He needs to fire her or claim her before it’s too late.
Avery gets caught in a web of deceit when she agrees to help save her family farm. As her life begins to tangle chaotically, her attraction grows for her new boss, Stryker Red Eagle, but he is the enemy… or is he?
Stryker’s ordered life is turned upside down when Avery arrives as a woman, not the male assistant he thought he was getting. She is stealing his concentration, and something is going on with her that he can’t figure out.
To save his sanity, Stryker needs to either fire Avery or claim her as his own. But then the real trouble begins.
He was a moody man, and she didn’t have time for that even if he sent her libido into orbit. It had only started as an offer for a temp job, but once Ben discovered where she was going to work, he had demanded she add the family agenda. She was only out for a connection between him and the farm and then something that would break that link. Once that was found, she would likely need to slip away quickly and quietly. And that just sucked.
She waited to see if there would be any movement from Renee’s office, but when all was quiet for a few moments, she walked closer. Good, maybe she could sneak into Stryker’s office and look through some of his papers while they were otherwise occupied.
Avery locked the front door. Her heart pounded, and her blood rushed as she worked on scanning through all the paperwork in the inbox and then in the outbox on Stryker’s desk. Automatically picking up a dirty coffee cup from Stryker’s desk, she tried to open a file cabinet but found it was locked. There was a noise in the office next door, and then the front door opened. Caught with nowhere to go, she carried his cup out of the office.
Declan walked in the door and pocketed his keys. “Who locked the door?”
“The last one to go in or out of that door was Stryker.” Not a lie but not an answer to the question asked.
Declan paused. “Is Stryker in there?” He nodded in the direction of the room she was exiting.
“No, I was dropping off something and grabbing his coffee cup to clean.”
“He’s washing his cup now?”
Avery frowned and looked inside the cup. “Well, I am. This is disgusting.”
Declan laughed. “I could get used to you. But a word to the wise. I’d have it washed and then refilled with coffee as soon as he walks in the door, so he doesn’t notice right away that you’ve washed it.”
“Why? Doesn’t he like it cleaned?”
“Nope. Says it adds character and flavor to his next cup.”
Avery rolled her eyes. “Right.”
“Hey, I’m Declan, but I don’t have time to chat. I’ll see you at dinner or lunch soon. Yeah?”
“Oh, um, yes.”
“Good.” That was too close for comfort. Avery wasn’t up to this spy business. Going behind people’s back kept her stomach in an uproar. The honesty in her bones was rioting, and it was more than a little uncomfortable. Something told her if Stryker ever found out, she would be one sorry
Alyssa Bailey is a USA Today and Amazon No. 1 bestselling author of Historical and Contemporary Suspense romances, Alyssa writes light, realistic romance novels full of sizzling alpha males and the spicy adventuresome women they love. My characters live in Cowboy Country, Regency/Victorian England, and the Contemporary realm all with a touch of suspense and a Happily Ever After.
A proud Texan living among the wealth of Alaska’s beauty, I watch eagles fly overhead, whales and salmon frolicking in the sea, seals clapping for attention, and bears in the neighbor’s garbage. I vacation where rattlesnakes and scorpions roam beside black widow spiders, cattle country, rodeos, and horses that are eager to take you on your own happy trails.
Thank you for reading my adventures of love with a touch of something special.
Title: Mad Dog Author: Ophelia Bell Series: Second Skin #1 Genre: Contemporary Military Romance
Not even the king of Los Angeles’s underground can stop me from loving Celeste.
Arturo Flores could make me disappear with a snap of his fingers, and nearly did. Limping away from a beatdown when I was seventeen didn’t change the fact that his daughter was worth the pain. Running into her in my tattoo shop twelve years later, she still makes my blood run hot with a glance.
But I’m not that clueless teenage boy anymore. And Celeste isn’t the only one I want.
