"RIPPED! is More than Uniformly Hot...It's Red Hot Affair!"
Reviewed by Tonya Callihan
Posted August 30, 2009
Romance Series | Romance Contemporary
Eden Walters is a photographer who has worked hard to form
a successful career. Eden grew up in the military, her
father was and still is a very respectable man of the
military. Everyone knows who he is. Eden escaped the
military to live a life of freedom and a life of no rules.
Her parents can't understand her career choice, but she no
longer allows that to affect her. Mitch Dugan was only looking for a good time with women.
He was a military man so it wasn't fair to bring a woman into
his lifestyle. She would only have to wait for him. She
would have to give up her hopes and dreams to follow his
and then worry day and night if her husband would return
home. Both Eden and Mitch agree to a three-day affair. Eden has
been assigned to shoot a calendar of military men, proceeds
going to the victim's families of the military. Eden never
expected to fall in love with Mitch. When she tells him
how she feels and that they could work out a relationship
Mitch runs. RIPPED! is a delicious addition to a reader's library.
Jennifer LaBrecque is like fine wine--she is an author who
only continues to get better with time. Her writing grows
and improves with every novel she writes. She has a unique
style that many others seem to lack. The stories are
short, but carry a powerful punch of character growth,
motivation, strength, strong plot development, and sex
scenes that turn even the most risqué reader's face bright
red. LaBrecque is an author I highly recommend to any
romance reader.
Learn more about Ripped!
SUMMARY
Subject: Paratrooper Lieutenant Colonel Mitch Dugan. Current status: Confident. Disciplined. And aching with
sexual need. Mission: Chaperone the brigadier general's daughter. Obstacle: Eden Walters: the very hot, very willing brigadier
general's daughter… For tough-as-nails Mitch Dugan, the army is everything.
Until he experiences the rush of another jump…into Eden's bed! The high he gets from leaping out of planes is no rival for
their sexual chemistry. But Mitch is a proud military
lifer…and former army brat Eden has no intention of staying
with a man who's never around. It's time for this sexy soldier to pull the rip cord and
save himself—fast. Or he might end up in a free fall with
the one woman he can't have…
Excerpt"You've got to do it," Eden Walters's best friend, Patti,
said. "The calendar is for a good cause—all the proceeds
will go to 82nd Airborne families who've lost loved ones in
the line of duty. You're the best photographer in the
business and you know the military. You've got to do it,"
she repeated.This was a no-brainer. Eden settled back in the wrought-iron
chair in her courtyard and laughed, "No, I don't, Patti.
Your wheedling isn't going to get you anywhere this time,
even if you are a professional at it." She was not being
talked into photographing a calendar of Army jumpers. Nope.
Not her kind of assignment. Just the thought made her tense
up. She took a deep breath and consciously relaxed. Patti
could find another professional photographer to rope into
this one. Patti added her signature snort to the attendant sounds of a
late-summer evening in New Orleans' French Quarter—the
burble of Eden's fountain to the left of the table, the
restless whisper of a breeze through the potted palm fronds
and bougainvillea, the distant float of laughter and music,
the occasional whine of mosquitoes punctuating the cicadas
endless chorus. "A professional." Another snort. "You certainly know how to
add a touch of glamour to my job, don't you?" They both knew
Eden had the utmost respect for Patti's job as a volunteer
recruiter for a nonprofit agency. "It's a good thing I love
you like the sister I never had…." Patti trailed off, her
good humor evident despite her grousing tone, to sip at the
pale yellow limoncello, "You made this?" "Yep. From my very own lemon tree," Eden nodded toward her
pride and joy in the corner of the courtyard's brick wall
confines, barely discernable in dusk's shadows. "Delicious. And I can't believe it took me so long to get
down here to see you." Patti leaned her head back against
the wrought iron chair and offered an approving smile. "This
place is so totally you." Eden grinned. She'd known Patti would love her home. They'd
met in sixth grade at the base's middle school in Hawaii,
where both their fathers had been stationed and the two
girls had become firm, fast friends. They talked once a
month and had long ago fallen into the habit of not
answering the phone unless they both had at least an hour at
their disposal to yak. Eden had e-mailed pictures but it had
taken Patti three years to manage a visit. Her money had
been as tight as Eden's. Eden had fallen in love with the vintage Creole town house,
circa 1842, from the moment she'd seen its two-story pink
façade faced with turquoise shutters and a second-floor iron
balcony. It had spoken to her artist's soul, murmured
this is where you belong. The first-floor parlor had
provided the perfect gallery setting for her photographs,
with the upstairs serving as her private living quarters.
But it was the lemon tree, laden with the most spectacularly
large, yellow fruit she'd ever seen, tucked into the back
corner of the foun-tained brick courtyard that had sealed
the deal for her. The place was outside her budgeted price range. And even
though a building report came back that the place was
structurally sound and the wiring and plumbing had been
updated post-Katrina, it needed some serious TLC. Her
parents, particularly her Brigadier General father, would
have a friggin heart attack— they considered New Orleans
lawless and vulnerable to another disaster. She'd made an offer the next day. Once again her parents had tagged her as impulsive. She
preferred to think of it as instinctive. And yeah, sometimes
it got her into trouble—well, maybe a lot of times—and
granted she'd had to eat red beans and rice damn near every
meal for a year, but it was finally paying off. She and her
photography business had blossomed and grown beyond her
wildest imagination. It was as if, after years of growing up
in the stifling military environment, she'd finally found a
rich, nurturing place to plant her roots. Granted her
photography took her all over the world, but she always came
home to here. "Want to play with the tarot cards?" Patti asked half an
hour later when they'd finished their lemon-infused vodka.
