He came to with a start when Mallory spilled some liquid fire on the wound, and he sat up with a scream.
“I’m sorry.”
Her tone was unapologetic. She’d stripped her wetsuit down to her waist and leaned over him in a bright bikini top. That could do for some distraction from his present pain. Someone had peeled his suit off as well. “The bacteria in those eels’ mouths are bad. We have to kill the germs.”
“I am not a germ.” The slur in his voice surprised him.
Mallory ignored him and took a syringe from Robert. Adrian barely opened his mouth to protest when she jammed it into his arm.
He swore. “Is this payback? Geez, Mal, I didn’t know you had a vindictive streak.”
She gave a small smile, her attention still on the wound. “I can’t say I’m not enjoying this a little. But you’ll be glad for the shot. I’m going to stitch you up.”
“Why don’t you give that job to someone I wasn’t married to?” He glanced around the barge and saw Jacob and Robert back away. He cast Toney a pleading glance before turning his attention to Mallory.
Her eyes sparkled as she threaded the blunt-looking needle with coarse black thread. “Why, don’t you want it to be pretty?”
“I’m afraid you’ll make me look like Frankenstein’s monster.”
She smoothed her hand over his skin. “I’m very proud of my work. Don’t worry.” She prodded his skin near the injection. “Numb yet?”
“No. Look, I don’t know how good of an idea this is,” he added as she edged closer, parting her legs around his hips as she inspected the wound. Okay, maybe not such a bad idea.
“It’s a four-hour drive to get to a hospital. And I let you stitch me up when I fell and split my chin in Mexico.” Tilting her head back, she showed off the thin white scar.
He brushed his thumb over the scar and sighed. “All right. I’m ready.”
Sucking her lower lip between her teeth, she placed a damp palm on his arm, pulling the skin taut. “Hold still.”
She scooted closer, surrounding him with the smell of ocean and sunshine beneath the coconut scent of her sunscreen. He would focus on that and not on the effect of her body wrapped around his as she tried to get a good angle to stitch his wound.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, and stuck the needle in his arm. Yeow.
The thread tugged at his skin and he winced, but the pain wasn’t enough to kill his growing desire. Soon the whole crew would know it.
“Mal.” A lump rose in his throat and he swallowed. “Maybe there’s a better way?” When she looked up at him, he flicked his eyes to his lap.
She followed his gaze and scowled. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I can’t help it my body doesn’t know we’re divorced.” Hell, part of the reason he was aroused was because he hadn’t been with anyone since he left their house in Pensacola.
She wasn’t looking at him anymore, but he could see her blush along the part in her hair. “Your body should know you just got bitten by a moray eel.”
“My body prefers pleasanter sensations.”
She jabbed the needle in a little sharper than he cared for. “Tell your body to get control. We have a long way to go here,” she said through her teeth.
He makes the rules. She breaks them. This battle of wills just crossed the line…to deadly.
I’d Rather Be in Paris
© 2009 Misty Evans
Super Agent Series, Book 2
Elite CIA operative Zara Morgan has a reputation as a loose cannon with a penchant for breaking the rules. Now she’s got a chance to prove she can be a competent field officer, but the test doesn’t end there. She’s been paired with sexy covert ops team leader Lawson Vaughn, a man who lives and breathes protocol.
Methodical is Lawson’s middle name. He specializes in high-risk search and rescue, not missions that involve tracking down terrorists. Especially while trying to keep the lid on a partner who has a problem with authority and skates by on wits and bravado.
Even before they get on the plane for Paris they’re under each other’s skin…and fighting a scorching sexual attraction. Drawn into an unauthorized game of vengeance, Lawson is forced to dance a tightrope in order to protect his partner from their quarry—a terrorist who’s about to unleash a biological nightmare on the Muslim world. And Zara is the first target.
With her life, and that of millions of innocent people, on the line, Lawson must become the one thing he despises. A renegade.
Warning: Either you’re in or you’re out. There’s no playing it safe anymore.
