Read Sex, Lies and Surveillance Online
Authors: Stephanie Julian
Sex, Lies and Surveillance (26 page)
His gut tightened. Christ, if she cried…
“Janey, I don’t know what to tell you except I will do whatever I can to help you trust me.” He examined her expression for any hint of her feelings but she just stood there, as if waiting for him to go on.
Goddamn it, what did he say to make this right? His heart started to race and that void opened in his chest. This was all for nothing. She wasn’t going to forgive him. There’d be no happily ever after.
He closed the few feet between them, close enough that she tilted her head back to look at him. He wanted to grab her and kiss her but he figured she’d slap him. Which he probably deserved. “Janey, please, help me out here. What do you want me to say?”
She cocked her head to the side. “You know, that’s the thing, because I’m not really sure. You are who you are, Mal. I understand wanting to avenge your partner. If anyone hurt my family, I’d want them to pay.”
But… There had to be a “but” coming. He braced for impact.
She stuck one finger in his chest. “I can forgive you for being a male chauvinist and thinking I needed your protection from Bennett. And I understand why you stayed undercover as long as you did. I understand loyalty and confidentiality. You’re not a man who takes those things lightly and I don’t know that I could ever love a man who did.”
The sparkle in her eyes had returned, and his heart leaped at the pretty flush on her cheeks.
And when she finally smiled, he had to clench his hands into fists to keep from grabbing her.
Instead, he let her lift her arms to circle his neck so she pulled him down to kiss her.
Her lips pressed against his, her heat seeping into his body and warming him from the inside out until he thought his blood might boil.
God, yes. This was what he wouldn’t be able to live without for the rest of his life. His arms crushed her to him as a wave of emotion so intense he nearly couldn’t breathe swept over him.
Her arms clung, her body softening, pliant against his. She kissed him as if she was still angry but wasn’t going to give up.
He wouldn’t let her give up. He had the only woman he’d ever loved in his arms and he wasn’t about to let her go until she’d either forgiven him or put him out of his misery.
Reluctantly, he released her lips, but he had the most important thing left to say. “I love you, Janey.”
Her expression transformed with pure pleasure. “I love you too.” She nodded at the floor and he looked down to see a duffel bag by her feet. “I was coming to find you. You wouldn’t have gotten away that easily. And I do trust you, Mal. It just took me a little longer to trust myself.”
A weight he hadn’t known was suffocating him lifted off his chest. “It’ll be an adventure.”
“I have no doubt.”
Stephanie Julian is the author of the Magical Seduction, Lucani Lovers and The Fringe series from Ellora’s Cave, and the Forgotten Goddesses series from Sourcebooks Casablanca. She’s a former reporter for a daily newspaper who enjoys making up stories much more than writing about real life. She’s happily married to a Springsteen fanatic and is the mother of two sons who love her even when they don’t have any clean clothes and dinner is a bowl of cereal.
Where no great story goes untold.
The variety you want to read, the stories authors have always wanted to write.
With new releases every week, your next great read is just a download away!
Keep in touch with Carina Press:
Read our blog: www.CarinaPress.com/blog
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarinaPress
Become a fan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CarinaPress
ISBN: 978-1-4268-9306-3
Copyright © 2011 by Stephanie Julian
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and
™
are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.