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jo leigh

To the Limit by Jo Leigh

By Barb Drozdowich Leave a Comment

Welcome to Sugarbeat’s Books – The Home of the Romance Novel!

 

storeitemSubject: Captain Sam “Jaws” Brody

Mission: Test his limits…and push hers!

Air force pilot Sam Brody’s posting at Holloman AFB is  a new start…and a brutal reminder that he’ll never fly again. The bright side? It’s the same town as teacher (and widow) Emma Lockwood—the woman he’s always had a major thing for. The woman who married his best friend….

For years, Emma ignored the spark between her and Sam. Now that he’s in town, the spark has turned into full-on electrical overload! She tells herself to stay grounded. She doesn’t want another hotshot flyboy, no matter how sexy. But with every night of wicked passion with Sam, she finds herself closer to the point of no return….

Uniformly Hot!  The Few. The Proud. The Sexy as Hell.

 To the Limit is available on Amazon

Excerpt:

The motel room looked as tired as Captain Sam Brody felt after his endless flight from Sumter Air Force Base in South Carolina to Alamogordo, New Mexico. Of course, the bachelor party he’d been to last night might have something to do with his exhaustion. Seemed everyone Sam knew was hooking up or getting married.

He tossed his duffel on the garish bedspread and joined it a moment later, glad to be sitting on something relatively soft. The transport plane he’d hitched a ride with had been incredibly uncomfortable with all the turbulence, and the taxi he’d hired at Holloman Air Force Base had evidently been cobbled together with chewing gum and shocks made from empty soup cans. His car, packed with all he owned in the world, was due to arrive in a few days. In the meantime, he’d find an off-base furnished apartment.

He had ten days of leave ahead of him before he started life at the new base, with a new wing, new line of command, new everything. The only thing he knew for sure about moving to this small military town was that someone he used to know lived here. The wife of an old friend.

Sam shut down that line of thought quickly. He was too damn tired to let his memories sidetrack him. What he needed was some food, a beer and a bed. He opened up the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out the phone book. It was about a quarter of the size of the one in Texas. He sure as hell wouldn’t miss the weather, although he’d probably miss the humidity in the middle of a dry-as-dust summer in the desert.

Most of the delivery foods he found were pizza, so he picked a familiar chain. After ordering a large cheese, he wasn’t shocked at the laugh he got when he asked if beer was on the menu. But he’d seen a market a block away, so no worries.

Before he put the phone book away, he went to the white pages but Emma wasn’t listed. It wasn’t surprising. Most likely she didn’t have a landline. Clicking through his cell phone’s contacts he found Emma Lockwood. He hadn’t deleted the listing in the three years since Danny had died. Of course he had her Alamogordo address, but it was a long shot that she still lived in the same town, let alone the same house. She probably didn’t even have the same number. He could always delete everything later if it turned out Emma wasn’t interested in…whatever.

He didn’t have time to shower and make a beer run before his dinner arrived, so he settled for washing his face before walking to the market. The September evening felt good on his skin despite the fact that it was still in the eighties, but he’d have to get used to the smell. Randolph Air Force Base always had a hint of mesquite in the air. Just like the wind had carried the ocean back in his hometown of Seal Beach, California.

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he strolled, checking out the scenery. Nothing much to it. He could have been in any inner-city area littered with billboards and graffiti on brick walls, people walking with purpose from the stores that weren’t boarded up.

There was a lot more to Alamogordo than this neighborhood, but he didn’t mind staying here for a few days. Odds were he wouldn’t run into any other pilots. Any other officers at all. Which was a good thing for the time being.

Transitions were part of air force life, but they never got easier for Sam. At heart, he was a homebody, which made no sense for a man who loved to fly as much as he did. But he’d grown up moving a lot as his mother searched for employment. Retirement after he’d gotten his twenty years would be a welcome relief. He’d find himself a comfortable house, something with enough land around it that he wouldn’t hear the neighbors. He’d have a yard and a couple of rescue dogs, and he’d put down roots there. A real home. Hopefully not on his own.

He wondered if Emma still wore her blond hair in that ponytail. Danny’d sure liked to tug on that, even though it made her cross. He’d always been an overgrown kid. Hell of a fun guy, generous, too. They’d all shared so much laughter: Danny and John Devlin and then Emma Taylor, the waitress at the Rusty Nail bar and diner a couple of blocks away from the Air Force Academy. He’d loved those years. The three guys had bonded quickly, shared a house that wasn’t exactly the Ritz. They’d all wanted to fly F-16s and they’d all worked their asses off to get there.

But sometimes the studying got to be too much and they’d head off to the Rusty Nail. Danny had seen Emma, and she’d seen him right back. It was all over but the paperwork from that night on. They’d gotten married a year later, in Danny’s senior year.

God, she’d been so pretty. Slender and delicate. Little wrists, long fingers. She always looked perfect, even in those terrible T-shirts she wore back then. Crazy stuff, big writing over her chest. Mostly with pictures of heavy metal bands. Which she didn’t actually listen to. She just liked the shirts.

He didn’t realize he was smiling until he saw his reflection in the convenience store’s door. Leave it to Emma to make a horrible day better. He used to think Danny was the luckiest son of a bitch he’d ever met. Until he wasn’t.

