Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,174
going to wake up a starving man.”
“There will be plenty for you to eat when you wake up.” She cuddled in next to him, the warmth of his body enveloping her and assuring her once again she was home, for good.
Home was where her heart was, and she had known she’d find it if she came back.
Read on for an excerpt from the next book
by Lorie O’ Clare
Play Dirty
Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Greg King loved not having to worry about getting a warrant. But if he shot to kill, he would face murder charges. He really did hate some of the laws on the books.
Keeping his Glock pointed to the ground, he hit the street, humidity causing his shirt to cling to him like a second skin. It wasn’t even light out yet. It would be another scorcher, tolerable only if he nailed the fugitive they’d been tracking since two AM before the sun got too high in the sky.
And they said life would be boring once he retired from the LAPD.
“Marc, you in place?” he hissed into his Bluetooth.
“Yup,” Marc whispered in his ear, sounding somewhat winded. “Stationary and ready for fireworks.”
“Jake, what’s it like out front?”
“All quiet. He’s still in there.” Jake’s anxious tone sounded as if he were running high on adrenaline.
But then, weren’t they all. It had been one hell of a night.
“I’m going in,” Greg informed his sons.
Marc and Jake both loved the kill, although technically no one died. Or they weren’t supposed to. Greg and his sons were only paid when they brought their prey in alive. A dead fugitive was no good to the bondsman who’d hired them, or in this case, bondswoman.
Greg knew the craving to make the bust, bring down the fugitive, and slap on those cuffs, ran strong enough in his blood that both of his boys would get high from the adventure just like he did. Pulling all-nighters like this never got old. Dealing with the bureaucratic red tape that forced him to wait on judges’ signatures and stalling until he got the go-ahead from his senior officers got old as hell. Those days were behind him now. Being a bounty hunter allowed him freedom to do exactly what he planned on doing right now, and would have killed to do for the past twenty years.
Greg cut between the dilapidated house and the house next door where Charlie Woods supposedly lived, moving silently in spite of his size. Size did matter. No one would convince him otherwise. But Greg knew how to move his over-six-foot-tall body—six foot four inches to be exact—without disturbing a soul. There wasn’t any reason to wake the entire neighborhood simply because Pedro thought he could jump bail and make a run for it. Charlie was a known member of the Hell Cats, a gang Pedro Gutierrez had once belonged to. According to reliable sources, Pedro was hiding out at Charlie’s. Greg wouldn’t learn the truth by simply knocking on the door.
He reached the backyard and hurried across the lawn, slowing when he reached the metal screen door. He kept his gun down, pulling the door open with his left hand, then braced it with his body as he turned the handle on the door.
“Are you in?” Jake demanded, his whispered question sounding as if he stood right behind his father.
Greg took his hand off the doorknob and adjusted the earpiece so his son wasn’t yelling in his ear.
“It’s locked,” he growled, having half a mind to shoot the fucking doorknob off the door. “I’m trying the windows.”
“We’re coming in through the front,” Marc decided, breaking in on the conversation.
“Like hell,” Greg said, keeping his voice to a barely audible whisper. “He’s fucking armed and dangerous. We’re working against a ticking time bomb. You two wait for my go-ahead.”
Already he was around the back of the house, edging his way to the nearest window. It was probably a bedroom window and quite possibly where their guy might be hiding out. Greg stared at the dark window, blinds, possibly curtains, or even a mattress, that were making it impossible to see inside. The storm window was up, though, and the window wasn’t so high off the ground or too small that he couldn’t haul his rather large frame through it if he moved quickly. The element of surprise was his only advantage right now.