The Lawman's Wife
The Wives Tales 3

Professional Reviews

5 STARS/Hot: "The Lawman's Wife, book three of The Wives Tales, was well worth the wait. Ms. Santiago knows how to capture her readers and keep them entertained until the very last word and demanding more. Grace's character suffered a horrible sexual encounter when she was a teenager that left her emotional scared by sex. I enjoyed the way Grace was able to overcome the challenges that she had and was able to be a wonderful mother. There were times when Grace appeared to be nave, but as I continued to read I noticed that she was doing everything to protect her child from harm -even appearing to be meek to the man she thought was her husband of convenience, Danny Cox. Jon was also a strong character overcoming his genetic enhancement received as a teenager, instead of turning into a sexual vampire he focused on keeping his sexual needs at bay with the help of medication. The sexual chemistry between Grace and Jon was sizzling from the moment they met in the elevator. Jon was aware of Grace's sexual history and didn't want to alarm her with his desire, but [imagine] his surprise when Grace turned into the sexual aggressor in their relationship. Just Smoking!!!! The action in the book was on point and well written. Nothing appeared to be out of place with this story. Bravo Ms. Santiago, for another job well done!" -- LT Blue, Just Erotic Romance Reviews

5 KISSES: "Jon is a wonderful man, with a kind and caring heart. It doesn't hurt that he's also drop-dead gorgeous and sexy to boot! The manner in which he cares for Grace and Emma is sweet and will fill your heart with emotion. Grace has been through so much and her unwavering commitment to her daughter is beautiful while her own search for peace will pull at your heartstrings. The chemistry between Jon and Grace is undeniable and their love scenes are scorching. This latest installment of The Wives Tales is definitely the most intense and adds a good balance to the series. I definitely recommend reading The Lawman's Wife and feel that the entire The Wives Tales series should be on everyone's must-read list!" -- Kerin, Two Lips Reviews

4.5 STARS: 2006 Reviewers' Choice Award Nominee: "As the third book in the Wives Tales, The Lawman's Wife definitely delivers. Ms. Santiago paints a picture of oppression and desperation for Grace and other women. Even with her painful past, Grace manages to be a sweet woman and wonderful mother and when Jonathan rescues her - both times - he is the only man who has ever showed her any gentleness. In addition, he's the only man to ever excite her. Jonathan believes he's only rescuing Grace because of sympathy but in fact, his feelings run much deeper. Their struggle to beat the clock to become man and wife, build a relationship and try to keep their little family together despite a sexual predator makes for one fantastic finish to this trilogy. This fast paced story is one that will draw you in and have you wishing for more." -- Trang, Ecataromance

4.5 BLUE RIBBONS: "The Lawman's Wife is the final book in Lara Santiago's The Wives Tales series. Despite all the strides women have made toward independence I found this story shockingly thought provoking. I can imagine something like this happening at some point in the future. Grace is a character whom I truly admire. She does everything in her power to protect herself and her daughter and faces her fears head on. Jonathan is a genuinely honorable man. He's worried about his job's impact on their lives and seriously considers finding her another husband, one whose job doesn't keep him from home for months at a time. The Lawman's Wife is a book sure to cause a riot of emotions in readers and leave them with a warm feeling at the end." --Chrissy Dionne, Romance Junkies

4 ANGELS: "This is the second of the Wives Tales series that I've had the pleasure of reading. Like its predecessor, I found myself enthusiastically absorbing a world I pray never comes to pass. A world where women's rights are set back to the dark ages and men can get away with crimes against them. Jonathan is a lawman in deed and spirit. From the beginning he endeared himself to me with his kindness. Grace seemed to roam from one extreme to another, meek but still a little tiger when it came to getting what she desired from Jonathan and protecting both her daughter and her new husband. This story was well developed with enough action to create and sustain excitement. The carnal delights were high on the Richter scale but made even sweeter because of the fragile emotions involved. The Lawman's Wife is a great story and I look forward to more of Ms. Santiago's work." -- Rachelle, Fallen Angel Reviews