The little market not only carried his favorite beer, but a cooler and ice, so he bought himself a six-pack, some beef jerky and a box of Pop-Tarts for the morning. Nothing he could do about coffee except get himself to a diner as quickly as possible, because, screw it, he was not drinking microwaved instant. Not for anything.

The pizza arrived twelve minutes after he got back to the motel, and it was hot enough to burn the roof of his mouth. The TV wasn’t as much of a success. There weren’t many channels that worked, but one of them was ESPN, so that was okay, even if half the picture was snow.

He woke up the next morning to the sound of the TV, still dressed, his second beer half-empty on the nightstand. The day ahead would look better after a shower and a decent breakfast. At least, he hoped so.

With five minutes left of Emma Lockwood’s creative writing class, all fourteen of her students had their heads bent, the sound of clicking laptop keys a staccato symphony she knew by heart. She’d given them a writing assignment when they’d come into class, a simple mood piece, but she’d asked them to write it in a genre that wasn’t their own. So Mrs. Dealy, who was taking the class for the third time because she loved to write but didn’t have the discipline to do it without deadlines, was tackling science fiction, even though she wrote love stories. Jared, one of her freshmen straight from Holloman High School, was extremely brave, writing his piece in the style of Raymond Chandler, a real hard-boiled mystery.

Emma wished all of her students were as enthusiastic as the ones in this class. But so many of her courses were merely stepping stones to an associate degree. Most of the students would go on to get their bachelor degrees at New Mexico State, but for some, this would be the end of the education line.

She sat on the edge of her desk with two minutes on the clock. “Okay, everyone,” she said. “Please continue working on the assignments throughout the week, and we’ll hear them during Friday’s class.”

Reggie Porter, one of the several veterans who’d come back from the war and was using the G.I. Bill to help him get a better job, raised his hand, although he didn’t wait for her to acknowledge it. “How long are these supposed to be?”

“Between four and nine thousand words.”

“So there goes football night.”

“It’ll be exciting,” Emma said and smiled at his deadpan expression. “Just think of how much you learned during the first-person exercise. Broadening your horizons is never a waste of time unless you let it be. Give it your best shot. Ingenuity counts. Make the genre clear in the story itself.”

The bell went off and the post-class shuffle of laptop cases and backpacks began. They were in their second month of the fall semester, so there was conversation among them, mostly about the work, but sometimes about other things. She was glad. She wanted her classes to be enlivened by dialogue off the page as well as on.

After cleaning the blackboards and making sure everything in the room was tidy, she got her purse and her books and walked the semiquiet halls to the faculty lounge in the Lower Campus Classroom building at Holloman Air Force Base. The sound ofjets taking off and landing had become background noise after living close to them for so long, not just here, but in Colorado and Utah. They’d never stopped reminding her of Danny, but at least now the thrum of the engines didn’t feel like a punishment.

Sharon Keeler was at the coffee machine, staring at the sludge at the bottom of the stained pot. Sharon was part of the arts faculty staff, but she was mostly concerned with her drama department. They were doing As You Like It this fall, and she was in a tizzy about costumes and lighting and the lack of much discernible talent among the students.

“You in for a late night?” Emma asked.

Sharon nodded, her long dark hair looking worse for wear since this morning. On the plus side, she’d worn her favorite cow-themed earrings, a sure sign she’d been in a good mood this morning. “Campus-planning committee meeting. You want to come?”

Emma held back a laugh because she didn’t want to be cruel. “Sorry, I have lesson plans, grading book reports and laundry. I know, scintillating.”

“What’s scintillating?”

Emma and Sharon turned when Gary Lyden walked in. Gary wasn’t particularly great-looking, but he was a runner and a health enthusiast and he put himself together really well. Somewhat new—it was his second year in the math department—he was an Idaho transplant. Mostly, he was nice. A solid guy who was good with his students and easy to be around. Emma and he were becoming better and better friends, as it turned out.

“Are you coming tonight?” Sharon asked. “I know it’s Tuesday and you have that Habitat meeting later, but none of the teachers RSVP’d and besides, it wasn’t my fault. It was the only night the parents could come, and I’m desperate.”

“Really?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “How desperate?”

“Fine, I’ll bake you an entire batch of granola fruit bars all for yourself. Well, not this week, but soon. Good enough?”

Gary rubbed his hands together. “Those are damn good snacks. So yes, I’m in. But don’t think you can talk me into helping with your scenery. I’m into theory, not practice.” He looked to Emma. “You can’t make it?”

“Not tonight. In fact, I’m going to actually leave the base before 7:00 p.m. I think it might be the first time that’s happened since the semester started.”

“They do keep chipping away at us,” Sharon said as she went to the sink to wash out the coffeepot. “I should quit. Get myself a career that pays better money.”

“Or at least one where the out-of-pocket expenses aren’t so high,” Gary said. He came closer to Emma and touched the back of her arm, but only for a second. “You want to run tomorrow?”

“Hmm…” She should. The exercise was helping with her energy dips. They’d been heading out for a couple months now, going to the high school track before school started on Mondays and Thursdays, but she wasn’t sure yet if she wanted it to become anything more regular. “To be honest, I could use a decent morning’s sleep since I have a later class. Sorry.”

