by P. J. Adams
And at some point – in the dream or waking between episodes of the dream, I was not even sure – it came to me.
The message, deliberately obscure, presumably from fear that someone might be monitoring such things, not wanting to betray what had been a masterful escape to a new life... Contacts.
She’d told me how she’d tried to disguise my existence on her old phone. She couldn’t just add a contact that was ‘Lee’ or ‘Lee Bailey’ or ‘My secret English lover’ – that was what she had said. So she had chosen something that was meaningful only to her.
A place.
Somewhere she had visited a few times, ‘an escape from everything’ she had called it.
That must be it!
But what was it called? ‘Garret-’ something. Or ‘Garra-’
I went to the maps on my phone, found the now familiar cluster on the south coast of Tenerife that was Playa de la Américas and Los Cristianos. Started dragging the map with my thumb, following the coast, for I knew that a place that would soothe the soul as Imelda had described must, for her, be by the sea.
La Caleta? Agua Dulce? La Gambueza? Puerto de Santiago? Los Gigantes? No...
And then there, on the north coast, a series of what were probably fishing ports: Puertito de los Silos, Casa Amarilla, Las Cruces, San Pedro de Daute and... Garachico.
That was it, I was sure. Garachico.
§
She sat on the rocks, the Atlantic Ocean spread out before her, its expanse broken only by a craggy island that jutted precipitously up from the waves.
She wore jeans, a pale t-shirt, her hair cascading down over her shoulders.
It was odd to see her like this, dressed so simply, so much so that for a few seconds I even wondered if it was her.
But I knew it was, and I liked what I saw.
Eventually she turned.
Looked at me, and then away.
Then back at me again.
And slowly, she uncoiled those long legs and stood, turned and stepped carefully over the boulders towards me.
“I...”
“I...”
We both started to speak at the same time, and stopped.
Smiled. Looked away, like nervous teenagers.
Then, primly, she held out a hand for me to shake and said, “Hello. My name is Maria.”
Those dark eyes held me.
Maria.
A fresh start.
I gently squeezed her hand, gave it a single shake. So very English. “Pleased to meet you, Maria,” I said.
She didn’t release my hand. Instead, she stepped closer, until our bodies were only a handspan apart.
“¡Hazme el amor!” I said, softly. “Make love to me, Maria. And don’t ever leave me again.”
And then, at last, she melted into my embrace, and I knew I would never let her go.
Afters
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About the author
Writing under other names, PJ Adams is a successful novelist, with several novels published by major publishing houses and optioned for movies. As PJ Adams, she writes in the genre closest to her heart, erotic romance – love stories with that added heat, including the international bestsellers Black Widow, Winner Takes All, and the first Bailey Boys novel, Trust. Working as Polly J Adams, she writes best-selling erotica, relationship stories crammed full of explicit sex. Among Polly's most popular stories are the Girls’ Club series, and Wings of Desire, the story of a young woman's relationship with the wealthy owner of a New England sex club.
You can find out more about Polly and her writing on her website, on http://www.facebook.com/pollyjadamswriter and on Twitter as @PollyJAdams.
More from PJ Adams
Trust: A Bailey Boys novel
Never trust a man who says, "Trust me."
Jess.
As soon as I saw him, I knew I was in too deep. He's a gentleman criminal. A cold-blooded villain. Half the city's terrified of him and the other's on his payroll. Now his sights are set on me... but I can't let him have me, no matter how much I'm drawn to him. I can't let myself fall.
I came to London to put things right, not lose my heart to a dangerous crimelord. He says he won't hurt me... but how can I trust a man like him?
Dean.
I'm in the thick of the biggest gang war London's ever seen: Russian mobsters on one side of me, crooked police on the other. Then she appears and changes everything. She makes me feel things I've never felt before and can't allow myself to feel now. But already she's closer to me than anyone has ever been... and I'm starting to suspect she has a secret that could destroy us both.
From the moment I saw her I knew I needed her, naked and moaning under me, but I can't afford to give in to that need. Can't afford to care.
Too many lives depend on it, including hers.
Trust: A steamy, edge-of-the-seat romantic suspense thriller from the author of Winner Takes All and Black Widow.
This is a standalone steamy romantic suspense novel with no cliffhanger and an HEA.
Trust is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Excerpt
I turned to him and he was looking at me, something in his eyes.
He put a hand to my cheek, and for a moment I thought he was going to try to clean any remaining blood away, but then...
His touch. It was gentle, almost imperceptible. Fingertips on my cheek.
His hand moved to cup my jaw, forefinger against the lobe of my ear, a sudden, electrifying touch as his fingertip tugged on my earrings. My response surprised me, my sensitivity unnaturally heightened.