"Although circumstances are bleak, the hot desire between Jon and Grace warms them, lights their lives, and leads them to a place of love and passion. [Brutal and Hannah] from The Miner's Wife are part of the story, and with The Lawman's Wife, Lara Santiago tells of a time fraught with strife and ugliness that might be, but, with people like Jon and Grace, will not last forever. I recommend it." -- Maggie Anderson, Romance Reviews Today

"The Lawman's Wife is book 3 of Lara Santiago's The Wives Tales. Set in the future, it is the story of Jonathan and Grace, two strangers who met and comforted each other on a stuck elevator and who now have no choice but to consummate their relationship or risk losing things they hold dear. I was pleased to be reintroduced to Brutal, Jonathan's brother in law from The Miner's Wife. Jonathan and Grace had secrets but I was comforted by the fact that they loved each other, the good with the bad. The Lawman's Wife was an exceptional read. I can't wait to read it again!" -- Talia Ricci, Joyfully Reviewed

Excerpt

STORY EXCERPT

Grace haltingly re-entered the stage. Every other woman ahead of her up for auction had fairly flown off the stage. She couldn't figure it out.

She was in serious trouble if she wasn't attractive enough to get a single desperate guy to bid. Even with her nearly non-existent pride, she had hoped for more than one offer besides Danny's today. But she hadn't even gotten him to bid. And he'd laughed when she'd exited the stage the first time. She'd know that whiney nasal snicker anywhere.

As each subsequent woman was snapped up, Grace formulated a plan to beg. She didn't care if she wasn't supposed to speak. She wanted her daughter back. Once they found out about the identity of Emma's father and her inability to have any more children, she'd have a hard enough time keeping any other man interested. She'd deal with that when the time came.

The auction was all she could manage for now.

"Here is the last female we have up for auction today. So you'd better get her while you can. Now, what's my bid for this lovely, young girl?"

Again, every man became mute. Grace couldn't help the angry tears tumbling over her lower lids. Emma's forlorn little face at yesterday's tearful separation swam in front of her eyes.

"Surely one man among you is willing to bid on this female. Look how pretty she is."

Tears fell copiously, and she sniffed loudly at the very moment everyone was supposed to see how pretty she was.

"Please," she whimpered. "Please."

"Little lady, you can't speak. I told you already. Now, why won't anyone bid on this sweet little girl?"

"Because she's frigid and terrified of sex. Plus she's got another bastard's kid already, and she can't have any more children. She's completely worthless. Give it up. No one's bidding on her," said a callous voice from the audience Grace didn't recognize.

How did the man in the audience know all her secrets?

Grace squinted through her tears to search for Danny. He smiled in that superior way he had, making her feel small and valueless as a human. He apparently had made sure no one would bid on her today. She should have known. Now when she went to the Institution, they would pay him to marry her, but Emma would be gone to her forever. She fought the urge to run into the audience and strangle him.

"Please, someone, bid on me!" she screamed in anguish, not caring that she wasn't allowed to speak.

"Hush now. No more talking," the auctioneer admonished her again and then turned to the audience to seal her fate.

"No one willing to bid on this female? Not anyone in this room? You are all a bunch of damn fools." The auctioneer shook his head and raised his gavel to seal her fate as an institutionalized female. She covered her ears to muffle the sound of her doom.

The doors to the back of the room burst open and bounced off the interior walls. Grace lowered her hands. A huge lawman strode through the door and shouted, "I bid ten dollars over the standing floor bid for this woman."

"Sold to the lawman for ten dollars," the auctioneer said, not missing a beat, as if he'd expected the bid all along. He banged his gavel to complete the deal. Grace bent over in grateful disbelief. She was sold. Thank heavens. She didn't care if it was the devil himself who'd just bought her. She could have Emma back. She straightened quickly and looked to see who owned her. Her future husband would not be Danny. She found that a huge relief, too. She didn't know what her future husband would want, but she knew exactly what Danny expected.

"Wait, I'll bid twenty dollars for her," Danny's friend Walter called out.

"Too late," the auctioneer said. "You gave up the right to bid when I asked the room."

"Well, the other guy was in the room earlier, too, and he left. He shouldn't get special privileges."

