WITHOUT A WORD - MARCH 2007

Camryn Bruce can’t believe her best friend Holly has been brutally murdered. Now Camryn is the guardian of Holly’s precious little girl, Kylie—but others want Kylie too. And they will do anything to get her… Dan Lambert only married Kylie’s mother Holly to help her out, but he’s grown to love Kylie, and if staying in her life means getting close to Camryn, so be it. He hadn’t counted on the passion she awakens in him—a happiness that could be short-lived. Because someone is waiting, watching…wanting. Someone whose dark desires will not be denied… EXCERPT... click me The motel quilt, the inflexible weave of vinyl and recycled cardboard common to cheap motels, gave in to Dan's final kick and collapsed to the floor at the base of the bed, leaving him to battle the sheet binding his hips like a shroud. Not that any part of his lower anatomy was even close to being dead. Must have been some dream. He extricated himself from the bed linen, sat on the edge of the bed, and took a couple of deep pulls of air. His mouth was dry and his face rough with a two day growth of beard, and his pounding head reminded him of what a sorry asshole he'd been in the bar earlier. The numbers on the bedside clock, two-twenty-one a.m. glowed red enough and bright enough to stop traffic. He closed his eyes, concentrated on his most predictable body part. The part wanting sex. Trouble was he didn't know who he wanted it with-but it was for damn sure it wasn't himself. "Shit!" This time he voiced the word, while trying to remember the last time he'd gone this long without a woman. He couldn't, so he stood, padded across the room toward the bathroom and the Questor Inn's third-rate shower. A soft rap on the door stopped him halfway to the bathroom. "Dan, baby, you in there?" The voice was female, the whisper was loud, and the tone was raspy. As usual, sexy as hell. Her low, dark voice went right to a man's groin, exactly where Belinda Diamond aimed it. And exactly what he didn't need right now. He quickened his bare-assed walk to the bathroom, flicked on the light, grabbed a towel, and secured it low over his hips. Motel cheap and the victim of harsh laundry soaps in a thousand washes, it wasn't up to the job. He opened the door. Tall, dark, and beautiful, she smiled up at him, and waved an amber colored bottle at him. It would be scotch, very good scotch. Which meant Belinda was here to party. The half-light from the hall seeped into his room along with her gravelly voice and the words, "I brought you a night cap." She stared at the excuse for a towel he'd slung around his hips and smiled. "Looks like you've got one for me, too." "You shouldn't be here, Belinda." He closed the door a fraction, but the fraction wasn't big enough. She stepped around him and into the room. "I shouldn't do a lot of things." She touched his bicep, walked her fingers to his shoulder. "But I do." She went to the old Formica-topped table by the window. On the table was a tray, holding glasses, an ice bucket, and the makings for morning coffee. "Perfect." She turned two glasses upright. Dan closed the door but kept his distance; Belinda on the prowl meant trouble. Trouble he didn't need. The line of light in the room switched from a shaft of hallway yellow to a triangle of bathroom white, enough to illuminate a torn seam in the worn jungle-patterned carpet. He rubbed his stubbled jaw, wondered what he'd done to piss off whoever up there was in charge of the bad luck department. One quick trip out of camp to pick up his client, his mind fogged with too-much booze, his body seriously sex-deprived, and he had to deal with his ex-lover-and now wife of said client. A very hot wife, as he knew all too well. "Where's Barry?" he asked. "Asleep." She poured him two fingers of scotch, and brought it to him, her denim-painted hips an easy sway, her gaze fixed to his. "Where all good husbands should be during the wicked midnight hours." She wiggled the glass close to his face. "How else would a woman have her fun?"