STORY EXCERPT

“We will get the leader and your boyfriend.” Adam Cooper’s tone made his words more fact than statement.

“Please don’t call him that.”

Howard may have been her boyfriend, but the mere mention of his name now made her skin crawl.

“My apologies, but we will get them.”

“And, until you do? I’m not going to be safe anywhere am I?”

She’d known the instant she’d gone to the FBI with the information she’d gathered in Howard’s house and overheard on the phone when he’d thought she’d been sleeping that he would know it was her who had turned him into the feds. She’d known he would come after her. It was the reason she hadn’t given the FBI one morsel of the information until she’d gotten Adam to agree to put her in a safe place. That was how she’d ended up here, in this hotel room without any contact with the outside world beyond the FBI for more than a week.

“I’m prepared to offer you protection for as long as it is necessary. I have a U.S. Marshal who is ready to take you into the witness protection program. As distasteful as it is for me to say, the fact that you don’t have any family will help.”

She didn’t. Her father had died of cancer over a decade ago, and her mother had been killed in a car accident barely three years later. She had friends, though, and a career she’d worked so hard to build.

“You will be relocated, given a new identity, and set up to make a fresh start with your life if you’re willing.”

Joan’s head spun. He was offering to send her into hiding, but in a way that she could do so and still be a part of the outside world. The thought of leaving everything behind made a lump form in her throat, but she didn’t doubt, if she stayed, she wouldn’t be alive much longer once the FBI stopped protecting her.

Her vision blurred as images of her coworkers at the accounting firm flashed through her mind, as she heard Angela’s laughter in her head, and as she mentally cataloged everything else she would miss, potentially for the rest of her life.

“Did the U.S. Marshal tell you what my new name will be?”

Adam pulled his cell phone from the front pocket of his slacks, slid his thumb over the screen, and met her gaze. “Erika Channing.”

“That’s not so bad.” She actually liked it better than Joan. “And where will I be taken?”

“You will be relocated to a ranch on the outskirts of a small town called Pleasure, Tennessee.”

Joan blinked at him. “A ranch?”

Adam’s lips twitched. “They call it Rescue Ranch. It has a long history, but the important part is there are men living on that ranch who are operatives with the ETDF, an elite terrorist defense group that works independently of government protocol to fight terrorism in ways sanctioned agencies such as the FBI can’t. You will be fully protected at all times on that ranch.”

In other words, she would be under twenty-four-hour guard. She didn’t know how to feel about that but supposed it didn’t matter. She didn’t have a choice.

“Marshal Gatewood will give you the specific details when he arrives.” Adam checked his wristwatch. “I’m expecting him any minute. He’ll have a file for you to study, things for you to remember about your new identity that will answer any questions you might get about your past. Joan will no longer exist. You’ll need to memorize everything about Erika Channing to the point that you truly become her. You’ll be provided with room and board at the ranch, a car for you to get around, a new wardrobe to help you blend in.”

Joan glanced down at the pale blue cashmere blouse she was wearing tucked into a pair of black slacks. “Let me guess, plaid button-down shirts, worn blue jeans, and cowgirl boots.”

Adam nodded. “Mostly likely, yes. You’ll need to change your hair color, too.”

Joan sighed at that. It would be an easy fix, but one she really didn’t want to do. She was a natural brunette, but she’d been dying it blonde since she was fifteen. She and Angela had gone through many debates about her hair, Angela always insisting she should let the color go natural, while she always insisted she looked far better as a blonde.

“I don’t have any family to worry about, but what about my coworkers, my friends? How do you know Howard or any of the other members of the cell you didn’t get won’t go after one of them to get to me?”

“We don’t, but I believe it’s a slim chance, especially since you haven’t been seen with any of them for more than a week already. That’s why you can’t contact anyone. I’ve sent agents into Howard’s home for some of your things—clothes, shoes, makeup, et cetera—to make it look like you packed in a rush.”

“To make it look like I’m on the run.”

“It would’ve been better if we could’ve staged your death, but this will have to work. They will come looking for you, but they won’t find you. You will be safe on Rescue Ranch.”

Joan startled when a knock sounded at the door. Her heart skipped a beat as Adam opened the door and invited a tall man dressed in a dark suit and tie into the room. U.S. Marshal Clive Gatewood, presumably. This was it. It was time to say goodbye to Joan Hutton and hello to Erika Channing, possibly for the rest of her life.

