Didn't I tell you 2016 was going to be a year of releases??
Okay, to be fair, this is a re-release, so if it sounds familiar, that's why.
It originally came out from Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books in 2011. It's INSANE to think that means I wrote this 6 years ago.
So, what's new?
I've revised & cleaned things up. I tweaked and clarified and tightened scenes and backstory, but was super careful to keep the basic plot and all character arcs the same. I mean, the story exists. I can't turn it into a different story just because 6 years have passed. It IS that story.
So, Jamie's just as hard, Eva's just as clever, they're both on dangerous, colliding missions, and they still have to find their way to each other through pain & darkness & the shattered shards of their hard-broken hearts.
I also revised some of the sex scenes. Okay, all of them.
An excerpt for you! From Eva & Jamie's first kiss...
THEY WERE EACH LEANING halfway across the table, staring at the other, angry and aroused—at least Jamie was; Eva simply looked murderously intent—when she put her hands on his shoulders, leaned forward, and touched her mouth to his.
He went still. Her lips skidded over his, exerting no more pressure than breath itself.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, but kept his voice low, for he knew intrigue, and he knew women, and if a beautiful woman had decided to kiss you in a tavern, you did not simply wrench your mouth away. Not immediately.
“I am kissing you,” she whispered. “It is a ruse.”
It didn’t feel like a ruse to his cock, which stood at attention at the first brush of her lips. She continued forming whisper-words against his mouth, making him acutely, infuriatingly aware of her as an object of unadulterated lust.
“They are here,” she whispered. “The brutes who took the padre.” Her slim hands gripped his shoulders more tightly.
“Talking to men at the counter.”
Jamie’s gaze tracked over without moving his face. He saw them, speaking to a pair of captains. One of them—whoever quoted the lower rate, no doubt—would be hired to transport them across the water.
Perfect.
“I do not think they would like to see my face again.”
His attention swung back to her. “What do you mean ‘again’?” he demanded, but he did it against her lips.
Their eyes met, their heads tipped back slightly, their lips barely a breath apart.
“I am of the belief they saw me,” she whispered in the abstract, veiled way she had of communicating.
Oh, the things this woman had to hide.
“Why are you ‘of this belief’?” he asked grimly. The moment those men walked back outside, with their chosen captain, he would follow.
“Because I tried to stop them from abducting Father Peter, and they struck me, and called me an impolite name. Several of them.”
His attention riveted on her more firmly. “You did what?”
“Tried to stop them.”
He cursed softly. “Did they hurt you?”
She blew out an impatient breath that ruffled across his lips. “You must focus, Jamie rogue. It is of no importance what has happened to me. What I am saying is they will recognize me. My face is something that would knock on even their stupid skulls, and they will say, ‘Why is she here, when she was also there?’ and I will have no answer for them.”
Jamie shifted his gaze again. A thick-chested man behind the counter was speaking to the brutes. He pointed toward the door beside their table.
She closed her eyes and tilted her face away, which made her lips brush across his again. “I suppose you cannot do something terrible just now, such as poke out their eyes?” she asked, sounding desperate.
“No,” he said in a calm, measured voice. “That would draw attention.”
She swallowed. “Of course. Then I will keep kissing you.” She touched her lips to his, another tiny kiss. Which may have been why he did not simply shove her back in her seat with a forearm to her throat.
Or mayhap it was the long, black hair trailing out from under the shapeless hood, framing a pale, delicate face with startlingly angular cheekbones. She did not eat enough. Her eyelashes were long, her eyes so dark grey they were almost black. And...a black and blue bruise was forming on her cheekbone.
The brutes had struck her.
Something low-down and hot fired inside him.
He pushed his hand under her shapeless hood and shoved his fingers up high into her hair, then curled them around the back of her skull and tilted her face up to him.
Her eyes flew open. “Rogue, what are you doing?”
“I’m going to kiss you,” he murmured back.
Eva’s world contracted to the beat of her heart, the feel of those hard, gloved fingers gripping her head, and the fiery blue eyes staring down into hers.
“I already am kissing you,” she whispered.
“No you aren’t,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.
***
So, there you go. The beginning of the downhill ride. :)
Go get it! Right now, ebook only, but print version coming!