Leo is a temptation I crave, but in our world, admitting desires like mine could get me killed. The gangbanger is as ruthless as he is beautiful, yet he can’t see anything beyond Celeste. That hurts like hell to admit, but I would sooner die at her crime lord father’s hands than let either of them get hurt.
I’m prepared to let them have each other when Leo comes to me with an offer. One that could connect the three of us in a way that flies in the face of the world we live in. His proposal ignites a fire in my veins. If it fails, we’ll all get burned, but for a man with nothing to lose, I’m just desperate enough to take that chance.
My pulse speeds up at the mere mention of what we did back then. “I thought we knew each other well enough.”
He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling. “Maybe conversations aren’t really our thing.” Then he spears me with a sharp look that makes my insides go molten.
“Maybe not.” My heart pounds so hard it’s difficult to breathe. My feet have a mind of their own when I start to walk again. I pass by him, feeling his gaze on me all the way as I head around the corner and through the door to the locker rooms.
The space smells musty and old, a mix of stale sweat and lemon cleaner. There are no showers—just two rows of lockers with benches in front and a restroom with a trio of toilet stalls and a row of sinks beyond another door. The boys’ side is a mirror to the girls’ side, though less used due to the majority of students being female. The gleaming chrome of brand-new locks on the lockers catches the sparse light from a high window.
I pause in front of the locker at the far end. This was where it happened. My eyebrows twitch at the etched lines engraved into the metal in the center of the locker: M + C. Reaching out, I trace the letters. They weren’t there before. Did he come back? Or did these initials belong to some other lovesick teenage girl?
His intense gray eyes are fixed on my fingertips. He closes the distance, takes my hand, and raises my fingers to his lips.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, finally able to say to him what I never had the chance to until now. Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for a more detailed apology, but all thought disappears when he hauls me close and slams his mouth onto mine.
Ophelia Bell loves a good bad-boy and especially strong women in her stories. Women who aren’t apologetic about enjoying sex and bad boys who don’t mind being with a woman who’s in charge, at least on the surface, because pretty much anything goes in the bedroom.
Ophelia grew up on a rural farm in North Carolina and now lives in Los Angeles with her own tattooed bad-boy husband and four attention-whoring cats.
If you’d like to receive regular updates on Ophelia’s publications, freebies, and discounts, please subscribe to her mailing list: http://opheliabell.com/subscribe/
Death didn’t scare Lilith Whitlock. At the ripe age of twenty, she preferred to take whatever life threw at her, and if death was a curveball, she’d catch it.
What she didn’t expect was for impending death to be stalled by being transformed into a vampire.
With sharp, pointy teeth and a hunger for blood, Lilith adapted to her new life. Befriending three hot vampires with a mission to maintain balance had something to do with that, but the paranormal world wasn’t perfect.
Especially when she learned creating new vampires was illegal. Now, she had to prove herself as indispensable to the Order of the Void, or she’d be obliterated from existence.
No one mentioned that being a new-blood came with a looming threat and imminent danger.
Crimson Tears is book one of three in the Crimson Demon Trilogy. It is a paranormal why-choose romance centered around three vampires and one demon. It contains mature subject matter that might not be suitable for all readers.
My eyes shot open, and I lunged at Kai, catching him off guard. I smacked into him, toppling us over his chair and crashing into the floor. The hardness of his body beneath mine sent my sense of touch into overdrive. The devouring thoughts of blood were replaced by thoughts of Kai underneath me.
I stared down at him, tilting my head to the side. Our gazes were locked in a heated battle. I couldn’t tell if he was testing me about the blood in his hand or if he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
“Blimey.” He reached his other hand up, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling me toward him until our breaths mingled. “I’m impressed you were able to stop yourself from taking the blood out of my hand.”
Lyra Winters is a twenty-something Kentucky woman who adores the book world. When she’s not typing away on her laptop or daydreaming book ideas, Lyra is occupying her time taking care of her two spunky daughters and dreamy husband. She’s addicted to Coca-Cola, 2000s rap music, and bubble baths. Her dream is to write love stories that touch the reader’s hearts.