Enjoy the following excerpt for I’d Rather Be in Paris:
He couldn’t believe it. Zara was kissing him back.
When she rose up on her toes and sighed into his mouth, all his brain processes shut down. The kiss turned wetter, hotter and when her hands went under his jacket, pulling him in tight, his brain exploded in an array of fireworks.
Jesus, she wasn’t just kissing him back, she was inhaling him.
This is wrong. She’d just been through a hell of an experience and here he was, jumping at the chance to wrap his arms around her and console her. He was taking advantage of her at a weak moment.
There’s not an ounce of weakness in her.
He broke the kiss and slid his lips to her neck. She tilted her head to give him better access, and he buried his mouth in the curve of her shoulder. She hitched her breath in that familiar way, and he enjoyed the response her body gave as she arched into him a little further.
She’d been emitting that whole woman-in-charge aura since the minute they’d walked off the plane at Charles de Gaul. Even up to a few minutes ago, she’d been cool, calm and collected every step of the way.
Jesus, he hated women ball-busters, but this take-charge woman was starting to grow on him. Hell, she wasn’t just growing on him. At the moment, with her hands tangled in his hair and her tongue halfway down his throat, he was ready to drop her robe on the ground and let her drive more than his getaway car…
The sound of a motorcycle cut through the lust building in Lawson’s body and he stilled, every sense on high alert. He raised his head and listened.
“Lawson?”
He put a finger to his lips and his eyes slid to the left, checking the dark highway. Traffic was light and the bike was still a half-mile away. No sirens, but something about it had his gut knotting and the spot between his shoulder blades twitching.
Lawson tried to place the make and model of the bike. High-precision, high-speed. Ducati.
“Get in the car,” he said and hustled Zara into the backseat. For once, she didn’t protest or ask why. He ran around to the driver’s seat and jumped in, jerking the car into drive and pulling onto the road in a spray of gravel.
Zara’s voice sounded calm. Too calm. “Police?”
The motorcycle’s headlight hit the rearview mirror. It was picking up speed. He planted his foot on the accelerator while he adjusted the seat to fit him. “Keep your head down.”
The Audi was an older model, but the owner had kept it in good condition. It wasn’t as easy to manipulate as the Duke but it was damn close. Germans, they knew how to build kick-ass cars.
“Darn it,” Zara said from the backseat. Her head was down but Lawson saw clothing flying around.
“What?”
“I don’t have any underwear.”
He was pushing one hundred miles an hour on the speedometer and the bike was still crawling up his ass. The headlight in his mirrors blinded him enough to keep him from identifying whether there was more than one person on the bike, and more importantly, whether or not either of them was armed.
He heard the sound of a zipper from behind him, and Zara muttered something in French. Then the back window shattered and she screamed.
His blood ran cold. Question answered. The men on the bike were definitely armed. Swerving the car from side to side to make them a harder target to hit, he asked the real question burn
ing in his gut. “Zara? Are you all right?”
The second it took her to answer was the longest one he’d ever endured. “I think so,” she said, her voice still sounding unnaturally calm. “But there’s glass everywhere. I’m afraid to move.”
He let out the breath he was holding and zigzagged by a car in front of them. An oncoming car dodged out of his way, horn blaring, but the flustered driver blocked the motorcycle for crucial seconds.
He had two options. Evade the threat or eliminate it. “Get up here and drive.”
“What?”
“Come on, you’re a woman of action, right? You wanted to drive, so get up here and drive the damn car.”
Zara’s head rose from the backseat, her gaze catching his in the rearview mirror as she leaned forward. “Stop yelling at me.”
Lawson reached back and grabbed her arm, hauling her into the passenger seat. She flailed and fumed and once she’d righted herself, he saw she’d exchanged the robe for her leather jacket and miniskirt. She tugged the hem of the skirt down and sent him a scathing look. “What exactly—?”
“Take the wheel. We’re going to exchange places, okay?”
“While the car’s moving?”
