I felt confused. I was so nice to her and I really thought she had a good time with me. She wanted to come back to my place, and when that obviously didn’t happen, she told me I was nice. That’s a lot coming from this girl. She seemed to have a general mistrust of men, and I thought I had finally broken through by proving to her that I just want to be good to her.
Now I was angry. I texted her with concern about her well-being and she didn’t even have the decency to respond? She deliberately avoided me and ignored me when I wanted to talk to her. I could have any girl I want, and she knows that. Did she hate me so much that she couldn’t even look at me?
I was right. My friends told me that she was worth pursuing, and they were totally wrong about that. She was a cold person. She only cared about herself. Of course she would, though. Girls who come from money never have interest in guys like me. I was stupid to think that this was going to work out.
I fumed the whole way back to my dorm. It was probably better this way. Before long, the school year would be over. I didn’t have time to chase girls, anyway.
I needed to focus on finishing up my degree and preparing for the professional football combine. With any luck, I would be moving, and she’d go back to her hometown, or wherever rich girls go when they graduate with a degree they’ll never use.
I was done with Alexa Hall. I had been turned down by plenty of girls in my life, and it was no big deal. I was just so surprised that she, of all people, wanted nothing to do with me.
In my anger, I typed out a text, my fingers shaking.
Sorry I made sure you got home safely the other night. I didn’t think it would upset you this much. Next time, I’ll leave you on the street, puking your guts out.
My finger hovered over the send button before I quickly deleted it. I didn’t need to make things worse than they already were. I decided to take a page from Alexa’s book and just ignore her too. I’ve been dumped many times for doing the wrong thing with girls. This was just the first time I was ever rejected for doing the right thing.
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Excerpt From Dirty Indiscretions
Excerpt from Dirty Indiscretions: A Dark Mafia Romance (Book 1)
I walked around the spacious room, keeping an eye on the guests. I could think of a dozen things off the top of my head, that I would rather be doing, but it was part my job description, apparently.
I wasn’t a guy that liked to wear suits, but I'd had to get used to it with the crowd I ran with. Still, dealing with the upper crust wasn’t a part of my job that I liked. I was supposed to be there to enjoy the events, not working; but I couldn’t help but act as a lookout. The party was boring, anyway.
And then she caught my eye, and I had second thoughts.
Tall, slim, in a close-fitting black dress with a slit up the side that stopped high on her thigh, showing a mile of pale, toned leg. The dress had a 'V' neckline, down the front and back, that showed, even more, skin, so pale that the contrast against the dark dress was striking. The hem nearly swept the floor, even with her high heels. Her dark brown hair was held back by pins on one side so that it hung down her back and onto her opposite shoulder. I wasn’t close enough to see her eyes, but I thought with her coloring, they would be a dark color like her hair, maybe brown.
She wasn’t the best dressed, nor was she the skimpiest dressed woman in the room, I could see that with just a cursory look around. Yet, when I took my eyes off her to do just that, I found my attention skittering back to her.
I didn’t think I knew her. That wouldn’t be surprising; I didn’t know a lot of the people at this party, considering I was technically just the help. But I'd been to enough of these parties that I knew the crowd my boss ran with.
Intrigued, I followed her around the room. She interested me more than most, because unlike everybody else, she didn’t find a group and stand around chatting with them. Instead, she moved around the room, never sticking to one group long, always with a glass of champagne in her hand that she never drank from, though she brought it to her lips a couple of times, only to be 'distracted' and forget about it again. I noticed, that in all the stops she made, she didn’t speak to anyone.
I narrowed my eyes.
I looked around. Everyone was busy, making polite conversation and whatever else those rich types did when they got together at a party. I caught sight of my boss on the other side of the room and decided that for once, he wasn’t doing anything shady. No one was paying attention to things they shouldn’t, yet this woman didn’t look like she was paying attention to anything specifically.
Trying not to act suspicious, I moved into her orbit. She wasn’t following a pattern, but I'd gotten good at maneuvering this sort of shindig.
I was lucky enough to have her coming closer to me. No one was close enough to pay any notice to either one of us. I couldn’t resist the urge to move and intercept her circuit.
She looked up, almost surprised, to see me. I'd seen her moving with single-minded focus, despite how randomly she seemed to move, so I wasn’t sure I bought that she was surprised to run into me.
"Please, forgive me for interrupting you, ma'am, but I couldn’t help but notice you and get a little curious." I gave her a genuine-looking smile, playing the part of a young gentleman.
It was almost laughable.
The surprised look was instantaneously replaced by something gracious, a small smile curving her lips. "Think nothing of it. Who, if I may ask, do I have the pleasure of conversing with?"
She held her hand out to me, the curl of her lips turning up into something like mirth. Feeling amusement curve my own mouth in response, I took her hand and brought it to my lips, kissing the back of it. Her dark eyes watched me, intent on mine.
"Luke Bable. But please, call me Luke."