ADULT EXCERPT

Neither could Lyle, and he stopped bothering to try. He closed the distance between them in a few long strides and pulled her into his arms. “I’m glad you didn’t resist. I’m glad you enjoyed your time with Zoey today. This smile on your lips right now” —he dipped his head to give that smile a light kiss, careful to make sure the brims of their hats didn’t bump— “is worth its weight in gold.”

“Mmm…” Her arms wound around his neck, and she started to sway in his arms to the beat of a much slower song that began playing on the radio. “So was that kiss.”

“Sweet thing, there’s plenty more of those where that one came from.” To prove it to her, he covered her mouth with his. When her lips parted on a contented sigh, he took the opportunity to take the kiss deeper, sweeping his tongue into her mouth and finding hers.

He kissed her as they danced and knew there was no way in hell he would ever be able to let this woman walk out of his life. He kissed her and knew he was Stetson over boots in love with her. He started falling on day one, and it was proving to be a long, hard fall that sealed his fate for the rest of his life.

Needing to touch her, to taste more of her, he skimmed his hands up her sides and licked his way out of her mouth. Her head fell back on a breathy moan, her hat falling off to hit the floor behind her, as he feasted on her throat. Knowing there was more satiny flesh for him to sample beneath her clothing, he pulled off her shirt and bra, licking his way over the inches he’d exposed as he went to work on the fastening of her jeans.

“You should know,” she said breathlessly, her fingers lacing in his hair to twist the strands, “that smile you’re enjoying so much is getting wider.”

He grinned against her flesh as he freed the button and zipper of her jeans and tugged them, along with her panties, down her shapely hips. “Let’s see if we can make it stay there forever.”

Wanting her at a better height for what he had in mind, he glanced around as he lifted her off her feet, and spotted just the place to put her. He set her bare ass on the top of the dresser against the sidewall of the room and dropped to his knees in front of her to pull off her boots and the garments hanging around them. He glanced up at her as he slid his hands between her thighs and gently pushed until her legs parted wide.

His gut rumbled at the sight of her pouty lips parted and glistening with cream. His hunger for her threatened to blaze out of control. He couldn’t wait another second to taste her sweet, hot juices, and didn’t torture himself by attempting to try.

“Taste me, Lyle. Please, put your mouth on my pussy.”

He’d thought to take it slow, to savor the moment, but those soft words coupled with the hand she delved in the back of his hair, sent that thought flying out the window behind her.

A primitive possession roiled through his mind as he allowed himself that first taste of her hot juices. He angled his chin, thrusting his tongue between her sodden folds at the sensitive flesh just above her anus and swiping it straight to her clit.

“Oh, God.”

He heard her head hit the wall behind her, felt her fingers fist in the back of his hair, and smiled as he repeated the move, lapping up the precum like a cat feasting on milk. Not wasting another second, he probed his tongue into her drenched opening and sank into a whirlpool of her arousal.

The walls of her channel contracted around his tongue as he licked, circled, and plunged deeper. Her moans caused his balls to grow heavier and his cock to pulse with the need to be sheathed in the wet confines of her pussy. He would get that pleasure again soon, but for now, it was her pleasure he was after, more of those moans, and a few pleading screams that would let him know he had her right there on the edge.

She gave them to him as he found her engorged clit with the pad of his thumb. He worked the bud with a pressured rotation as he jabbed his tongue in and out of her cunt. Struggling to control his needs, he devoured her pussy until her hand tugged so tightly in his hair that devilish darts of pain shot straight to his cock and her screams of ecstasy split the sexually charged air.

Lyle kept licking her until the convulsing of her muscles slowed around his tongue and then he eased back to look up at her. Her head hadn’t moved from where it had fallen back against the wall, her eyes closed. Her breasts rose and fell in breaths so quick he knew she was battling to calm herself, and her entire body quivered around him.

He peppered that body with tender kisses as he got to his feet, starting at her lower belly and working his way up to her breasts. He paused there to circle one nipple with the tip of his tongue and felt it pulse for more as he continued to her neck.

“Don’t worry, sweet thing.” He nipped her jaw and then licked her bottom lip. “There’s a whole hell of a lot more pleasure to find before we’ll let you rest tonight.”