"I'm a federal interstellar lawman. I was called away momentarily on official business. What's your excuse for not bidding the first time?"

Walter snapped his lips shut, pressing them flat, and gave the lawman a sullen look, as if he were the one being treated unfairly.

Grace listened to her savior speak, and a tingle of recognition brushed against her memory. She put a hand up to her brow to block the floodlights above her and to get a glimpse of the lawman soon to be her husband. He looked vaguely familiar.

"What's your name, Lawman?" the auctioneer asked.

"Jonathan Brent."

Grace sucked in a breath.

"Well then, this little lady is about to become a lawman's wife." He banged the gavel again. "Sold for ten dollars to the lawman, Jonathan Brent."

Walter started to protest again, but Grace ignored him, still stunned at the name of her intended husband. Jonathan Brent.

He was the lawman in the elevator from three years ago. Not a single day had gone by that she hadn't thought about his strong body hugged close to hers. The initial brush of his firm lips sliding over her mouth in the dark had crept into her dreams more than once.

She wiped the tears from her face and prepared to face him. Squinting into the dim light, she saw he was even more gorgeous than she had remembered. He exceeded six feet by several inches. His dark hair looked wiry and coarse, but she knew from personal experience it felt very soft sifting through her fingers. She couldn't see his eyes from this distance or in this light, but knew they were a comforting gray.

Grace waited onstage for him to come fetch her, but instead he crossed to where Danny and Walter were standing. She looked over at the auctioneer, who motioned for her to greet her soon-to-be husband. She wiped her face again, took a deep breath, and went to face her future. It was the first moment in a long while that she wasn't absolutely terrified. Grace's new-found courage lasted only until she saw her future lawman husband pull a set handcuffs off his belt.

She paused, waiting to see what he was going to do with them.

Was he about to handcuff her?

"Walter Dennis, I have an order from a magistrate to bring you in for criminal activity."

"What?" Walter looked at Jonathan as if he'd only just noticed he was a lawman and then turned to run. The tall, menacing, yet gorgeous Jonathan clamped a hand on Walter's arm and stopped him. He had the handcuffs around Walter's wrists in no time. She brushed away the dread that came with her fear of being handcuffed and started moving toward her now bright future.

"How did you find me?" Walter asked.

"Someone ratted you out and called in an `anonymous' tip as to your whereabouts. I wonder who knew you'd be here today?" Jonathan asked.

Walter turned to Danny. His big, goofy face turned red. Grace wasn't the least bit surprised. She'd be willing to bet her last two hundred and sixty-three hidden dollars it was Danny who had ratted her out to the Tiberius Family Group too. She wanted to smack Danny, but decided she had already expended too much effort on him. It was time to move on to a better life as the wife of a federal interstellar lawman. She smiled for the first time in two days.

"Thank you. Thank you so much," Grace said to Jonathan, stepping close to him once she realized the handcuffs he brandished weren't for her.

"Sure. Listen, I hate to do this to you, but unfortunately, Walter will have to accompany us to the wedding ceremony."

"It doesn't matter. I'm so grateful you bid on me. You saved me-again."

Jonathan Brent tilted his head and gave her an engaging smile. "Come on. I need to get going." She wanted to throw her arms around him and bury her face into his throat. She knew she would be safe in his arms. He was a lawman. That was what lawmen did. They protected people.

"Wait a minute. Don't you want to know what you're getting for a wife? She has serious sexual problems, and she's got a kid, too."

"Danny, shut up. You have no right to say a word." Grace operated under the hope that Jonathan didn't know all of her secrets. He hadn't entered the room until after the loudmouth in the audience had announced her life story. Perhaps she still had a chance to keep him.

The tempting and wicked thought of sex with him already danced around her brain. She remembered begging him for amazing sex in the elevator. He had turned her down then, but perhaps not because he wasn't interested. Perhaps her future husband had bid on her today so he could take her to some quiet place to make fabulous and amazing love to her. A buzzing sensation vibrated her long-buried sexual arousal wide-awake. It was about damn time for some amazing sex in her life.

