Agent Nathan Larson has always prided himself on his reputation, and for being a good alpha. But now he’s on the run from the government agency he works for. Everyone believes he’s guilty of a horrific massacre that he’s pretty sure he didn’t commit. It’d help if the memories of that night weren’t so fuzzy in his head. With his face plastered all over the shifter community, he’s exhausted and needs a place to lay low to rest and do some investigating on what really happened. When he stumbles on a curvy, sassy redhead who appears to live alone, he knows he’ll do whatever it takes to find a safe spot to hunker down. Even if it means holding a gorgeous woman captive and making her collateral damage in his quest to prove his innocence.
As the little sister of an alpha, Sage Christensen has been overprotected her entire life. Living on her own and writing her books is the most she’s been able to do to exert her independence. When a strange but hot alpha follows her home from a bar and holds her captive, she realizes just how far from help her cabin is. She knows it’s crazy to trust Nate, even crazier to start to want him, but before she realizes it she’s in far over her head wanting to help the alpha who might just capture her heart too.
EXCERPT
His teeth snapped together. “It’s not my intent to hurt you, Sage. I can’t stress that enough.”
“Then what is your intent?”
He shook his head. “I just need a place to lay low. To figure out a few things.” He turned on the sink and gently pulled her wrists under the water. “And whether you’re willing or not, you’re going to help me with that.”
She winced as he added soap over her raw but already healing wrists. “Just to be clear, I’m in the not willing category.”
Their heads were close and he was suddenly all too aware of her as a female. The wrist he held was delicate and soft, and the scent of her shampoo mixed with the citrus soap he was using to wash her wounds.
Her gaze lifted to meet his. Searching. “Are you really a P.I.A. agent?”
“Not just an agent. The commander of my unit.”
She shook her head, her breathing not quite as steady now. Was it from the information he’d just divulged or their proximity?
“You sound as if you should be one of the good guys. What on earth did you do?”
He was a good guy. Or so he’d used to think. He shrugged, not quite ready to answer that. Not quite sure he could.
So he changed the subject.
“This could’ve been so much easier on both of us, Sage. At the bar last night I was trying to charm you.”
“Charm me? You’re absolutely terrible at charming people, Nate.”
He ignored her warranted insult and went on. “I was trying to gain your trust so you’d willingly take me home.”
“I’m sorry I was so uncooperative.” Sarcasm laced the reply. “And I’ve never taken a man home from a bar and didn’t intend to start with you.”
When he glanced up at her, her gaze had slid to his mouth.
Interesting.
She was more aware of him than she cared to admit. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and everything primal inside him responded.
He turned off the sink and maneuvered her against it, so she was trapped between him and his legs straddled her.
“Well, I guarantee you if I’d been the one kissing you outside instead of you pretty musician, you would’ve taken me home.”
She swallowed hard and met his gaze once more. The amount of defiance there was outweighed by something else. A flicker of heat and interest.
“You are awfully cocky. It would take more than a kiss for me to have brought you home.”
“Careful, Sage,” he warned softly and leaned in closer. His breath mingled with hers. “Because that almost sounds like a challenge.”
He heard it then. The slow thud of her heart had become a pounding thunder. She didn’t reply to his statement, and the wolf within him rose to the surface in an instant.
Suddenly he wanted to prove his point. He wanted to kiss that defiant mouth and make her eat her words. And she would. He knew the minute he touched her she’d melt.
Another thought hit him.
Maybe he was going about this wrong. Maybe if he tried to seduce her mind—her heart—he’d have her cooperation. She’d stop trying to escape. Stop trying to break his skull in.
Or maybe, you just want to charter the inside of her mouth with your tongue.
Whatever it was, the primitive side of him was far too close to the surface to be denied now.
Her eyes widened because she must’ve sensed it.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He lowered his head and lightly, so lightly, touched his lips to her. Waited for her to pull away. She was so soft. Wonderfully sweet.
She didn’t move, though her body went rigid. A moment later she gave a stiff shrug.
“You see? That did noth—”
He didn’t let her finish that thought before he crushed his mouth onto hers again. Not gentle this time, but with the sole intent to explore that amazing mouth deeper. To conquer and take.
She whimpered in shock before he effortlessly pierced her compressed lips with his tongue, determined to taste the soft warmth inside.
She tried to push him away, her hands shoving against his bare shoulders.
Slow down, you’re probably scaring her.
He gentled the kiss—switched his intent from conquer to seduce—and all too soon she grew pliant in his arms. Just like he knew she would.
As he flicked his tongue against hers in teasing, gentle strokes, she began to answer back. He caught her small moan of pleasure with his tongue. The hands that had tried to push him away a moment ago now kneaded and stroked the bare skin of his shoulders.
The scent and feel of her were going to his head like a fifth of vodka. It was getting hard to think and focus. The control that he always prided himself on—that had been so tightly wound— began to unravel.
His thoughts grew hazier, and for a moment he couldn’t be sure who was actually in control. Who was seducing who.