Lawson flipped the steering wheel up as high as it would go. He set her hand on the wheel. “You’re going to slide on top of me, got it? Like you’re going to sit in my lap.”
Her hand tightened and Lawson saw her shift into spy mode. A second later, she climbed across the gearshift and slid between his legs.
He released the wheel and extracted his body from around hers. “Keep the car on the road, but don’t make it easy for them to shoot us again. When I give you the signal, I want you to pull the hand brake and crank the wheel to the left like you’re doing a hard U-turn. You’re going to turn the car counterclockwise and land on three o’clock. The car will be blocking the road and I’ll be facing the motorcycle. Got it?”
She dropped her hand and repositioned the seat. “And what are you going to do?”
Lawson hauled the gun out of his waistband. “My Dirty Harry impersonation.”
“Oh God.” She gripped the steering wheel in a ten-and-two position. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
“No,” Lawson grunted, checking the clip in his gun. “We are not going to die. Ready?”
The road ahead was empty of traffic. He moved to lean out the passenger-side window and Zara said, “Wait! What’s the signal?”
“I’ll yell ‘go!’”
“My mother is going to spend the rest of her life scandalized because her only daughter died bare-assed in the middle of France in a stolen car.”
But then she said, “I’m ready.”
And Lawson yelled, “Go!”
Alex Rossi leads a double life, and it may cost Grace Nolan her son.
72 Hours
© 2006 Shannon Stacey
The Devlin Group: A privately-owned rogue agency unhindered by red tape and jurisdiction.
Grace Nolan walked away from the Devlin Group carrying Alex Rossi's child in her womb and his bullet in her shoulder. But a ghost from the past has kidnapped her son, Danny. The ransom—Alex Rossi. To get her son back, Grace will have to step back into the life she'd left behind and reveal her secret to Alex.
With vengeance for his mother's murder nearly at hand and a deadly substance on the loose, the last thing Alex Rossi needs is to find himself at the business end of Grace's gun. Now the clock is ticking as they race to save a child and stop a madman bent on destruction.
But Alex has a secret of his own, and it may be the ultimate betrayal.
Enjoy the following excerpt for 72 Hours:
Something’s burning. The thought hit Grace Nolan a mere second before the alarm shrieked.
“Hold on!” She ripped off her headset, then pounded down the stairs. Dammit, this couldn’t happen again. She’d worked so hard to make sure it wouldn’t.
The room was quickly filling with smoke, and Grace grabbed a potholder. She yanked open the oven door and took out the smoking cookie sheet. With a curse, she dropped it into the sink and turned on the tap.
The pan popped and warped as the chocolate chip briquettes slid into a black, soggy mess in the sink.
“Crap!” she yelled at the smoke detector, flapping a towel under it to clear the smoke.
She could disable any security system known to man, and sell the CIA its damn own secrets, for chrissake. Why the hell couldn’t she bake a decent batch of cookies? A boy should come home from a long day in second grade to something warm and homemade with love.
When the alarm had chirped its last chirp, Grace rummaged through the cabinet for the Chewy Chips Ahoy. After tossing a few on a plate, she shoved the package back behind the bran flakes and glanced at her watch. Just enough time to wrap things up with Carmen before she poured Danny’s milk.
“Forget to set the timer again?” Carmen Olivera asked after Grace retrieved the headset.
She nodded, then shrugged at the Latin beauty in the high-definition video screen. “I think I forgot the vanilla, anyway. Do they taste the same without the vanilla?
“Do I look like Betty Crocker? You need to get out more, chica.”
If only she could. “Who’d have thought motherhood’s harder than infiltrating Russian military installations?”
“Honey, I know it is. Why do you think I run so fast from men?”
“Because they usually have badges from some alphabet agency or another, and want to see you in an orange jumpsuit?”
“That too. You should come back to us, babe. Can you believe Gallagher and I are staying at the freaking Plaza Royale?”
“I’ve been to the Plaza Royale. And I quit the agency eight years ago, Carm. When are you going to believe me when I tell you I’m not coming back?”