The adrenaline thing, I realized. Was this the fight or flight phenomenon Dean had referred to earlier? Coming down from the adrenaline rush, the aftermath of danger... he'd said it heightened everything: responses and needs.
He kissed me.
His lips tasted of metal, that coppery tang of blood.
His hand slipped round to the side of my head, fingers sliding deep into my hair, gripping and steering me, as his tongue pressed, almost delicately, between my lips.
I pulled away.
I wasn't ready for this. Wasn't ready for him. A man like him.
His hand fell away from my head, knuckles brushing against my thigh. He straightened, moved back from me.
Light flashed in from outside, another car's headlight beam sweeping across us. Our limo was following the convoluted road through this old industrial estate, one in a line of dark cars heading away from the fight.
In that arc of light I saw the tension in Dean's jaws, the dark flash of his look. He clearly wasn't accustomed to being turned down.
"I..."
I don't know what I'd been going to say, so I fell silent again.
"You can stay," he said. "No strings. It's late, and I guess you don't have anywhere to go, right? That place I took you to before? There's nobody stopping there at the moment. It's a place we keep, just in case. It's yours for as long as you want."
That explained why the house had been so immaculate. Inside, it had felt more like a show-home than somewhere lived in. Was that really a no-strings offer?
I peered at him in the dim light. He had visibly relaxed, as if forcing himself to do so.
I couldn't work out what it was, what he had.
Maybe it was just the adrenaline, coming down from the primitive energy of the fight. Not just Lee's fight, but Dean's too... the way he'd taken the Russian out with a single blow, the way it had taken three of that man Reuben's thugs to subdue him...
Maybe it was as simple as that.
An animal response to danger.
But I knew there was more, too. The complex mix of things that made him what he was. The raw threat of his life, his choices. The protectiveness – the way he'd shielded me from the Russians before, the way he always seemed to be looking out for me, an automatic response for him – but also the chiva
lry. He was a man who opened doors, who stepped aside for me, who made sure my glass was filled, who made me coffee and talked me down after Russian thugs had waved a gun at me in the street.
And more than anything, it was the way he'd taken my hand back there. Me, a girl who never held hands, a girl who shied away from any kind of display of affection. It had been a protective thing, my hand in his, a sharing of strength and defiance. It had been intimate, a small thing in a big, brash setting.
It had been a statement, one he'd been willing to make in front of those men without hesitation.
She's with me. Don't fuck with that. Ever.
I kissed him.
It was a reversal of his kiss from moments before. It was my hand that went to his blood-smeared cheek, my forefinger that brushed against his earlobe – a brief contact, but one which elicited a brief tensing in response.
I recognized that thrill.
I recognized the taste of his lips when my mouth pressed softly against his, recognized the soft yet firm pressure of his lips.
The roughness of his stubble.
The pressing response of his tongue against mine.
My whole body responded, every sense heightened. Adrenaline or not, I didn't care.
My breasts pressed against him, soft against hard; I felt trapped in the tight constraints of my leather jacket.
More tightness in my belly, and lower down.
He kissed back. After a second or two of hesitation – surprise? – his tongue met mine, pressed and slid.
We twisted to face each other, and his free hand went to my waist, slipping inside my jacket, pulling the fabric of the vest-top suddenly tight.
I became intensely aware of my nipples hardening, pressing against the inside of my bra. Tiny pulses of pleasure, thrilling through me at every touch, every pulling and tightening of clothes, of contact.
He pulled me to him, and I tipped my head back, breaking the kiss to release a long sigh that was almost a moan.
Instantly, his mouth went to my jaw. The scrape of his stubble was electrifying, the scrape of his teeth against the taut skin of my neck, the press of his lips and tongue...
The hand moved up across my ribcage, thumb finding the swell of a breast, sliding around the contour.
He moved to cup that breast, thumb against the hardness of my nipple through the layers of top and bra.
I was gasping now. I couldn't remember feeling so turned on – so urgently, so abruptly.
I reached for him, trapping the hand under my moving arm so that it squashed the softness of my breast.
I found his jacket, pushed it aside. His shirt – so thin and insubstantial!
I ran the back of my hand across his ribs, the hardness of a tiny nipple; found his neck-tie and gripped the knot, pulling him even harder against me.
Just then, the car bumped over a ridge in the roadway.
I pulled away a little, turned to look forward. The driver seemed oblivious to us – either genuinely so, or he was the model of discretion.
I still had a hold of Dean's tie, and now I pulled him to me again.
(continues...)
