Beloved Stranger: Gaian Series, Book 5 (30 page)

“I like the sound of that.” She gazed up at him. “I do love you so much.”

Roan smiled. “I know, but I’ve waited a long time to hear you say it.”

“Was it worth it?”

He couldn’t help laughing. “This was one time the waiting was more than worthwhile.”

About the Author

Janet Miller, also known as Cricket Starr, is the author of over twenty-seven titles at Ellora’s Cave, Samhain, Red Sage and New Concepts Publishing. These titles include the 2004 PRISM award-winning
Violet Among the Roses
, 2011 PRISM award-winning
Bad Dog and the Babe
, and 2006 EPPIE award-winning
All Night Inn
. She has two Romantic Times Top Picks and nominees for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for
Beloved Enemy
under her Janet Miller name, and
Fangs for the Memories
by Cricket Starr.

Janet specializes in futuristic romance under her own name and futuristic, fantasy and paranormal romance under the pen name Cricket Starr. Not all of her books are erotic, but she knows a hot sex scene when she reads or writes it.

To read more about her books visit her website at
www.cricketstarr.com
, follow her at
janetmiller
and
cricketstarr
at Twitter, or Janet Miller at Facebook.

There’s always a loophole. Just don’t let it close around your neck.

Runner

© 2011 Anitra Lynn McLeod

The Fringe, Book 3

Bounty hunter Foster Nash is a ruthless bastard—just ask him. Thanks to an ex-girlfriend who robbed him blind, and another who nearly bit off his trigger finger, he’s not too high on women in general right now.

Desperate for funds to refill his retirement coffers, he jumps at a very lucrative contract: to bring in the doctor who created the Tyaa plague. Except his voluptuous target doesn’t behave like a criminal. Instead of rattling the bars, she accepts her fate with cool, cultured aplomb.

Jynx Brennan toiled for three years to save humanity from a disease she’s now blamed for creating. Since she refuses to use her psi ability as a weapon, it doesn’t help her escape Never-Fail Nash. In a moment of clarity, she decides there’s no point in denying herself a last fling with a living, breathing erotic fantasy.

After he recovers his surprise, Nash indulges the full depth of his physical needs upon her body—often, and to their mutual pleasure. But when it leads to unexpected emotional intimacy, he finds himself willing to risk everything to break a contract that will force him to deliver her to certain execution.

Warning: Contains one bad-ass bounty hunter, a refined lady doctor, a ship with a vile history, a villain with a viler history, and a wide black leather belt, slung low.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Runner:

Foster leaned back from the main console, stretched his arms over his head and groaned. What he wouldn’t give for a solid eight hours of sleep. Not that finding Jynx Brennan had taxed his considerable skills. But damn, he hurt.

He checked his finger and thought of his last package. When he’d been forced to gag her foul mouth, Scary Mary had chomped his right index finger. The wound had looked bad two weeks ago, but it looked a hell of a lot worse now. He shook his head. Another woman, like Laura, his ex-girlfriend. He began to think none of them could be trusted.

Using his unbitten middle finger, he tapped up the audvid to the cell where he’d left his current package. Jynx slept curled up on the top of the bunk. Her short-hacked blonde hair fell across her tear-streaked face, making her seem broken, vulnerable and very pretty. She’d clean up something spectacular.

“You’ll want to do her when you see her,” Roberts had insisted with gleaming eyes.

Foster shook his head. “All I do is deliver for the agreed-upon price.”

Nonetheless, Roberts put the bonus clause in the contract. Roberts wanted Foster to play Jynx Brennan. Roberts wanted him to bed her for sport and earn some extra credits. As pretty as Jynx was, and despite his thoroughly disreputable reputation, that wasn’t one of his contractible skills. He didn’t bed for bonus. That’s why he generally didn’t apprehend females—the temptation was too great.

Foster set his ship, the
Damn You
, on autopilot, then made his way to the galley. Tossing a premade dinner into the micro, he set the table and ate without tasting. He didn’t need a cook. He liked his solitude. He enjoyed not having to worry about anyone but himself.

Sometimes, when he didn’t have a package onboard, he talked to himself. On those days, he admitted to being lonely, and he thought about getting a dog, but he promptly dropped the idea. He’d have to disable the autofires all over the ship, and that would give any prisoner a clear advantage if they managed to escape the cells. He’d programmed the units to recognize him, but he didn’t want the hassle of reprogramming them to recognize a dog.

“They didn’t recognize Laura as a dog.” He considered. “Well, more so a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Disgusted that he was talking to himself yet again, he yanked a beer from the pantry, popped the cap and sipped. He checked the kitchen audvid. Jynx hadn’t moved. She had nice legs. Her sandal-clad feet were grungy, but one quick shower, a fresh dress—she rolled onto her back. A long, low growl rumbled through his chest.

“Nice rack.”

Not too big, not too small, her breasts would just about fill his large hands. Lilac motton clung to her body like a drawn-out caress. Her lacy bra pressed against her thin layer of clothing like an inviting whisper.

“Must be exhausted. Poor, evil IWOG doctor on the run for three weeks.” Sipping from his long-necked bottle, he watched her sleep.

Jynx hadn’t gotten far from her lab on Banna. Hell, she could have traded one tumble for a ride off Corona on any trader’s ship.

Knocking back a swallow of beer, he decided she just wasn’t the sort to trade with her body. Regardless of what Roberts said, Jynx was a lady. Foster could tell by the way she spoke and carried herself. She might be an evil doctor, but she was still a lady. An IWOG lady.

“Don’t think I’ve ever met one of those out here.”

Tossing his head back, he polished off his beer and chucked the bottle to recyc. After shutting down the kitchen, he went to his bedroom.

“Not a whole lot of bona fide IWOG ladies on the Fringe.”