Jonathan turned a ferociously lustful gaze toward her and winked. "Believe me, I know exactly who I'm getting for a wife." Grace smiled and held his stare. She relived the kiss in the elevator as if it had happened a minute ago. Her tongue slipped out to wet her lower lip. She couldn't wait to get him alone.

"But she's frigid." Danny insisted, as if Jonathan were too stupid to understand his brilliant analysis. Grace frowned at him, willing him to shut his fat face and leave her be.

"Not with me, she's not." Jonathan averted his gaze from her and scowled at Danny. "I know everything I need to know about her. You, on the other hand, are trying my patience. Get lost."

"Don't come crying to me when she won't have sex with you. I'm warning you, you'll have to handcuff her to a bed to cure her sexual deviance." Danny put his hand on his waist as if to suggest the lawman was the most obtuse human ever.

Jonathan frowned at him. "You're one sick bastard, you know that? Trust me, I won't cry to you for anything. She's not frigid. I suspect she told you that so she wouldn't have to endure your soft, clammy hands. Back up." Jonathan took a menacing step in Danny's direction, dragging Walter behind him. Danny frowned and took a shuffling step away.

Jonathan turned to her. "Ready to go?" She nodded and fell into step behind him. He had earned her eternal gratitude for telling Danny off the way she had wanted to for years, but couldn't. In her position as second-class citizen, she had put up with loads of crap and endured years of biting her tongue to keep silent. She enjoyed giving Danny a smug smile on her way past him as she followed her delicious future lawman husband.

They filled out the paperwork, and a few minutes later, for the pitiful price of ten dollars, she was married to a man who made her heart pound in her chest. A cheap hamburger at a fast food joint cost more. Ah well, it didn't matter.

Her new lawman husband held onto Walter during the ceremony, but she didn't care. She could get Emma back, which was the only important thing. She'd get a honeymoon, which was another thing gathering importance low in her belly. A heart-pounding vibrancy radiated through her at the thought of a real honeymoon night. Sex with Jonathan would certainly be the pinnacle of her sexual experience, as long as he didn't handcuff her or hold her arms down. She spoke her vows to love, honor, and-most importantly to the Tiberius Group-to obey her new husband. She wondered what he might require of her in the bedroom. They were pronounced man and wife. Thank heavens.

"How are you going to fulfill the forty-eight hour consummation dictate, Grace?" Danny asked.

Danny lingered several steps away, approaching her only after the marriage vows had been spoken. "You know the minute he snaps the handcuffs tight you'll faint. You should have let me cure you a long time ago."

She didn't have time to answer. Jonathan pulled the regulation-issue weapon off of his belt, checked the load-presumably to make sure it was ready to fire-and gave Danny a positively satanic glare. His wicked-looking gun was pointed at the floor, but the threat was unmistakable. Grace wondered if Jonathan was going to shoot him.

"I've heard enough out of you. Grace and I will be at your residence later on to pick up her things. I don't need a reason to shoot you. Quit trying to give me one. Grace is my wife. She was never yours. I suggest you leave. Now." He tightened the grip on the gun's handle.

Jonathan radiated an aura of anger she could stick a fork through, and even she could tell he was trying to calm down and not kill her ex-roommate.

Danny gave them both a sour look and retreated, finally figuring out he shouldn't aggravate a grumpy lawman.

Jonathan promptly leveled the gun at Walter's chest. "Don't move, or I shoot to kill. Do you understand me?" At Walter's fearful nod, Jonathan wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her close before she realized his intent. His firm lips landed on hers in a passionate kiss. Even this early in the morning, he had a tantalizing five o'clock shadow on his face. His delicious scent wrapped around her with his sizzling, warm body pressed close.

Grace melted into him as her knees weakened. Her hands went to his chest first, then circled around his neck and anchored herself to his strong warrior body. She ran a hand up the back of his head, through his silky hair. Unlike the vigorous, eager kiss in the elevator, this one was lazy and thorough. He kissed her tenderly, stroking his tongue slowly and methodically against hers as if he had all the time in the world to make love to her mouth. She sagged in his arms, unable to hold herself upright any longer, and heard moaning.