Trust is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Black Widow
Two years ago Eleanor Dryton lost her husband, her job and her friends.
She lost everything about her old life that ever mattered to her.
All she had left were her will and a burning desire for revenge.
Now, El has served her time for being an unknowing partner in her murdered husband's crimes. Her prison sentence has toughened her up and she's learned that she can be bad.
But when her search for revenge leads her to a man who takes bad to a completely different level just how far is she willing to go? If prison has hardened her, what effect will the man who killed her husband have? And does she even have any control over what happens next?
A dark and disturbing romantic thriller from the bestselling author of Winner Takes All and The Object Of His Desire.
--Author's Note--
This is a dark romance novel. It contains themes of violence and mature situations that could make readers uncomfortable.
Goodreads reviews:
"This story is dark and twisted. I liked it."
"My fave part is the ending. Not because the book was over, but because of the huge twist. I won't give it away, but BRAVA Ms. Adams."
"I had a hard time putting this one down..."
"Wow... Just wow! It was 'dark & twisty', kept me hooked and had plot twists that keep you guessing! Kudos to PJ Adams, I loved this book & would definitely recommend!"
Black Widow is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Excerpt
Rob had stayed in the room, giving her a little distance.
She couldn’t work him out. Early on, he’d told her he’d just kind of drifted into the life he had here. He’d come to owe people favors, and he’d found ways to pay them back.
She didn’t know what he did, though, what kind of double life he had. All those periods when he was away from the bar. Was he up here at the villa, or was he elsewhere, doing whatever it was that he had become involved with?
She knew all about double lives, though. She’d lived one for so long without even knowing.
She turned, resting the small of her back against the rail that ran along the top of the balcony’s enclosing wall.
Eye contact was all it took.
He came to her, slowly, like a fish being reeled in, the eye contact never breaking.
She stretched up and kissed him, their bodies still a short distance apart. His lips pressed against hers, hesitant, holding back. Stubble scraped her face.
His hand moved to her waist, and came to rest on the spread of her hips.
She put a hand to his face, finding the roughness of that stubble.
Such an intense moment.
She hadn’t expected that: the way such a hesitant, minimal contact could send sensations ripping through her body like this.
None of this was what she’d intended.
She pushed away from the railing, standing, finally pressing her naked body against his. Feeling the rough denim of his shorts against her belly, his thighs against hers, her breasts squashing against his ribs through the thin cotton of his shirt.
She hadn’t expected to suddenly need this so much. Not now. Not like this.
She couldn’t allow herself to be so weak.
She just couldn’t...
(continues...)
Black Widow is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Winner Takes All
When a guy in a tux walks into a bar in the middle of nowhere, dripping wet from the storm, and pulls out a sodden roll of hundred dollar bills, you just know he's going to be trouble.
Denny McGowan has lost his girl, his best friend and millions of dollars. All he has are the clothes on his back, the money in his pocket, an easy, wise-cracking charm that could melt the hardest of hearts... and two gangsters on his tail and out for revenge.
Cassandra Dane is down on her luck, and on the run from a father fresh out of jail. She's probably the last girl you'd expect to hook up with someone as hot and exciting as Denny - and she knows it. But things are not always what they seem and sometimes you're just on the tail-end of a string of bad luck and worse decisions.
When a one-night stand looks like becoming something more than that, Cassie must decide whether she can trust a complete stranger like Denny and work out what he's really after. As matters of the heart become matters of life and death, Cassie has some tough choices to make.
And foremost among these: just how many chances do you give a guy like Denny McGowan?
Winner Takes All: the explosive bad boy romance from bestselling erotic romance author PJ Adams.
Winner Takes All is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
§
The
Object of His Desire
When Trudy goes to her estranged brother's wedding, the last thing she expects is one of those moments: a handsome stranger, their eyes meeting across a crowded room... a tempting, but dangerous stranger. Determined to find out more, she discovers that dark secrets bind him to her brother; she also learns that he's the kind of man who gets what he wants, and what he wants right now is Trudy.
Introducing her to the world of the super-wealthy, he showers her with designer clothes, shoes, and diamonds, whisking her off to dinner dates by private jet... what more could a girl want?
But as she finds out more about him, Trudy begins to wonder if she can ever love a man she can never fully trust. A man involved in murder and blackmail, who may just be using her as an alibi. Should she run or let herself fall for him? And will he give her a choice?
A passionate erotic romance, where scandals buried away in the past lead to murderous intrigue in the present, in the intensely steamy world of the super-wealthy and powerful.
The Object of His Desire is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Published by James Grieve Press
© PJ Adams 2016
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Cover images © amoklv
Cover design by James Grieve
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