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BLURB:
Alexia Leigh leaves her father's funeral determined to prove that his discovery of big-cat shape-shifters isn't mythical nonsense. She wants to exonerate her deceased father's name and reveal the secret shifters race is alive and well.
When she tracks down the elusive and wealthy Blake Powell to an old, run down apartment, she isn't prepared for the instant attraction that flares between them. She wants only to focus on the reasons behind his name being on the aged parchment her father had found alongside some shifter bones.
But almost immediately she finds herself on the run with Blake from a group of fanatics who believe all too much in the reality of shape-shifters.
When she gives into the attraction with Blake and has mind blowing sex with him again...and again, she realizes she has to choose between him or the evidence he can give her on a silver platter...
Extract:
Guns ‘N’
Roses blared from inside nondescript apartment fourteen. She took a deep,
calming breath as adrenaline surged within. She had him. At last her quarry was
within reach. She raised a fist and hammered on the flimsy, peeling wooden
door.
The music
shut down. A baby wailed a few apartments down, a small dog yapping into life
inside another. Heavy footsteps approached from the other side of the door.
“Yes.”
One word.
One deep, masculine, primal intonation.
Her pulses
jerked in response, her nipples beading tight beneath her black leather jacket
and tight burgundy singlet.
If this is what he
could do to a woman with one monosyllable behind a closed door, she could only
imagine what he could do with a whole sentence, and up close and personal.
She cursed
under her breath. She’d clearly been too long without a man, someone to ease
the heavy ache of her breasts, the deep throb between her thighs. Just as well
she wanted nothing more from him than answers.
Hesitating
for a beat, she asked, “Mr. Powell?”
She closed
her eyes at his long, drawn out silence. Then she heard him release a heavy
sigh before returning wearily, “Who wants to know?”
Impatience
drummed a loud tattoo behind her skull. A migraine was all she needed right
now.
“I’m here on
behalf of my father. He is—“ she swallowed back a wave of bitter loss and grief
”—was an archaeologist. You may have heard of him? Professor
Thomas Leigh.” At the thick, almost suffocating silence that followed she
continued more loudly, “He believed in the existence of human-panther
shape-shifters—”
Her sentence
ended on a startled gasp as the door flung open and she was jerked
unceremoniously inside.
“Enough
already,” Blake growled.
She hissed
out a breath at the current of electricity sizzling through her arm’s every
nerve ending; at the cheek of him dragging her inside. She tugged free, and
looked up…and up.
Beneath
scruffy dark blue jeans and a white t-shirt the man was a mountain of fluid
muscle and sinew, repressed energy that vibrated with emotion and patently raw
sex appeal.
“Are you
mad?” she said through gritted teeth. “All I wanted was a civilized discussion,
not to be dragged inside like I’m nothing more than…than a cave woman!”
He slammed
the door shut behind her and pushed home a large bolt. When he peeled off his
dark sunglasses—ludicrous inside the near dark room lit only by a naked
bulb—she took an involuntary step back. His eyes were an unnatural gold-yellow.
Beautiful, but deadly.
She sucked
in some oxygen, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. Damn it all to hell, he really
was sinfully delicious, with more vague hints of darkness beneath his
honey-warm skin that tantalized and teased even as it repelled.
“I know who
you are,” he said.
“You do?”
“Yes.” He
sighed, tunneling a hand through his thick, dark hair that was an inch away
from scruffy. “I’m sorry.”
“Wh…what?”
“About your
father.”
“Why?” Her
voice rose an octave, “Because like everyone else you think the world is better
off without another crackpot and his loony beliefs?”
“No. I’m
sorry because he was a great man who thought above and beyond the restrictions
of science.”
Hostility
fled her body, leaving her oddly drained and a little disorientated. How long
had it been since someone had said something good about her father? Too long,
clearly, for her to appreciate even a scrap of praise. Snide remarks and innuendos
had become part and parcel of their life for the three long months since her
father’s discovery.
“You look
about ready to collapse.” Somehow his silky rich voice stroked her senses,
hummed along the nerve-endings behind her eyeballs and soothed away her stress.
Turning it into another tension entirely. Sexual tension. “Please. Take a
seat,” he murmured.
She managed
the couple of steps needed before all but flopping into a ripped, vinyl
two-seater lounge. “You knew my dad?”
“No, not
personally. But I read all his articles. He was ahead of his time. A brilliant
and ethical man.”
And look
where that had got him. Mocked and ridiculed until he’d been stripped of all
his dignity, his beliefs. His life.
A wedge of
hair dropped over her eyes from her scraped back pony tail. She abstractedly
pushed the dark blonde length behind one ear. “Then you know why I’m here.”
He moved
into the tiny kitchen, where a half-empty bottle of scotch resided on the
counter. He poured them each a glass. She gulped hers down like it was a tonic
for all the ills in the world.
He smiled
and took a mouthful before giving a nod. “I gather since your father uncovered
the bones, he also found the journal and deciphered the names on the list?”
“Only
yours,” she conceded. Her father’s long held view of honesty being the best
policy had burrowed deep into her psyche, despite its obvious pitfalls. “What
else have you concluded?” she pressed.
He raised a
dark brow. “That now you’re hoping to track down the Illawatti tribe.”
She released
another long, slow breath. “Let me guess. You think I’m a raving lunatic?”
Just like my
dad.
Blake
stalked over to the window and peered between the moldy, almost transparent
curtains. “No. Actually, I don’t.”
Wow. Was he serious? She snorted disbelief. “So you agree there’s a
possibility the Illawatti tribe exist—”
“We need to
leave,” he growled.
She frowned.
“No. Not until I get some answers—”
The breath
whooshed hard from her throat as he threw himself at her. His weight knocked
her to the ground simultaneously to the window shattering, glass raining down
like blades of ice.
The dog a
few doors down once again took up its relentless yapping. She closed her eyes,
aware the muscled bulk of Blake’s body sheltered her. But she was even more
aware of the ping of a bullet that had torn a hole through the opposite wall.
Shock pushed
her heart rate into high gear. “Someone is shooting at you!”
He
effortlessly scooped her up and half-ran into what had to be the only bedroom.
“No,” he corrected grimly. “They’re shooting at us.”
