Hi Romance Besties,
Julie Ann Walker is stopping over to share an excerpt for a romantic suspense. So get ready to read a scene and enter to win a copy. Enjoy!
Brand new hot romantic suspense from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Julie Ann Walker
Brand new hot romantic suspense from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Julie Ann Walker
Weary of being a fighting man, and burned by a bad divorce, former SEAL Mason "Monet" McCarthy is tight-lipped and self-contained. Unfortunately, he can't avoid Alexis Merriweather when she joins him and his business partners in the hunt for the Santa Cristina.
Historian Alexis Merriweather has a motor-mouth and a penchant for pushing Mason's buttons. When a dangerous man from Mason's past threatens their lives and everything they are working toward, Mason must rely on old instincts and the skills honed from years running black ops to make sure nothing from his previous life touches Alexis's present.
Of course, with their lives on the line and the adrenaline running high, it's a foregone conclusion sparks will fly.
EXCERPT
He opened his mouth, and she was sure he was going to say it was time to leave. Sure she’d ruined everything by touching him. So when he said, “I wanna accept your offer,” her mouth fell open.
Quite a feat considering she was still flat on her back. She wasn’t sure how the physics behind that worked.
For a few seconds—or hours? Time no longer held meaning—she turned his words over in her head. They couldn’t mean what she thought they meant. Could they?
Nah.
And yet…
Slowly, she pushed into a seated position. “Just to be clear”—her voice was a harsh rasp—“are you talking about the offer of my virginity?”
“Ya-huh.”
Ya-huh. Strange how two tiny syllables spoken in a New England accent could make her heart feel so airy and light she thought it was a miracle it didn’t float away on the breeze.
“But there are conditions,” he added. “Everything I told you is true. We like each other. We respect each other. Heaven knows we want each other. It’d be too easy for one of us to let our feelings grow into something more.”
Too late.
“Haven’t changed my mind, Alex. I don’t wanna fall in love again.” His eyes implored her to hear what he was saying. “I can’t be someone’s everything. I’d just disappoint ’em. And I’d disappoint myself.”
She tried to listen with an open mind. But she couldn’t shake the thought that if people could choose how and when they fell in love, or who they fell in love with, they’d choose not to fall at all.
Falling was scary. And in her experience, it hurt.
“To make sure that can’t happen, we gotta limit ourselves to one day. This day.” He glanced down at her hands, and she realized they were fidgeting in her lap.
She tried stilling them by curling them into fists. But that just made her knee jump. “Tomorrow, we wake up and go back to being friends and colleagues.” His elusive smile held a hint of bedevilment. “Difference being you won’t be a virgin, and we will have scratched this itch we got. Wha’d’you say?”
She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. Her own might reveal too much. So she directed her answer to his chin. “Okay.”
The word came out hesitant, making her frown.
If she appeared even the slightest bit unsure, he’d call off the whole thing. Then where would she be?
She’d have lost her one chance to make love to the man who held her heart in his hands. And even if he didn’t want it, even if he was determined that no one would ever hold his, didn’t she want that chance? Wasn’t something better than nothing?
Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin. “Okay,” she repeated, sounding far more certain.
That seemed to satisfy him. Because he pulled her into his lap and claimed her lips.
His first kiss made her lose her mind. His second convinced her she’d never need it back.
The Deep Six series:
Hell or High Water (Book 1)
Devil and the Deep (Book 2)
Ride the Tide (Book 3)
This giveaway is now over. The lucky print book winner is: Alicia Marquez