“No problem. Thursday then?”

“Good. Yes. Thursday.” She went to her mail cubby, which was conveniently placed at the bottom of the stack, and got her notices and flyers and a couple of letters from the school district. She’d look at them later.

Behind her, the door swung open again, only this time there were several teachers coming in, seemingly in the middle of a fierce discussion about the merits of soccer over football.

She waited until the doorway was clear, then waved her goodbyes. Her phone rang just as she reached the exit to the parking lot. The name on the caller ID stole her breath and her grace. She stumbled, but thankfully didn’t fall.

Sam Brody. She hadn’t seen him since shortly after Danny died. But she’d thought of him. More often than she should have, considering. But not so much lately.

She almost let the call go to voice mail, but it was so out of the blue that she couldn’t stand it. She pressed the key. “Hello?”

“Emma,” he said, and his voice sent a shiver skittering down her back.

“Sam. It’s been a while.”

“I know. Too long.”

She nodded, but held her tongue.

“Hey, I’m just calling to let you know that we’re neighbors.”

“What?” Emma looked around, conscious of how loud she’d been. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been assigned to Holloman.”

“Starting when?”

“Now. I’m on leave, though, for the next ten days. Enough time to find an apartment. Get my bearings.”

“So you’re here now?”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“Oh. That’s great. That’s…great.”

“We’ll see, but then, you know how it is, being transferred. A real crapshoot.”

“I can give you some pointers if you need them,” she said, wincing the moment the words were out of her mouth. It had been a reflex. They’d been friends once. Certainly Sam had been one of Danny’s closest. They’d gone through a lot together, but after the crash, both Sam and John had stopped calling. Not their fault. She’d made it clear she wanted some space. Especially from Sam.

“That’d be great,” he said. “I was thinking maybe you’d like to go out, have some dinner with me?”

“Tonight?”

“Not necessarily,” he said, although he spoke so quickly it was clear that was just what he’d meant. “I’m sure you’re busy. With a…your life. Here. You teaching?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. Great.”

She thought about telling him dinner wasn’t such a good idea, but the words wouldn’t come. She was walking now, nowhere in particular, down some stairs, past rows of cars. “How about tomorrow night?”

He sighed. “Tomorrow night would be perfect. You’ll have to say where, though. I’ve got no idea what’s around here.”

“Are you staying at the base?”

“Nope. But I’m close to it. So how about you text me the name and location of your favorite restaurant. I’ll meet you there. Tomorrow. Seven okay?”

“Yeah. Seven’s fine.” Her heels clicked on the concrete during a lull in jet traffic as she slowed to a standstill. “It’ll be good to see you again.”

“It will. Don’t forget to save the number, now.”

“I won’t.”

“Okay. Have a good one.”

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Lying in Bed by Jo Leigh

By Barb Drozdowich Leave a Comment

 Welcome to Sugarbeat’s Books – The Home of the Romance Novel!

sugarbeats books romance books romance book reviews steamy saturdays

 

Lying in Bed by Jo Leigh

Get Intimate: The Workshop

Explore sensuality and true intimacy at the luxurious Color Canyon Resort. 

Private assignments include sexy “homeplay” and more…

 

The setup was simple. To ferret out a blackmailer, FBI agent Ryan Vail and his partner are going undercover as a couple at an intimacy retreat. But when Ryan wakes to find a replacement “wife” in his bed, he knows he’s in big trouble….

 

FBI agent Angie Wolf is on the job. Sure, there’s a wicked attraction between her and Ryan, but they’re professionals. Touching, kissing—it’s all part of the sting. But the intimacy retreat is doing its job, because each tension-filled night in bed is blurring the line between truth and lie. Now this investigation has turned into one irresistible temptation!

Why do you need to read this book?

This book has a cool premise – undercover agents who are attracted to each other at an intimacy retreat. Great story!

Lying in Bed can be purchased at Amazon

 

Excerpt:

(taken from Harlequin’s website)

Special Agent Ryan Vail tossed the brochure on the bed. The amazingly comfortable-looking bed, which was a far cry from most of the rat holes he’d been stuck with on various FBI stings and stakeouts. The Color Canyon Resort and Spa was a decadent oasis in the middle of the Las Vegas desert built for people with cash to spend and a yen for excitement and being pampered.

Ryan settled against the headboard, the puffy comforter billowing around him. Straight ahead was a forty-two-inch flat-screen TV. There was a wing chair, a leather love seat, an extravagantly stocked minibar and, if he turned his head to the right, beyond the private patio was a view of a nice little courtyard with a pool and spa pool all in the shadow of the Spring Mountains. It might be February in the rest of the world, but in the Vegas desert it was a balmy seventy-two degrees with copious sunshine on the docket for the rest of the week.

He grinned, pulled out his cell phone and went right to speed dial text.

You’re gonna die when you see the bathtub.

He hit Send, adjusted the pillow behind him and checked out his work stuff. Another email update on Delilah Bridges, one of the cotherapists in charge of this barbecue. Four people ran the Intimate At Last retreat weekends, all suspects in a major blackmail scheme. Unfortunately for them, they’d unwittingly targeted a friend of James Leonard, the Deputy Director of the FBI.