“Never. You know the Devlin Group—we never give up.”
“Yeah, like Mounties, only a little more juvenile, and a lot more delinquent. And speaking of delinquents, how’s Gallagher doing lately?”
Carmen rolled her eyes. “Not too happy about being the hired muscle, but Dev didn’t have anybody else available. Pretty good money just to hang around and make sure nobody kills me, if you ask me.”
“Damn straight,” Grace agreed. Sean Devlin had founded a very lucrative business brokering assignments for the loose network of international freelancers specializing in just about anything. His primary focus was assisting government agencies whose hands were tied by red tape, but he certainly didn’t do it for free.
“Like hanging out pool side’s such a hardship for him,” Carmen was saying. “You’d think he’s on vacation for all the attention he’s paying me.”
“Based on some of his previous jobs, I’d say this is pretty close to vacation for him.”
“Knowing my luck he’ll try to cut the power to the camera bank and set off the fire alarm instead.”
“What’s the job?” Grace asked, knowing Carmen would tell her if she could, shrug it off if she couldn’t.
“Some pencil pusher from a biochem company got it into his head to sell a sample of a new biotoxin to the highest bidder.”
“Wow! I hope you brought good gloves.”
Carmen pulled her sable mass of hair into a sleek ponytail. “A very unsexy, but surprisingly flexible hazmat suit, actually. It makes blending in a bit of a challenge, though, so the whole thing’s gotta go down like clockwork.”
“And the seller?”
“We’ll leave him for the big, bad buyers to take care of. The client doesn’t want the publicity of prosecuting a guy for managing to steal a very scary concoction out from under their noses.”
“People really have to start taking better care of their scary concoctions.”
“Yeah. Nice to know there are people making up poisons so they can have an antidote to it by the time somebody else makes it up.”
“It’s a scary world out there,” Grace agreed. Just one more reason she had traded in her cat suit for an apron.
<
br /> “I wish you were still in the field with me, Grace. I’d feel a lot better if you had my back.”
Not a chance. When the Devlin Group had poached her away from the FBI, she’d jumped at the chance to leave her small-town, white bread upbringing behind. Miss Most-Likely-to-Organize-Carpools was going to be an international super agent.
It didn’t take long for the flash to fizzle. Fast cars, hard people, and too much adrenaline. Each mission left her more jaded and more tired. She could barely recognize the person in the mirror at the end of each day.
Not until the doctor treating her for a gunshot wound told her she was pregnant did she have the strength to walk away.
Being a civilian contractor for legit government agencies didn’t pay as well, but it let her be home with Danny. Her mission now was to be both mother and father to one hell of a great kid—the only mission that ever made her curl in her bed and cry in fear of failure.
“You know I can’t raise Danny like that.”
And she did know. Carmen Olivera was the only person connected to the Devlin Group, besides Sean himself, who knew about Danny. Her need to have an ear to bend had overcome her initial decision to never tell a soul. Nobody knew who his father was, though. She’d told them it was her doctor, and Carmen and Devlin—the only two people she’d kept in contact with—had no reason not to believe her.
“Maybe when Danny’s all grown up, you can come out and play, huh?”
Grace laughed again and shook her head. “Sure. I’ll just stock up on the Geritol.”
They chatted for a few minutes, then she severed the digital connection to her former life and returned to Mommyworld.
She was pouring milk into a plastic cup when the screen door slammed.
“How was your—” She turned.
Her throat closed. The clock ticked.
Cold milk splashed over her bare toes.
The man smiled.
“Your son won’t be coming home, Ms. Nolan…for now.” He held up an 8x10 photo.
Danny, with a large, tanned hand pressing against the backpack he still wore, ushering him onto a small plane. No markings were visible on the aircraft. No other faces in the picture. Only Danny’s. The camera captured him looking over his shoulder, his blue eyes under his Red Sox cap wide and liquid.
No Surrender: The Devlin Group, Book 3 Page 17