The Unwanted (A Novella of the FBI Psychics) (16 page)

He shifted in the bed and covered her knee with his hand. “It’s early yet, we can figure that out as we go. All that matters now is you…you’re the one for me. The one, the only.”

His words made her heart shudder in her chest…shudder. Quiver, roll over and just…sigh. “Caleb,” she whispered. Laying a hand on his cheek, she leaned over and pressed her brow to his.

“The only,” he said again, his voice soft and gentle. “All that matters. Everything else is just noise. As for a job? I can always quit and freelance for Oz. Or you can think about going freelance for the Bureau.”

“Shit.” Passing a hand over the back of her mouth, she tried to get her heart back into its normal rhythm. “Yeah. Me, back in the Bureau. Like that would happen. After the way I fucked up with them? They don’t want me back.”

He bent down and pressed his lips to her thigh. “Jones sort of runs his own ship. If he thinks you’d be good to have around, he’ll pull strings, move heaven and hell to get you in. If that’s what you want.”

“I want you.” She stroked her hand over his hair. “That’s all I know for sure.”

“Then the rest we’ll work out.” He lifted up and pressed his lips to her neck. “We’ll deal with the details later. Is that good enough?”

“Hell yes. Now…” She shifted around and pushed him onto his back. “I think we’ve got five years of time to make up for. And we don’t really
have
to check out just yet…right?”

He was grinning as she bent down and covered his mouth with hers. “Absolutely.”

Author’s Note

According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), there is a sexual assault every two minutes in the U.S. Almost half of the victims are under eighteen. Eighty percent are under the age of thirty. Fifty percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police and ninety-seven percent of rapists will never spend a day in jail.

Two-thirds of assaults are committed by somebody the victim knows. Almost forty percent of the assaults are committed by friends or acquaintances.

Drug-facilitated sexual assault remains common. Drugs like GBL can be slipped into a strong-tasting drink and the victim may act normally, i.e., they might not look drunk or act out of it, but they won’t remember anything that happened while the drug was in their system. It’s metabolized fast and will leave body within twenty-four hours.

Rape doesn’t happen to “other” people. It happens to people in all walks of life.

Learn more at
www.rainn.org
.

About the Author

Shiloh Walker has been writing since she was a kid. She fell in love with vampires with the book Bunnicula and has worked her way up to the more…ah…serious works of fiction. She loves reading and writing just about every kind of romance. Once upon a time she worked as a nurse, but now she writes full-time and lives with her family in the Midwest. She writes romantic suspense and paranormal romance, and urban fantasy under the name J.C. Daniels. For more about Shiloh Walker, please visit her website
www.shilohwalker.com
or join her newsletter
shilohwalker.fanbridge.com
. Also, check her out on
Facebook
and
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.

Look for these titles by Shiloh Walker

Now Available:

Talking with the Dead

Always Yours

For the Love of Jazz

Beautiful Girl

Vicious Vixen

Playing for Keeps

My Lady

The Redeeming

No Longer Mine

A Forever Kind of Love

The Hunters

The Huntress

Hunter’s Pride

Malachi

Hunter’s Edge

Grimm’s Circle

Candy Houses

No Prince Charming

Crazed Hearts

I Thought It Was You

Tarnished Knight

Locked in Silence

Grimm Tidings

Blind Destiny

Some scars cut right to the heart.

Beautiful Scars

© 2013 Shiloh Walker

Three years after her divorce, Chaili Bennett is over her ex. Her only problem now? Of the few men she’s dated since, no one “gets” her. Not like Marc Archer—a man who’s never seen her as more than a friend.

Marc Archer needs a date for a last-minute charity event, and he needs it fast. Not that women aren’t throwing themselves at his world-famous face and body, but sometimes it’s less messy—as in less personal—to use his sister Shera’s escort service.

The last woman on earth Marc expects to see in his sister’s office is Chaili. There’s something different about her, but nothing pleases him more when Shera sets them up. That simple date quickly evolves into much more as they both discover the other fills a deep, secret need they’ve shared with no one else.

Though Chaili insists one night is all she wants, Marc isn’t walking away now. Not until he discovers what put the shadows in her eyes. And the scars on her soul.

Warning:
 
This book involves soulful songs, soulful sex, a soulful singer and lots of heartbreak. But no worries, there’s a happy ever after.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Beautiful Scars:

He could have kept on playing, just for her. Forever. He’d forgotten how amazing it was to do this. Playing for himself was always good. Playing for his fans…yeah, he loved that.

But there was something magic about sitting there in the dark and playing for her.

It was almost like he could talk to her through the music, and even though she said nothing back, he could hear her answer just in the way she moved, the way she smiled.

And it had always been like this, he realized.

Chaili seemed to find almost the same pleasure in the music that he did.

That same little smile bowed her pretty mouth up and she swayed, one hand curled around the wine glass, the other tapping out a rhythm on her thigh.

He had an image of catching the hem of her skirt. Pushing it up. Okay…
that
wasn’t anything that had happened before tonight. But he had a feeling he’d be thinking hot and dirty thoughts about her for a long, long time after this. Hell, he was wondering why he hadn’t done it before.

Closing his eyes, he tried to focus back on the music, but he couldn’t block
her
out.