Ryan’s phone rang, and he knew it was his partner without even looking. “Jeannie Foster. How’s my favorite witness for the State?”

“Shut up, you bastard,” she said, her voice echoey, as if she were speaking in a vast hall. Or a toilet stall.

Of course, he’d taken a picture of the bigenough-for-a-party whirlpool tub, which he promptly sent her. A moment later, the mother of two cursed him with her usual flair.

“I hate court. I hate lawyers. I hate judges. And don’t even get me started on juries. Get me the hell out of here, Ryan.”

“It should be over soon, right?”

“Probably around the time of the next ice age. Jesus, they love to hear themselves talk.”

“In a few hours you’ll forget all about them. This place is something else. If I’m going to be forced to sleep with you, I’m glad it’s in this beauty of a bed. Which is actually more comfortable than mine at home.”

Jeannie laughed. “It’s not the bed, honey, it’s all your extracurricular activity. I think you’d have to find a titanium mattress to keep up.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“Nothing is hilarious today,” she said. “You get the new updates on Delilah?”

“Yeah.”

Her sigh was long and filled with frustration. “Interesting about her father and his criminal record, but dammit, still nothing usable. With all the data we’ve collected, you’d think we’d have uncovered something more viable.”

“Everyone makes mistakes. But,” he added, “I’m going to be such a perfect mark, they’re gonna wet themselves waiting to get to me. We’ll be out of here in a few days.”

“I thought you said the accommodations were super deluxe?”

He grinned. This is why he liked his partner, despite the fact that she could be a stick in the mud, what with being married and a mom. She was quick…and needed a vacation as badly as he did after the intensity of the past two months preparing for this sting. “Right. Maybe it’ll take the whole week.”

“There we go. I have to get back to the torture chamber. I hear they’re planning on using the rack next.”

“Hey, I’m gonna sign off on this phone, but Ryan Ebsen’s cell and laptop haven’t finished charging. If there’s a God, I should be asleep when you arrive, so don’t wake me.”

“Coming off another late night, Romeo?”

“None of your business. Go be a witness.”

“I’ll talk to you in the morning,” she said, and then she was gone, and he was faced with the prospect of what to do with the rest of the afternoon.

It would be more fun to play craps or hang out in one of the casino bars, but from the moment he’d checked in, FBI Special Agent Ryan Vail was locked in a vault for the duration of his stay, replaced by the fictitious Ryan Ebsen. Husband of the equally fictitious Jeannie Ebsen. Son of Felicia and Bob from Reseda, California.

Ryan sifted through the file, studying the cover story he already knew inside and out. But when you pretended to be someone else, there was no such thing as too much prep. Ebsen was a regional manager for a business software firm. His lovely bride of nineteen months didn’t work because she didn’t need to. Not because he brought in enough money to live their extravagant life, but because she had a trust fund. A very hefty trust fund.

But Mrs. Ebsen had been spending a little too much time at the club lately with a very handsome tennis coach, which made Ryan itchy. He doubted they were sleeping together, but there was always a risk that if she started to feel as if the honeymoon was over, she could find solace in the tennis pro’s arms. It had been Ryan Ebsen’s idea to attend this couple’s retreat week, where they would “Learn how to transition to the deeper, more meaningful stage of a committed relationship.”

Mr. Ebsen, the scoundrel, really, really wanted to make the marriage work. He’d grown attached to their Brentwood home, the Manhattan pied-a-terre, his Ferrari, the first-class travel. He’d even decided to break things off with Roxanne, the gorgeous receptionist at his office. He was nothing if not serious about this intimacy crap.

He continued to read the email from his team in White Collar Crimes back in L.A. The first report of blackmail had come shortly after a weekend Intimate At Last retreat in Los Angeles, and since it dealt with some historic artwork and blackmail, the L.A. team had taken point on the investigation and now this sting operation. The Vegas office was up to speed, of course. No one wanted a turf war, but there was a time limit on this gig, because in a matter of weeks, the suspects were moving their base of operation to Cancun, Mexico.

So he was on the clock. Since the missus wasn’t here, he’d unpack, take a swim, order room service, charge his equipment and himself. Far from the carnal night Jeannie imagined, he’d been up till dawn talking the Long Beach P.D. out of putting his old man in jail. The stubborn idiot had been drunk off his ass again, trying to pick a fight with a halfdozen marines. It was like dealing with a rebellious teenager, only his father was in his fifties.

So sleep tonight, and tomorrow, he and Jeannie would be the very picture of a cookie-cutter couple: powdered sugar on the outside, but filled with lots and lots to lose if a certain trust-fund wife found out about her philandering hubby.

After he’d checked out the room service menu, and thank God there was an expense account because, Jesus, the prices, he opened up his suitcase while he found the sports channel on the TV. His thoughts weren’t on the scoreboards, however, but on the reason he needed this operation to succeed beyond all expectations. Deputy Director Leonard was looking to fill a staff position in his Washington, D.C., office. Ryan was a contender in a very narrow pool of candidates. And now that he was in the spotlight, he was going to make damn sure he was a shining star.