Bable, technically, wasn’t my real name, but it was the name I’d taken when I’d left my old life after being recruited. It was a safe enough name to use, the few times I’d had to introduce myself to people because Luke Bable did not exist.
The pretty lady in front of me didn’t need to know all that, though.
"It's wonderful to meet you, Luke. I am Elda Abba. But you can call me Elda," she added, her smile turning into a smirk.
"Elda," I repeated, curling my tongue around the name. Her eyes grew slightly darker in fascination, and I felt almost smug. Her last name was foreign, but I couldn’t begin to think from where. "Well, Elda. I was wondering if you would mind accompanying me."
I tugged her closer by the hand, pulling it around my elbow and flattening my hand over hers on my arm. She moved without resistance.
"Should I be worried? A strange man comes up to me and asks me to accompany him. It's suspicious, no?"
I chuckled, keeping my voice low. "It’s a private party. Trust me, everyone is vetted for these things. We're both here, so you should have nothing to worry about," I said pointedly.
Her lashes lowered to cover her eyes, lips pursing. "As you say," she murmured, diplomatically.
I pulled her with me and she followed. We avoided other guests and the staff. The room was quite large and littered with guests, but I didn’t need to take her from it.
Instead, I dragged her over to a corner that left us out of view from most of the room, and the section that could still see us weren’t going to be considering dark corners unless they wanted some action for themselves. But this crowd was much too classy for something like that.
I stopped her there, turning so we were facing each other and took a quick glance around, just to be sure.
"Are we here for any reason in particular?" she sounded amused.
I decided to be blunt. "I need to frisk you."
Just about any other person would have been annoyed or insulted. No one got frisked at these parties, they were checked before they got this far. This woman was a little special, though.
"Is there any particular reason?" she murmured, looking up at me f
rom under her lashes, but I thought her amusement only grew.
"I never saw your name on the guest list."
She gave a Gallic shrug. "Maybe I was invited last minute and my name isn’t on it."
I smiled tightly, repeating, "Just the same, Miss Abba, I'm going to need to frisk you."
"There's no reason you can't still call me Elda." She tugged her hand away from me and I didn’t stop her. "And of course, you can frisk me. For purely security reasons."
I narrowed my eyes on her. "Are you laughing at me, Elda?"
"I wouldn’t dream of it, Luke."
I was sure she was, though.
She took a step back and raised her arms from her sides, arching an eyebrow at me, her look practically daring me to go ahead.
I couldn’t help the suspicion. These parties had such tight security, even I was impressed. No one not on the list—prepared weeks in advance, should have been able to bypass it. How she got in, I didn’t know, but I didn't think asking would get me anywhere. She'd just deny, deny, deny.
Or, if she was especially good, she'd have an airtight excuse.
"You can frisk me," she told me when I didn’t immediately begin.
I moved closer, moving my hands and placing my fingertips on her wrists. There was no need, her arms were bare so there was no way she could have hidden anything there, but I ran my fingertips up her arms and to her shoulders. I followed the straps of her dress, sliding my hands down her sides and around her back, being thorough.
Of course, there was nothing on her. I also noticed the very conspicuous lack of a purse on her person. And what self-respecting woman, even in a crowd like this, wouldn’t have a purse on her? I didn’t see her coming in, so there was no way to know if she had one somewhere in the room. I'd have to leave her and go ask the guard outside the main entrance.
But I couldn’t think about that for long. I couldn’t really think of anything but slowly frisking her, all the time my eyes on hers.
When I got to her hips, I lowered into a crouch, craning my neck to keep her eyes.
"Widen your legs for me, just a bit." The words came out in a murmur, and I saw her swallow, felt her body shift under my hands as she moved to comply.
I'd looked at her body long enough to know every curve, even as I mapped them with my hands—for purely business purposes, of course—but I hadn't gotten a good look at her eyes. They were brown, like I'd guessed, but not a dull brown like I was used to seeing. Even in the slightly shadowed corner, they seemed to glimmer.
They were surprisingly familiar eyes. But right then, all I was interested in was how intently they watched me.
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Excerpt From Lethal Seduction
Excerpt from Lethal Seduction: A CIA Romantic Suspense
Fourteen hours was a long drive to make, especially if you made it in one shot and didn’t do more than stop for gas and to piss. He hadn’t bothered to sleep either before he got on the road. He ate fast food and paid for everything in cash, leaving no paper trail. It had been a part of the brief training that involved disappearing and leaving nothing but a body.
Making a job of killing people would surely affect his view of the world, or it should. He should be jaded and angry, suffering from the ghosts of the people he killed. But he felt nothing, which worried him to some degree. If he felt no remorse, how did that separate him from any other bloodthirsty killer? Was it because he was getting paid? That he was government contracted?
Was he bloodthirsty? Did he enjoy dealing out death?
He didn’t think so. He didn’t look forward to the next mark that took up his inbox. It wasn’t the next chance to put a bullet in someone or glide his knife through their throat. He didn’t look for inventive new ways to kill people. He made sure to make it quick and as painless as he possibly could. There was no need to make them suffer.
