About the Author:
Annabeth
Leong has written erotica of many flavors. She loves shoes, stockings, cooking
and excellent bass lines. She always keeps a new e-book loaded on her phone and
a paperback stashed in her purse, but her eyes are still bigger than her
stomach whenever she visits a bookseller. SShe lives in Providence, Rhode
Island, blogs, and tweets. She loves talking books on Goodreads. Watch for her next contemporary erotic romance from
Ellora's Cave, Get
Laid.
Blurb:
Emily
Boysen is sick of low-level bounty hunting jobs that don’t pay her rent, and
sick to death of her ex-boyfriend taking credit for her work. Ready to claim
her due, she takes on the quarry of a lifetime, the notorious Fernando
Bonavita. But instead of the fugitive, she captures his sexy younger brother,
Javier.
Javier
Bonavita never wanted to know the truth about his older brother’s activities,
instead protecting him out of loyalty. When he uses his hacking skills to pose
as Fernando, he never expects to uncover crimes he can’t stomach. Beautiful
Emily has no idea how glad he is to be in her custody—as long as he’s her
prisoner, he doesn’t have to face his brother.
Passion
flares between Emily and Javier, and soon he’s putting the handcuffs on her. Suspicion grows along with
their feelings, though. A sinister plot centers around Fernando, and untangling
it will test their loyalties to the limit.
Excerpt:
Javier’s
smart phone buzzed in his pocket. He paused his video game and glanced at the
screen. The vibration originated from the custom application he’d written to
monitor the motion sensors he’d set up around the perimeter of his brother
Fernando’s house. Returning his attention to his computer, Javier quit the game
and pulled up a view of the exterior cameras.
A girl
was crawling beneath Fernando’s hedge. Even with the cameras, Javier would
never have seen her if the motion sensor hadn’t pinpointed her exact position.
She held her body low, wore clothes that blended in perfectly with the hues of
the yard’s greenery, and moved slowly enough that she wouldn’t attract the
casual eye.
Game
time.
Plans
and strategies tumbled through Javier’s head, but he remained still for a
moment, frozen by discomfort. No jilted lover Javier could imagine would act
this way, approaching the house like a single-member SWAT team. He squinted at
the grainy image of her. He supposed she was a woman, not a girl, but she was a
slip of a thing. Her body seemed slight in comparison to the thick, tawny hair
bound at the back of her head. Skin only a shade lighter than the hair peeked
out of the camouflage clothes in a few places—Javier caught a glimpse of a
light brown shoulder blade and the back of a thigh. He remained glued to the
screen, fascinated by her strange grace. She didn’t seem like his brother’s
type at all.
Javier
cleared his throat, struggling again with suspicions he didn’t want to
acknowledge. But what harm could it do to play along? That girl couldn’t hurt
him, and more than anything he wanted to repay Fernando for all the years he’d
looked out for his kid brother. It wouldn’t hurt to earn recognition as an
adult in the process. Maybe if he could gain Fernando’s trust he’d be rewarded
with true explanations instead of obvious fabrications like this one.
Javier
glanced down at his clothes. He should really be dressed as Fernando, but
hadn’t had the patience to wear suits when he didn’t have to. He frowned at the
image on the screen. He’d locked all the doors and the ground-floor windows
were sealed and made of shatter-resistant materials. He had a minute before he
had to decide his next step with the girl.
He went
to the closet, stripping off his T-shirt on the way and stepping out of his
jeans. Fernando’s clothes hung a little loose on him—their bodies were close,
but the tailored touches Fernando had added emphasized his thicker physique.
Javier was slightly taller and slightly leaner. He found a pair of dark-gray
pants that fell far enough down on the leg and looked okay in the mirror.
Javier turned to the dress shirts and found himself confronted with a dizzying
array of fits and colors. How did his brother deal with all this complication
every morning? And why did he care so much?
Javier
shook his head at himself and reached for the nearest one, only to freeze at
the sound of Fernando’s upstairs
bedroom window
sliding open. Had the woman really climbed up here in a matter of minutes? She
hadn’t been carrying any gear.
He
shrugged on the shirt and stepped out of the closet, still buttoning it. She
stood just inside the window, her stance wary and her eyes on the computer
screen. Handcuffs and restraints swung from the belt loops of army-green
short-shorts. Her gaze flicked toward him, her blue eyes large and bright
against the sandy backdrop of her face. She wore no makeup, but a generous
scattering of freckles added plenty of interesting color and shape to her
features. A smile spread over Javier’s face before he could think the situation
through.
The
interloper scowled in response, producing a can of mace. “You think this is
funny, Bonavita?”
Javier
held up his hands quickly. He didn’t want to get sprayed. But he couldn’t back
down completely or the game would be up before it had even begun. He imitated
the cool confidence his brother always possessed. “You wanted to see me so
badly you couldn’t knock?”
Her
frown deepened. “You watched me approach the house on video monitors, and
decided to…change your clothes?”
“Couldn’t
let you think I didn’t care about our date.”
She
glanced at the monitors and shook her head, her lips forming the word “stupid.”
Javier cocked his head, but before he could ask she brandished the mace more
fiercely. “Take whatever weapons you’ve got and put them on the floor.”
“What you
see is what I’ve got.”
“Yeah,
I’m going to believe that.”
Javier
shrugged. “If you want to strip-search me, I won’t stop you.”
She
rolled her eyes. “Pig.”
“Then I
guess we’re going to stand here all day.”
The
woman sighed and set down the can of mace. Javier’s body relaxed, but before he
had a chance to enjoy it he was on the floor, the woman on top of him. She
couldn’t have weighed much, but she knew how to make her body heavy. Her legs wrapped his thighs in
an intimate hold that kept him immobilized, and the blade of her forearm wedged
under his chin threatened his windpipe.
Javier
gasped from the shock of his back crashing to Fernando’s hardwood floor, but
recovered as quickly as he could. “Beds are much more comfortable.”
“In your
dreams, Bonavita.”
Moving
with practiced confidence, she rolled Javier onto his side without relaxing the
strength of her hold. She snapped a set of handcuffs around his wrists.
“Whoa,
whoa. Baby, let’s talk about this.”
“Very
funny. Like you don’t know why I’m here.” A light layer of sweat had appeared
along her neck. She smelled wild and powerful, like leaves, salt and sun.
Javier knew he should be more concerned about himself, but he couldn’t get his
mind off the idea of her lying on top of him for an entirely different reason.
She
returned Javier to his back, the position forcing his cuffed hands to dig in to
his spine. He curled up to remove the pressure, but a sharply placed knee to
his chest forced him back down and pinned him. “Woman, you are serious.”
“Are you
just figuring that out?” Her hands slid inside his shirt. For one delicious
moment, Javier’s eyelids fell shut and he shivered at her touch. She stopped
moving and he opened his eyes slowly to confront her solemn stare. “You are
enjoying this way too much,” she said.
If his
hands had been free, Javier would have tried to enjoy it a lot more. He’d
forgotten how it felt to roll around with a woman, forgotten the sensation of
soft, warm flesh against his own. Sure, the situation clearly meant serious
trouble for Fernando, but Fernando wasn’t here, was he? Javier felt wild and
invincible. He grinned up at the woman. “How could I not? Look at you.”
She
glared, but her cheeks turned rosy, bringing out a clearer view of her abundant
freckles. “Wonderful. The first man to be stunned by my good looks happens to
be the most dangerous quarry I’ve had in years.”
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