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What Others are Saying...
Illicit Intuitions, Sensory Ops Book Three
Love could be their greatest liability...
Ava Malia knows three things. She was once a kickass covert
operative. She will eventually adjust to her new team, the FBI Specialized
Crimes Unit. And the only way to finally be free of her professional past is to
solve her first case and get her hands on a game-changing technology. The only
problem? Success rides on her ability to swallow her distaste for the persona
she must adopt in order to earn the trust of a mysterious scientist.
Dr. H escaped childhood captivity with three things. His sister.
Complete control of his gift. And an engulfing distrust of anyone in the
government. Adjusting to a life of freedom hasn’t been easy, but he’s found
peace in solitude. The sexy woman auditing his empathic studies, though, has a
way of getting under his skin that’s both arousing and disturbing. Plus, his
psychic ability warns him of secrets so deeply buried in her psyche, they’d be
better left alone.
Yet their instant attraction strips away all their protective
barriers, down to the foundation of a new, fragile trust. And a vulnerability
that, when an old enemy opens fire, could blast away any chance of a future.
Excerpt:
Now, almost four hours later according to the dashboard
clock, she waited in her car in the parking lot of his lab where she’d come to
escape the dreams attempting to overwhelm her mind like a plague. Neither the
cold shower nor the drive-thru coffee had succeeded in clearing the gritty haze
scrubbing her eyes with each blink or the fog in her brain.
“Ugh.” Ava gave up on the losing battle of expelling
thoughts of Dr. H from her mind. She abandoned the fight against wakefulness
and dropped her head against the car’s headrest to rest her eyes for a few
minutes.
Despite the morning sun brightening the sky she slipped into
dreamless darkness.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Ugh.” She grumbled and turned away from the rapping
intrusion.
Tap. Tap. Tap. “Ms. Sebastian.”
Not him again.
Like when she’d attempted to sleep at home, remembered images of him mostly
undressed and his smooth voice invaded her mind’s deepest recesses. His power
slid over her in streams of awareness and arousal. Teasing. Taunting.
Threatening.
Click. Screech. Groan.
More vivid than in her dreams, old-timey musk swirled with
morning mugginess through her car. Drawn in, with pulses of arousal sparking
beneath her skin, she turned her head closer to the clean scent of him.
“Ms. Sebastian.”
His formality, his unyielding habit of calling her Ms.
Sebastian rather than Ava, felt…intimate. Like he knew her. Knew her darkest
secrets and saw her scars. She sighed and settled closer to the impression of
him. She drew his scent into her lungs. “Mmmm.”
Warm breath fluttered along her neck and the edge of her
ear. She shivered. He cleared his throat.
“Ms. Sebastian, when you are ready to wake up, we will
begin.”
“Huh?” She slitted open one eye and jerked back. Dr. H’s
face, haloed by the morning light behind him, filled her vision. She’d not only
fallen asleep, but she’d been snuck up on. Mistakes like that cost lives.
“You’re late.” The stoic man from the lab was back.
“I’ve been here since around six. I’m not late.”
“You’re not ready to go either.” His face and tone remained
blank of emotion, but intuition told her he was humored and a little aroused.
Would he be if he knew who was after him?
“You’re inhuman. Who willingly kicks off their day before
nine?” She ignored the whine in her voice and instead turned away to find the
energy in a bottle she’d apparently dropped when sleeping.
He shouldn’t be so…awake. So ready to tackle the day.
Especially given that his lights had still been on at four when Liam had shown
up to relieve her from duty.
“Looking for this?” He waved the small bottle between them.
She reached for it. He pulled it away.
“Hand. Over. The. Shot.”
“You won’t need it.” He stuck it in the pocket of his
swimming shorts and stepped back.
With deliberate slowness, she turned in the seat and placed
her feet on the ground. He took another step back. She concentrated on her core
muscles and raised herself out of her convertible Mini.
“Hand. Over. The. Shot.” She knew how to kill a man with her
bare hands. If he thought he would get between her and her shot, the man was
delusional.
His only answer was a leisurely survey up and down the
length of her. After a pause at her winged, messenger-hat shaped lapel pin, his
gaze scanned up to hers again. He shook his head. “I said wear a suit.”
She glanced from his ratty tank top, shorts and flip flops
to her pant suit and heels, and back to his shorts. “This is a suit.”
“Not for swimming.”
“For… No.” She shook her head. “I’m not going swimming. We
are not going swimming.”
Where would she hide the gun currently nestled at the small
of her back? How was she supposed to protect the man, keep him alive, if he
insisted on keeping her unarmed? Okay, so he didn’t know what he demanded. But
that didn’t matter.
She was on a case. She had a mission. She could not indulge
in a morning swim. Hunk in board shorts looking ready to surf for hours or not,
she couldn’t do it. Especially when she only had an hour of sleep to fuel her.
“Have a nice day.” He stepped back and she noticed the
open-topped Jeep he’d driven the day before. Beach boy looks, a vehicle that
said he enjoyed fun, an adeptness at meditation, a tense work mood, and a habit
of speaking in short sentences. The man was a contradiction. “What? You said we
were working…” The energy flowing through the air around him was waking her up,
but not enough.
“We would be if you could follow instructions.” Even in his
sun-loving clothes he was somber. Seemingly one-track minded.
“You said wear a suit. I wore a suit.”
“A swimsuit.”
She rolled her shoulders back. “That’s not what you said. And
swimming has nothing to do with auditing.”
“Well, it’s what I meant. And tantrums don’t suit you.”
“I do not throw
tantrums. And you’re no more psychic than I am.” Yeah, she was waking up, but
her focus wasn’t what it could be if she had that shot. He was looking for any
excuse to eject her from the study. She needed to stay alert if she wanted to
keep up with him. Failure could too easily mean death. “And you can’t blame me
for not reading minds.”
He opened his mouth, but shut it again. Shaking his head, he
closed the distance between them, coming close enough for the morning breeze to
whisk his scent to her. Too close.
Her pulse quickened.
He pulled the bottle he’d confiscated from his pocket and
with a quick twist removed the cap.
Yes! Her brain
screamed in anticipation. He was going to take mercy on her. He was going to…
He upended the bottle, dumping the blessed, berry-flavored,
focus-giving liquid on the ground between them. The gun holstered at her back
pressed into her spine. The barrel would fit nicely into the groove at the
bottom of his jaw. Not that she wanted to hurt him so much as make it perfectly
clear standing in her way of an energy shot could be detrimental.
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6 comments:
Oh my goodness, this sounds like a great read. Heading over to get the book. Thanks Fort Worth for getting Nikki on your site.
I agree with Sherrie! Great excerpt. Thank you for sharing Nikki :)
We've had a great week with you. First a lesson on how to write, then a wonderful story of your journey to publication and now this great excerpt. I already have Criminal Promises. This looks even better. Thanks for sharing an excerpt.
What a fantastic excerpt. Now I don't need an energy drink either!
Niki: Thanks so much for spending the week with us and sharing a little of your newest book. It reads like a definite keeper.
Loved the cover, Nikki. Yumm! He's a doll. Great excerpt. I'll be picking up this one for sure.
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