Angie Wolf sighed when she heard the voices of the rest of the White Collar Crimes team coming in from their break on the outdoor patio. Damn, it seemed as if they’d left two minutes ago, not nearly enough time for her to breathe let alone hear herself think.

They were a great bunch: competent, dedicated and generally nice people with whom she got along well considering work colleagues were always a crapshoot. But the past two months had been brutal. She’d spent way too many hours in the office and right now she’d give anything to be alone, preferably on a ten-mile run with nothing more to worry about than beating her last record.

Even as she heard them close in on the bullpen, she stayed just as she was, legs stretched out in front of her, ankles crossed, one heel on her desk, leaning back in her chair as far as she could. The fresh air would’ve been nice, but two of the team members smoked and that she could do without.

“Hey, how come you didn’t come out for the lifting of the Red Bulls?”

Angie smiled at Paula, another Special Agent who’d been in charge of the artwork aspect of the operation. The painting in question was a Reubens, stolen during World War II and recovered in the late 1990s. It was worth millions, and had been “gifted” to a New Mexico art gallery, which had then sold it to an anonymous private collector.

The transaction had been legal on the surface, but the granddaughter of the original owner was certain her grandfather had been blackmailed into giving away the family treasure. The Deputy Director of the FBI had been friends with the family since birth.

And now, if Angie’s White Collar Crimes team had done their jobs right, the task force was days away from zeroing in on the blackmailers.

Angie realized Paula was still waiting for an answer. Break time was definitely over. “Haven’t we spent enough quality time together? Two months of eighty- and ninety-hour weeks? I mean, come on.”

Paula flopped into her chair and turned it so she faced Angie. “You can take a break when you’re dead. Or tonight, when we go out for drinks. That one, you’re not getting out of. We’ll use force if necessary.”

“You and what army?”

“Me, for one.” It was Brad Pollinger, Angie’s partner in the field. He was followed into the room by several other members of the group, all of whom cheerfully let her know that they weren’t above using every dirty trick in the book to get her to join them.

“Fine. But I’m having exactly one beer.” The bullpen was pretty full now, with only Fred MIA, but he was perennially late.

“Don’t you have any fun?” Paula eyed Angie’s sturdy low-heeled pumps propped on the desk. Comfort won over fashion every time for Angie. “Ever?”

“I have plenty,” she said, although her definition of fun leaned more heavily toward achievement than clubbing. Whether it was cutting a few seconds off her morning run or working on side projects that could get her to the next stage of her ten-year plan, she wasn’t much of a party gal.

She’d always been a big believer in setting short-term goals that fed directly into long-term strategies. Even though she’d stopped being a competitive runner, she still kept up the discipline and used the skills she’d picked up as a kid to keep herself on task.

From the beginning of this assignment, she’d realized the potential. With her computer programming skills and familiarity with investigation protocols she could make a significant contribution. And she had.

Angie’s new program had led to the revelation about Delilah Bridges’s father, that he’d been arrested under an alias for robbery on four separate occasions. It wasn’t much as far as real leads went, but it was still a piece of an ever-expanding puzzle. The broader the picture, the more likely the pieces that didn’t appear to connect would suddenly come together.

She’d worked damn hard on coding that sucker, a search engine with such a sexy algorithm it had given the guys in Cyber Crimes nerdgasms.

It had also been noteworthy enough to put her in the running for the position with the Deputy Director in Washington D.C. She wanted that job, badly. It would be a huge feather in her cap, the kind of promotion that would set her apart from the crowd. And it would put her squarely in the arena of real power, where she intended to not just stay, but thrive.

“Jeannie’s the one having all the fun,” came a voice from three desks down. “Can you imagine pretending to be Ryan Vail’s wife all week?”

Angie stared at Sally Singer, a normally sedate forensic accountant, checking to see if she was serious.

“Um, yeah, I think Jeannie wins this round,” Paula said, laughing, and God, looking a little envious.

Were they crazy? Ryan Vail was a hell of an agent, but he was a player of epic proportions. Everyone knew about his exploits. And while he kept his personal life separate from his work life, he hadn’t even tried to keep his reputation from spreading. Legend had it that he’d “entertained” four different Victoria’s Secret models, although no one was clear if that had been at the same time or not.

She had to give it to him. His technique was subtle and effective. To her own mortification, his charm had almost worked on her. Admittedly it had been at a party and they’d both had too much to drink, but it still embarrassed her to think about it. Nothing would have come of it, though, because the last thing she wanted was to be another notch on Vail’s belt.

“I think you guys are nuts. This week isn’t going to be easy for either of them,” Brad said as he rolled a quarter over the backs of his fingers in what he called a dexterity exercise, but was in truth his way of coping without cigarettes. “Sharing a bed? Intimacy exercises? I mean, what the hell would intimacy exercises even be?”

“Oh, brother. If you have to ask I feel sorry for your wife,” Angie said, and the rest of the crew laughed.

God, she hoped that cut the conversation short because she knew exactly what the exercises would entail. Lots of touching, kissing, maybe even getting naked and she absolutely could not think about Ryan in that context. At least not at work.

“I should have been the one to go undercover with him,” Paula said. “Seriously. I would’ve appreciated the experience so much more than Jeannie.”