There was something sacred about taking the life of another person, and he didn’t really want to lord over them like some sort of death god. A quiet Grim Reaper that swept in to take a life was something he preferred. It held a nice image for him.
He made quite the small fortune living this life. His bank account attested to that every time he gave it a look. If he quit today, he had enough to buy a decent sized plot of land, find a girl, and start a family without the need to work another day. It would all be easily taken care of. There would be no struggle, no wonder of how to put food on the table.
Find a girl? Start a family? Were these serious thoughts he was having? Could he love someone? If he felt nothing after ending another person’s life, would he be capable of something as simple as love? If a woman knew the amount of blood that was on his hands, could she even fathom loving him?
He didn’t know, but this was one thing the road was good for. Deep thoughts. He rubbed a hand over the scruff that had grown on his face as he considered his line of thought. The thoughts sobered him and twisted up his gut. He reflected on the girl he had left back in the motel, the prostitute.
He spent his free time with women he paid to get him off. How was he supposed to relate to a woman? Would he garner a worthwhile woman? How would he even know how to love her and get her to love him?
He wasn’t a bad looking guy, or so he’d been told. He kept the close-cut hair that was forced upon him at boot camp, but he occasionally sported the beginnings of a beard when the idea of shaving was just something he didn’t want to do. Beards were in now, right? Honestly, he didn’t know.
He hadn’t tried to pick up a woman that he didn’t have to pay for since high school. It was just easier to look for women on street corners. He looked in the rearview mirror. His eyes were a vivid blue that was something chicks were into, or at least the girls he saw commented on them.
Considering his demons, considering what he was, he was surprised at the brightness that looked back at him. Should he be attractive? It didn’t seem right.
It was then that he realized what he wanted. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but he wanted someone. Someone to love and someone who loved him. The idea of having a home and someone to come home to was something that hit him like a brick. It hit almost hard enough that he swerved on the empty road.
Wasn’t that the American dream? A house and a wife with two-point-five kids? Was this why he had no problem doing what he did? Why he didn’t feel anything? Why he was empty? Because he really didn’t have anything? Why hadn’t he considered it before? He hadn’t considered any of that until just now, driving in the predawn hours, going to end the life of some unsuspecting woman.
“This will be the last one,” he said to himself. “It’s time that I stop getting my hands dirty and start working on what I want.” He would just have to let Austin know. Surely, a man who sat in an office and dealt out death safely behind his desk would understand. Austin could have a wife and a family, for all he knew.
He could have a life. Scott didn’t feel like he had one. But he would stop the lifestyle of getting by, pretending to live, and start work on what he wanted, what he deserved to have too.
When he started rolling into Denver, he had the misfortune of hitting five o’clock traffic. The interstate became clogged and his patience for the stop and go traffic was starting to wear on him. He was tired. He would have to get a motel room while he was here because he would definitely need to break for sleep.
With the thought of a bed in mind, he pulled off at the nearest exit, which happened to be downtown. After driving around aimlessly, he stopped at a chain motel. Though he preferred the non-chain variety, he wasn’t going to be picky. He got a room with little fuss, paying in cash. The idea of sleep had him lingering in his rented room for longer than necessary. He thought about showering, about falling onto that bed and getting much-needed sleep.
He had shit to do. He could sleep afterward. The more he loitered here, the longer it would take. First, he needed a lead. He needed to find a trail.
See
ing a bar across the street gave him an idea. He started on foot, going to each bar with his description, looking for some sort of lead. It was just past six when he wandered into a bar that was more than a mile from the motel he was staying at when he picked up the lead he had been looking for.
“Jovy?” a little redheaded waitress eyed him curiously. “That sounds like her. She’s usually in here on Fridays for the bar crawl. We don’t really get a crowd until about ten. She’ll probably be in then.” Curiosity turned to suspicion, though he had already gotten what he was looking for. She was a little late to be protective. “Why you looking for her?”
He found a probable lie, since the mark was female. “I was in here last week and I saw her.” He looked down, playing at being bashful. “We had a couple of dances and I didn’t get her number at the time. I was hoping I’d get lucky tonight.”
The waitress seemed to buy it, though it didn’t stop her from checking him out. “Well. Hopefully, you’ll see her later.”
He nodded and left the bar. There were only a few people there, and the only one who would recognize him was the waitress. She didn’t get his name, and his reasoning for looking for the woman was vague enough. He wouldn’t worry about it. He decided to scope out a perch, somewhere close to the bar, so he wouldn’t have to get close to the mark and he could just pick her off. An office building with a For Rent sign in a window caught his eye. It looked like the perfect nest.
He found his way back to the pick-up truck that brought him to Denver and took his time setting up, getting his rifle set up and gathering snacks for the wait. He had time to kill getting ready for his target.
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One More Chance: A Second Chance Romance Page 10