Make Mine a Bad Boy (39 page)
It wasn’t a long kiss or even a deep one. It was merely a touch. A teasing brush. A sweep of sweet, moist flesh against startled gloss. But it was enough. Enough to cause Faith’s heart to bang against her ribs and her breath to leave her lungs.
Wow.
Her hands came up and pressed against the hard wall of his chest in an effort to balance her suddenly tipsy world. Her eyelids, which she hadn’t even realized she’d closed, fluttered open. Unlike her, he didn’t look passion-drugged. Just cocky and confident.
“Don’t tell me I left you speechless, darlin’.” The words drizzled off his tongue like honey off a spoon, with very little twang and a whole lot of southern sizzle.
She swallowed hard as Kenny spoke.
“She can’t talk. She’s got that there lar-in-gitis, probably from all that actin’ she’s been doin’.”
A smirk a mile wide spread across Slate’s devastating, handsome face. “Is that so? Well now, ain’t that an interesting state of affairs.”
“Who cares if she can talk, Coach.” A man behind him yelled. “You call that a welcome-home kiss?”
Two other men joined in.
“Yeah, Slate, I kiss my cousin better than that.”
“That’s ’cause you’re married to her.”
“And you got a problem with that?”
“Shut up, you two,” Kenny said. “Come on, Slate, remind her of what she’s been missin’ out on. Give her the good stuff.”
A look of resignation entered those hazel eyes, a strange bedfellow for the dazzling grin. “Sorry, Hog,” he whispered, right before he dipped his head for another taste. Except, this time, his lips were slightly parted, and the soft kiss brought with it the promise of wet heat.
If it hadn’t been a year since she’d been kissed, she probably could’ve ignored the tremor that raced through her body and the zing that almost incinerated her panties. But it had been a year, a year filled with loss, pain, and revelation. A year that made a cautious conformist want to be something different. Something more like an arrogant rebel, Miss Hog Caller of Haskins County, or Annie Oakley with a loaded gun.
Or just a woman who gave a handsome cowboy a kiss he wouldn’t forget anytime soon.
With a moan, she threw her arms around his neck, knocking off his cowboy hat and forcing him to stumble back a step. A chorus of whoops and whistles erupted, but didn’t faze her one-track mind. Not when his lips opened wider, offering up all the good stuff. Teetering on the tiptoes of her high heels, she drove her fingers up into the silky waves of his hair, encasing his head and angling it so she had better access to the wet heat of his mouth. She dipped her tongue inside and sipped and tasted. But it still wasn’t enough.
She wanted to consume this man. Wanted to slide her fingers over every square inch of fevered skin and sculptured muscles. Wanted to press her nose into the spot between his neck and shoulder and fill her lungs to
capacity with the smoky laundry-detergent scent of him. But most of all, she wanted to stare into the rich fertile earth and endless sea of his eyes and see a reflection of her own desires—her own wants and needs.
Slowly, her eyes drifted open.
But it wasn’t desire she saw in the hazel depths. And it wasn’t cocky satisfaction. This time, it looked more like stunned disbelief. Obviously, Slate’s relationship with Hope didn’t involve sexual assault.
Stunned by her uncharacteristic behavior, Faith pulled away from his lips and dropped back down to her heels. What had she been thinking? Had she lost her mind? How could she throw herself at a complete stranger? And not just any complete stranger, but Hope’s close friend? Her gaze settled on those perfect lips—lips that were slightly parted, wet, and smeared with glittery Passion Fruit—and it became crystal clear why she had lost her mind. The man was beyond hot. He was one sizzling stick of yummy, and she was a deprived child with a sweet tooth.
“Thatta way, Hope,” a man on the other side of the pool table yelled. “You can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl!”
“Ooooo—wee, Coach! It looks like you was missed,” someone else joined in.
“Does this mean you’re stayin’, Little Bit?” Kenny’s friend stepped closer.
“Stayin’?” A voice came from the back. “With enthusiasm like that, I wouldn’t let that woman out of my sight!”
“Is that true, Slate?” Kenny asked. “You gonna let Hope go back to Hollywood after that kind of greetin’?”
Slate blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Slowly, the
shock receded from his eyes, but his shoulders remained tense. He cleared his throat twice before he spoke, but it still didn’t sound as smooth or confident as it had.