Brad’s laugh was more about disbelief than amusement. “You have a boyfriend.”

Paula gave them an innocent smile. “It’s not cheating if you’re doing it for a case. That’s like vacation sex but you still get paid.”

“Like hell it’s not cheating,” he said to more laughter, which said more about their long hours and how punchy they all were than it did about the quality of the humor. “Angie should’ve been the one to go undercover with Vail. No offense to Jeannie but you two would’ve looked more like the Ebsens.”

Angie snorted, and not with any grace. “Me and Vail? Yeah, right.”

Paula shrugged. “You know I hate agreeing with Brad, but I see what he’s saying.” She tilted her head, glancing at Angie’s shoes again. “The right clothes and hair and you two would look as if you’d stepped off the cover of In Style.”’

Angie chuckled. No one else did. Was it conceivable they were teasing her because they knew about her thing for Ryan? No, not possible. She barely glanced at him when he was in the office. Absolutely no one knew. Except for Liz, and Liz didn’t count. As her closest friend who also happened to be an FBI agent in the San Diego office, she knew almost everything about Angie. But certainly no one at work had an inkling that Angie might have thought about Ryan in a sexual context. A few times. “Shut up. All of you. As if I’d ever volunteer for an assignment with Vail.”

“You liar,” Paula said, a little louder than was appropriate in the bullpen. “I’ve seen you check out that ass. Everyone with a pulse has checked out that ass.”

“I’ve got a pulse,” Brian said. “Trust me. I have never—”

“I meant people who were into that kind of guy.”

“I have,” Sally said, raising her hand without a bit of shame. “And Angie, my dear friend, as cool as you play it, I’ve seen you blush when he walks by.”

“Probably because Vail had done something to blush about.” Angie was terrified she’d start blushing right this minute. The subject needed to be changed, although it wouldn’t hurt to make a definitive statement. “I mean, come on. To sleep in the same bed as him? To act like his wife? Palmer could’ve offered to pay off my car loan and no way in hell would I have—”

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All The Right Moves by Jo Leigh

By Barb Drozdowich Leave a Comment

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All the Right Moves by Jo Leigh

Subject: Captain John “Devil” Devlin

Mission: Tempt his target…and seduce her!

 

They don’t call air force captain John Devlin the “Devil” for nothing. He lives for high-risk maneuvers, both in the cockpit and in the bedroom! Now stalled at a career crossroads, John has less than two weeks to decide whether he should reenlist or shed the uniform. But then the devil meets his match in a fiery little bartender….

 

A flyboy—even a wickedly hot one!—is the last thing Cassie O’Brien needs. Between the bar and grad school, she is stretched to her limit. Yet the scorch and sizzle between them proves to be too much temptation, and Cassie gives in to sweet, sweet sin. But when she sleeps with this devil, she’ll get more than she ever bargained for….

 

Uniformly Hot!

The Few. The Proud. The Sexy as Hell.

 Why do you need to read this book?

Look at the cover….nuff said 🙂

All the Right Moves is available for purchase at Amazon

Excerpt:

(taken from Harlequin’s website)

With the temperature hovering near a hundred, John Devlin climbed out of his new Corvette into the unrelenting Vegas heat, locked the car and pocketed his keys. The June sun was so brutal he considered parking closer to the market, but he dismissed the idea in a heartbeat. That was the trouble with owning an expensive sports car. You avoided dings even if it meant walking half a mile. Worth it, though, for the honey of a silver Corvette.

Any inconvenience was an acceptable trade-off because John was all about speed. In the air or on the ground, it didn’t matter, damn it. That had a much better ring than having a midlife crisis at thirty-three.

He crossed the asphalt and slipped off his Wayfarers just as the store’s automatic doors opened. Man, he did not like grocery shopping. Good thing he only had to do it twice a month, and only when he wasn’t deployed.

His grocery list rarely varied so he headed straight for the liquor aisle, grabbed a bottle of Lagavulin scotch, then moved on to the middle rows where he picked up a box of crackers and a loaf of bread. The blonde—he was pretty sure her name was Megan—behind the deli counter spotted him and smiled.

“Hey, Captain Devlin.” She had to be in high school, or barely out, but she gave him a once-over like a pro. Girls grew up fast these days. “A pound of turkey, sliced thin?”

“You know me so well.”

Her practiced smile said not well enough, which he ignored by studying the cheese selection. One time he’d stopped in wearing his flight suit and it had been Captain Devlin ever since. Nice to be anonymous sometimes, though being stationed at a base the size of Nellis, it wasn’t easy. He might as well have stopped at the commissary.

“You want a half pound of sliced Muenster, too?” she asked, her voice close.

He looked up to find her leaning with one hand against the glass case and checking out the front of his jeans. Jesus. “Yeah, Muenster. Thanks. I’ll be back for it.”

Not sure his mayo was still good, he headed down the condiment aisle, snagging a jar of green olives along the way. The Cold Beer sign caught his attention. He was officially on leave so why not? He managed to grab a six-pack without dropping everything. Barely. But he still had stuff to pick up. Sighing, he gave in and went in search of a basket. He found one near the express register and piled in his groceries.

