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BLURB:
It’s been a bad week for Taylor Scott. First her grandmother dies, then she discovers her father is alive, not dead, and when she tries to see him he has her thrown out of his office. Angry and disillusioned, she drowns her sorrows with a gorgeous stranger in the hotel bar, and indulges in the wildest night of erotic sex she’s ever experienced.
Back in Florida she’s wrapping up her grandparents’ estate and looking to make some changes in her life when she learns her father, a Texas billionaire, has been murdered. And who shows up in her office to drag her back to Texas but the stranger from the hotel – Noah Cantrell, her father’s vice president and closest confidante.
With his empire unexpectedly in her hands, she’s thrust into a world of international intrigue where the person next to her could be the murderer. Things are complicated by the high voltage passion that explodes between her and Noah, a passion that no matter how they seem to fight it, sweeps them along on a treacherous current. Is Noah friend or foe? And what will happen when the truth finally comes out?
EXCERPT:
Taylor felt shock ripple through him and she clutched harder at the fabric of his jacket to keep him from pulling back. She wanted this man in ways she’d never wanted anyone else. Ways that startled her as her body reacted in an unfamiliar manner. She almost pulled back, frightened at the explosion of desire streaking through her, but determination overrode trepidation. For all the things she’d lost and the ones she’d never had, she deserved this. She pressed her tongue hard against his mouth, and whether from shock or desire he opened and she tasted him. Whiskey and coffee and mint combined to produce a heady flavor that tantalized her sense of taste. She sucked at his tongue, drawing him into her mouth in a kiss more sensuous than she’d ever permitted herself. Or ever wanted.
His hand gripped her upper arms tightly as if to push her away but she had a death grip on his lapels. She was so damned tired of being strait-laced and obedient. The past week had stripped away all the steel bands restricting her life, with today finishing the job. All that obedience had been for nothing. Now she wanted wild, a night that would help her blot out all the dark feelings rampaging through her.
With a groan the man pulled her closer. His own tongue responded to hers, sweeping into her mouth, leaving no inch of the dark wetness untouched. The slight roughness of it scraped across the sensitive tissues, calling each hidden nerve into play. His lips fused to hers, pressing down on them, devouring them, as his fingers dug into her shoulders.
They stood suspended in the darkness, sensations from the kiss rocketing through her body and drawing forth reactions from parts of her body long dormant. Her nipples began to tingle and she felt wetness seeping between her thighs. She would give anything to stay this way forever, balanced on a precipice.
He was the first to break away, looking down at her with glittering eyes. “I think you’ve had far too much to drink.”
Taylor was trying to find her breath but all the air seemed to have been sucked out of her lungs. The pulse that beat between her legs was echoing through her core. She knew about “getting hot” and “getting wet” but this was the first time a man had made her feel it. The drinks had nothing to do with what was happening to her. It was the man, a powerful jungle animal who called to the hidden wildness within her.
“This is my idea, not the whiskey.” She pulled in another breath and tried to drag his face down to hers again.
He tightened his hands on her shoulders, a strangled sound erupting from his throat. “I’m a stranger. You can’t just pick me up and take me to your room like this. Don’t you know things like that aren‘t safe?”
“I don’t think you’ll harm me,” she whispered. “I don’t know why but I trust you.”
And wasn’t that absurd, when she’d hardly trusted anyone all her life. Yet something in him gave her a sense of security, certainly unusual when locked in the darkness with a caged panther. “Please don’t pull away.” With slightly trembling fingers she shifted his tie out of the way and began to unbutton his shirt. She pressed her body against him, rubbing herself against the hard erection the layers of clothing between them couldn’t hide.
“This is insanity.” His voice was hard and edgy, his grip on her tightening almost to the point of pain. “There are things about me you don’t know.”
Taylor licked the bare skin of his chest that she’d exposed and slid her hands inside his shirt. The warmth of his body almost burned her. Beneath the hot male skin he was harder than steel, his muscles like ropes of steel. As her tongue found his soft chest and the tip of it danced over him, his breathing hitched.
She looked up at him, struggling to bring out words. “Are you a wanted criminal? Do you have a deadly disease? No? Then I don’t care about anything else.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I want this. I want you.”