Eden wasn't drunk, she didn't even qualify as bonafide
tipsy, but she was definitely relaxed. And tarot cards were
the kind of thing you did with a longstanding friend on a
summer night in Nawlin's. Plus, Patti seemed to have a gift
with the cards. Tomorrow night they were going out for
zydeco dancing, but today they'd strolled through all the
French Quarter shops and tonight was for catching up. "Sure. You grab the cards and I'll light the candles." Dusk
had yielded to night while they'd talked. Patti disappeared into the house for the tarot pack she'd
bought that afternoon and Eden padded barefoot across the
bricks. She always risked stepping on an insect, and she had
run across the occasional snake, but it was worth it to feel
the sun-warmed bricks against her bare feet. She retrieved
the lighter from a waterproof container she kept in the
palm's pot and moved around the small courtyard lighting the
tiki torches. She paused in the far corner of the yard,
across from the lemon tree. For all that she loved the
bright sunny spot and the happy yellow fruit, she was
equally enamored with the opposite corner, where the sun
only reached briefly. She brushed her toes over the soft moss that carpeted the
bricks in this spot. "Hello, handsome," she said softly as
she lit the torch, illuminating the worn statue nestled
amongst ferns and fragrant banana shrubs. "Uh, is there someone else here that I don't know about?"
Patti asked from behind her. Eden laughed. "Patti, meet Mercury, Roman messenger of the
gods," she said, gesturing toward the moss-covered life-size
concrete casting of the nude god with winged feet. For the
most part he blended in with his verdant surroundings.
"Mercury, meet Patti, who knows and loves me best." "All righty, then. Hi, Mercury." Patti shook her head. "You
know this is just damn weird that we're talking to a statue." "Hey, he spoke to me first. I found him one day when I was
knocking around an antique shop. I turned the corner and
there he stood, stopping me in my tracks." Lean face,
chiseled lips, sculpted muscles— she'd had to have him. "I'm guessing you didn't just toss him in your backseat and
haul him home." Laughing again, Eden shook her head. "Two guys, a dolly, and
a lift truck and it was still a bitch to get him back here.
Isn't he beautiful?" "How many times have you photographed him?" Patti knew her too well. "Lots." She'd fired off hundreds of
shots. "He's paid for himself many times over. I did a
numbered series of him and it sold phenomenally well." "Good deal." Patti grabbed the lighter and flicked it on.
Holding it lower, she cocked her head to one side and peered
closer. "His schwing could be a little bigger." Eden had thought the same thing—all those nicely defined
muscles in the arms, chest, abs, ass and legs, but the penis
was on the pretty-damn-small side, even for an unaroused
state. She'd told herself it was simply a matter of the
artist in her objecting to the lack of physical symmetry.
Still, she had to tease Patti. "You know, you have an
obsession with male genitalia." "As if you don't. Please tell me when you're fantasizing you
give him a better package." Eden grinned. "Well, yeah." The sixteenth century sculptor
could've been way more generous. Reclaiming the lighter, Eden finished lighting the garden
torches. Patti followed. "You know you seriously need to get
out more if you're fantasizing about a statue." "Says you. He's got a better personality than the last
couple of guys I met." Patti giggled. "Idiot." "For real. Pickings are pretty slim in the man pool." Eden
sat back down in the wrought-iron chair and tucked her heels
on the edge, bringing her knees to her chest and wrapping
her arms around her legs. "Maybe you're fishing in the wrong pond." Patti began to
shuffle the tarot deck. "Pond? I've fished in every friggin' ocean I've crossed.
There was the local guy here who wanted to wear my panties.
No thanks. Then there was the guy I met in Canada who turned
out to be married. The Asian guy who wanted us to meditate
to an orgasm without touching one another." She paused to
draw a breath and Patti held up a staying hand. "Okay. Okay. I gotcha." She cut her eyes in a sly way. "I
just offered you a new pond to fish in. Hot paratroopers." "I'd rather sign up for a lobotomy. Wait. Getting involved
with a military guy would be the same thing. I don't think
so. Actually, I believe you've lost your mind." "Far from it. You've just got such a rigid mind-set— guess
you get that from your father." "Kiss my ass." Okay, so Patti had struck a chord. Her career
military father only saw things in black and white. It drove
Eden crazy. Had always driven her crazy because she was all
about shades of gray and Technicolor. "Think compromise, liebling. Think about hard bodies,
males in their prime in top-notch condition. Think of hot,
sweaty sex. Think about you wrapping up the assignment, and
then spending your time anyway you please. I get what I
want, which is the best damn photographer in the business
shooting my calendar, and you get what you want, a little
mattress time with a real-life hottie instead of a concrete
fantasy." She put one finger on her cheek and pretended to
ponder. "And didn't your assistant text you this afternoon
about a job rescheduling?" Patti had had Eden wriggling in her seat with her talk of
all that hot, sweaty sex. It had been too long. But she didn't want a soldier. That was just…she wasn't
going there. "You're manipulating me." "You're all black and white." And Patti had just moved from manipulation to outright
psychological warfare...
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