Rion
“Seems to me your meditation isn’t working.” Rion’s tone oozed charm. “There are better ways to relax.”
“Like?” Marisa couldn’t prevent a tiny smile from raising the corners of her lips.
His dark gaze flicked to her mouth, tracked it with hot male interest. He’d taken her smile for an opening. Of course, he
would. She doubted anyone had ever told Mr. Irresistible no. Approaching with a long-legged saunter that made her eyes narrow
with speculation, he sat on the mat behind her.
She should pull away until she knew what he was up to. But she couldn’t. Not when he looked so damn good.
He went still behind her, drawing out a moment of silence that thrummed with tension. Her sizzling awareness of him seemed
to fill the space between them with a rush of heat…
“Kearney is a master storyteller.”
—V
IRGINIA
H
ENLEY
,
New York Times
bestselling author
SUSAN KEARNEY
“[Kearney] combines sexy romance with spaceships, laser guns, psychic powers, and time travel.”
—Tampa Tribune
“Susan Kearney takes you on a wild ride, keeping you guessing until the very end.”
—New York Times
bestselling author K
AREN
R
OSE
on
Kiss Me Deadly
“Out-of-this-world love scenes, pulse-pounding action, and characters who come right off the page.”
—USA Today
bestselling author S
UZANNE
F
ORSTER
on
The Dare
“Looking for something different? A futuristic romance…
The Challenge
gave me a new perspective… love and sex in the future!”
—New York Times
bestselling author C
ARLY
P
HILLIPS
A
LSO BY
S
USAN
K
EARNEY
Lucan
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by H.E. Inc.
Excerpt from
Lucan
copyright © 2009 by H.E. Inc.
Excerpt from
Jordan
copyright © 2009 by H.E. Inc.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Forever
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
.
www.twitter.com/foreverromance
Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Forever name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
First eBook Edition: December 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-55881-5
Contents
To my readers: You all are the ones who make my career possible. Thank you for your support. Thank you for telling your friends
about my books. Thank you for joining me on this journey.
First I have to thank Amy Pierpont for her terrific edits. And Alex Logan for her assistance during all facets of publication.
I’d also like to thank Claire Brown and Christine Foltzer for yet another gorgeous cover, Anna Maria Piluso for the book’s
production, and of course Bob Levine and all his hardworking colleagues in sales.
And thanks to Holly Root for placing me at a wonderful publishing house.
She who lives without taking risks dies without love.
—E
NGLISH PROVERB
Y
ou call that relaxing?” A deep male voice reverberated through the exercise room, and Marisa Roarke opened her eyes. “Meditation
is so overrated.”
Rion Jaqard stalked with predatory zeal across the Trafalgar Hotel’s workout room, flung a towel onto a chair, and whipped
off his shirt before sliding onto the weight bench.
During the few times Marisa had run into Rion at her brother Lucan’s apartment, she’d noticed Rion was built. But she hadn’t
realized he was so solid. Talk about walking testosterone. She’d bet even his sweat had muscles.
Rion always emitted a sexy aura. But tonight he seemed to have turned his charms up a notch. Almost as if his alluring appeal
was a veneer. And beneath was an undercurrent of banked urgency. Intensity. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was different
about him but her tired mind was reluctant to question, preferring simply to appreciate his…
She had to stop looking.
Even if he was totally irresistible, she should have been immune. He may have been a first-rate flirt with other women, but
he’d always treated her like a pesky kid sister. And who could blame him? A nasty divorce many years ago had left her with
the expectation that most relationships were built on a mountain of lies.
Trying to ignore the size of Rion’s very broad, very muscular chest, she frowned. “These days I find relaxing pretty much
like trying to fly with only one wing.”
Conversation over. She shut her eyes again. But the image of his ripped chest and totally toned, totally etched abs remained.
Marisa imagined those powerful arms around her. Strong, yet gentle. Warm and tight with a current of need. She imagined his
eyes filled with desire… for her.
Stop it.
Stop imagining.
She didn’t imagine.
Not anymore.
She halted her wandering thoughts with hard facts.
Rion was from the planet Honor. The first chance he got to leave Earth, he’d be gone. But if all Honorians were built like
him, Earth’s women would be rioting for interplanetary travel visas. Of course, no such documents existed. Not since the United
Nations had shut down travel from Earth to the rest of the galaxy.
For the moment Rion was trapped on Earth. She sneaked another glance. All that sculpted maleness was dazzling. Seductive.
A woman could have a night to remember with a body like his. She suppressed a sigh. Too bad she wasn’t that kind of woman.
Since her failed marriage she’d become even more careful. Maybe too careful.
If he’d ever, even just once, shone any of his alpha sex-machine machoness in her direction, she might have succumbed to temptation
and flirted. But he wasn’t interested. He’d never been interested.
Stop drooling. Just look somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Marisa had thought herself past the age of ogling men who showed no sign of ogling back. She figured her reaction was due
to work-related stress from her new career.
Just six months ago, Marisa had been a successful correspondent at the
St. Petersburg Times
in Florida. She’d covered everything from war in the Mideast to the story about her brother Lucan and his wife, Cael, who
had brought back a cure from the planet Pendragon for Earth’s fertility problems, which had been Marisa’s last assignment.
While the cure had saved humanity from extinction, it had side effects, a genetic shift that required some people to periodically
morph into dragons. But humans were not accustomed to their new dragonshaping abilities, which required controlling their
more primitive side. So after discovering her own telepathic powers could be used to calm the dragons’ highly sexed and predatory
tendencies, Marisa had switched careers.
A fifteen-hour shift, exhaustion, and her not-so-successful attempt to erase the emotional aftereffects of dealing with her
oversexed dragonshaping clients had clearly upset her equilibrium.
She closed her eyes.
Out. Out. Out.
Rounding up the stray emotions, she corralled them into a tiny corner of her mind, then squashed down hard.
But she still couldn’t block out the man across the room. The weights clinked as Rion raised and lowered them, and Marisa
peeked again through her lowered lashes. The guy was gorgeous.
He slanted a glance in her direction. The gleaming interest in his eyes startled her. “Hard day?”
“Uh-huh.” She looked away. The one-on-one telepathy she’d originally signed up for wouldn’t have made her this susceptible
to Rion’s sexuality. But after Marisa had begun to work with the dragonshapers, she’d discovered she could simultaneously
communicate with an entire group of dragons. Her unique ability to help many dragons at once made her a valuable asset to
the Vesta Corporation. Unfortunately, the side effects subjected her to all of the dragonshapers’ angers, fears, jealousies,
and passions at once.
Don’t think about work.
Left with residual sexual tension, all her cells hummed with need.
Let it go.
Unclenching her teeth, she forced her lips to part, breathed deeply through her nose, and told the muscles in her aching neck
to loosen. Or at least to stop throbbing so she could go up to her hotel room and sleep.
“Maybe lifting would relax you.”
She arched an eyebrow. Something had to be wrong with her hearing because his voice sounded coaxing.
“If you need help, I could spot you,” he continued.
“No, thanks.” Surprised by his persistence, she spoke without looking at him.
Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Surely by now even his oversized biceps had to be burning, his lungs aching for oxygen.
But he didn’t sound out of breath.
“Let me know if you change your mind.” His tone held a hint of disappointment.
Disappointment?
No way.
Her tired mind had to be misinterpreting his signals. As much as she’d have liked to believe he was interested in her, she
knew better. So she had to accept that the dragons’ residual passions were affecting her judgment.