The thought of returning to the deli counter was not a pleasant one. At the back of the store he stopped for a quart of cream and checked to see if Megan had set his order on the counter. Looking bored she stood at the meat slicer, pushing the blade back and forth, probably still working on his turkey. However, a well-dressed middle-aged woman studying the food in the glass made it safer to approach. She tapped her foot, gave him a cool glance, then looked at her watch.

If she wasn’t a military wife, he’d eat his boot. Coolly elegant even if the thermometer hit 120. They didn’t ruffle easily, could be ready to move halfway across the world on a moment’s notice and manage to throw a dinner party the night after they arrived. But get in their way? He’d never met a more determined bunch than air force wives needing to get a move on.

He ended up checking his own watch, although he couldn’t blame the woman. It felt weird being in a grocery store in the middle of the day. He was used to his routine, even if the routine was completely contingent on a dozen factors he had no control over. Still, for every flight there was mission planning, prebriefing, flying time, sortie, debriefing, qweep—all the soul-sucking paperwork—and ground ops. Never a dull moment, as they say.

Given that his time was his own for the next ten days, there was only one thing on his agenda. He had a decision to make. One that would impact the rest of his life.

“Here you go, Captain Devlin.” Megan was smiling, leaning into the case and holding out his order. Her lips were red. They hadn’t been earlier. “Anything else?”

“That’ll do it. Thanks.” John nodded at the older woman, who’d slid him a curious look. “Ma’am,” he said, dropping the packages into his basket and turning to leave.

“See you in a couple of weeks,” Megan called after him.

He lifted a hand without looking back.

In two weeks it could be a whole new ball game for him. He might be receiving new orders to test the latest in the F-35 series ofjets, an assignment he’d wanted his entire career, or he could be shopping for a civilian wardrobe and learning everything there was to know about the Gulfstream 650. The worst of it was he didn’t know which fork he’d be taking. Not even a hint. His dependable decisiveness had gone AWOL. For maybe the first time in his life, he didn’t know what the hell he wanted to do.

He paid for his groceries, anxious to get behind the wheel of the ‘Vette, not so anxious to be at the mercy of the desert heat. But when he stepped outside and heard the familiar roar of a Raptor overhead, there was nothing to do but stop, slip on his sunglasses and look up at the sky.

The Raptor was a thing of beauty, ascending into the clear blue heavens. Even after studying four years at the Air Force Academy and nearly eleven of active service he still got a rush watching a bird slicing through the sky. These days it was the most excitement he experienced on the ground.

Sitting in a cockpit was a different story. Strapped in and moving fast over the world he always felt alive and focused. It was when he came back to earth that things had gotten confusing. Something was…off. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that being a pilot wasn’t the endall, beall of his life. But of course it was. Everything he did, in or out of uniform, was preparation to take the controls. Everything.

He watched the contrail begin to dissipate, then moved toward his car. As soon as he pulled out of the parking lot he had the urge to press the accelerator, but that would have to wait. Too much traffic, and it would be slow going all the way to his condo near the Strip.

After an irritating twenty minutes of crawling behind a truck to his high-rise, John got his groceries put away in record time. Considered, then rejected, having a scotch while he checked email on his iPhone. The place smelled lemony, his cue that the housekeeper had been by. Couldn’t tell by the looks of things. He wasn’t home much. He didn’t get a lot of junk mail or magazines or papers. Mostly because all his mail went directly to his sister in Seattle. She paid his bills out of a joint checking account, which was a real lifesaver when he was overseas.

He flipped on the flat-screen TV hanging on the wall. The remote in one hand and his phone in the other, he moved to the massive glass window with a view of the Strip. At night it was very cool with all the lights and flash. This afternoon the brown tinges of smog hanging over the valley just depressed him.

With his focus on his phone screen, he aimed the remote at the TV behind him and flipped to ESPN. He had an email from Lauren, instructing him to deduct the cable bill she’d just paid, and letting him know his two nephews were nagging for a call or visit. That one was tough. He wasn’t anxious to talk to the family right now. He’d rather they didn’t know he was on leave or be reminded he was up for reenlistment.

They’d be appalled he was even considering ending his military career. Especially his father. John didn’t want to think about having that kind of discussion with the colonel. The old man would probably have a heart attack. But then his father had been damn lucky. During his thirty years of service he’d never lost a close buddy….

Hell, this wasn’t about Danny’s death. Or Sam being grounded, his career as an active duty F-16 pilot ripped away because of something beyond his control.

If the restlessness driving John crazy had anything to do with either of his friends, he’d admit it. No problem. He wasn’t trying to be the strong silent type. It was not knowing what was wrong that had him tied in knots. For all he knew, he’d wake up in a couple of months and everything would be A-OK. Trouble was, he didn’t have a couple of months. He needed to commit or get off the pot before this new downsized air force decided it could live without his services. Or before Tony Wagner, one of the richest men in America, got impatient and rescinded his offer to make John his private pilot.

He looked toward McCarran Airport and saw a commercial jet taking off. Leave at home was always disconcerting. Not going to the base made him feel vaguely anxious. No doubt he’d end up stopping by at some point. He’d see the guys over the next ten days. A few of his buddies were meeting for dinner and then club-hopping tomorrow night and then there was the party at Shane’s house coming up.