Oh God, she was moaning!

ADULT EXCERPT

Grace kissed his jaw once and then trailed her lips to his collarbone. Her fingers brushed the closure to his pants. His cock sprang forward, ready to be pleasured when she unzipped him. He almost lost it when her fingertips touched his tip. Her soft hands stroked him tenderly. Jon did his best not to leap up, throw her down, legs open, and drive his cock directly to her womb. He should let her get accustomed to him. He forced his body to relax and enjoy her gentle caress. His cock told him he was a big pussy not to grab her by the hips to thrust deeply and repeatedly until.

"Is it okay if I put my mouth on you?" she whispered. He cleared his throat, realizing his eyes had closed in anticipation of her touching and stroking his cock. The seductive visual of her head in his lap, her tongue licking him while her lips surrounded and sucked on his dick, slammed into his sex-starved mind, nearly making her request redundant. His cock then informed him he'd made an excellent selection for a wife and bobbed once in hearty approval of her breathy suggestion.

"Sure," he managed to utter in a gravelly voice. He was proud of himself for not having climaxed in her hand as he spoke.

She smiled as if relieved and shifted to kneel between his legs, bending over his long-deprived and now insanely happy cock. She licked him first, and he couldn't stifle the hiss between his lips as he felt his cock bob again in utterly delightful anticipation. She closed her lips over his head, and he didn't care if he died right then. He'd die happy. She sucked him with her wide mouth, her sexy, bee-stung lips completely surrounding his cock. She slid him back out again slowly. And back in again. And back out again. He wasn't going to last four more seconds.

Jon brushed a hand down her dark, satiny locks to disrupt her before he embarrassed himself. She pulled almost all the way off, her lips resting on his very moist tip. She looked up at him from between his thighs. The sincerity of her expression made him pause. Removing his cock from the warm space between her lips, she promptly frowned. "Am I doing it wrong?"

Jon almost laughed at the insanity of her ability to blow him wrong. There was no wrong way. He tempered his mirth. "No. I just don't want you to get an unexpected surprise. It's been too long for me to.uh, last an extended time." He could hardly speak. He wanted her to continue. His raspy voice told him how close he was to exploding, whether or not she touched him again.

"I'd prefer it this way for this first time if it's okay with you."

Jon found he could no longer speak. He nodded. She held his gaze and inserted the over-swollen head of his cock in her luscious mouth again. Her tongue darted around to lick the sensitive spot underneath as her aqua gaze locked with his. She dropped her head down, breaking his gaze, suctioning tighter as she went to finish him. She sucked his cock deep. Her small hands slid over his uniform slacks, along the seam over his inner thighs, and the next rapturous suction she exerted on him was all it took to make him climax.

Grunting deeply in appreciation as he released, Jon lost awareness of his surroundings for a moment at the diabolically greatest oral experience he'd ever had. It was exponentially superior to what he'd intended when he came home. His head swam in the pleasurable climatic afterglow.

When he finally came back to reality several moments later, her face was resting on one of his thighs. Her hand stroked his other leg slowly.

He brushed a hand down her face and buried it in her hair. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. Are you?" she countered, her tone amused.

He chuckled, "Not sure yet, give me a minute."

"Okay. Thank you."

"You've got to be kidding. What are you thanking me for? If I'd known you could do that, I would have let you take me in the car."

The trill of her laughter caught him off guard.

"Well, I was frightened when I entered your home, but now I'm feeling much more secure. So thank you."

"I was impossibly horny, but trying to be honorable, when I entered my home. Now I'm supremely satisfied. So thank you," he replied, twirling a lock of her hair between her fingers.

"I guess the Tiberius representative won't scan my throat to see if I've been consummated," she said in a wistful tone.

He laughed at the comical visual. "No. Unfortunately, the scan equipment only looks below the belt."

"Guess I'll have to gain some courage then. I don't want to be afraid, but I confess I am...a little nervous."

"I promise to do whatever I can so you won't be afraid. I would never hurt you, Grace."

"I know." She took a deep breath and asked, "Can I handcuff you to the bed before we have sex?"

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