her room and he smiled to himself. "You okay, Bella?" He looked at his watch. "I have to get going."

She didn't answer, making him curious about what she was doing. He was standing up when she trotted into the living room. He fell back in the chair to stare at his evil seductress. One glance at her outfit rocked him back on his heels. She looked like something a man dreams up when he is at his most horny and deprived. Lush, hot and gorgeous. She set a CD player on the coffee table and turned it on, full volume.

The music was pure barroom scene, hot and nasty. She stiffened her shoulders and undulated her hips in time with the throbbing beat. Like a bug to headlights, his gaze clamped on the snow white, butter soft looking chaps she wore. That was it, except her lacey white see-through demi-bra. Just the chaps over a sheer white thong barely covering her crotch.

She rotated her lovely hips and turned her backside to his full view. He swallowed the long mournful wolf howl in his throat. Her butt was naked, flushed a toasty pink, looking a lot like a couple of delicious creamy bon-bons. Damn. He wasn't sure his heart was still beating, and was sure he'd gone into a mild cardiac arrest when Bella began her cheerleader's routine. It beat the hell out of any thing he'd seen at the football games. She swung her hips from side to side, doing a shimmy so fine her breasts jiggled like a belly dancer's while her lacey demi-bra slipped lower. He'd been in every kind of strip joint, bar and dance club and they all paled in Bella's company.

She was setting him on fire and he wasn't about to stop the show. Why would he? It had been a long dry spell since a woman had entertained him and she was doing it so well. No doubt about it. Bella was one hot tomato and he wanted to roll her, mess up her hair and leave a love bite or two on her lovely throat. He was hard as cobalt. Hell, she kept his cock on alert most of the time and it occurred to him, she was having too much fun making him miserable.

He stood up. "Bella." She was a born Delilah. "Cut it out."

His direct order only seemed to whip her in to a laughing frenzy of swiveling hips and thrusting titties. Her buns were glistening with some kind of shimmer and her naked back glistened with a mist of perspiration from her workout.

Like a fool, he yelled at her. "I'm telling you to stand down."

"Why?"

To his dismay, she ran to the CD player and cranked it up a notch and proceeded to bunny hop with her hips bumping out toward him. He'd had all he could stand. His mouth watered to taste her sweet bouncing breasts and his tongue was hard from want of licking the cleft between her legs. He made a lunge for her, but she scampered off to the terrace and smiled while he lay sprawled on the floor.

Seconds later, he was on his feet and stalking after her. She was like a greyhound, cornering with skill and darting to and fro, jumping from couch to chair and over the coffee table.

"Get ready, Flower." Who was he kidding? He could hardly run with such a hard-on. When she ran out onto the terrace, he was thankful. She was winded too, but stood defiantly grinning at him.

He had no idea how high the noise level they were creating was, but at that moment he was pretty sure it had been mach-one coming from their apartment. He cornered her and she screamed, picking up a plastic lounge chair to throw at him. He tried to wrestle the chair from her and discovered she was a lot stronger than he had guessed.

"Enough now, Bella. You re finished."

"Kiss my butt, John."

"I plan to."

He watched in a helpless amusement when she swung the chair behind her and over the terrace wall. It made a hell of a clatter on its way down to the pool garden.

They stared at each other for several seconds, until the doorbell chimed. Several times. He pointed his finger at her. "That's trouble and you brought it."

He walked to the door, turning the music off on his way, taking a second to rake his hair with his hands. This could only be a pissed neighbor. Nope. A pissed off apartment manager. She was petite with piercing black eyes that looked into a renter's soul.

"Mrs. Wells." He tried charm. "How nice."

"Don't bother with the nice guy thing, this time. Your friend and you have had your last party. You are no longer welcome here." She took a long, scornful look around his male comfort living room.

"It was the chair, wasn't it?" He would have tried to look pitiful, then there was Bella in her thong.

"Among other things." The biting comment was accompanied by her look of disgust in Bella's direction.

"What if I apologize to everyone in the building and pay for the chair?"

"No. Do you happen to recall the terms of your lease? The little talk we had when you moved in?" The stern woman in charge glanced sharply at Bella. "Noise was number one."

"How long have we got?"

"The first of the month, if you can't make it any sooner."

"First of the month it is, Mrs. Wells."

"Fine. I'm counting the hours."

The petite gray-haired, motherly looking woman strode away like a peacock. John shut the door and turned to find Bella peering at him like a guilty pup.

"Okay, you. Start packing."

"Are you mad?"

"What do you think?" He nailed her with a dark glower. "I've lived here four years without any no trouble. You live here three days and we're evicted." He advanced toward her and she had the balls to laugh.

"This means we move into my apartment."

"The hell. This means we move out to the ranch. We need the room anyway. And with all the screaming you do, we need to give other people a break."

She tried to run past him but he caught her by the waistband of her chaps.

"John. Stop it. I'll scream."

He laughed and raised and lowered her a couple of times like a shopping bag. "Go ahead. You've done all the damage you can do for one night."

Her shrill scream ripped through the apartment and he lowered her back to the floor. He grimaced when the doorbell began to ring again

She pointed toward the door. "John. The door."

"Screw it." He wiped sweat from his brow.

"It's the manager wanting you out tonight."

He glared at her. "Me?" He shook his head and went to the door, opening it, prepared to see Mrs. Wells.

"Look, Bella. Its Mom and Dad."

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