What to do now was the problem. He didn’t feel like TV or drinking alone or doing much of anything. Except driving. He hadn’t given the Corvette a good run yet. Slipping his phone into his pocket, he turned off the TV, then grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter.

He’d head out to the desert and find a nice long stretch of road. And hope he avoided a speeding ticket.

“I need another pitcher. Oh, and two frosted mugs.”

Cassie O’Brien looked up from the textbook she had stashed by the plate of cut-up limes, and squinted at Lisa, then toward the pool tables at the back of the bar. “Who’s asking for fresh mugs?”

“Pete and Lou.” The waitress made a face. “Sorry. You need me to wash glasses?”

Cassie sighed. “No, but I wouldn’t mind you turning down the volume,” she said, glancing up at the speaker hanging from the wall between the Grateful Dead and Sugarland Express posters.

Good thing she didn’t have a gun hidden under the bar or she’d be tempted to shoot the damn jukebox. She didn’t exactly hate country music, and she didn’t even mind when the tunes got loud. But it was hell trying to study with all that racket.

“Your brother needs to hire another person for times like this.” Lisa eyed the psychology textbook as she dragged a chair under the speaker, then climbed up on it. “You should find someone willing to work odd shifts. He doesn’t know what’s going on around here half the time anyway.”

It wasn’t so much Lisa’s snippy tone but how she’d referred to Tom that tipped off Cassie that the lovebirds had had another fight. There was no doubt it was Tommy’s fault. She loved her brother. She did. But ever since he’d come back from Iraq he’d been tough to deal with, and unfortunately, Lisa suffered the brunt of his slippery moods. Cassie understood his bitterness, everyone did. But Lisa had stuck by him through months of rehab, filling in when Cassie couldn’t. Lisa loved Tommy, but the big dope was so caught up in his past he couldn’t see what was staring him in the face now.

Cassie was going to have a long-overdue talk with him. But first she had to seriously crack the books and take her three final exams. Not just take them, ace the suckers. The job market was too tight for an average grad student to expect to land anything decent. And dear God, she didn’t want to be a bartender her whole life. Or even by the time she hit thirty in two very short years.

In a week exams would be over and she would be able to breathe again.

At least until her final two classes started in September. Once she finished, then just maybe she’d find a real job before she was eligible to collect social security.

“Is that good?” Lisa asked, one hand hovering near the speaker’s volume control, the other flattened to the wall to steady the wobbly chair.

“Perfect.” Cassie wiped her hands on the towel hanging over her shoulder and held the chair until Lisa climbed down. “Thank you. Here’s your pitcher and fresh mugs.” She pushed the tray toward Lisa, blew at the annoying loose curl that had escaped her pony-tail and leaned over the bar so she could be heard in the back. “Everyone hang on to your mugs. The dishwasher is broken.”

“I’ll come wash your glasses, you sweet thing.” It was Spider. “Wouldn’t want your pretty little hands to get shriveled up.”

Cassie and Lisa both shook their heads at the raucous laughter coming from his fellow pool players, most of them veteran bikers like Spider. She let him get away with more than most because he was old enough to be her father. In fact he’d ridden with her parents and the Diablo Outlaws for a few years when she was a toddler.

“I imagine you have your own shrinkage to worry about,” she shot back, exchanging grins with Lisa, who picked up her tray and headed for the back.

A chorus of “whoas” couldn’t drown out Spider’s laugh. He was a scary-looking dude with a long shaggy beard and a dozen fading tats trailing up his beefy arms and the side of his neck. But inside he was a teddy bear. She’d heard he hadn’t always been like that. He’d mellowed with age and a short prison sentence, and she was just fine with not knowing the details.

She looked around the room, recognizing every customer but one. That was how it usually worked at the Gold Strike, ever since Tommy bought the place and she’d started bartending here two years ago. A few unfamiliar strays came in throughout the week, some stayed and became regulars, the rest she never saw again.

What she liked best was the diverse mix of military vets, aging bikers, university students and staff from the nearby hospital who frequented the bar. They were a friendly lot, though they didn’t all know each other by name. Occasionally a few airmen from Nel-lis stopped in, and if it happened that college women were hanging around that day, she was likely to see the same guys again.

But the Gold Strike wasn’t close enough to the base to attract many active servicemen. At one time the place had been a hard-core biker bar on the outskirts of Las Vegas. When the growing popularity of the city meant residential and business areas kept spreading farther and farther out, the bikers finally said adios. Turned out to be a good deal for Tommy.

“Hey, Cassie.” Pete came from the back and slid onto a stool, leaned forward, swept back a stubborn lock of brown hair and stared at her with serious dark eyes. She knew he was twenty-one but he seemed so young she wanted to card him every time he walked in. “Help me out with something,” he said in a low, nervous voice while casting a cautious look toward the pool tables.

“If I can.” She braced her elbows on the bar and leaned over so no one else could hear. “What’s up?”

“I’m making dinner for this girl. I’ve only been out with her once so I wanna impress her.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his thin neck. But his voice creaked from dry mouth and he kept sweeping stealthy looks toward the back. “I wanna buy wine, but I don’t know what kind or how much I gotta spend.”

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