Not that her status mattered. He’d deliver his package in a week and be off on another job. Gods knew how he needed the money.

Foster lingered at the audvid in his bedroom as he cleaned his teeth. Would be interesting to make it with an IWOG lady. Just once. Just to see if she was any different from any other woman in the Void.

Frowning, he thought of Laura again. Not a lady by any stretch, but ex-IWOG consumer, like he was. Laura came on like gangbusters, then went suddenly, shockingly shy when he’d tried to close the deal. He wasted weeks on her. Even let her live on the ship for a while. He reprogrammed all the autofires to reassure her, and what had that bitch done? Robbed him blind. Laura swiped a fortune after balling him senseless. While he lay utterly spent, Laura removed everything that wasn’t bolted down on the
Damn You
, crammed it in a shuttle and took off.

To his utter chagrin, he liquidated all his accounts to buy back his own electronic tricks at auction, and his shuttle, but at triple what he’d paid originally.

Laura, forever after in his mind as “That Bitch”, stripped him so naked he couldn’t believe she’d left him a pair of boxers, let alone a pair of pants.

Because he’d trusted someone, he’d opened himself to a world of hurt. Never in his life had he called a woman a bitch. But Laura’s deliberate playing of him earned her the title of “That Bitch”. If he ever laid eyes on her again, he’d shoot first and ask questions later. Laura made him doubt the motives of half the population by sheer virtue of being female.

Laura reduced him from a major player with loads of cash to a man with a bare-bones ship and little else. After draining his accounts, he had the
Damn You
back at full-throttle and his reputation, but that was all. On the brink of retirement, he’d been forced to start all over with only his ship and his rep.

Anger and embarrassment flared. He took a deep breath to push the uncomfortable emotions away. Foster blamed no one but himself. He never should have trusted Laura. She lucked out and caught him at a low, lonely point.

“When I was using the little brain.” He glared down at his pants. “Ain’t putting you in charge again, buddy, no matter how much you sit up and beg.”

He checked the audvid again. Jynx Brennan was small, blonde, delicate and lady-like. She had the softest, sweetest, most honey-rich voice he’d ever heard in his life. She was
everything
he’d lusted after in his youth on Banna.

“Won’t be fooled again.” He undressed, shut off the audvid and tumbled into bed.

She may learn to live for love…if vengeance doesn’t kill her first.

Unacceptable Risk

© 2011 Jeanette Grey

Plix spends her lonely, gritty life trying to solve the mysteries her father left behind. Armed with a variety of cybernetic enhancements and a talent for getting into places she shouldn’t be, she searches for clues to his murder—and who’s responsible for poisoning her city.

Waking up on a street corner with her brain wiring fried to a crisp, she figures she must have gotten close this time. There’s only one man she trusts to pull her back from the brink: a tuner who can retrieve the evidence hidden deep in the recesses of her mind. A man she dares not let too close to her heart.

When Edison downloads a secret SynDate schematic from Plix’s burnt-out circuitry, he knows with dreadful finality that nothing—not even the fiery kiss he’s been holding back for years—will stop her from pursuing her quest past the point of insanity.

All he can do, as he helps her plan her final mission, is ease her pain, watch her back…and hope one of them doesn’t pay with their lives.

Warning: Contains a heroine intent on kicking ass and taking names, a high-tech dystopia, cybernetic body modifications, and emotionally-charged, sensual romance.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Unacceptable Risk:

Lucien Vicker knew what her father had been up to. Lucien Vicker knew about
her
.

She had to go.

Layers of plans and strategies unfolded in her mind for where she would go next and what she would do. For
how
she would take her leave. Edison would be angry at her for abandoning her recovery so soon; she knew that he’d wanted another day or two at the very least to make sure everything was functioning correctly. But the most significant damage had been repaired or contained, and she was strong enough, she was sure. If she wasn’t, then she was just going to have to hope Edison would forgive her.

Another deep pang stilled her as she realized that, even if she had more time, she couldn’t afford to allow him to harbor her any longer.

She couldn’t come back to him. She couldn’t put him in that kind of risk.

Blinking back the moisture threatening to blur her vision, Plix pushed herself to make her preparations, calling on the callous efficiency that had gotten her through so many sticky situations in the past. Plugging in the auxiliary data jack, she downloaded everything—all the data Edison had managed to recover—watching as it disappeared from his system, erasing it line by line. Then, without remorse, she ran her most aggressive algorithm to scrub all traces of her presence from his mainframe. All of it.

Well, almost all.

She left exactly one file. Masked and encrypted and hidden deep within the parts of his system that only she would think to look in, she knew it would take even Edison a while to find and decode it. But still, she left one piece of herself for him to find.

In case she didn’t come back.

When
she didn’t come back.

Plix was just finishing when she heard the sound she’d been waiting for this entire time, footsteps coming down the hall with that familiar echo and that long, loping gait. She swallowed hard and clenched her eyes shut, steeling herself for the goodbyes that had been growing more and more difficult for years now. This one would be the most difficult of all.

With a silent prayer, Plix wiped the display and slipped the cable from her neck, turning quickly and forcing as neutral of an expression as she could muster. As she did, the door behind her swung open, knuckles rapping gently against plastic in a small warning.

The sight of Edison’s face, broadly expectant, smiling and open, was nearly enough to crack her resolve and shatter all her plans.

It only took a moment for everything to shift, though.

“Hey, sleepyhead, I—” The words had barely left Edison’s mouth before his expression was falling, his features betraying how quickly he understood exactly what was happening.

Plix could only hope he didn’t grasp the full extent of it. If he did, he would never let her go.

“What—?” The hurt in his eyes was paralyzing, the sudden defensiveness in his posture striking so stark a contrast to the lazy smile he’d entered with.