It was all there, twining through his mind. The raw, powerful vibe of the music. The song. The image of his hands on her thighs. Pushing that pretty skirt up. Catching the silken hose she wore and dragging them down, her panties…leaving her naked under that skirt. Then he’d play a little while longer. Just a little while, as he thought about her being naked under that elegant little white dress.

Get a grip, Marc. Or you’re going to lose it before you even get started
…

Get started. Was he actually thinking of trying to do this…

Hell, yes.

He must have lost his mind somewhere in the time he’d seen her standing in the office of
Escortè
and when he’d started playing for her back at the party, but he had every intention of having a taste of her. Just once, he thought. They were friends, right? They could have a night of nice, friendly sex and then go back to being friends…

Yes, because that had worked so well before.

Stop it, man. This isn’t Lily. It won’t happen that way. And if you can’t get that through your head, you need to just take her home now,
he told himself.

No. She wasn’t Lily.

And he’d be damned if he took her home just yet. Unless that was what she wanted.

Clearing his throat, he took the glass of wine from her. “Ah…are you wanting to head home or you wanna hang around a while?”

She slid him a smile as she took the glass of wine back. “Hey, you played me one song. That does not a concert make.”

Hot damn.

“‘Walking in Memphis’?”

She just smiled.

He rolled into it, watching her a little closer this time. She was looking at his hands again. Her face was flushed, although he didn’t think it was the wine. He’d had as much as she and it was just the one bottle. Couldn’t just be the wine, right?

She all but groaned as he launched into the one part that got to her, every damn time, right near the end.

His voice dropped, lower, rougher.

A shudder went through her and she grabbed the glass of wine, drank it down. They’d emptied the bottle and she wished she could blame the heat burning inside her on the wine, but it wasn’t that. It was him. Always him—

“What is it about you and that song?”

As the music faded, she jerked her head up, saw him staring at her.

She tried to shrug. It wasn’t the song, it was him. Something about the way he sang it, hell, the way he sang anything… She licked her lips and stared off into the distance, trying to figure out the right way to say something that wasn’t a lie, but didn’t leave her stripped bare.

A harsh groan reached her ears.

Startled, she looked at him, realized he was staring at her mouth.

Two seconds later, he was reaching for her.

Stunned, she couldn’t think. As his lips covered hers, she just couldn’t think.

Marc was kissing her.

Damn it.

Marc
was kissing her—

Had she drank more wine than she’d thought?

“Open your mouth,” he snarled against her lips, a harsh, urgent command in his voice. “Give me your mouth.”

Dazed, she did just that, opened for him.

His arms came around her as his tongue stroked across the bottom of her lip, slowly, seductively…teasingly. Oh, hell. She was in trouble. Big, big trouble…

And she didn’t plan on doing anything to stop it, either. Not when he broke his mouth away to brush a line of stinging, hot kisses down her neck to her shoulder. Not when he stroked a hand up her thigh, the other cupping the back of her head.

Alarm, though, started to sound when he toyed with the fastening of her dress—alarm that would give way to terror if she let it.

Refusing to let that happen, she wiggled around until she was straddling his lap, her arms looped around his shoulders. Through the bodice of her dress, she felt the warmth of his breath, and when he pressed his mouth to her breastbone, she figured she needed to call a stop to this here and now. He didn’t know and she just couldn’t…

“Chaili…fuck, what have you got on under this skirt?”

He’s everything she craves. She’s everything he dreads.

A Killing Touch

© 2013 Nikki Duncan

Sensory Ops, Book 4

Journalist Lana Quinn has a way with hard-hitting news. The story she’s uncovered has potential, but she needs the help of her best friend’s FBI team. She’s been rescued by them, worked with them, and partied with them, but convincing the second in command to believe her theory—that a killer’s touch sets off a lethal allergic reaction—is a frustrating challenge.

Especially since he excites her, body and mind. He’s a danger she shouldn’t indulge.

Aidan Burgess is resistant to helping Lana, but not for the reason she thinks. She has a knack for landing herself in trouble, which means she needs protection. Protecting her means staying near her, a journalist, who like all journalists uses whatever—and whomever—it takes to get her story. It’s a case he wants to refuse.
 

Especially since she lights a fire in his blood. She’s a danger he can’t afford.

As Lana follows up on lead after deadly lead, learning to trust and rely on each other becomes their only lifesaving hope. If their pride doesn’t become their final pitfall.

Warning: This title contains a grudge-holding hero who gives “kiss my ass” new meaning, a heroine out to prove herself, and a danger that dares them to trust.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
A Killing Touch:

“If you want my secrets, Aidan, you have only to ask.”

His temple’s pulse beat so hard his right eye throbbed. “You wouldn’t hold anything back?”

“You’ll have to decide.” The proposition in her tone had nothing to do with the case as she nodded toward the parking garage. “After dinner.”

He took her by the elbow, more for a bid at control than for anything sexual, but he felt the sexual flavor of the touch. “Where do you want to eat?”

“I could go for some seafood.”

“Fine.”

“Oysters sound good. Oysters and white wine.”

He narrowed his left eye and looked down at her. “What are you scheming at?”

“I don’t scheme.”