“Well, I guess that depends.”
“Depends on what?” someone asked.
“On whether or not she still likes me after she finds out I let The Plainsville Panthers whup our butts.”
The room erupted in laughter, followed quickly with grumbled comments about hometown refs. Then a man with a huge belly and an even bigger handlebar mustache pushed his way over.
“All right, you’ve had your turn, Slate. Give someone else a chance to welcome our girl home.”
For a fraction of a second, those hazel eyes narrowed, and the hands at her waist tightened. But then he released her and she was passed from one big bear hug to the next, accompanied with the greeting “Welcome home, Hope.”
She wasn’t Hope.
But, strangely enough, it felt like home.
Dear Reader,
Whenever I start a new project, people inevitably ask me, “What’s it about?” With BEG FOR MERCY, my answer seemed simple. This book is about Megan Flynn’s desperate quest to get her wrongfully convicted brother off death row before he’s executed. It’s about a woman who is so determined she’ll risk anything: her heart, when she begs Detective Cole Williams, the man who broke her heart when he arrested her brother, for help as she tracks down the real killer. And her life, when she herself becomes the target of a brutal killer’s twisted desires.
But as I got further into Megan and Cole’s journey, I realized that’s
not
really what this book is about. Scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll see that this book is really about faith. Not necessarily the religious kind, but the kind of faith you have in the people you love. It’s also about the faith you have in yourself, in your gut, your instincts—whatever you want to call it. It’s about listening to yourself and the truth that you cannot deny, even when the rest of the world tries to convince you that you’re wrong.
No matter the evidence that points to her brother’s guilt, Megan knows, deep down in her core, that her brother is not capable of the kind of brutal murder for which he was convicted. Nothing will convince her otherwise, her belief in her brother’s innocence and faith in his true nature is absolutely unshakable.
It’s so strong that it can even convince a skeptic like by the book, just the facts ma’am Detective Cole Williams to put aside everything he thinks he knows about this case. It will drive him to risk a career that means everything to him in order to help the woman he loves.
Megan and Cole’s journey to happily ever after isn’t an easy one, but nothing worth having comes easily. I hope you enjoy their story, and as you read, ask yourself, how deep is your faith in yourself and the people around you? How far would you go for someone you love?
Enjoy!
twitter@jamialden
Dear Reader,
Paisley Nichols, the heroine of MY DANGEROUS PLEASURE, is living her dream. She owns a bakery in San Francisco’s financial district, and she’s making a go of it. It’s hard work and long hours, but she loves what she does. I had some real life inspiration for her character. When I was a kid, my mother baked from scratch; bread, cinnamon rolls, and delicious cookies, which my siblings and I took for granted. It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized that not every mother baked like that. Now I bake goodies for my son, and if I have to taste test what I bake, well, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
My youngest brother worked as a pastry chef for a while (he now does catering on the side) and there was a time when he was training when he’d drive up from Santa Barbara where he lived, spend the weekend at our house, bake up a storm, and leave us with a refrigerator full of whatever he was practicing at the time; crème brûlée, chocolate souffle, chocolate mousse, and what have you. When he got married, the restaurant threw a party for him, and if you’ve never been around a slew of professional chefs, let me tell you, you are missing out on great food and lots of fun.
With my brother as an example, I got more ambitious
with my own baking. He taught me that quality ingredients make an enormous difference in the outcome, but there are also any number of little tips and tricks that get left out of many recipes that can transform a dessert from great to amazing or from decent looking to professional looking. For example, when making pie crust, use ice water, not room temperature water. Not even the
Joy of Cooking
mentions that crucial fact. Suddenly, my pie crusts were a success! I’ve also picked up and shared lots of recipes and tips from people on Twitter (I’m @cjewel).
Lest you think my story is nothing but sweetness and 70% (or higher) pure cocoa chocolate, Iskander, the demon hero of MY DANGEROUS PLEASURE, has a very dark side to him. He’s been tasked with keeping Paisley safe from the mage who’s stalking her, and when she develops some unusual magical abilities, his job gets even more difficult. There are people after them both, and they aren’t very nice. But in between the enslaved demons and magic-using humans chasing them, Paisley and Iskander do find the time and place to indulge themselves with delicious sweets and each other.
Enjoy!
